Inhaltsangabe
The 'Year' That Changed How We View the North This book is about a new theoretical approach that transformed the field of Arctic social studies and about a program called International Polar Year 2007-2008 (IPY) that altered the position of social research within the broader polar science. The concept for IPY was developed in 2003-2005; its vision was for researchers from many nations to work together to gain cro- disciplinary insight into planetary processes, to explore and increase our understanding of the polar regions, the Arctic and Antarctica, and of their roles in the global system. IPY 2007-2008, the fourth program of its kind, followed in the footsteps of its predecessors, the first IPY in 1882-1883, the second IPY in 1932-1933, and the third IPY (later renamed to 'International Geophysical Year' or IGY) in 1957-1958. All earlier IPY/IGY have been primarily geophysical initiatives, with their focus on meteorology, atmospheric and geomagnetic observations, and with additional emphasis on glaciology and sea ice circulation. As such, they excluded socio-economic disciplines and polar indigenous people, often deliberately, except for limited ethnographic and natural history collection work conducted by some expeditions of the first IPY. That once dominant vision biased heavily towards geophysics, oceanography, and ice-sheets, left little if any place for people, that is, the social sciences and the humanities, in what has been commonly viewed as the 'hard-core' polar research.
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Arctic communities are experiencing global, societal and economic pressurescoupled with additional environmental changes. The comparison of local andindigenous observations with instrumental records clearly illustrates howArctic communities, both now and in the past, have adapted to a variety ofchanges and risks affecting their livelihoods. Projections of future climatechange indicate a further reduction in sea ice extent and stability, changeto the frequency and intensity of weather events and seasonal transition,alteration in the abundance and distribution of fish and terrestrialbiodiversity, and lessening permafrost stability. All these factors willaffect Arctic resident's livelihoods and wellbeing. Under the auspices of the International Polar Year 2007-2008 (IPY), theCAVIAR consortium was formed with partners from all eight Arctic countriesas a response to the need for systematic assessment of communityvulnerabilities and adaptations across the Arctic. The aim of theinterdisciplinary CAVIAR project is to increase understanding of thevulnerability of Arctic communities to changing societal and environmentalconditions, including climate change. Presented in this volume are theresults and accomplishments drawn from the partnership with localcollaborators from fifteen Arctic communities. In each of the case studiesresearchers have documented the conditions and forces that exacerbate ordiminish vulnerabilities in each of the case studies, identified previousand current adaptation strategies, and assess the prospects for thedevelopment of effective adaptive strategies and policies in the future.
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