Tanguy Sandré
Jean-Paul Vanderlinden
Arjan Wardekker2,3
Jeanne Gherardi- 1Cultures, Environnements, Arctic, Representations, Climate (CEARC), University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, University Paris-Saclay, Guyancourt, France
- 2Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities (SVT), University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
- 3Independent Scholar, Amersfoort, Netherlands
- 4Laboratory for Climate and Environmental Sciences (LSCE), University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, University Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
Introduction: This article explores how narratives of changes reflect concerns about latent threats to the material and immaterial dimensions of individual and collective lives. Using decolonial approaches and critical ethnography practices in Ittoqqortoormiit (East Kalaallit Nunaat), we empirically challenge resilience frameworks by expanding the body of research on slow violence—unsensational, gradual harm that exacerbates the vulnerabilities of ecosystems, non-human entities, and disempowered individuals and groups—in the context of transdisciplinary and community-based climate change research.
Methods: We conducted repeated stays in the community from 2019 to 2023 and practiced deep-hanging and critical ethnography. Our results are supported by the analysis of 33 open-ended interviews.
Results: The research participants provided valuable insights, characterizing changes as slow upheavals, which we define as events that are not sudden or whose impacts manifest gradually and whose severity and salience are subject to deliberation. Local experiences do not align with narratives of rapid change and also contest modern ontologies that depict the world as stable and controllable. Instead, they express alternative onto-epistemologies of living in or “becoming-with” evolving worlds.
Discussion: Through a dialog with critiques of colonial and neoliberal interpretations or approaches to resilience, we demonstrate the centrality of place-attachment in supporting agency and hope amid experiences of marginalization. We point out the need to move toward agency-based resilience frameworks that take account of lived experiences. We encourage listening to diversified discourses on the climate and ecological crisis, which is inextricably intertwined with the multidimensional upheavals experienced by diverse communities in the Arctic and beyond.
1 Introduction
The lived experiences of the communities at the “frontline” of climate and environmental change, such as those in the Arctic, are often overshadowed by global and science-based narratives (Baztan et al., 2017; Bravo, 2009; Bremer et al., 2019; Holm, 2010; Stephen, 2018). Yet, the responses of Arctic communities to these changes is significantly influenced by their individual and collective identities, their knowledge systems and their connections to the wider world (Hastrup, 2018; Krupnik and Jolly, 2002). The Arctic as a whole is currently experiencing a multitude of changes, many of which are associated with rapid ecological and faster climate change in polar regions. For instance, by 2050, the Arctic Ocean is predicted to be seasonally free of ice (IPCC, 2022). These changes are imposing significant challenges on Indigenous peoples, impacting their way of life and way of being (Nuttall, 2018). Despite these communities being less accountable for the crisis, they are facing its most intense effects. The climate and ecological crisis, intertwined with multidimensional upheavals, also reveals the necessity to explore other epistemologies and ontologies that have been historically ignored. It is therefore essential to challenge the current understanding which remains firmly rooted in the Western epistemic tradition (Sultana, 2022, 2023; Tuana, 2022).
The objective of this article is to examine the concept of resilience from the perspective of community members of an Arctic community, rather than from the vantage point of external sources. We adopt a critical stance in examining approaches to resilience, challenging perspectives that perpetuate the status quo and passivity, particularly those that are shock-based or based on thinking around short-term resilience (see Wardekker, 2021). The concept of resilience has been adopted by a wide variety of fields (Alexander, 2013; Moser et al., 2019) using diverging ontologies, normative interpretations, and framings (Wardekker, 2021). In among others the literatures on social-ecological systems and climate change adaptation, it was used to challenge modernist ‘predict-and-prevent’ science and policy, which aimed for quantification and optimized control of risks (e.g., Dessai and van der Sluijs, 2007; Pugh, 2014). Complexity, uncertainty and interdependencies made this untenable and the perspective of resilience focused on how systems and communities might navigate shocks and stresses regardless. Many applications can be found where the concept is used to help cities and communities navigate an uncertain future (Sitas et al., 2021; Wardekker, 2021). Yet, there are also many examples where actors diluted resilience in technical and managerial approaches (Fitzgibbons and Mitchell, 2019; Forsyth, 2018) or where it became embedded in neoliberal, individualistic ideology (Joseph, 2013) that perpetuates the status quo of social and environmental injustices (Kane and Vanderlinden, 2015; Pugh, 2014; Reid, 2012). Implementing resilience can clearly have pitfalls. For instance, the goal of making systems more resilient and faster to recover from shocks might overlook the question of whether those systems should be preserved, and for whom they are beneficial or detrimental. An emphasis on community capacities and resources to recover and adapt from disasters might overlook who has access to these and who has not. Much then depends on who controls the narrative on what resilience means and how it should be implemented in specific situations. What are their agendas, biases, blind spots, and strengths? The approach chosen can either empower local narratives or reinforce existing inequalities (see Borie et al., 2019). This may be particularly challenging for (post-)colonial and development contexts, where resilience discourse risks becoming rooted in colonial knowledge and power structures (e.g., Amo-Agyemang, 2021), and the narrative is often determined by external actors, such as national-level or international organizations and donor countries (see Béné et al., 2014; Fraser et al., 2017; Sou, 2022). The emphasis placed on adaptability and flexibility in resilience frameworks might suggest that communities will be able to withstand adversities without addressing the underlying structural causes of their vulnerability (Walker and Cooper, 2011), such as colonial structures and legacies (Cameron, 2012; Chandler et al., 2020; Reid, 2018) and the resistance to them (Coulthard, 2014; Lindroth and Sinevaara-Niskanen, 2016). Thus, a decolonial critique calls for a rethinking of resilience, emphasizing agency, historical context, and resistance against oppressing systems, while challenging its role in normalizing inequitable power structures and colonial legacies (Tuck and Yang, 2012). In line with the aforementioned call, we employ a narrative-based approach to examine changes, shocks, upheavals, and their subsequent consequences as they are framed within the lived experiences of individuals of Ittoqqortoormiit (Kalaallit Nunaat), who are directly impacted by the climate and ecological crisis. Finally, the article posits that the prevailing comprehension of climate change in the Arctic, as it pertains to traditional resilience, is inadequate to fully grasp the upheavals confronting Arctic communities. In the Arctic, the lived experience of these upheavals is inextricably linked to slow-moving changes that connects to agency-based adaptability, a sense of belonging to the living places, and processes of marginalization that are entwined with colonial legacies.
