Conclusion - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 273

sustainable development assessments that play a significant policy role in
Arctic politics. While the practice of scientific assessment of development
has become relatively familiar in the natural sciences during the past 20
years (Parson 2003), there has been less of a tradition of conducting qualita-
tive assessments of human development in the social sciences, particularly
towards the Arctic (AHDR 2004:21). Taking into account criticisms
emerging regarding the assessments, there is still some value in examin-
ing indirect indicators and subjective measures of social processes based on
public opinion surveys and subjective evaluations by independent experts,
which become informative and useful tools in puzzling the whole picture of
security and governance together in the region. Moreover, systematic col-
lection of information on embodied experience of individuals and of groups
as well as their assessments of different risks and threats invites those expe-
riencing insecurity to identify the roots of their vulnerability, to participate
in development solutions and to look for ways to incorporate them into a
political agenda. In this sense, assessment surveys on human and environ-
mental security issues can contribute to empowerment of local peoples and
communities by supporting their capacity to actively participate in the sus-
tainable development of the Arctic.
Loader and Walker (2007) highlight a number of dimensions of security,
including instrumental, social and constitutive dimensions. In conclusion we
wish to focus upon the constitutive dimension, which is perhaps the most
neglected in contemporary security debates. The constitutive dimension
claims that the promotion of security is fundamental to establishment and
sustenance of a sense of the social and collective. The desire for protection
from threats, and the ways in which collectives realize such desires, plays a
specific and significant role in establishing and maintaining trust, social iden-
tity and a sense of community. In this sense, the pursuit of security 'helps to
construct and sustain our “we feelings” - our very felt sense of common pub-
licness' (Loader and Walker 2007:191). Highlighting the beneficial public
dimensions of security, the dominant state-centred discourse is only complete
through other discourses beyond - and below - the state and, thus, is a step
forward to the development of broad and democratic security discourse in the
Arctic region.
References
ACIA - Arctic Climate Impact Assessment Report (2005) ACIA Secretariat and Cooperative
Institute for Arctic Research, Fairbanks: University of Alaska.
AHDR - Arctic Human Development Report (2004) Akureyri: Stefansson Arctic Institute.
AMAP - AMAP Assessment (1998) Arctic Pollution Issues , Oslo: Arctic Monitoring and
Assessment Programme.
—— (2004) Persistent Toxic Substances, Food Security and Indigenous Peoples of the Russian North:
Final Report , Oslo: Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme.