Between an archipelago and an ice floe: The know-where of Arctic governance expertise

Abstract

This paper examines the production of Arctic governance expertise, understood here as the specialised knowledge through which international cooperation is regulated in the region. Instead of presuming that such expertise is created primarily in the capitals of Arctic states, I ask a more open-ended question: where specifically does that process take place? I argue that Arctic governance expertise increasingly operates in a transnational and networked fashion: an array of think tanks, foundations and events like conferences are as important as the obvious places like foreign ministries and universities. It is a quasi-diplomatic social field characterised by blurry boundaries between different states, professions and institutional settings: between government and academia, legal and political fields, public and private sectors. The paper foregrounds that field of expertise as an object of study.