2 Materials and methods
2.1 Case study: a perspective rooted in Ittoqqortoormiit
Ittoqqortoormiit is the northernmost town on the east coast of Kalaallit Nunaat, located at the mouth of the Kangertittivaq [Scoresby Sound], the world’s largest fjord. Ittoqqortoormiit was settled in 1924–1925, primarily by Iivit [Inuit from East Kalaallit Nunaat] from Tasiilaq, at the direction of the Danish colonial authorities, as a way of asserting its sovereignty over the entire country. The community has long relied on subsistence hunting as its main source of income and it remains an important aspect of the local food supply (e.g., muskox, narwhals, seals, polar bears) although it is also an important aspect of local identity (Sandré et al., 2024a). The town was established in a geographically remote area, with the nearest settlement located 800 kilometers to the south. This isolation is further compounded by the presence of sea ice for more than half of the year. However, the remoteness that shapes peoples’ lived experiences is also highly connected to sociopolitical factors. In 2009, the Self-Government Act was a significant milestone in Kalaallit Nunaat’s path toward greater autonomy from Denmark. This act expanded the powers granted to Kalaallit Nunaat under the Home Rule Act of 1979, allowing for greater control over internal affairs. The act has also led to an overhaul of administrative divisions, resulting in a significant reduction in the number of municipalities; the country went from 18 district to just four, then five municipalities in 2018. As the result, Ittoqqortoormiit has been incorporated into the much larger municipality of Kommuneqarfik Sermersooq, ruled from the capital of Nuuk, located on the west coast. Given the historical marginalization of East Kalaallit Nunaat by the central colonial administration and then by the post-colonial administration since 1953 (see Sandré, 2024), the division between East and West Kalaallit Nunaat after the 2009 municipal amalgamation has further centralized power in Nuuk, the capital, and sidelined the eastern population.
In Ittoqqortoormiit, the loss of local agency to decision-making has resulted in significant decisions regarding the community being made in Nuuk, with only one local representative representing the town. In recent years, the inhabitants of Ittoqqortoormiit, known as Ittoqqortoormeermii, have faced multidimensional transformations. For instance, the town is experiencing a significant population decline driven by the migration of educated community members to Nuuk, falling from 509 inhabitants in 2008 to 364 in 2024 (Statistics Greenland, 2024). The number of Piniartoq [professional hunters] has also decreased from 32 in 2001 to just 11 in 2023. Further exacerbating the lack of services, the permanent doctor was progressively removed in the 2010s without further explanations, obliging local inhabitants to travel to other parts of the country, Iceland, or Denmark for medical care and education. After the 2020s, Ittoqqortoormiit is not directly connected to other parts of the country. There are only two flights per week between the town and Iceland, which are often delayed due to weather conditions. Two cargo ships deliver food supplies for the whole year in July and September–October. The drastic changes occurring in Ittoqqortoormiit and the persistence of marginalization processes constitute an ideal case to understand and potentially challenge approaches that support the glorification of adaptation and resilience, especially in Arctic regions (see Reid, 2018).
2.2 Interview methods: paying attention to narratives of changes
2.2.1 General value of a narrative approach
The research was centered on people’s narratives of changes, specifically what individuals consider to be the most salient changes in their community and environment. In other words, we were interested in the ways people make sense of and respond to their world, how they articulate their identity, attachment to place, and also influence their judgments about the past and views about the future (Moezzi et al., 2017; Vanderlinden et al., 2020). Specifically, the use of a narrative-based approach in climate change adaptation research may serve four purposes (Bremer et al., 2017): elucidating the historical evolution of science-based climate change narratives; examining how these global narratives impact on the general public and policy-makers; enhancing the dissemination and communication of climate science; contextualizing climate within a cultural framework. In this research, the emphasis on narrative serves as a rhetorical methodology that enables the reframing of accounts based on lived experiences. Narratives are particularly crucial in situations of epistemic or environmental injustice, as they empower people to speak (Ottinger, 2017), contribute to the recentering of knowledge from the margins (Dutta et al., 2022) and foster empowerment (Datta, 2018).
