Greenland

In a current stage of ‘Arctic fever’, former representations of Greenland as ‘cool’ are increasingly joined by ‘hot’ scenarios based on an assumption of the nation as a ‘climate winner’. Using examples from the exhibition ‘Possible Greenland’ at the Venice Architectural Biennale of 2012, this paper shows how a Greenland of the future is portrayed and branded as a sustainable nation and destination through future scenarios. The performative approach to the exhibition and its scenarios displays how issues related to all three sides of sustainability - people, planet and profit - are enrolled in an attempt to brand Greenland, but also to motivate and carry out decisions. Two scenarios from the exhibition are used to show how diverging strategies are deployed in order to envision Greenland as sustainable. Where one seeks to embrace disagreement and complexity in its inclusive approach, the other strives to cut across locally grounded controversies. The two strategies are discussed and their potential as ‘sustainability brokers’ are critically evaluated. The strategic application of the sustainability concept to the exhibition displays the multiple ways by which the concept of sustainability is deployed to exhibit and enact a sustainable future Greenland and shows the difficulty of uniting the various visions propagated through the exhibition. However, it also points to the performative and interventionist potential of scenario building for a sustainable future, which is ultimately discussed.

To describe trends in self-reported physical activity among Greenlandic schoolchildren from 1994 to 2006, and to analyse associations between physical activity and quality of life, health, academic achievement, school satisfaction and substance use. Trend analysis of the Greenlandic data reported in the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) survey on 11, 13, and 15 years olds in 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2006. Analyses of associations data on all participating children in Greenland who were 11 to 17 years old in 2006 were used. Only about 30% of all children aged 11, 13 and 15 years fulfilled the national recommendations of being moderately physically active for 60 minutes a day. A higher proportion of children were highly physically active in 2006 compared with earlier years while no trend was seen in the proportion of inactive children. Fewer children were moderately active as they aged, but at the same time more children seemed to become more physically active with increasin...

The objective was to examine the development in the prevalence of bullying behaviours among Greenlandic schoolchildren and the association with health outcome and health behaviour. The study was based on three school surveys among Greenlandic schoolchildren contributing to the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey, a WHO collaborative study. The surveys were carried out in Greenland in 1994, 1998 and 2002, with respective participations of 1322, 1648 and 891 pupils of 11, 13 and 15 years of age. The trends in bullying behaviours from 1994 to 2002 was analysed by means of descriptive statistics. The strengths of associations in the patterning of the bullying behaviours in their relation to health indicators (physical symptoms, psychological well-being and smoking and alcohol use) were analysed by means of logistic regression. There has been an increase in the occurrence of bullying among Greenlandic schoolchildren since 1994, and significant changes have occurred in ...

Respiratory morbidity in Inuit children is high. However, little is know regarding lung function measures in this population. The forced expiratory volumes in one second (FEV(1)) and forced vital capacity (FVC) in 888 Greenlandic Inuits (N=888) and Danes (N=477) aged 6-18 years were compared. Furthermore, associations between level of lung function and atopy and lifestyle factors were estimated in Greenlanders. The effect of height on FEV(1) and FVC was significantly different in Greenlanders and Danes, this difference in lung function increased with increasing height, and could not be explained by differences in age weight and BMI. Thus, Greenlanders taller than 130 cm had up to 300-400 ml higher FEV(1) and FVC compared with Danes of the same height. Among Greenlanders, those living in settlements had the highest levels of both FEV(1) and FVC. Greenlanders had elevated levels of FEV(1) and FVC compared with Danes. The Inuit having a shorter limb length in relation to trunk height may account for these differences. However, our finding that Greenlanders living in settlements had the highest lung function level also suggests a possible role of factors in the traditional Greenlandic lifestyle.

Prenatal exposure to environmental levels of organochlorines (OCs) has been demonstrated to have immunotoxic effects in humans. We investigated the relationship between prenatal exposure to OCs and the occurrence of otitis media (OM) among Inuit children in Greenland. We estimated the concentration of 14 PCB congeners and 11 pesticides in maternal and cord blood samples and in breast milk in a population-based cohort of 400 mother-child pairs. At follow-up, we examined the children's ears and used their medical records to assess the OM occurrence and severity. Multivariate regression analyses were used with adjustments for passive smoking, crowding, dietary habits, parent's educational level, breast feeding and the use of child-care. The children were 4-10 years of age at follow-up and 223 (85%) participated. We found no association between prenatal OC exposure and the development of OM. Factors associated with the child's hazard of OM during the first 4 years of life were: mother's history of OM (HR 1.70, 95% CI 1.11-2.59, p=0.01); mother's smoking habits: current (HR 2.47, 95% CI 1.45-4.21, p<0.01) and previous (HR 2.00, 95% CI 1.19-3.36, p<0.01); number of smokers in the home (HR 1.17, 95% CI 1.05-1.31, p<0.01). After adjustment mothers' smoking habits remained significant. We found no relationship between high levels of prenatal exposure of OCs and occurrence of OM. Passive smoking was found as the strongest environmental risk factor for the development of OM. Interventions to reduce passive smoke in children's environment are needed.

