Publications

Greenland experienced a 5-week lockdown during the COVID-19 crisis. The lockdown effectively took out all public social support and food supply for people experiencing homelessness in the capital Nuuk. This woke up Greenland’s social conscience in the form of a local NGO’s mobilization of voluntary social helpers. Luckily nobody in the homeless environment got infected and suffered needlessly. From a social policy perspective, we can take three experiences away from the pandemic. Firstly, a clear learning experience from this crisis was the need to redefine the broad societal understanding of Greenland a country with a universal welfare system. The second experience was that social work comes in many shapes and forms. Finally, the experience illustrated what could take place when the political and administrative system are too slow to react in times of crisis. It kickstarted the civil society step up and help fellow citizens. In the end NGO’s need to reports back and inform the public system to ensure better social emergency response in the future.

This article describes the historical development of media policy in Greenland, and the shifts in the underlying normative and causal ideas that legitimise media policy. I argue that media policy reflects changes in Greenland’s political system. Specifically, under colonial rule, Greenlandic media was state run and media was seen as an instrument to educate the population. Gradually, with the introduction of home rule, a paradigm shift took place, whereby media was seen as a vital instrument to strengthen Greenlandic language and identity. At the same time, normative ideas of media independence appeared which called for institutionalisation of the arm’s length principle. Due to the influence and institutional spill-over from Denmark, I argue, Greenlandic media policy fit rather well into the “Nordic media model” although media policy in Greenland is mostly formulated without long-term or broad political agreements.

This study compares the media systems of the West Nordic countries, namely the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. All three countries are democratic welfare states with considerable institutional transfer from the larger Nordic countries. It is argued that the West Nordic media systems fit into the “Nordic model” when it comes to the perception of media as cultural institutions as well as the central role of public service media. On the other hand, the micro-size of the media systems in the West Nordic countries makes them vulnerable, and makes editorial independence more difficult compared with their larger Nordic neighbours. In particular, media outlets within these micro-size media systems seem more susceptible to clientelism, and journalists seem more inclined towards self-censorship. This article highlights how interplay between small size and distinct local factors shape the media system in each of the West Nordic countries.

According to the narratives transmitted through media and political discourse, climate change reduces the ice coverage in the Arctic and enhances shipping and other forms of maritime activities. Especially, expectations of an increasing level of transit shipping between Asian, especially Chinese, ports and ports in Europe and North America is dominant. Evidence, however, tells that the numbers of transit shipping through the Arctic Ocean are very limited, and dominated by European shipping companies. For Greenland, political expectations have also been high, since Greenland has been seen as "strategically" situated in relation to new shipping routes in the Arctic, But, again, the actual development has been moderate and not related to international transits but conditions in Greenland itself.

Reindeer herding and husbandry in Greenland has a short history. While the hunting tradition is much older and has always been part of the Greenlandic tradition (specifically, the hunting of indigenous Greenlandic caribou), reindeer husbandry was first established in mid-west Greenland and later in southern Greenland in the 1950s. The introduction of semi-domestic reindeer from Norway was established in 1952 due to a drop in the indigenous reindeer population throughout the 1920s to 1940s. This chapter outlines the story of reindeer herding in Greenland and its failures and relative successes.