2.2.2 Value and limitations in the context of the research
While the researchers’ underlying interest was initially centered around experiences of rapid climate and environmental evolutions, the broad emphasis on a large category of “changes” made room for emerging concerns that might not originally have been within the researchers’ scope. To capture these narratives, our methodology was based on open-ended interviews. These interviews were organized around key questions: “With respect to your lived experience in Ittoqqortoormiit, as a member of this community, could you share with me the significance and meaning this place holds for you?; How has your experience changed over time with respect to the various forces shaping it?; What is your relationship with the outside world?.” Thirty interviews were conducted by the first and the fourth authors during extended stays in Ittoqqortoormiit between 2021 and 2023 (including one online in April 2021 while the town was still locked down during the Covid crisis). We also incorporated three interviews conducted during a one-week preliminary fieldwork trip in 2019 by the second co-author. In total, from 2019 to 2023, 22 community members were interviewed (five were interviewed twice and two three times along the research process). Overall, the sample is representative of the diversity of experiences within the community since the range of interviewees remains relatively broad. However, the perspectives gathered tended to come from individuals with greater economic, social, and cultural capital than the average population, and who were typically younger than the average population. Many of research participants were individuals who were already inclined to engage in research activities. Although some had not previously participated in research and were surprised to be invited to take part. A significant challenge in recruiting research participants was therefore the tendency to prioritize individuals with a higher level of proficiency in English. As our research approach was to establish relationships with the research participants, we were constrained by our inability to master Tunumisut, Kalaallisut, or Danish, which are the three main languages taught in Ittoqqortoormiit. A way to mitigate this bias was the recruitment of research participants through snowball sampling, The interviews were held in Tunumisut, with four different paid local interpreters (n = 11), in English (n = 20) or Danish in cases where the research participant and the researcher were both fluent (n = 2). Interviews were also conducted with teachers, local politicians, tourist officers, office workers, students, retired people, unemployed, etc., all of whom lived in the community for at least 5 years. According to ethical standards, especially in the context of small groups, the interviewees are anonymized and given pseudonyms (see Appendix 1).
2.3 Ethnographic fieldwork methods: deep hanging out and critical ethnography
Since our goal was to understand how local residents made sense of their experiences in a changing world, we adopted a “deep hanging out” approach (Geertz, 1998). This method involves immersive, informal participation in the community extending beyond structured interviews or observations, allowing the researcher to engage more naturally in the daily lives of participants, to build relationships and gain insights through lived experience. Although the research focused on experiences of and resilience to climate and environmental change, we ensured local relevance to the community through open-ended research questions. Furthermore, strict guidelines would have been inconsistent with critical ethnography practices (Madison, 2020). The latter entails adhering to “an ethical responsibility to address processes of unfairness or injustice” (p. 30). It also involves committing to actions that promote change or minimize harm while remaining attentive to our own positions as researchers, individually and collectively through a practice of critical reflexivity throughout the research process (Bourdieu, 2022; Kohl and McCutcheon, 2015).
The research approach was thus shaped within the field and tailored to its specific socio-historical context. The first and fourth co-authors undertook seven extended stays of between 3 weeks and 2 months in September–November 2021, May–June 2022, November 2022 and June 2023. The second author conducted a one-week fieldwork in 2019. These stays in the community were usually conducted individually, except for short overlapping periods.
2.4 Coding methods: a dialogic process for qualitative analysis
The interviews were analyzed following grounded theory coding methods (Saldana, 2015), using Atlas.ti 9. Centrally, they are based on emergent categories, meaning that the codes are not predetermined, but rather emerge from the data. Friese (2014) suggested that noticing, collecting and thinking are not successive or linear process. We, therefore, adopted a continuous dialogical process between the categories that emerged from people’s narratives (analytical lens) and existing concepts that were identified as salient (theoretical lens) (Figure 1). This is consistent with our ethnographic fieldwork methods, since this coding approach requires repeated engagement with the community.
Figure 1. A dialogical process through emergence and association.
The analytical lens involved becoming familiar with a consistent sample of 15 interviews whose analysis allowed salient categories to emerge. These emergent categories allowed us to identify common patterns and to orientate our gaze toward pre-coding categories from which the salient concepts could emerge. Alongside the transcription process, seven code groups were created, corresponding to salient categories derived from the raw data. Prior the systematic coding, initial code groups and initial codes emerged following familiarization with the interview corpus (Figure 2). These categories were also informed by the progressive encounters with salient concepts during and after the first deep hanging out period. The theoretical lens reconstructed the qualitative materials through association by systematically coding them, progressively associating the codes with theorization, with interpretation being informed by the ethnography and field notes from deep hanging out (Penalva et al., 2015). The results section aims to reflect this research process as accurately as possible by actively illustrating the dialog between empirical findings and theoretical framings, especially in the design of the idea of “living-with.”
Figure 2. Initial codes (--) by initial code groups (#).
3 Results
In Ittoqqortoormiit, our results indicate that the experience of changes is deeply associated to environmental and sociocultural slow-moving changes. The idea of “living-with” emerged in the early stages of the research as a way to navigate with changes lived as part of the landscape (3.1). Fostering this dialog, we further show how marginalization (3.2.1) and belonging (3.2.2) are crucial in the lived experiences of the inhabitants of Ittoqqortoormiit.
