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Arctic Yearbook 2013
Carruth & Martin
The Need to be Interdisciplinary: Working Without Borders
Throughout the conference it was demonstrated that climate change research in the Arctic depends
upon interdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge exchange. Projects in this field tend to handle
research questions of unprecedented complexity, which necessitates opening up entirely new fields
of cross-disciplinary research, expanding the perspectives and parameters surrounding a topic of
concern. This kind of research asks for unconventional and experimental approaches, borrowing
and adapting methods and data from other scientific and non-scientific fields. It crucially involves
the permanent challenge of finding common languages in order to communicate and collaborate
between disciplines and stakeholders. The majority of contributions to the 2013 Open Assembly
actively embraced such blurring of disciplinary and methodological boundaries. This became
apparent through their wide-angled research approaches and presentation formats as well as in how
contructively these contributions were taken up and discussed in the plenum from the perspectives
of other expert knowledges. The value and benefit of interdisciplinarity was never
questioned, and fear of crossing disciplinary boundaries seemed to be absent, despite an acute
awareness of its challenges. Instead, the participants of the conference actively invited
interdisciplinary discourse and sought to connect and compare their key findings to those of other
researchers beyond their own field.
Turning Research into Action
Specialist research projects analyzing and understanding climate change are in abundance, however
the application and transfer of their scientific findings into plans for action isdifficult and often
neglected. Translating theory into practice was one of the main points on the conference's agenda. A
desire to act, to respond to climate change rather than to merely evaluate conditions, was noticeable.
This was framed by an awareness of the potential danger of ‗falling between two stools‘: broad
overarching frameworks on one side, and localized, concrete engagement on the other side. In
order to ensure that these ‗top down‘ and ‗bottom up‘ approaches meet in the middle, and do not
eclipse one another, it was reiterated that a shared language, or mode, must be sought that can
mediate between the natural sciences, social sciences and local communities. To this end it was
mutually thought important to find agreement on terms of evaluation and shared goals, carefully
considering the use of rhetorics, images and figures.
The more thematically structured parallel sessions gave opportunity to dive deeper into particular
questions currently addressed in highly specialised fields. These specialist findings highlighted areas
and issues in need of further discussion, evaluation, and action; tasks possibly to be shared with
other disciplines.
Socioeconomic Adaptation in Key Sectors: Law, Education, Health and
Tourism
Research in the specialist field of Polar Law has brought to light a number of legal blind spots
regarding the Arctic and Antarctic - territories that until very recently have been so remote and