Cold places: movement, knowledge, and time

Abstract

Popular perceptions of the Arctic often conceal the very things that make that place what it is. A land imagined as dark, stark, and covered in ice actually vibrates with life. Drawing on interdisciplinary research on the history, ecology, and culture of the North American Arctic, this article highlights three characteristics of places everywhere that are more visible in cold regions of the planet: movement, knowledge, and time. In turn, when scholars learn to track these characteristics in other places, we open new possibilities for the study of people and the environment.