Extract

In the United Kingdom (UK), interest in the northern latitudes is both shaped by and contributing to what Keskitalo (2004) and others (for example, Nilsson 2009; Powell 2011) have described as the recent ëinternationalizingí of the Arctic region; a phenomenon, linked to globalization, which through advances in global communications technology, changing market demands and the emergence of new epistemic communities, has made the Arctic (and its environment, resources and shipping lanes) more relevant to actors around the world (Heininen and Southcott 2010). The presence of the UK, along with these other actors (including the European Union (EU), China, indigenous peoplesí groups and non-governmental organizations) is invited, if not demanded, by the broad consensus that the Arctic is a region ëin changeí and thus no longer regarded as exceptional, remote and disconnected from a portfolio of global interests including climate change, resource security, shipping and environmental protection (Koivurova 2010, p._4). Dittmer et al. (2011, p._212) have suggested that ëwhen we examine the formation of Arctic geopolitics, it is not the working out of timeless geopolitical processes that is intriguing Ö but the ongoing assembly of the geopolitical itself out of multiple elements across a wide variety of sitesí. Merje Kuus (2011a, 2011b) has also called for more attention to be given to attempts by policy elites to assemble geopolitical spaces.