3.1 An emergent category: “living-with” changing climate and environment
Our results document how individuals experience life in a rapidly changing world, with a focus on the impacts of climate change, evolving human-nonhuman relationships, and the complexities of existing within a broader global context. A variety of changes were underlined—including climate change-driven changes, a decrease in population and hunters, impacts of hunting quota reductions, a lack of services, and the loss of political influence— while their potentially wide-ranging consequences were usually described as gradual and not everyone saw them as salient. In other words, changes can be seen as an integral and inherent part of the landscape, often not discussed explicitly but rather experienced through adaptation by the community members (Quotes #1–3, in Table 1). For instance, changes in sea ice extent and thickness were regarded as gradual and unremarkable, and uncertainties were regarded with a cultural attitude of acceptance, which contrasts with the Western perspective of predicting and controlling (see Sandré et al., 2024a):
Table 1. Summary of the code analysis related to “living-with” changing climate and environment.
“I don’t have any real expectation for when the ice will break up, because it is the weather that controls that in the end, I expect it will happen next month but I can’t tell, it is Mother Nature who is in control.” #3 - Lars, employed, May 2022.
These transformations are evident and observable within a human lifetime, shaping personal narratives and influencing interactions between residents and the broader world. The uncertainties accompanying these transformations are viewed as a natural part of life, with community members not focused on minimizing them. For example, shifts in sea ice extent and thickness create challenges for traditional hunting practices and limit mobility in the area. Although there is a clear perception of diminishing ice cover, this phenomenon is understood as gradual, varying from year to year (Quotes #4–7):
“Weather has changed. Like last year the ice was gone but this year the ice is here. Every year it changes.” #7 - Pele, employed, June 2022.
Concurrently, there is a widespread observation that the number of polar bears has increased in the region, a change attributed either to climate shifts or to the introduction of hunting quotas in 2005. The growing presence of polar bears in the town is seen as a significant change, associated both to threat and fascination by the community members (Quotes #8–11):
“When I was a boy, I never saw polar bears in the city. I left for my education back in 2006, and came back 2/3 years ago. During that period of 10-12 years, polar bears have come much closer to the town, and sometimes even in the town. This has to be due to climate change. Also, there’s a hunting quota for polar bears and that has helped the number of polar bears to go up. When I was a boy there were no quotas, so you could catch then all year, also there was more floating ice, driving ice. Today, with the quotas and lack of driving ice, there are more polar bears on the land and many are hungry.” #10 - Aaju, employed, September 2021.
As changes regarding polar bears, changes in the landscape are observed and interpreted through an intimate knowledge of the place, affecting daily activities and shaping memories, including how the community responds to extreme weather events like storms or the witnessing of glacier disappearing (Quotes #12–15):
“This summer, with my brother, we were in the south of the fjord and we saw that the glaciers have changed a lot. Before, the glaciers went out into the sea and now, they don’t. A lot is gone. Last time was in 2009, or 2010, I was dogsledding, each summer I go sailing over there, but I didn’t notice, but this summer it was a lot different. There have been many changes in the last 10 years.” #14 - Alan, Piniartoq, September 2021.
Yet, the community’s ability to shape its present and future (Nash, 2005), has been restricted especially after losing political power to the western coast. This limited agency is captured in common responses we encountered in our interactions with the local administration: “We have to ask to Nuuk” (informal conversation, 2021). Although environmental changes present numerous challenges, they are therefore perceived as less pressing than sociopolitical shifts:
“There's less ice. The ice has become less thick and it comes later. And it breaks up much earlier, but this year is very different, this year is kind of like the way it was in 2005 to 2008 […]. 2011 was the first time I experienced the ice breaking up in January and there was open water and that happens now almost every year, but it was the first time for me. That was quite a big experience. So, the winters are getting shorter, but just not this winter. Winters have been shorter and shorter. So, for me personally, it's a shame because I like to go dog sledging, and hunting with the dogs. But it's still a long winter compared to many places in West Kalaallit Nunaat where there is no sea ice anymore. So, I think there are changes but people are very good at adapting here. I think the challenges with politics and all that is much bigger than the challenge with climate change.” #4 - Vivi, part-time, May 2022.
Thus, the experience of change in this context is multifaceted, deeply rooted in both environmental observations and sociocultural frameworks. Based on our preliminary understanding, we outlined a form of “living-with resilience,” i.e., a way of coping with changes primarily driven by the cultural acceptance of uncertainty and powerlessness to reduce it. The latter framing intersects with theoretical consideration toward the concepts of becoming-with and slow violence that further resonates with our analysis.
3.2 An integrative dialog with lived experiences: marginalization and belonging
“Living-with” emerged as an attitude toward changes. However, these changes are intertwined with two other categories of experiences that are crucial in the narrations of the inhabitants of Ittoqqortoormiit: the experience of marginalization (3.2.1) and the expression of belonging and place-attachment (3.2.2). Therefore, these aspects are examined in dialog. This dialog aims at reframing the understanding of climate change in the local experiences of slow-moving changes, while recognizing that both socio-political changes and climate changes therefore constitute latent, or non-abrupt changes, which can ultimately threaten material and immaterial dimensions of the existence. In doing so, we render responsive a resilience framework to address issues such as power imbalances, challenges related to ways of living, and threats linked to the scarcity of services. Ultimately, the examination of place attachment and belonging, emphasizing the significance of identity, emotional ties to the place, the affirmation of cultural ways of being, and expressions of hope and optimism for the future.
