The Covid-19 pandemic hit the world during the winter 2020. Still on-going, it impacts everyone’s everyday life on a great scale. While the pandemic is considered as a global challenge, it has particular effects in the Arctic due to local parameters, such as remoteness, need of communication, other health challenges, presence of indigenous communities, etc. Using the author’s personal experience as a starting point, this paper aims to provide a broad and objective analysis in order to identify and discuss major stakes of the pandemic as well as the opportunities it provides.
Abstract
Space matters for global politics but the treatment thereof in International Relations (IR) has been uneven. There is broad interest in spatial aspects across many research communities but only a nascent theoretical discussion and little cross-field communication. This article argues for a fuller engagement of IR scholars with sociospatial concepts and proposes a spatial approach to global politics based on four essential dimensions: a spatial ontology, the constructedness of space, a scalar perspective, and the interaction of materiality and ideas. As one possible way of integrating these aspects into a more specific concept, the article elaborates a framework of spatial practices and uses the example of Arctic Security research to illustrate the upsides of such a spatial approach for IR research.
The Pandemic, the Arctic and Me: A Levels of Analysis Discussion of Arctic Security Focusing on the 2020 Global Pandemic
