Power and Inclusion

Relations of Knowledge and Environmental Monitoring in the Arctic

Abstract

This article is a critical study of the planning and design process of the Sustaining Arctic Observing Network (SAON). SAON, in its ambition to build a comprehensive, pan-Arctic monitoring system, seeks to integrate all relevant scientific and environmental monitoring sites in the Arctic, guided by an ethic of inclusion regarding the knowledge of indigenous Arctic peoples (KIAP). It is argued that the logics of inclusion in play, paradoxically, risks limiting the capacity for Arctic indigenous peoples to control their knowledge and its uses, to monitor the activities and outputs of SAON itself, and to appropriate the SAON system and its data for uses they control. This article also suggests an alternative approach: rather than place KIAP within SAON, it calls for planners to consider establishing knowledge relations between SAON and KIAP so that the distinct status of KIAP—in a position of exteriority to the comprehensive monitoring system—is acknowledged. Within these knowledge relations, differences in the production of knowledge can be effectively recognized, a site can be created for reviewing SAON’s monitoring work by local communities and practices, and strategies for open, adaptable data systems for local users can be established.