Michaela Coote & Yulia Zaika
Climate change in the Arctic is impacting people’s way of life through increasing current and potential vulnerabilities including food security and environmental hazards. As routines and lifestyles change accordingly, self-identity and routines can be affected, impacting people’s ontological security. Ontological security (OS) refers to the links between identity, routines, and security to include identity factors such as gender, culture, and other forms of belonging which presuppose an individual's ability to both feel safe and actively engage in security paradigms. The role of human capital in the Arctic cannot be overestimated. Inhabited by more than 4 million people including Indigenous and local populations, the Arctic is being threatened by accelerating climate and climate-induced environmental changes. As a result, the Arctic region is a crucial arena for ontological security. This article provides a review of the impact of climate change on the ontological security from a broad Arctic community perspective with a specific focus on identity, attachment to place, and routines. The article highlights that ontological insecurity is not always the impact of climate change; rather, in some cases, ontological security may emerge. Further, communities such as Indigenous Peoples, who have historically relied on subsistence living, may be most susceptible to climate induced ontological insecurity. The authors of this paper propose that the ontological security of Arctic communities should be maintained through strong infrastructure, support of culture and the environment, and region building exercises highlighting the region as a “zone of peace”. These mechanisms promote ontological cohesion by allowing communities to maintain poly-paradigmatic and volumetric identities in a way that supports social harmony and collective stability.
