28 March 2025 | 08:30 - 10:00 (MDT)
Open Session - HYBRID
Room: Glenn Miller Ballroom - UMC 208
Organisers: Marya Rozanova-Smith (The George Washington University, USA); Andrey N. Petrov (ARCTICenter, University of Northern Iowa, USA); Stacey Lucason (Kawerak, Inc., USA); Embla Eir Oddsdóttir (Icelandic Arctic Cooperation Network, Iceland); Bridget Larocque (Weaving Wisdoms, Canada); Mervi Heikkinen (University of Oulu, Finland)
Session Description:
This session addresses two main themes.
First, advancing gender equality in the Arctic is a critical topic and one of the important priorities for Arctic social research and Arctic community resilience planning. Recent gender studies, such as the Gender Equality in the Arctic Report, indicate that inequality persists across the Arctic regions and all spheres of engagement. Additionally, gender equality has been negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a devastating effect on both urban and rural communities across the Arctic, making it critical to understand existing vulnerabilities and gendered issues in supporting community resilience and sustainable development. The Session places special emphasis on Arctic Indigenous communities. We invite researchers, especially Indigenous scholars and knowledge-holders, and practitioners to discuss ways to address persistent gender inequalities, strategies for gender empowerment in governance, economies, and social realities, and Arctic community resilience planning through a gender lens.
Second, sex and gender disaggregated data is reflecting differences and inequalities in the situation of women and men. Such data is crucial for providing decision makers with the knowledge and capacity to develop well informed policies. Data feeds indicators and indexes across all sectors and at all levels of society to capture gender equality, social and economic inequalities, levels of gender-based violence, and impacts from processes of colonization, and empowerment and education. The lack of data and persistent gaps in data availability, in addition to a lack of protocols for sharing data, has been flagged in previous reports, such as in the Arctic Human Development Reports and the Arctic Social Indicators reports. During the development of the report on Gender Equality in the Arctic, authors of most chapters identified the paucity of data and the challenges this brings for analysis and comparisons. This continued lack of gendered and intersectional data, including specific data on Indigenous populations and LGBTQIA2S+, severely impedes efforts to adequately understand the dynamics of gender across the Arctic. Consistent and comparable data is the very foundation for understanding realities and inequalities across regions, countries, sectors, genders, and peoples. Objective of the session is to address the paucity and inconsistencies of gender and disaggregated data in the Arctic region. Session welcomes presentations on existing gender / sex / ethnically disaggregated data and on data needed to fill in existing gaps, and challenges to gender and sex disaggregated data in the Arctic region.
The Session is organized in-part by the Project "Understanding the Gendered Impacts of COVID-19 in the Arctic" (COVID-GEA), the ARCTICenter, UNI, the Project "Measuring Urban Sustainability in Transition" (MUST), and Project "Socio-Ecological Systems Transformation in River basins of the sub-Arctic under climate change" (SESTRA).
Instructions for Speakers: Oral presentations in this session should be at most 12-minutes in length, with an additional 3-4 minutes for questions (unless more detailed instructions are provided by session conveners). See more detailed presenter instructions here.
Oral Presentations:
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unfold_moreAdopting a Comprehensive Approach in Arctic Gender Research: Insights from Incorporating Indigenous Methodologies — Marya Rozanova-Smith, Andrey Petrov
Marya Rozanova-Smith 1; Andrey Petrov 2
1 The George Washington University; 2 ARCTICenter, University of Northern IowaFormat: Oral in-person
Abstract:
Arctic gender studies have traditionally focused on deficit-based models, emphasizing the problems and vulnerabilities of Arctic communities, particularly in remote areas. To this day, a strength-based approach—centered around gender empowerment by highlighting unique skills, achievements, resourcefulness, and potential—remains underutilized.
This paper argues that a more comprehensive approach, integrating both deficit-based and strength-based models, would offer a more holistic understanding of the subject, aligning with Indigenous concepts of a "wholistic" worldview. Incorporating elements of Indigenous research methods into this integrated framework is crucial for deepening our understanding of gender issues in the Arctic and developing more effective solutions to social challenges by considering multiple perspectives and ensuring no significant aspect is overlooked.
The paper also presents the experiences of the COVID-GEA Project (www.arcticcovidgender.org) in conducting interview-based gender research with Indigenous communities in Alaska and outlines the key principles applied. These principles include prioritizing practically oriented research that addresses community needs, implementing "humanized" research procedures, emphasizing personal storytelling and a voice-centered approach, employing the "two-eyed seeing,” and ensuring research accuracy through participant feedback on the COVID-GEA research team’s interpretations, among others.
