Calotte Academy 2015
Crossing & Bridging Borders in the Euro-Arctic
North
Andrian Vlakhov & Hanna Lempinen
This year’s edition of the Calotte Academy, an established travelling symposium focusing on the
social and political issues in the Arctic, took place in three Northern European countries: Finland,
Russia and Norway. The Academy owes its name to the Northern Calotte, i.e. the northernmost
part of both Fennoscandia and Russia, and it has a long and glorious history. Having started in the
late 1980s when the region was still divided by many borders, both political and symbolic, the
“nomadic” summer school has witnessed many changes since then: the empires fell, the borders
opened, the people changed. The school itself has changed, too, but it has preserved the main idea
of the original Academy: the person-to-person interaction between local experts and decisionmakers and established and early career researchers whose scientific interests lie in the Arctic,
regardless of any borders. This year, given the complex political situation and tensions between
Russia and the West, preserving this idea was crucial, even the most important since the end of
the Cold.
The 2015 Academy had its focus on the theme “Resources and Security in the Globalized Arctic”.
However, this did not limit the scope of participants’ topics to political science only: the presenters
had different academic background and areas of focus, including among others anthropology, law,
psychology, economics and environmental sciences. Together, the group provided the nexus
between different areas of science, the thing many A rctic research planners are seeking now; maybe
this is the way how the new Arctic research agenda can begin to be introduced.
Andrian Vlakhov is a Junior Research Fellow and PhD Candidate at the European University at St. Petersburg, Russia; Hanna
Lempinen is a Researcher and PhD Candidate at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Finland.