To compare haemoglobin concentrations in Greenlanders and Danes. Haemoglobin was measured in a population survey in 1993-1994 comprising 234 indigenous Greenlandic individuals (115 men) aged 19-82 yr. and in Copenhagen County 1983-1984 comprising 2804 Caucasian Danes (1444 men) aged 30-60 yr. The Greenlandic participants were residents in the capital Nuuk (n=70), the town Ilulissat (n=74), and four settlements in the Uummannaq district (n=90). The significance of differences was assessed by Student's t-test, and the xi2-test. Correlations were assessed by Spearman's correlation coefficient (rs). Greenlanders: Haemoglobin levels were not correlated with age or consumption of traditional foods, and were not significantly different in the three residential areas. Mean haemoglobin was higher in men, 146+/-9.6 (SD) g/L, than in women, 132+/-9.6 g/L (p<0.0001). Mean haemoglobin in iron-replete men with serum ferritin >32 microg/L (n=104) was 146+/-9.3 g/L, and in iron-replete women (n=68) 133+/-10.4 g/L (p<0.0001). The 5th percentile for haemoglobin in iron-replete men was 133 g/L (8.3 mmol/L) and in women 118 g/L (7.3 mmol/L). The prevalence of iron deficiency anaemia (i.e. ferritin <13 microg/L and Hb <5th percentile for iron-replete men and women) was 0% in men, 2.78% in women < or =50 yr of age and 0% in women >50 yr of age. Danes: Mean haemoglobin in men was 154+/-10.0 g/L and in women 138+/-10.4 g/L (p<0.0001). Haemoglobin in iron-replete men (n=1379) (i.e. serum ferritin >32 microg/L) was 154+/-10.7 g/L, and in iron-replete women (n=1003) 140+/-9.6 g/L (p<0.0001). Mean haemoglobin was lower in premenopausal than in postmenopausal women (p<0.0001). The 5th percentile for haemoglobin in iron-replete men was 137 g/L (8.5 mmol/L) and in women 124 g/L (7.7 mmol/L). The prevalence of iron deficiency anaemia (i.e. ferritin <13 microg/L and Hb <5th percentile for iron replete men and women) was 0% in men, 1.92% in women < or =50 yr of age and 0% in women >50 yr of age. Haemoglobin concentrations in Greenlanders were significantly lower than in Danes both in men (p<0.0001) and in women (p<0.0001). Delta(mean haemoglobin) in men was 8.0 g/L (0.5 mmol/L) and in women 6.2 g/L (0.4 mmol/L). Variations in haemoglobin levels may be due to genetic differences.

The traditional diet of Inuit people comprises large amounts of fish and marine mammals that are rich in omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). Results from in vitro studies, laboratory animal experiments and population studies suggest that omega-3 PUFA intake and a high omega-3/omega-6 ratio exert a positive effect on bone health. This longitudinal study was conducted to examine the relationship between omega-3 and omega-6 PUFA status and quantitative ultrasound (QUS) parameters in Greenlandic Inuit women. The study included 118 Inuit women from Nuuk (Greenland), aged 49-64 years, whose QUS parameters measured at baseline (year 2000), along with PUFA status and covariates, and follow-up QUS measurements 2 years later (year 2002). QUS parameters [speed of sound (SOS); broadband ultrasound attenuation (BUA)] were measured at the right calcaneus with a water-bath Lunar Achilles instrument. Omega-3 and omega-6 PUFA contents of erythrocyte membrane phospholipids were measured afte...

Persistent organochlorine pollutants (POPs) may interfere with reproductive function but direct evidence in humans is very limited. Fertility was examined in four regions with contrasting blood levels of POPs. Pregnant women and their partners in Warsaw (Poland), Kharkiv (Ukraine) and Greenland were consecutively enrolled during antenatal visits. Swedish fishermen and their spouses were recruited separately and independently of current pregnancy. Lipid adjusted serum concentrations of 2,2',4,4',5,5'-hexachlorobiphenyl (CB-153) and 1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis (p-chlorophenyl)-ethylene (DDE) were available for both partners. Time to pregnancy interviews were obtained among 2269 women and 798 men provided a semen sample. Inuits had high levels of both POP markers, Swedish fishermen were high in CB-153 but low in DDE, men from Kharkiv were high in DDE and low in CB-153 while men from Warsaw were low in CB-153 and had intermediate DDE levels. Compared to Warsaw couples, fecundabilit...

