Pioneering nation: New narratives about Greenland and Greenlanders launched through arts and branding

Abstract

Throughout the Arctic, identities are currently being renegotiated on a foundation that is undergoing radical changes. Global warming has led to an increased focus on arctic and subarctic areas, and thus it is not only the physical conditions for peoples’ livelihood that are changing but the way in which they identify and create new subject positions for themselves in the interaction with the rest of the world. As such, there is nothing new in the importance of the Arctic in international politics. What is fundamentally different today is the status of the indigenous peoples of the far North. No longer can these peoples be governed and treated as voiceless creatures on equal footing with the marine mammals, birds and fish of the area. Today, the indigenous peoples have their own political voices, and various forms of self-rule are the norm rather than the exception. While the Arctic has for generations been described and represented by people living in the South, the peoples of the Arctic are now to a much larger degree representing themselves, both on the political stage and in the media, art, literature and film. The article demonstrates how this creates completely different images from the ones we have grown accustomed to over so many years. The new Arctic is framed by a new context where people are digitally fluent and active members of the global community in a way that makes the future development completely different from previous ages - and thus also completely unpredictable.