Arctic Nation

This provocation considers the relationship between the United States and the Arctic. America might be understood as an Arctic nation not just because of its political and resource claims in the polar region but because the nation has become both environmentally and politically inhospitable to human life. The polar regions are no longer climate outliers on the planet, remote regions exceptionally hostile to human life. The United States could do more to recognize forms of geopolitical organization that do not presume continental supremacy; that loose the "territory" from "territorial seas"; that understand the cryosphere as a model for new forms of relation and collaboration; that turn to Indigenous knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge for guidance.