Beyond the “Gollygee” Stage; The Inspiration of Academics who Study Arctic Sovereignty

Abstract

This research addresses a contention in some literature on sovereignty. Noted expert Franklyn Griffiths argues that a certain bias pervades more alarmist work on sovereignty. He argues that a southern, Victorian vision of inspires a significant group of academics.1 He calls this first and foremost perspective. Political scientist Andrea Charron picks up Griffiths' s view and argues, Many experts believe that claim of sovereignty over Archipelago is uniquely tied to country's sense of national pride and identity.2 She says that this view is not valid.3 It is clear that Griffiths and Charron, among others, do not believe many of Canada's top experts are objective in their analysis - a view I seek to evaluate in this article.In what follows, I seek to determine what inspires concern about Canada's legal sovereignty among Canadian academics. I address whether Arctic's place in Canadian culture provides inspiration in any way, or if there is a better explanation. I argue that none of legal sovereignty issues, Canadian culture, or even concern about climate change, completely inspire concerns about sovereignty; rather, concerns for Inuit livelihood fostered during visits to region inspire academics.In first section, I discuss background about sovereignty and review its divergent literature to situate my research question in debate. In second section, I answer my research question by probing inspirations and underlying biases of those academics who create literature on sovereignty. Toward this end, I interviewed 17 of Canada's top academics and five graduate students, a former minister of defence, and Honourable Bill Graham. Of 17 academics, I interviewed 10 who have created major academic works on sovereignty and security. I also interviewed seven non-security scholars who write about issues but not explicitly about sovereignty or security.In third section, I demonstrate that concerns for Inuit livelihood and engagement with region drive academic work on sovereignty. I analyze results of my interviews in context of work of geographer Cole Harris. I focus on academics because they strongly influence public discourse and government policy on Arctic.Before proceeding, three definitions are in order. First, where is Arctic? Some people uphold a strict distinction between the north and the while others use terms interchangeably. Since scholars in question do not provide a consistent definition of Arctic, I resist urge to do so. In interviews, my definition of the Arctic is definition used by my interviewee. Second, an academic in this paper is someone with a high level of education who publishes in scholarly publications consistently. Third, sovereignty in this paper specifically refers to challenges to Canada's legal control over Arctic.THE EXISTING LITERATURE ON ARCTIC SOVEREIGNTYCanadian sovereignty writers focus mainly on four security challenges to Canada's legal sovereignty in Arctic. As others detail,4 Canada faces at least four sovereignty challenges: delineation and delimitation of outer continental shelf; legal status of Northwest Passage; Canada's Beaufort Sea maritime boundaries, and; ownership of Hans Island.Although I group writers, this grouping does not suggest that writers agree about security implications of sovereignty challenges. There are three reasons for this. First, many writers agree is under threat, but disagree about nature of threat. Some argue that Canada must control Northwest Passage as internal waters because terrorists, illegal immigrants,5 and smugglers6 want to use passage to enter North America and threaten Canadian national and environmental security; meanwhile, some scholars7 argue that this idea is not valid. …