Categories: Funding Bodies, Human-Environment Interactions, The Arctic
The HfE Circumpolar Observatory is a network distributed throughout the Arctic and Subarctic. Its hub is the Stefansson Arctic Institute in Akureyri, Iceland.
The research and educational projects promoted by the HfE Circumpolar Observatory aim to increase scientific and scholarly understanding of how human communities have responded in the past to extreme environmental events and variability, while also working to better understand these challenges as they unfold in the present, so that a fuller archive of knowledge can be mobilized for the benefit of human and non-human communities in the future. The researchers, projects and educational programs brought together in the observatory are defined, in part, by an openness to disciplinary border crossing that aligns physical environmental studies with historical and cultural modes of inquiry. The observatory coordinates projects and activities closely with NIES (The Nordic Network for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies), NABO (The North Atlantic Biocultural Organisation), GHEA (The Global Human Ecodynamics Alliance), Future Earth and IHOPE (The Integrated History and Future of People on Earth), in particular the IHOPE subprojects Circumpolar Networks and Global Environmental Change Threats to Heritage and Long Term Observing Networks of the Past.