3.2.1 Being in the margins: peripheral experiences
The pervasive prejudice from both Danish and West Kalaallit Nunaat residents against individuals from the East coast of Kalaallit Nunaat is manifested through stigmatization and discrimination, often marginalizing the Eastern residents. It resonates with the community’s history of being located on the so-called “back side” of Kalaallit Nunaat, where inhabitants on the eastern coast were granted fewer rights than those on the west coast. They were only fully integrated later after Kalaallit Nunaat became part of Denmark in 1953. For instance, in the East coast, colony councils and colony managers persisted until 1956 and the easterners only gained the right to vote for the Danish Parliament in 1960 (Sørensen, 2007; Schultz, 2023). This history and its ongoing dynamics, are reflected in expressions from people’s narratives such as: “we feel forgotten” or “we are born to be slaves” (informal conversation, 2022). This marginalization extends to the subalternization of the Eastern dialect (Tunumisut), which differs from both the dominant Western dialect and the national language, further exacerbating socio-cultural imbalances of power (Quotes #16–19, Table 2). Political disenfranchisement is another consequence, as the town of Ittoqqortoormiit lost its status as an independent municipality in 2009, resulting in governance decisions being made from the West coast. This centralization has created a widespread perception that West coast officials only visit the municipality for short-term assessments, reporting back without fully understanding local contexts:
Table 2. Summary of the code analysis associated with peripheral experiences.
“I started to think about Ittoqqortoormiit not just as part of Kalaallit Nunaat or Denmark, but more like: this is our land, this is our home, this is our country. I started to think of it as ‘them’ and ‘us’. Our government is them and we, the people from here are us. I mean you can’t force people to move to someplace else […]. Many things were moved more than 1000 kilometers away. It was difficult. I mean this transition process took many years. So, many felt as if they were forgotten.” #16 - Aaju, employed, June 2022.
As a result, local leaders’ voices and knowledge are frequently excluded from decision-making processes, leading to a disconnect between governance and community needs (Quotes #19–22):
“Centralization started in 2009, when everything moved to Nuuk. Everybody said it’s better in Nuuk, because there are more people there capable of dealing with everything. It has become too Western, too Nuuk-centered, it became too much, in Nuuk, they only respect their way of working. All the towns were self-governing and could ask their political leaders for what they needed because it was locals working there. […] Due to the isolation of the place, centralization is a bad thing. The vision that Western coast has only suits bigger towns, they have no idea how it is to live in a small town like here” #20 - Lise, political leader, July 2022.
The aforementioned lack of local involvement is also expressed on matters regarding hunting regulations wherein hunters’ knowledge are silenced (Sandré et al., 2024a). In consequence, the limitations on hunting and the harsh conditions of the hunters’ life have also led to a sharp decline in professional hunters and a reluctance of the younger generation to pursue this profession. The latter is seen as severe threats to the sustainability of the local hunting community (Quotes #23–25):
“Hunting is why it made sense to live here. Because it was something you could live off, even 16 years ago it still felt like it was a hunting community. There were more than 500 dogs. You would see hunters going out every day with dogs in summer And of course, there were all those institutions, like the school and the hospital. More people worked here than now, as I mentioned. But I think the biggest change is that it got more and more difficult to live off hunting, in part because of all the quota regulations. Also, you can’t really export many things to other countries like polar bear skins. So, to make a living off the resources that we have here has gotten more difficult over the years. At the same time, life has changed, you have cell phones now. You need the internet if you have a family. You want to give your children those things that all the other kids have. So, if you're a hunter, you need to be very good. If your wife has a job, you have some income all the time, or if you're a very experienced hunter, you can make it work but it has gotten more difficult to live off the land here. That's what made sense to have this community here.” #25 - Vivi, part-time, May 2022.
The loss of local political power has also resulted in a lack of services, human resources, and infrastructure, which poses significant challenges for the residents of Ittoqqortoormiit and is perceived as an unfair consequence of external governance. Educational opportunities are also constrained, as students have traditionally had to relocate to Nuuk after the 8th grade to pursue further studies, creating additional barriers for the youth of Ittoqqortoormiit (Quotes #26–30):
“Many are moving to another place for a better life and to find work somewhere. Sometimes I think maybe they can return to Ittoqqortoormiit and work again somewhere, but there is the problem with everything being in Nuuk. Maybe in the future, the community of Ittoqqortoormiit will move to Nuuk and Ittoqqortoormiit will be closed. But for me that’s not going to happen.” #30 - Ivalu, employed, July 2022.
3.2.2 Experience of being a place-based community
Attachment to place is deeply ingrained in the community’s relationship with the natural environment, the landscape, and the shared memories and knowledge that define their collective identity. As a hunting community, the practices of sharing and self-supplying cultural food are central to the conception of a “good life,” reflecting a way of life that values mutual support. This place-based identity is also influenced by interactions with outsiders, such as tourists and researchers, which contribute to a broader sense of belonging. A deep connection to the land and the specific way of life is frequently expressed by people in self-descriptions, which often include sentences such as “I’m born and raised here.” Experiences abroad often evoke feelings of homesickness and a sense that “something is missing” coupled with a strong “urge to come back,” underscoring the importance of family and interpersonal connections in maintaining ties to the community (Table 3, Quotes #30–34):
Table 3. Summary of the code analysis associated with place-based community.
