Climate opportunism and values of change on the Arctic agricultural frontier
An Arctic agricultural frontier is opening as climate change threatens growing conditions in established zones of crop commodity production. Projections of northward shifts of viable agricultural land unleash fantastical interest in the improbable reality of “farming the tundra.” Expansion of Arctic...
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ftunivwagenin:oai:library.wur.nl:wurpubs/598059 2024-04-28T08:04:00+00:00 Climate opportunism and values of change on the Arctic agricultural frontier Bradley, Hannah Stein, Serena 2022 application/pdf https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/climate-opportunism-and-values-of-change-on-the-arctic-agricultur https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12251 en eng https://edepot.wur.nl/571088 https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/climate-opportunism-and-values-of-change-on-the-arctic-agricultur doi:10.1002/sea2.12251 (c) other Wageningen University & Research Economic Anthropology 9 (2022) 2 ISSN: 2330-4847 Life Science Article/Letter to editor 2022 ftunivwagenin https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12251 2024-04-03T14:51:38Z An Arctic agricultural frontier is opening as climate change threatens growing conditions in established zones of crop commodity production. Projections of northward shifts of viable agricultural land unleash fantastical interest in the improbable reality of “farming the tundra.” Expansion of Arctic agriculture has long figured in Alaska's history, including drawing settlers to the “Last Frontier,” where farmers face challenges of extreme conditions, weak infrastructure, and fragile markets. This article, based on joint 2019 fieldwork and ongoing ethnography of landscape change and comparative commodity frontiers by the authors, tracks this imaginative frontier to examine how and why diverse Alaskan agriculturalists seize upon emerging conditions of climate change. We propose “climate opportunism” to frame an understanding of how agriculturalists may gain from changing growing conditions, drawing attention to the values in and beyond monetary gain generated in the social space of frontier imagination and grounded projects of livability in the Arctic. Across differently situated cultivators (a multigenerational immigrant family farm, an Inupiaq Arctic agriculture project, an urban hydroponics enterprise), we find that the changing landscape intensifies investment in embedded local values, while opportunism practiced at various scales both underscores and potentially obscures inequalities in resource distribution and alternatives to apocalyptic narratives of change. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Arctic Climate change Inupiaq Tundra Wageningen UR (University & Research Centre): Digital Library Economic Anthropology 9 2 207 222 |
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Wageningen UR (University & Research Centre): Digital Library |
op_collection_id |
ftunivwagenin |
language |
English |
topic |
Life Science |
spellingShingle |
Life Science Bradley, Hannah Stein, Serena Climate opportunism and values of change on the Arctic agricultural frontier |
topic_facet |
Life Science |
description |
An Arctic agricultural frontier is opening as climate change threatens growing conditions in established zones of crop commodity production. Projections of northward shifts of viable agricultural land unleash fantastical interest in the improbable reality of “farming the tundra.” Expansion of Arctic agriculture has long figured in Alaska's history, including drawing settlers to the “Last Frontier,” where farmers face challenges of extreme conditions, weak infrastructure, and fragile markets. This article, based on joint 2019 fieldwork and ongoing ethnography of landscape change and comparative commodity frontiers by the authors, tracks this imaginative frontier to examine how and why diverse Alaskan agriculturalists seize upon emerging conditions of climate change. We propose “climate opportunism” to frame an understanding of how agriculturalists may gain from changing growing conditions, drawing attention to the values in and beyond monetary gain generated in the social space of frontier imagination and grounded projects of livability in the Arctic. Across differently situated cultivators (a multigenerational immigrant family farm, an Inupiaq Arctic agriculture project, an urban hydroponics enterprise), we find that the changing landscape intensifies investment in embedded local values, while opportunism practiced at various scales both underscores and potentially obscures inequalities in resource distribution and alternatives to apocalyptic narratives of change. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Bradley, Hannah Stein, Serena |
author_facet |
Bradley, Hannah Stein, Serena |
author_sort |
Bradley, Hannah |
title |
Climate opportunism and values of change on the Arctic agricultural frontier |
title_short |
Climate opportunism and values of change on the Arctic agricultural frontier |
title_full |
Climate opportunism and values of change on the Arctic agricultural frontier |
title_fullStr |
Climate opportunism and values of change on the Arctic agricultural frontier |
title_full_unstemmed |
Climate opportunism and values of change on the Arctic agricultural frontier |
title_sort |
climate opportunism and values of change on the arctic agricultural frontier |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/climate-opportunism-and-values-of-change-on-the-arctic-agricultur https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12251 |
genre |
Arctic Arctic Climate change Inupiaq Tundra |
genre_facet |
Arctic Arctic Climate change Inupiaq Tundra |
op_source |
Economic Anthropology 9 (2022) 2 ISSN: 2330-4847 |
op_relation |
https://edepot.wur.nl/571088 https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/climate-opportunism-and-values-of-change-on-the-arctic-agricultur doi:10.1002/sea2.12251 |
op_rights |
(c) other Wageningen University & Research |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12251 |
container_title |
Economic Anthropology |
container_volume |
9 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
207 |
op_container_end_page |
222 |
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1797574942647123968 |