On 20 October 2026, the European Commission and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, presented a new EU Strategy for the Arctic, at a time when accelerating climate change, rising geopolitical tensions and growing strategic competition are reshaping the region. Against this backdrop, journalist Vladimir Balzer interviewed Peter Schweitzer, Principal Investigator of InfraNorth and Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna, for FAZIT, the cultural affairs program of German public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

Drawing on his extensive research with Arctic communities, Schweitzer places recent geopolitical developments in historical and sociocultural perspective, examining how local populations, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, navigate political, economic and environmental change.

A rapidly changing Arctic

For Schweitzer, the danger facing the Arctic exists independently of this strategy: “the dangers are manifold,” he says. Climate change, he explains, is particularly significant because it affects the Arctic more severely than other parts of the world. Military threats are another longstanding concern: “The military build-up in the Russian Arctic has been intensifying since at least 2014,” he says, well before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Schweitzer also places the EU’s role in the region in a broader context, observing that the EU is “not a real player in the Arctic.” He notes that Sweden and Finland, the EU countries that extend furthest into the Arctic, have no access to the Arctic Ocean. Politically and economically, he argues, “the EU does not really have a particularly large footprint in the Arctic,” while at least half of the Arctic lies within Russian territory.

This geographical and political context raises particular concerns for Indigenous communities living under authoritarian rule. In Russia’s Arctic, wartime conditions are accompanied by intensified resource extraction. “There is no consideration for Indigenous cultural interests,” Schweitzer adds.

Resilience, technology and adaptation

Schweitzer challenges the perception that Indigenous societies are somehow detached from technological innovation, or the Arctic as a space devoid of technology. The groups that established themselves in the far north, he explains, “had a great deal of resilience, but also technology.” One example is the toggle harpoon, an important technological innovation which enabled Inuit ancestors to hunt large marine mammals, including whales and walruses, allowing them to sustain their lives in the region. As he puts it, these societies “could only survive through extreme adaptability” to changing climatic and political conditions, as well as to changing technologies.

Nor does adopting modern technology necessarily mean abandoning cultural traditions. Responding to criticism of Inuit or Sámi people using highly motorised technologies in the Arctic, Schweitzer says: “They were always interested in using the best technology, and that looks different today than it did 100 years ago. But that does not mean that they have cast off their own culture.”

The different conditions and ways of adapting across Arctic communities are also reflected in their attitudes towards resource development. Schweitzer says: “We should also avoid the mistake of assuming that all Indigenous groups in the Arctic oppose resource extraction. Their positions differ, and those differences depend on various factors.”

He cites one example from Northern Alaska: “The Inuit community there benefits directly, economically, from oil extraction, and its members are enthusiastic supporters of further expanding oil and gas production.” At the same time, their relative prosperity “may enable them to preserve their own culture more effectively than other groups.” At the same time, neighbouring groups in northern Canada, including the Gwich’in and other Athabaskan groups, place great cultural importance on caribou and caribou hunting and strongly oppose existing and further oil extraction because of its severe impact on caribou habitats. A similar conflict over resource development arises in northern Europe, where Sámi reindeer herders protest against wind turbines that can interfere with reindeer herding.

Schweitzer cautions against ranking these positions: “Both are Indigenous groups. We cannot say that one is better than the other, that one is worse, or that one has more of a right to its position than the other. They simply have different interests.” In each case, Indigenous communities seek to continue and adapt their ways of life under changing conditions.

Commonalities across a diverse Arctic

The Arctic is diverse, and a sense of shared identity, Schweitzer explains, is a relatively recent phenomenon. “There certainly was no Arctic consciousness in the past; and there was not necessarily any Arctic solidarity in the past,” he says. The Arctic peoples have distinct historical trajectories, and some groups were once hostile toward one another. A greater sense of commonality has emerged through the global Indigenous movement and increased interaction among Indigenous groups, including through political forums such as the Arctic Council. Its activities, however, have been constrained by the Russian war in Ukraine.

Schweitzer also points to the shared challenges of living in harsh environmental conditions. Drawing on his experience of 20 years living in Alaska, he describes how the dangers of extreme cold, which affect all the people living and surviving there, foster a strong ethic of mutual assistance: “When you are driving in winter and see a car stopped at the roadside, everyone immediately stops,” he explains, and adds: “If you are stranded in a broken-down car at minus 40 degrees, it can very quickly be too late.”

Another commonality, he says, is a relationship with animals and the natural world that differs in important ways from prevailing European perspectives. Referring to what anthropologists have called an animistic worldview, he explains: “You imagine the world as ensouled, and animals and other natural phenomena are just as ensouled as humans and therefore can also have agency and a will of their own.” This understanding can extend to inanimate objects as well. More broadly, Schweitzer argues, this worldview does not place humans at the centre of everything: “You do not present human beings as the sole, all-powerful agents.”

His perspective connects the rapid environmental and geopolitical changes reshaping the Arctic with the realities of everyday life in the region, highlighting how communities navigate these pressures and adapt to sustain their cultural practices and ways of life.

The full interview, in German, is available on the Deutschlandfunk Kultur website.