172
Arctic Yearbook 2013
Knecht
Figure 3: Spheres of Arctic marine-oriented region- and globalism
Source: own illustration; map distorted towards Arctic. Excluded here are Arctic Council non-state members and
observers, for a full list see
http://www.arctic-council.org
investigates the scope conditions for when marine areas are made meaningful space for (economic)
governance. Drawing on his work, circumpolar regionalism is primarily a function of how and for
which purposes the Arctic is
used
materially, e.g. as a trade corridor and resource base and/or as a
military ‗base‘,
regulated
politically and
presented
dialectically (Steinberg, 2001: 20-38). These
intersecting poles together account for region-building and re-building through mutual
reinforcement:
Once implemented in a particular space, each aspect of the social construction (each use,
regulation, and representation) impacts the others, effectively creating a new ―nature‖ of that
space. This ―second nature‖ is constructed both materially and discursively, and it is maintained
through regulatory institutions (ibid: 21).
It is this tripartite social process against which the following paragraphs on the rise of Arctic
regionalism will be read.