The Arctic Institute's Queering the Arctic Series 2023: Conclusion

A rainbow cake is shared at the end of the first Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month observance on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, June 19 2015. Photo: Christopher Morales

Over the last five weeks, various authors have brought us closer to the questions about queer lives in the Arctic and the High North, may it be from a literary standpoint, an analytical, or even an artistic one. They have shown how members of the LGBTQ+-community live and shape their identities and what it can look like to be part of a vulnerable community that often is rejected even by their own people.

Despite the shared search for belonging, family and community and the experience of being special in small communities, the articles at hand indicate that there is hope: Compared to the Global South, many Arctic states have relatively high standards when it comes to protecting queer rights and dealing with queer issues. It has equally become evident that these legislations often times lack power in Indigenous communities and are not applicable in rural contexts. Thus, the story of queer people is not only one of hope and despair, but also one of fights, resilience, and acceptance.

But there is one question that remains: Why is it important to talk about queer issues in the Arctic? The answer is simple: We are just now starting to understand how Indigenous peoples have been incorporating queer identities and non-western concepts of gender, gender identity and gender expression into their cosmologies and everyday lives. Under developments such as imperialism, everything and everybody questioning the heteronormative order has been killed, undermined or re-written. The articles show that queer life is everywhere. It is not a separable part of society that needs to be studied, it is society itself. This is why The Arctic Institute – with help of the authors – attempted to literally queer the Arctic and why we have given a glimpse of what it can mean to talk about queer Arctic life.