Intersectional gender-responsibility in STEM:co-creating sustainable arctic knowledge production

• Main Authors: Heikkinen, M. (Mervi), Pihkala, S. (Suvi), Pääsky, L. (Leena), Harmoinen, S. (Sari)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Northern Research Forum 2020
• Subjects: Arctic; Climate change
• Online Access: http://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi-fe2020112793601

Abstract In this article, insights about a global gender equality promotion instruments in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are considered in the Arctic context to provide a gender-responsible view for the Arctic Yearbook 2020’s Climate Change and the Arctic: Global Origins, Regional Responsibilities theme. The paper’s intersectional and genderresponsible approach addresses the diversity of people living in the Arctic in consideration of co-creating sustainable and responsible futures. Currently, gender perspectives are hardly integrated into the research processes, and horizontal and vertical gender segregation as well as diverse exclusions persist in science and technology in addition to disciplinary silos. In relation to this challenge, this article introduces one of the most recent global actions and policies to improve gender-responsibility in science and technology, namely the SAGA (STEM and Gender Advancement) tools, and elaborates their affordances in the context of Arctic knowledge production. Responsibility and sustainability demands that we rethink our interrelatedness and interdependency with the world in relation to knowledge production processes, as global and local citizens, with the capabilities for problem-defining and problem-solving. Thus we frame the main challenge as to advance multidisciplinary research affordances, co-creating the understanding and cultivation of our imagination in an aim to relate with care to sustainability and responsibility in and about the Arctic through knowledge production.