Arctic Youth and Sustainable Futures

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: Language Revitalization, Land, and Sustainable Futures

Abstract

The “Arctic Youth and Sustainable Futures” project aims to fill a gap in knowledge about the lives, aspirations of and challenges faced by youth – indigenous and non-indigenous – across the circumpolar north. We ask:
1. How do Arctic youth identify sustainable pathways to the future?
2. How do they define the most important issues affecting youth in the Arctic?
3. What are their hopes for the future of their communities and the Arctic more broadly?
This paper presents perspectives of youth from five different Arctic nations (Greenland, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, and the U.S.), and discusses the implications for critical policy decisions being made in the face of rapid social, cultural, political, economic and environmental changes in the north.

Author

• Diane B. Hirshberg, The University of Alaska - Anchorage