“It’s difficult to leave this place because of the view you have here, when you have been born and raised here and have your heart here. Also, when you have been to all the hunting grounds around here, you leave a little bit of yourself everywhere. […] Also, when you have that much love for the place, especially the food which is a big factor in living here, because we have so many things we can just put in the freezer, catch ourselves, things that the rest of the world doesn’t have. And it really changes your spirit, you can say, it’s really good for the spirit when you are born and raised here […]. So, it’s a difficult thing to forget when you’re away from here” #34 - Lise, political leader, July 2022.
This strong sense of community is frequently expressed through a desire to “do something for the community” and to contribute to its well-being, a motivation that influences many to return after moving away, often for educational purposes. The community is described as a “big family,” where solidarity, food sharing, and mutual aid are pivotal values (Quotes #35–39):
“We are friendly to each other because we have this kind of instinct, a feeling that we don't have other people who can come and help us. If you need kalaaleq food, you've got to be good friends with the hunters, and likewise you provide what you can to the people, and they give you what they can. As long as we are friendly to each other and help each other, we will survive. We will survive living here and we'll keep the support flowing.” #39 - Nuka, employed, October 2021.
While there is a sense of exclusion at the national level, the extended network and connections with the outside world are perceived as strengths, providing avenues to share their way of life and ensure their voices are heard through alternative channels. Despite external narratives that suggest that the town may close in the near future (see Arke and Jónsson, 2010), this outcome is countered by several arguments: important improvements in community healthcare in recent years; geostrategic importance that led to the foundation of the town; the local value in providing local weather data. The social impacts of recent town closures in Kalaallit Nunaat, e.g., Qullissat, a town that was shut down in 1972 after the mine finally closed (see Andersen et al., 2016) have made people wary of similar actions. Future development is primarily seen as being driven by local initiatives, reinforcing the belief that sustainable change must be led by the community itself (Quotes #40–44):
“I think if it’s going to happen, then it will be people from here that will start new activities, I don’t think the government will do it, but us. So, I think people have to do it by themselves. Because we’re kind of invisible sometimes.” #44 - Kristen employed, June 2022.
4 Discussion and conclusion
4.1 Intersections with becoming-with and slow violence
4.1.1 Becoming-with and living-with changes
The idea of “living-with”—i.e., living with changes that are seen as unsensational, part of the landscape – that we encountered in our ethnographic practice resonates with work that emphasizes world-making practices (Crate and Nuttall, 2023). The emergent category of “living-with” resonates with notions of “becoming,” as discussed by Lennert and Berge (2019): “a process of the world coming into existence through one’s engagement with it” (p. 4). This also echoes Nuttall's (2009) experience: “I have been struck by the fact that people do not necessarily talk about the environment around them as changing, but of it being in a constant process of becoming.” (p. 299). Indeed, our results indicates that changes are not seen as external but pertain to the lived and storied experience of the place. Furthermore, Klenk (2018) emphasized the role of story in tracing this engagement, suggesting “mov[ing] away from understanding stories as cultural constructs that represent a reality and toward understanding them as the way in which adaptation is lived” (p. 332).
Within climate sciences literature, climate and environmental changes are usually described using baseline in order to assess and control by comparing from a previously experienced state considered to be stable (see on ecological baseline Ortenzi et al., 2025). A culturally grounded perspective challenges the notion of a rupture in the stability of a physical parameter, such as sea-ice (Sandré et al., 2024a). For instance, this shift moves the focus from how fast the ice is melting to what the underlying meaning of melting is Nuttall (2019) describes this as a shift from documenting liquification to paying attention to liquescence—moving from a quantifiable parameter to a fluid and less definable lived experience of a changing world. This shift also opens up the possibility of exploring human and sea-ice interactions and multispecies engagements (Oberborbeck Andersen and Flora, 2023). Similarly, Tsing (2021) highlights the importance of embracing multispecies entanglements and the unintended consequences of human actions, advocating for a more relational understanding of human and non-human interactions. In our own encounters, faced with changing sea ice conditions, the community adopts a humble approach to uncertainty, considering it to be something that cannot be controlled or dominated but simply as an inherent part of the local experience. Naluarnga [“I do not know” in Tunumisut] can be understood as a way of expressing acceptance of uncertainty and a recognition of how things (be)come into being (see Sandré et al., 2024b). For instance, we were struck by how easily community members in Ittoqqortoormiit shared and accepted the unknown, reflecting Nuttall’s description of Northwest Kalaallit Nunaat where “surprise is one thing people can be certain of” (Crate and Nuttall, 2023, p. 6). With the idea of “staying with the trouble,” Haraway (2016), emphasizes the need to confront and engage with complex and challenging issues rather than seeking quick solutions or avoiding discomfort. Haraway argues that in a time of ecological and social crisis, individuals must learn to live and think in ways that embrace uncertainty and complexity. By understanding “climate change […] as consistent with the constant making of the world” (Nuttall, 2009), we also move our frame from the abrupt to the slow. In doing so, we propose an understanding that captures the idea of becoming-with, that rejects dualisms (e.g., nature/culture, human/non-human), and is attentive to longstanding processes that lead to slow-onset upheavals.
