TAI Bookshelf Podcast - Critical Arctic Studies with Marjo Lindroth & Monica Tennberg

Portrait photographs from Marjo Lindroth and Monica Tennberg. Photo: Liubov Timonina

Welcome to the The Arctic Institute Bookshelf Podcast! Our co-hosts Liuba Timonina and Romain Chuffart chat with scholars and experts to make the Arctic easy and accessible to everyone. Tune in to join our in-depth conversations that take you beyond the headlines and right into the latest ideas, challenges, and experiences from the Arctic.

In this episode, Liuba and Romain have a conversation with Marjo Lindroth and Monica Tennberg, two of the editors of Critical Arctic Studies: Unravelling the North, published in 2022. This book serves as an invitation to challenge the conventional ways of describing and understanding the Arctic, and engage in the practice of unlearning. We talk about the newest approaches and tools of grasping the complexity of processes in the Arctic; why it matters to be mindful of names, labels, concepts, and word choices and their biases. We discuss Marjo’s and Monica’s own contributions to the book and find out about alternative perspectives on legal processes, indigenous rights, international relations and the role of social scientists in shaping and communicating critical research. Together with the guests, we contemplate the important question, which and whose relations matter? And invite our listeners to join us in this endeavor, too.

Heads up! The first ever Critical Arctic Studies Symposium is taking place in Rovaniemi, Finland, on October 10-12, 2023. Learn more about the event and join the ongoing conversations on critical Arctic studies on their website: https://criticalarcticstudies.com/

Marjo Lindroth is a university researcher in the Arctic Centre at the University of Lapland, Finland. Her research interests lie at the intersections of international politics, law, development and indigeneity. In particular, her research has critically examined questions of hope, resources and global governing. Monica Tennberg is a research professor at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland. She is a political scientist (International Relations), and coordinates the UArctic Critical Arctic Studies thematic network.