Publications

Letters from Greenland was part of a series of 'letters' or updates about the COVID-19 situation in the Nordic countries in 2020. Fellow authors were Andrew Newby (Finland), Peter de Souza (Sweden – works in Norway), Henrik Halkier (Denmark), Rebecca Stirzaker (Norway), Elisabeth Holm (Faroe Islands) and Ingibjorg Agustsdottir (Iceland). During the 'corona year' 2020 the updates were collected and shared regularly via the Facebook group Nordic Horizons. Nordic Horizons is an informal group of Scottish professionals who want to raise the standard of knowledge and debate about life and policy in the Nordic nations. The group facebook page has 2.900 followers and acts as a repository for information, presentations, digital media of the meetings of the group and posts of members. See www.nordichorizons.org for more details.

The Inuit ancestors of the Greenlandic people arrived in Greenland close to 1,000 years ago.1 Since then, Eu- ropeans from many different countries have been present in Greenland. Consequently, the present-day Greenlandic population has $25% of its genetic ancestry from Europe.2 In this study, we investigated to what extent different European countries have contributed to this genetic ancestry. We combined dense SNP chip data from 3,972 Greenlanders and 8,275 Europeans from 14 countries and inferred the ancestry contribution from each of these 14 countries using haplotype-based methods. Due to the rapid increase in population size in Greenland over the past $100 years, we hypothesized that earlier European interactions, such as pre-colonial Dutch whalers and early German and Danish-Norwegian missionaries, as well as the later Danish colonists and post-colonial immigrants, all contributed European genetic ancestry. However, we found that the European ancestry is almost entirely Danish and that a substantial fraction is from admix- ture that took place within the last few generations.

The Nordic Studies Online as a part of the digi-loikka project aims to create a digital learning platform about the Nordics. This project is a joint-initiative of several scholars from the University of Helsinki (Department of Cultures/Centre for Nordic Studies), University of Gdansk (Scandinavian Studies) and Aarhus University (Department of History), and also cooperates with the ReNEW research hub and with the online platform, nordics.info.

Blok P makes a great read for people that want to know about more than polar bears and the melting ice cap when it comes to Greenland. The book includes many positive and life affirming messages to those of us that think living in 1960s housing, in any country, was pure torture. The memories collected for this project are both nostalgic and happy - about things such as running water, having a bathtub, forming new friendships and communities and having access to Nuuk’s shops and pubs. On the more serious side, the book is a useful reflection on the role of architecture in the historical and ongoing physical and social violence of Nordic colonialism. But, most of all, the book is an essential reminder about the most important part of the Arctic - the people – and how they actively and continuously adapt and reimagine their worlds. With or without polar bears.