4.1.2 Slow violence to understand multifaceted change
Through our fieldwork and individuals’ accounts of their lived experiences, we observed that climate change was one thing that people were used to discussing with outsiders. In recent years, the interest in the community was often driven by a desire for “Indigenous” life stories of adaptation to a dramatically melting world (Bloom, 2022). Yet, through conversations and participant observation within the community, we noticed that issues relating to “marginalization” were central in peoples’ narration of their lived experiences. Nixon (2011) coined the term “slow violence” to describe the gradual, delayed, and often imperceptible forms of environmental harm that affect marginalized communities and ecosystems over time (Nixon, 2011). In this context, violence is seen as a process rather than as an isolated occurrence (O’Lear, 2021).
This concept, which has been expanded to include colonial and gendered violence (Christian and Dowler, 2019; Penados et al., 2022; Rezwana and Pain, 2021; Wakeham, 2022), challenges traditional understandings of violence, which are typically immediate and spectacular, by highlighting the prolonged impacts of environmental degradation and climate change. In vulnerability research, Staupe-Delgado (2022) introduces the concept of “slow calamity” to describe situations where communities and individuals face a probable, yet temporally elusive, disaster. This looming threat blurs the line between the future and the present, with deep uncertainty about the salience (i.e., the quality of being particularly noticeable or important) and severity (i.e., degree of seriousness or intensity of a particular event, issue, or consequence) of the event, and it disrupts daily life in such a way that people become detached from the disaster situation. Gergan (2017) suggests prioritizing the examination of material and immaterial losses, particularly those pertaining to the erosion of a coherent worldview and the perceived threat to our cosmic existence. She further posits that the anthropocentric narrative, due to its emphasis on humanity’s unity and on the urgency of the situation, fosters the erasure of otherness and the concealment of historical domination.
In light of these considerations, the potential threats that the community might face in the near future—such as the town’s slowly declining basic services, the loss of place due to climate change, or erosion of identity due to fewer hunters—were not perceived as imminent dangers, but rather as challenges that could be overcome. Similarly, the various manifestations of marginalization experienced by local inhabitants were widely understood within the context of the community’s long-standing history of being overlooked. Ultimately, the changes described were characterized as having both material and non-material impacts, ranging from economic issues to expressions of attachment to place and the community’s sense of identity.
4.2 Unsettling resilience: slow upheavals and agency
4.2.1 Slow upheavals and the preservation of a desired future
In this article, we sought to understand the lived experiences of Ittoqqortoormeermii through the lens of the ontology of becoming and in light of slow-moving changes, that are often associated with colonial dynamics. We, therefore, propose to shed light on what we call slow upheavals: invisible, latent, or non-abrupt changes associated with ongoing marginalization, which can ultimately threaten material and immaterial dimensions of existence. More specifically, it refers to categories of events that are not sudden or whose effects manifest themselves gradually, and of which the severity (i.e., is it threatening?) and salience (i.e., how important are the things that are threatened?) can be in deliberation over time. In other words, slow upheavals represent a stealthy threat to a community’s way of being and its ability to adapt or reconfigure its world in ways that preserve identity and collective well-being. They limit the ability of the community to shape their present and future circumstances, and perhaps even the ability to imagine a different development or outcome. It forecloses “the capacity to become otherwise” (Anderson et al., 2020).
By connecting lived experiences with climate change, marginalization and place-attachment, we propose to understand resilience as the preservation of a desired future—where individuals and communities feel a sense of agency and hope, i.e., desire in the face of slow upheavals. The emphasis on desire allow both the “recognition of suffering, the costs of settler colonialism and capitalism, and how we still thrive in the face of loss anyway; the parts of us that will not be destroyed” (Tuck and Yang, 2012, p. 647, cited in Sultana, 2022).
4.2.2 Toward an agency-based resilience
Following Spivak's (1988) understanding of subalternity as a removal of ability to shape ones’ own world, Bracke (2016) argues that recognizing agency is a move away from perpetuating subalternization. In this context, agency-based resilience refers to the capacity of individuals or communities to actively shape their responses to challenges, rather than merely reacting to external circumstances. This concept emphasizes the role of personal and collective agency—decision-making, problem-solving, and proactive engagement—as essential components in overcoming adversity and building long-term resilience.
In situations where marginalization is experienced as a limitation of the capacity to actively participate in decision-making, problem-solving, and proactive engagement, the discourse on the resilience risks oversimplifying or romanticizing ones’ ability to be resilient or adaptable. Rather than viewing resilience as a passive attribute (i.e., simply bouncing back), in our approach to agency-based resilience, we recognize that people and groups, even in situations of marginalization, can influence their environments, advocate for change, leverage their resources to improve their circumstances and build solidarities, also, e.g., through recognizing researchers’ agency:
“It's profoundly in our storytelling that this issue lies, it’s only storytelling, it’s not written down. You have the power as a researcher to write our struggles down. But it happens often that we tell the good parts of living here and the bad parts but they only choose to focus on the bad things, and didn’t really write anything about the good things. So, this is kind of dangerous because it shapes action. But you hold with the power to write down what the hunters, the normal people, the leaders are experiencing. You have the power to let us be heard even though we are so few” (Lise, political leader, July 2022).
