Here is the whole issue The Arctic & Antarctic International Journal of Circumpolar Socio-Cultural Issues Volume 4 – 2010
The low-crime thesis examined in Iceland: Criminal victimization in comparative perspective
Rannveig Þórisdóttir, (Reykjavík Metropolitan Police, Iceland) & Helgi Gunnlaugsson, University of Iceland)
Iceland has typically been portrayed as a low crime country. This observation of Iceland as a low crime country has however been confounded by limited official records of crime data. Police statistics have not been easily accessible in Iceland because of irregular record keeping by local officials over the years. A crucial feature of the ICVS (International Crime Victimization Survey) was always the use of a fully standardized questionnaire, with controlled data management and analysis procedures. Bearing in mind this background of ICVS, and relative lack of crime data in Iceland, it is important and timely to compare Iceland with other Nordic and European Union (EU) member countries taking part in the ICVS survey. Iceland participated in the ICVS survey for the first time in 2005. The findings show that Iceland ranked high compared to other Nordic nations, both in terms of overall victimization for the ten crimes measured, and for assaults or threats, and theft. Overall crime victimization was also higher in the Nordic countries than the average in the EU countries, except for Finland. A few factors are evaluated in the paper to shed light on this surprising finding for Iceland. These factors involve methodological issues, social and cultural aspects, in addition to demographic characteristics of the Icelandic population.
An Praise of Arctic Warming An Unsettling View by an Anti-Ecological Novel Erres boréales (1944)
Daniel Chartier, (Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada)
In 1944, Florent Laurin published Erres boréales, a utopian novel in which the French-Canadian people settled lands much farther north thanks to the planned warming of the St. Lawrence River and the Arctic. This anti-ecological picture is disconcerting for today’s reader because it is incongruous with modern environmental discourse. The Arctic has always been represented as inaccessible, virgin territory and, as a result, the North has provided a blank canvas on which authors have been inclined to create imaginary Edenic worlds serving ideological ends. That is certainly what Laurin did in Erres boréales, but the ideology underlying his representation of the Arctic is so jarring for today’s reader that it prompts us to look at the ideology shaping our present-day views of the imaginary North.
Bordering Immigrants in Argentina. The case of the Chilean immigration to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego
Enrique del Acebo Ibáñez (Universidad del Salvador, Argentina)
International immigration has been a fundamental element in (and for) the socioeconomic development of Argentina, while migration from the neighboring countries happened at the same time than inner migrations within Argentina. As of 1960 neighboring countries immigration was on a constant increase, concomitantly with determined sectors of both the labor market, and geographical regions. In early 90s, immigration from neighboring countries accounted for more than 50% of the whole immigration entering Argentina. The Chilean migration to Argentina began starting long before the creation of both, respective States, even though the higher importance thereof starts as of mid-20th century. Chilean citizens have migrated to Patagonia mainly (but they are found also in the Metropolitan area of the city of Buenos Aires, in the city of Mendoza (center area of Argentina), and also in the city of Bahía Blanca -to the South of the Province of Buenos Aires). Immigration from a neighboring country involves a population displacement the generation of which has to be sought in adaptative strategies developed into the family economy of poor people, perhaps much more than seeking the immigration motive into the migrant politics of national States. This article analyzes the migration motives among Chilean immigrants, the insertion types and grades into the receiving society, and also the migratory networks and grade of associativity in terms of social capital and resilience.
The Aleuts and the Pacific Eskimo in the colonial economy of Russian Alaska in the mid 19th century
Marcus Lepola (Åbo Akademi University, Turuk, Finland)
Native labor practices are an important dimension of colonialism. By the mid 19th century the Russian American Company had implemented forced labor practices on the “Aleut” population for a long time and also effectively restricted and forced native mobility along the Alaskan, and even along the Californian coastline. There seems to be a shift in labor practices and some tendency to diversification of labor among the native population from 1819 onward to the end of the Russian era in Alaska in 1867. In this paper I will attempt to look more closely on labor mobility and economic practices among the colonized natives and reflect on the general impact the colonial economic structures had on the Aleut and Pacific Eskimo societies. I also attempt to assert that there is a difference in how the Aleut and Pacific Eskimo participated Russian colonial economy. Sitka as a permanent residential of native workers is also discussed in this paper.
Ethnoterritoriality confronting multinationals: Indigenous peoples’ perceptions of eucalyptus plantation industries in Atlantic coastal Brazil
Susanna Myllylä (University of Jyväskylä)
The rapidly growing pulp sector in Atlantic coastal Brazil has sparked off land disputes between the Multinational Corporations (MNCs) and the indigenous peoples. This article, based on primary, fieldwork data from Brazil, examines how the corporate actions and eucalyptus plantations affect the livelihoods of three indigenous communities: the Tupinikim, the Guarani and the Pataxó. The concerned companies are Aracruz Celulose S. A., Veracel Celulose and Stora Enso. The MNCs have exerted diverse tactics from social programs to violent confrontations and the devaluation of indigenous identities. These land struggles are inherently related to the primary livelihood for these communities, the critically endangered Atlantic Forest. In conclusion, the confrontations with the MNCs have profoundly affected the indigenous communities in terms of their identities, social cohesion and their worldviews as they have been forced to form a new collective resistance movement; this change can be referred to as ‘ethnoterritoriality’.