Arctic and northern community governance: The need for local planning and design as resilience strategy
Introduction
In an era of rapid change, communities need to be more adaptive than ever. This is particularly true of northern regions. Indigenous emancipation requires a reinvention of governance (Coates Ken and Holroyd, 2020), old resource extraction left scars (Demuth, 2019, Stuhl, 2016), new projects require complex renegotiation of roles and rules (Wright 2020, Reynolds, 2021) and the usual templates of local and regional governance do not work because of these issues. Although northern communities are familiar with climate extremes, current rates of change pose an increasing challenge for coordination (Bonnett and Birchall, 2020; Kettle et al., 2020).
In order to keep pace with the rapid transformations that will take place, and which often remain unobserved in the centers of power, money and expertize (Coates, 1987, Meriläinen et al., 2008), something needs to happen. We argue that, despite the global character of environmental change and the national character of other developments (i.e., resource claims by large companies, indigenous governance, nature conservation), there is a need for local strategies for northern resilience. Those strategies require, more than elsewhere, the presence of spatial planning and specifically a form of planning which associates closely with environmental design (cf. Arendt, 2013; see below for development).
Drawing on experiences in northern North America (northern Canada and Alaska), i.e., our own research experiences and the trajectories of northern communities, we analyze the landscape of northern governance and emphasize the need to go beyond damage control and to enhance local governance. After an exploratory mapping of the landscape of northern governance, i.e. the institutional landscape where resilience strategies would land, we draw out the notion that long-term perspectives and strategies in local northern governance are essential for the fostering of resilience. After discussing why this is necessary and which features would be most important, we conclude that local spatial planning becomes more important in this environment as planning can incorporate design perspectives, integrate policies, create new assets, integrate knowledge, and enhance local adaptation and work on several problems at the same time (van Assche et al., 2013b, Roggema, 2017). A series of vignettes illustrates the need for reinforcing local northern governance, the need to embed a local resilience strategy at that level, the possibilities of planning to take on that role as well as some key difficulties and limitations.
Theoretically, we draw on resilience theory (eg Olsson et al., 2004; Berkes and Folke, 1998; Folke, 2006), governance theory (Booher and Innes, 2010, van Assche et al., 2013a, Gunder and Hillier, 2009, Fischer, 1990, Luhmann, 1990) and planning-as-design perspectives (Roggema, 2017, Arendt, 2013, Van Dijk, 2021, Lozano, 1990, DiSalvo et al., 2012), to make our argument for northern resilience strategy as local planning and for planning as environmental and community design.
This conceptual paper thus starts from the idea that Northern governance requires reinvention, that it currently does not support community resilience, and it argues that the direction proposed is suitable for northern physical, cultural and governance landscapes. It does not purport to be the last word in the discussion, while it does propose a new perspective on both problems and solutions by linking literatures and policy issues in a new manner and by redefining the key terms of community resilience, local planning, and Northern governance.
Section snippets
Northern governance
A resilient system is one that can change and/ or adapt in response to a stressor (Davoudi et al., 2013; Holling 2001; Olsson et al., 2004; Folke, 2006). In contrast with older resilience theory (e.g., Holling, 1973), the need to return to a state of equilibrium is not necessary, and perhaps not even desirable. Instead, the measure of success links to flexibility and the ability to evolve in approach and practice. Climate change and associated uncertainties represent formidable arguments for
Desirable features of northern resilience strategies
This northern governance landscape needs to be taken into account when devising northern resilience strategies. From the previous analyses, we can easily discern a general need to enhance governance capacity at the local level, which means, in most cases, a reinforcement of local government. Weak local governance is a problem for any form of adaptation, any form of resilience strategy (cf. Healey, 1998). What exactly will be needed, will differ in each case, and should be decided locally, but a
Towards local planning and design as resilience strategy
If we consider the possible forms of a northern resilience strategy which fulfill these expectations, and its possible locations in governance, then, we argue, one can conclude easily that such strategy needs to be spatial, and that the strategy most likely will take the form of spatial planning. Spatial planning, as the coordination of policies and practices affecting the organization of space becomes more important in northern environments (cf. Hill and Gaddy, 2003).
Creating a northern
Vignettes
Let us illustrate in a series of vignettes what the presence and absence of planning and design can mean for northern resilience strategies. As mentioned earlier, these are not case studies but should rather be seen as illustrations of points made. The geographic location of each of the cases discussed below is presented in Fig. 1.
Churchill (Manitoba) takes a special place in the history of the Canadian north, as it was the most ambitious northern port project, embarked upon by provincial
Discussion
As illustrated by the preceding vignettes, life is messier than planning and resilience concepts might suggest. No community can predict the future, reform itself freely or adapt to everything at the same time. Nevertheless, the risks of weak governance, of having no resilience strategy, of not considering planning and design as core features of such strategy are clear. As are the benefits of strong local governance capacity, the presence of long- term perspectives and a design- oriented
Conclusion
The existance of bricolage in northern governance, of scarce resources and contested governance regimes cannot be expected to vanish quickly, neither assumed to be resolved as a starting point for resilience strategies. Those strategies must start from local realities; they will take on radically different forms per community and the idea of resilience itself will emerge differently in each process of articulating a resilience strategy.
Northern governance is ripe for reinvention. Resilience
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