5 Conclusion: resilience as a grounded concept
This article examined the role and (re)interpretation of resilience in the context of Arctic communities. Much community resilience literature explores resilience in relation to shocks – how communities come together in times of crisis or disaster – not on how to navigate long-term gradual pressures (Wardekker, 2021), and on views-from-outside rather than community-driven perspectives. We argue that a reinterpretation of community resilience for the Arctic should focus on pressures such as slow upheavals (attritional damage) and entanglements with historical processes such as marginalization, and on the role of agency and self-determination, place-attachment and identity, and ontological diversity as drivers of resilience. These could help build a more grounded notion of Arctic resilience, and also provide valuable insights on long-term community resilience more generally.
While critically reflecting on researchers’ responsibility, we argue for a deeper understanding of resilience—one that neither traps individuals and communities in passivity nor confines them to notions of control. By focusing on slow-moving processes in which climate and environmental changes are inseparable from historical process of dominations and their perpetuation, we argue that a resilience approach must be underpinned by a commitment to supporting agency. The Arctic Council (2016) emphasizes the importance of Indigenous knowledge, self-determination, and co-management in fostering resilience. In the context of increasing marginalization, agency is also dependent on the status of the community members and on the unequal distribution of social and economic capital, and should therefore be articulated both individually and collectively.
The research supports that resilience should be grounded in (Indigenous) places, stories and agency. Our research shows that, in the case of Ittoqqortoormiit, agency is closely linked to and supported by attachment to place, i.e., “the bonds that people develop with places, bonds that are multidimensional, evolve through time” (Giuliani, 2003). Place-attachment relates strongly to immaterial dimensions (Nomikos, 2018) such as identity (Dixon and Durrheim, 2004), connection to loved ones, community, the environment, ancestors who lived, died and are buried there (Raymond et al., 2010). Our research also aims at supporting the cruciality of (Indigenous) storytelling to challenges Western narratives and allows for a reclamation of Indigenous epistemologies, worldviews and concerns (Cruikshank, 2000; Smith, 2021). This relational approach transforms not only how research is conducted, but also how knowledge is shared, understood and applied, and is therefore essential to the decolonization of research practices and concepts.
Finally, we highlight some potential limitations of resilience frameworks in addressing ontological diversity—the recognition and inclusion of plural perspectives on the nature of reality and existence. In this context, we suggest that resilience frameworks be challenged by expanding the body of research on slow violence, with the aim of understanding situations of slow upheaval, i.e., situations where change is to be understood in its multifaceted, material and immaterial dimensions. As such, it brings to light structural injustices and highlights the central role of agency and hope in helping place-based communities to confront incidences of marginalization. Ultimately, we emphasize the importance of adopting an incremental approach to resilience, following decolonial resilience literature calls for shifting to a bottom-up framework, that starts from lived experiences and promote diverse narratives of the climate and ecological crisis, acknowledging its complex interplay with the multifaceted disruptions directly faced by various communities in the Arctic and beyond.
Author’s note
Kalaallit Nunaat, meaning “Land of Greenlanders” is the Indigenous term for “Greenland” in Kalaallisut (the national language of the country). While we acknowledge the public debates on the colonial roots of the name Kalaallit Nunaat and the growing preference for Nunarput (“Our Land”), we prioritize the term Kalaallit Nunaat. Kalaaleq (sing.)/Kalaallit (pl.) refers to Indigenous Greenlanders, primarily Western Greenlanders. This article employs the terms Kalaaleq and Kalaallit to refer to inhabitants of the whole country, recognizing that these terms vary according to different Greenlandic languages.
Data availability statement
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
Ethics statement
Ethical approval was not required for the study involving human samples in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements because [reason ethics approval was not required]. Written informed consent for participation in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardians/next of kin. Written informed consent was obtained from the individual(s) for the publication of any potentially identifiable images or data included in this article.
Author contributions
TS: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. J-PV: Conceptualization, Data curation, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing. AW: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing. JG: Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing.
Funding
The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research and/or publication of this article. The authors were funded by the SeMPER-Arctic project (Belmont Forum-ANR, France and Research Council of Norway) and PREFER project (ERC Advanced Grant 2021, European Union).
Acknowledgments
The authors want to acknowledge the engagement of Ittoqqortoormeermii, inhabitants of Ittoqqortoormiit, in the design (crafting of the research questions), the conduct (participation, translation) and the associated support during the research from 2019 to 2023. Special thanks to CEARC and SVT colleagues who provided valuable questions, comments and recommendations.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Generative AI statement
The authors declare that no Gen AI was used in the creation of this manuscript.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Supplementary material
The Supplementary material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fclim.2025.1563320/full#supplementary-material
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Keywords: narratives of changes, decoloniality, critical ethnography, agency, slow violence, place-attachment, marginalization, lived experiences
Citation: Sandré T, Vanderlinden J-P, Wardekker A and Gherardi J (2025) Living with “slow upheavals”: unsettling a resilience-based approach in Ittoqqortoormiit (Kalaallit Nunaat). Front. Clim. 7:1563320. doi: 10.3389/fclim.2025.1563320
Edited by:
Ayyoob Sharifi, Hiroshima University, JapanReviewed by:
Alfi Rahman, Syiah Kuala University, IndonesiaJacob Taarup-Esbensen, University College Copenhagen, Denmark
Sanna Ketonen-Oksi, Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Finland
Copyright © 2025 Sandré, Vanderlinden, Wardekker and Gherardi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Tanguy Sandré, dGFuZ3V5LnNhbmRyZUB1dnNxLmZy