ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the intersecting roles of scientific knowledge and social values in the 2017 report Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic: Perspectives from the Barents Area (AACA for short, published by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme [AMAP]). Adaptation is a complex problem characterized by high levels of uncertainty. I ask whether knowledge can provide a foundation upon which to build a common, rational language that would overcome political differences. I also examine the relationship between traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and scientific research in the polar North and the Barents region more specifically. I consider the issues of determining whose knowledge is relevant for adaptation, how that knowledge can be effectively communicated and how it can be linked to policy and practice. I use the AACA report as a case study to assess how multiple knowledges are used in an empirical research project and to serve as a basis for theorizing about the politics of adaptation.
