Whose knowledge counts? Inuit Epistemologies and sustainability governance in Arctic resource politics

Autores

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18166223

Resumen

Sustainability governance is a contested terrain where competing worlds, knowledges and futures collide, overlap and are selectively authorised. These tensions become particularly visible in contexts of state-building and resource extraction, where claims to sustainability are mobilised alongside projects of economic development and political autonomy. This article examines how Inuit onto-epistemologies are framed and differentiated within contemporary sustainability and resource governance in Greenland, and how such framings contribute to the reproduction of epistemic and colonial hierarchies. Drawing on pluriversal thinking, decolonial scholarship and political ecology, the analysis explores how knowledge, power and ontology intersect in debates on resource governance. More specifically, it suggests that Greenland’s state-building ambitions generate tensions between Indigenous identity and modern development imaginaries, reinforcing epistemic hierarchies even within an Indigenous-led polity. Finally, the article highlights how struggles over sustainability governance are also struggles over territory, futures and competing projects of world-making, emphasising the limits of state-led sustainability approaches that remain grounded in inherited epistemic frameworks.

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Biografía del autor/a

  • Julia Alida Runnelid, Universidad de Södertörn

    Julia Alida Runnelid is an M.Sc. candidate in Environment, Sustainability and Global Development (Environmental Science) at Södertörn University, Stockholm. Her research interests include political ecology and critical approaches to sustainability, with a focus on extractivism, resource governance, and the role of discourse in legitimizing socio-ecological and epistemic power relations. She previously served as President of the Student Union at Södertörn University, gaining experience in academic representation and institutional governance. 

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Referencias

PORTADA JULIA

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Publicado

2026-01-06

Número

No. 6 (2025): Revista Dialógica Intercultural

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Artículos

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Derechos de autor 2026 Revista Dialógica Intercultural

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Cómo citar

Runnelid, J. A. (2026). Whose knowledge counts? Inuit Epistemologies and sustainability governance in Arctic resource politics. Revista Dialógica Intercultural, 6, 65-81. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18166223