Why should the European Union focus on co-producing knowledge for its Arctic policy?

Sámi communities and Indigenous livelihoods are at risk from green infrastructure and extractive developments. Photo: Mark König

The Arctic Institute EU-Arctic Series 2023

• The Arctic Institute’s 2023 Series on the European Union’s Arctic Policy – From a Stakeholder Perspective
• The European Union and its Member States in the Arctic: Official Complementarity but Underlying Rivalry?
• The Crossroads of Science Diplomacy: Italy and the Challenges of the European Union’s Greener Engagement in the Arctic
• Navigating Uncertainties: Finland’s Evolving Arctic Policy and the Role of a Regionally Adaptive EU Arctic Policy
• Mapping Estonia’s Arctic Vision: Call for an Influential European Union in Securing the Arctic
• A Path to Dialogue: The Arctic for EU-Russia Relations
• The Sámi Limbo: Outlining nearly Thirty Years of EU-Sápmi Relations
• How to streamline Sámi rights into Policy-Making in the European Union?
• Why should the European Union focus on co-producing knowledge for its Arctic policy?
• Time for Systems Thinking in the Arctic? The Need for Aligning Energy, Environmental and Arctic Policies in the European Union
• The Arctic Institute’s 2023 Series on the European Union’s Arctic Policy – Final Remarks

Green colonialism – the dispossession of Indigenous livelihoods through climate action and the green transition – is a serious concern that the European Union (EU) should take into consideration in its policies and actions. Being a key actor in Arctic science, the EU could enhance its geopolitical resilience – the ability and capacity to withstand strategic shocks – through co-producing knowledge with the Sámi. Here, recognizing and incorporating Indigenous knowledge in relevant science-policy processes is key. Improving co-productive interaction between policy-making, science, and Indigenous knowledge could allow the EU, including relevant bodies and Member States, to pursue more established forms of cooperation with Sámi communities for more legitimate policy-making. Such an approach would not only aim for equitable Arctic or European Green Deal (EGD) related policy-making but also improve the resilience of the EU as an Arctic and global actor. Indigenous rights are fundamental rights, and formally legitimizing Indigenous knowledge as policy-relevant evidence is not only just but also geopolitically sensible.

Greening geopolitics

Knowledge-building, research, and an increasing emphasis on the green transition are key components of the EU’s policy towards the Arctic regions. The European Commission’s (EC, together with High Representative) latest Joint Communication on Arctic matters, published in October 2021, did not greatly change the EU-European course towards the Arctic, but it highlighted newer elements, such as science diplomacy and the EGD, through which stronger engagement could be sought. What the EU and its Arctic Member States should still consider, however, is how such elements are put into practice without jeopardizing Indigenous Sámi communities. The EU aims to actively engage with the Sámi to have “their voice heard” in policy processes, but tensions remain, perhaps best exemplified in conflicts regarding green industrial development.

The political environment in the Arctic has fundamentally changed due to Russia’s unlawful war of aggression in Ukraine. And while the war’s policy-specific consequences on EU-Russia relations in an Arctic context are still difficult to fully comprehend, it is not unlikely for the EU to aim for a stronger presence in the Arctic through climate and energy related domains. Among many things, the war has underlined the urgency for EU Member States to better respond to Russia’s weaponization of energy. This, in part, translates into a need for more geopolitically aware climate and energy policies particularly in terms of the EGD. Establishing a solid evidence-base and designing subsequent policy interventions that promote the EGD will need to take into consideration a changed global political environment and associated strategic risks. Recognizing the challenges green energy development can pose on Indigenous livelihoods in the Arctic, the EC and relevant bodies should thoroughly consider its intended and unintended effects on Indigenous livelihoods and Sámi communities both within the EU area (where the Sámi reside as EU citizens) and beyond, where the EU’s regulatory power and policy-making can have an impact.

Decarbonization is a central component of the EGD, which requires ambitious investments into renewable energy and the sustainable extraction of critical minerals. Furthermore, in order to secure desired levels of resilience to relevant supply chains, such developments should build on European capabilities. In other words, to successfully implement and meet the objectives of the EGD, while recognizing current and emerging geopolitical demands, the EC sees that actions should appropriately emphasize European production and processing.

