ABSTRACT
This chapter builds on the work of environmental justice (EJ) scholars such as Schlosberg and Robyn in order to argue that an environmentally just future for a changing Arctic and its original peoples is contingent upon the disruption of such cycles of procedural marginalization. In order to accomplish this, those decision-making structures, which are now being established to respond to the issues associated with regional climatic change, must possess the capacity to recognize and engage with both the traditional values and the contemporary perspectives of Arctic peoples. A geographic interest in the idea of nature as a social construction is featured here in support of this argument. The chapter elucidates how the hegemonic supremacy accorded to Western ways of understanding nature has often led to the dispossession of Indigenous lands and has worked against the abilities of Native communities to pursue their own self-determined lives.
