May 10, 2024: Presentation by Peter Schweitzer at the 2nd Polar Waalem Seminar

InfraNorth’s principal investigator Peter Schweitzer was a guest speaker at the 2nd Polar Waalem Seminar. Under the title “Green Technologies in Climate and Polar Research,” the event was held on May 10 – 11, 2024, at the Waalem estate on the German North Sea island of Föhr. His presentation, “Arctic Residents and Change: Economic Development, Militarization, and Indigenous Empowerment,” focused on the processes of industrialization and population dynamics in the Arctic amidst climate change and rising geopolitical/geoeconomic interests in the region. Along these lines, he emphasized the heterogeneity of the Arctic human landscape – from cultural, economic, political, and social perspectives.

Peter Schweitzer highlighted the vital role that infrastructure plays for Arctic residents, due to remoteness and climatic conditions. He pointed out that these infrastructure projects are often determined, planned, and constructed by external and colonial interests. However, he argued that local Arctic communities do not uniformly respond to new infrastructure proposals and stressed the importance of taking their attitudes and priorities more seriously. He also warned that the increasing remilitarization of the Arctic could lead to less democratic transparency in the infrastructure development process, and underlined that remote indigenous areas should not be turned into “sacrifice zones” for the green transition.

The two-day event also featured presentations by social and environmental scientists representing research institutions from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA.