Greenlandic postcoloniality and the predicament of prosperity inducing climate change
In my paper I will be looking at how climate change has contributed to the rapidly changing Greenlandic response to globalization. One of the most convoluted processes is the possible opening of a Chinese mine (to be operated by the London Mining company(!)), which has made use of a Greenlandic mini...
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| Format: | Conference Object |
| Language: | English |
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2013
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| Online Access: | https://forskning.ruc.dk/da/publications/c7bafb2a-b5d4-4b7e-bb9a-67016c2fb533 https://hdl.handle.net/1800/c7bafb2a-b5d4-4b7e-bb9a-67016c2fb533 |
| Summary: | In my paper I will be looking at how climate change has contributed to the rapidly changing Greenlandic response to globalization. One of the most convoluted processes is the possible opening of a Chinese mine (to be operated by the London Mining company(!)), which has made use of a Greenlandic mining consultant who used to work for the Greenlandic government to collaborate with the Greenlandic self-government. This requires us to think across a huge complexity of race, whiteness, climate change – and the postcolonial condition. I haven’t decided on the precise focus yet, as the case is constantly sprouting in new directions. At the time of writing there is in Greenland an intense debate over whether to mine or not to mine. Part of the complexity is that it is a leftwing government that has urged the need to develop Greenland through the extraction of resources, as the only way of ensuring Greenland’s independence from its former colonial power, Denmark. In Denmark there has been an equally intense debate, which unsurprisingly is of a very different nature. Part of the debate here has been over, whether Greenland has indeed the right to decide over its resources, something agreed to in the agreement laying the foundation for Greenland’s self-government (2009), another part has been whether Denmark should allow Chinese workers, not working under Danish conditions, to immigrate to Greenland – an area where Denmark can still exercise its sovereignty. And there are, of course, several other dimensions to this debate. |
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