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unfold_more"I feel like the most important thing is to ensure that women feel included...": Immigrant Women's Perspectives on Gender Equality and Inclusion in Northern Iceland During and After the Pandemic — Marya Rozanova-Smith, Embla Oddsdóttir, & Andrey Petrov
Marya Rozanova-Smith 1; Embla Oddsdóttir 2; Andrey Petrov 3
1 The George Washington University; 2 Icelandic Arctic Cooperation Network; 3 ARCTICenter, University of Northern IowaFormat: Oral in-person
Abstract:
Enabling gender equality by empowering all women to fully engage in modern society is fundamental for building resilient communities. While Iceland is recognized as a global leader in gender equality, the experiences of various immigrant groups can differ considerably. Given the rapid increase in the immigrant population in Iceland, it is crucial to gain a deeper understanding of the processes surrounding immigrant women's socioeconomic integration and inclusion, with the focus on gender equality through the lens of intersectionality.
This study is based on interviews conducted in 2022–2023. The findings indicate that, despite government support programs and the significant resilience demonstrated by immigrant women during the pandemic, they continue to face substantial barriers to attaining genuine equality within the social and economic spheres. In the social domain, immigrant women often lack well-developed support networks, especially when experiencing systemic challenges, such as persistent imbalances in gender power dynamics within their households. Economically, despite Iceland's commitment to equal pay principles, immigrant women encounter greater wage and wealth disparities within the host society. The horizontal and vertical barriers in the labor market are linked to both systemic and structural obstacles. These include challenges in recognizing qualifications, insufficient language proficiency, self-selection into lower-wage positions/sectors that do not align with their skill sets, often driven by perceptions of cultural and gender biases among employers, among others.
Exacerbated by the pandemic, these complex socioeconomic factors continue to define the opportunities available to immigrant women and the barriers hindering their full inclusion. (More information is available on www.arcticcovidgender.org)
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unfold_moreGender in the Arctic knowledge production — Mervi Heikkinen
Mervi Heikkinen 1
1 University of OuluFormat: Oral in-person
Abstract:
The presentation focuses on elaborating sustainable knowledge production processes and structures within the Arctic. As argued by Londa Schiebinger (2018), governments and universities can foster gender equality through three main strategies: the “Fix the Numbers” approach, which focuses on increasing the participation of women and underrepresented groups in knowledge production; the “Fix the Institutions” approach, which promotes inclusive equality in careers through structural changes in research organizations, such as implementing institutional gender equality plans; and the “Fix the Knowledge” approach, which aims to stimulate excellence in science and technology by integrating sex, gender, and intersectional analysis into research. These approaches can be practiced jointly to produce institutional transformation. In this presentation, strategic approaches to foster gender equality within Arctic governments and universities will be examined. Furthermore, Schiebinger’s three “fixes” will be applied in the analysis of Arctic governments and universities to identify, address, and evaluate the levels of gender data challenges in the Arctic. Additionally, the analysis will be complexified to consider the diversity and intersections of Arctic local and Indigenous Peoples and their knowledges, existing and missing research ethics guidelines, and data regulations. Finally, the presentation envisions institutional structures and processes foundational for contributing to epistemic justice (Fricker, 2007, 2015; Koskinen & Rolin 2019) in the Arctic knowledge production.
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unfold_moreGender equality and inequality in the Nordic Arctic academia – intersectional challenges — Anna Reetta Rönkä
Anna Reetta Rönkä 1; Mervi Heikkinen 2
1 Arctic Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu Finland; 2 Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Oulu FinlandFormat: Oral virtual
Abstract:
This presentation is focusing on gender equality research conducted in the Nordic Arctic context. Nordic countries of Finland, Sweden and Norway are among the most gender equal countries in the world. Still, gender segregation, gender pay gap, gender bias and gender inequality exist in Nordic societies, also in the academia. For instance, only 30-32% of professors in the Nordic academia are women, even though more women than men enroll to the universities.
Based on a literature review on gender equality/inequality research at higher education context conducted by scholars from Arctic Five universities, we will explore what kind of research trends there has been on the topic, who are the research participants in these studies, i.e. among who the research knowledge has been produced, how gender is conceptualized in this body of research, and what gaps in knowledge there seems to be. Aim is to provide background of the current situation of gender equality research in the Nordic Arctic, and based on these notions, propose measures on how Arctic academia could continue to do high level academic research on gender equality. This would entail e.g. to accentuate the importance of Arctic contextualization and intersectional perspective in this field of studies, and careful consideration on what type of data, methods, research ethics and e.g. comparative research approaches are called for impactful gender equality research.