However, as significant deposits of critical minerals in Europe are located in Northern Finland and Sweden, the EU (including the EC) will need to take stock of local and regional demands regarding Arctic industrial development. Co-productively engaging with Sámi communities to produce comprehensive knowledge on intended and unintended impacts or the political, economic and social potential of such development projects will allow the EU to build equitable and (geo-)politically resilient relationships with local Indigenous peoples.

Resilience through co-production

The EU recognizes and endorses the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which implies certain commitments to protect Sámi rights and to ensure Free, Prior and Informed Consent in the policy process. This has also been explicitly stated in the 2021 Joint Communication on Arctic matters. Consultations, such as official regulatory hearings or unofficial arrangements for expert advice, carry limitations and often require specific guidance to be successfully implemented. Consultative processes can be burdensome as they require resources – money, time and representation – that marginalized communities might lack.

Hearing those directly or indirectly affected by regulations and policies primarily allows law-makers to anticipate potential outcomes or evaluate their impact. Here, appropriate interaction early on is crucial, which, if poorly done, could potentially lead to inadequate transfer of knowledge and consequently a weaker evidence-base for desired policies or regulations. Effective and just participation throughout the knowledge-building and policy-making process increases the legitimacy of decisions by allowing participants to take ownership of the knowledge or policies created. EGD-related Arctic initiatives need to be recognized as legitimate by local Indigenous communities, not least when such actions take place or have impact on Sápmi – the Sámi homeland.

Making use of the best available knowledge is crucial to developing effective and comprehensive evidence-based policies. Academic institutions, established research practices and the scientific process have long been central to developing and reviewing evidence for policy-making. Such structures, practices or actors, however, often reflect Western, Eurocentric or industrialized views and approaches that can carry colonial legacies and particular epistemic hegemony – a primacy of a particular way of knowing or in creating knowledge. Practices and actions that can be seen as green colonialism in the Arctic might thus be inherently tied with a coloniality of knowledge, where policies are legitimized by subjugating traditional and Indigenous forms of knowing under industrialized science. Understanding and critically reflecting on the relationship between colonialism and knowledge-production is necessary to decolonize Arctic science and ensure equitable co-production of policy-relevant knowledge. Co-production of knowledge, although still conceptually ambiguous, enables different actors and stakeholders to collectively integrate and negotiate different knowledge systems as a shared foundation for solving complex challenges in policy-making.

Considering the gravity of the consequences of green industrial development on Sámi communities in Europe, openly advocating for decolonial co-productive processes in scientific initiatives or policy-planning could provide added legitimacy and resilience to the EU’s Arctic agency. However, such efforts should also recognize that resource limitations and colonial trauma among communities can contribute to inequality and imbalance in official interaction between Indigenous and non-Indigenous representatives during policy-making processes. In addition, it is equally important to consider that co-productive knowledge-building for policy-making does not automatically equate to an approval of any policy in question – the approach only aims for a more legitimate evidence-base to be built. In other words, co-producing knowledge for particular objectives does not mean that any policies then designed to reach those objectives would be inevitably approved of. The right to oppose or support policies should not be restricted regardless of the knowledge-building processes. Co-production needs to enhance Indigenous political agency, not limit it.

In light of Russia’s war in Ukraine and associated uncertainties globally, the EU is increasingly framing its Arctic and green policies within a resilience-seeking context. Policies must therefore acknowledge associated geopolitical risks and appropriately address them. Here, it is important to take into consideration the scope of such actions and the components from which resilience is built. Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, it is crucial to consider with whom geopolitical resilience is built. A geopolitically resilient and greener EU will benefit all its citizens, but as these targets are essentially tied to contentious energy and extractive developments in the Sámi homeland, it is particularly important that ownership of such targets and the policies to reach them are also shared by local Indigenous communities. While not a silver bullet to past or current injustices, co-producing the knowledge required for Arctic or EGD policies can offer the EU an avenue that accommodates both normative and geopolitical objectives. Key here is that co-productive approaches need to be inherently decolonial to be mutually beneficial. An established EU-funded research program, as advocated for in the Saami Council’s Sápmi-EU Strategy, aiming to bridge Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge systems and to strengthen Sámi research capacities would be a good start.

Aleksis Oreschnikoff is a Doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki researching the politics of infrastructure and knowledge in international relations.