Editor’s Introduction Part II: new lenses on the role of education and knowledge sharing in support of sustainable development in the Arctic

Abstract

In this second half of the special issue of Polar Geography on Education and Sustainable Development, we feature four more articles that provide different lenses about the role education plays in supporting sustainable development efforts and around how best to engage in research addressing this and related topics. Through what he identifies as a decolonial auto-ethnography, Datta explores Inuit land-based education as a means for transforming environmental science education. In it, he offers a compelling argument for land-based education as a key component in education about sustainability and education that is in itself sustainable. Sergunin and Gutenev guide readers through the state of education on sustainable development in the Russian universities that train Russian Arctic specialists. They explore both the successes and problems in how this content area is taught across institutions. While they found gains in sustainability education in general, they found inconsistencies in how different institutions interpreted the concept of sustainable development and few examples of an integrated concept across environmental, economic, and social components of sustainability. Their analyses and critiques could be applied to Western institutions and could help strengthen how sustainable development is taught across the Arctic. Speca describes the challenges facing Arctic educators and learners as they try to make sense of the idea of sustainable development in ways that are relevant in their Arctic contexts. He argues for using diplomatic simulations, especially Model Arctic Council exercises, to engage students in experiential learning that both meets these challenges of educating on sustainable development while achieving other valuable learning outcomes. Finally, Lauter offers a thought piece on how researchers can better engage with Indigenous community members in the co-production of knowledge. She describes the challenges in gaining access and trust and especially in recognizing and addressing the imbalance of power between researchers and community partners and then offers ways to build relationships as an outsider entering a community. In particular, shemodels how to involve Indigenous collaborators not only in the research itself but in reflecting critically on the process of engaging in research, fromentering the community to completing thefinal product. Thiswork offers important insights to those from outside the Arctic looking to explore sustainable development in the North. As I noted in the first part of this special issue, education often is overlooked in discussions about sustainable development generally, and the ways education and knowledge transfer are defined and discussed in these discussions tend to be very narrow. This volume, along with the first, shows there are many ways to understand the role education plays in supporting sustainable development in the Arctic. But, it is not enough to simply look at these processes. It is also important to critically examine our own lenses and assumptions as we explore this topic. This collection of articles brings to bear multiple theoretical and practical approaches to research and reflection on processes and our stances in these efforts. I hope it helps researchers expand their thinking about sustainable development, the role of knowledge sharing, and how we might continue to work collectively toward better systems for developing and sharing critical learnings to move Arctic communities toward strong and healthy futures.