The Calotte Academy, an international traveling symposium and school of Arctic dialogue, will (again) take place in 11-17 November 2024 in the European Arctic and Sapmi. The participants of the 2024 Academy, with sessions & excursions in Rovaniemi, Luleå, Hetta, Kautokeino, Inari, Sodankylä, consist of 18 early-career scientists & 5 professors from 12 countries.
The event’s theme “Environmental Security vs Military Security” is inspired by the world (dis)order of mounting multi-crises with the two-fold, controversial realities reflecting its impacts in the Arctic region: Grand environmental challenges of the ‘Anthropocene’ (pollution, global warming, loss of biodiversity) accelerated by the mass-scale utilization of resources, and political inability to manage the ecological catastrophe; and Great power rivalries with growing arms race, lack of arms control, new East-West tit-for-tat, and hot wars in Africa, Middle East, Ukraine. Finally, ‘securitization’, as an overarching trend, is everywhere indicating an obvious antagonism between militarization and environmentalization of societies, policies, trans-boundary relations and media.
A certain “Save the Calotte Academy” approach is been needed, as the organizers were left, only 1,5 months before the scheduled date, without the promised funds for the 2024 event by Norwegian Foreign Ministry. This unprecedented situation happened, when the already signed agreement, on “Arctic-2030 Barents Arctic Network on Higher Education and Research” project, between the universities of Tromsa, Trent and Lapland, was terminated. While, this jeopardized the unique interdisciplinary traveling symposium and school of dialogue”, commitments to continue knowledge-sharing and -building with communities, and learn from other experts were stronger.
The 2024 Academy is been organized by the Northern Policy Society, in cooperation with Saami Education Institute (SAKK), International Center for Reindeer Herding Husbandry (EALAT), Department of Media Studies at University of Stockholm, Launch Pad Finland, and UArctic’s Thematic Network (TN) on Geopolitics and Security.