This study investigated whether perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS), which exhibit reproductive toxicity in experimental animals, affect sperm sex chromosome ratio. The Y:X ratio was determined by fluorescence in situ hybridization. Serum concentrations of PFOA and PFOS were measured in 607 men from Greenland, Poland and Ukraine using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Data was analyzed by linear and nonlinear regression. We observed no associations between PFOA and Y:X ratio (p=0.845 in a linear model, p=0.296 in a nonlinear model). A positive nonlinear association between PFOS and Y:X ratio was observed (p=0.016), with no association in a linear model (p=0.118). Analyzing the populations separately, a negative trend between categorized PFOS exposure and Y:X ratio was observed for the Inuit (B=-0.002, p=0.044). In conclusion, there was a negative trend between Y:X ratio and PFOS in the Inuit, while there was no association between PFOA and the Y:X ratio in adult men.

This chapter analyses the emotional dynamics of Christian mission in two very different eighteenth-century colonial contexts: Greenland (1721–36) and Australia (1788–91).  In particular, it focuses on the ways in which narratives written by the first missionaries in each setting – the Lutheran minister Hans Egede in Greenland and the Anglican chaplain Richard Johnson in Australia – at once described, constituted and entrenched these dynamics. The narratives under consideration concern the missionaries’ attempts to form relationships with and ultimately to convert to Christianity two indigenous ‘helpers’ to Christianity. Egede’s case involved a 12-year-old Greenlandic boy called Papa,  and in Johnson’s case an Australian girl aged between 12 and 15 years called ‘Boorong’.  Both Egede and Johnson saw these relationships as opportunities to cultivate particular emotions – in themselves, in their indigenous ‘helpers’ and their kinspeople, and in their audiences of friends and supporters at ‘home’ in Europe – which, they hoped, would further the project of indigenous conversions to Christianity and at the same time promote goodwill for their cause amongst indigenous peoples and metropolitan supporters.

The mythos of selkies and Finnmen in the folklore traditions of the Hebrides and Northern Isles are said to indicate memories of contact with Inuit maritime hunting cultures, a product of the Norse expansion into Greenland, as well as the Norse habit of ascribing shape-shifting and sorcery to the Sámi.  The late Seventeenth Century also saw a peak in documentary accounts of encounters with Inuit and their kayaks on the coasts of Scotland, leading to speculation about possible explanations: the southward expansion of the ice pack, miraculous solo voyages, storm-tossed survivors.  The most plausible explanation offered for these sporadic intercultural encounters is the abduction of Inuit individuals by Dutch and Danish whalers and merchants for commercial and scientific purposes, a practice that became so problematic that the Dutch States General had to pass a law against the murder and kidnapping of Inuit in 1720.  Similarly, Christian VI of Denmark issued a formal proclamation against transporting Greenlanders to Denmark in 1732.  The abducted autochthonous body thus became part of the ‘colonial trade with wildness that ensures civilization its savagery’ (Taussig, 1993, xviii), objects of scientific curiosity cognate with the circumpolar artefacts that filled the Wunderkammer of Europe.  I argue that these anomalous, highly unusual accounts of encounters with Inuit in Scottish waters should be understood as part of a European scientific tradition of preternatural philosophy, occupied with ‘deviating instances: such as the errors of nature, or strange and monstrous objects’ a tradition emerging out of a providentialist worldview that nevertheless held ‘that all such anomalies might be ultimately explained by recourse to natural causes.’  (Daston, 2000, 16, 17).  It is this element of the uncanny that has ensured these tales have been recalled, reinterpreted and incorporated into contemporary accounts of selfhood and identity in both the Western and Northern Isles and amongst recreational sea kayakers in the UK.  Inuit encounter tales in Scottish place-lore and the contemporary popular history books that try to explain them are both acts of poiesis, informing a sense of regional particularism.  Sensuous contact with Inuit hunting technologies in the form of the modern recreational sea kayak enables a kind of reverse colonialism to be imagined.  Western European leisure cultures exist as sites of ‘second contact’, places where we should expect to find ‘the birth of a radically different border between the West and the rest, between civilization and its Others’. (Taussig, 1993, 251)

References
Lorraine Daston (2000), ‘Preternatural Philosophy’ in Biographies of Scientific Objects, edited by Lorraine Daston, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 15-41.
Michael Taussig (1993) Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses.  London: Routledge.

In contrast with other Arctic nations, the United States has long had an ambivalent relationship with the Polar Regions. The increasing awareness of the effects of climate change, continuing public debates over the viability of Arctic resource extraction, and growing concerns over American security interests in both the Arctic and Antarctic, however, have led to a resurgence of American interest in the Polar Regions. Although these are often presented in the media as new challenges, this paper argues that this is not the case. It demonstrates when and why the American government became interested in the Polar Regions in the early 20th Century and will discuss the ways in which President Franklin Roosevelt extended American political, economic, and military influence into both poles, as well as the lasting impacts of his actions on the governance of these geopolitically significant regions.

We report initial 87Sr/86Sr values from an Upper Proterozoic carbonate succession from Svalbard and East Greenland. This succession, now tectonically separated into three sequences, is thick, relatively continuous, and well preserved. The relative ages of the samples from within the basin are well constrained by litho-, bio-, and chemostratigraphic techniques. The data from this study and related data from the literature are used to construct a curve of 87Sr/86Sr for Upper Proterozoic seawater. The new data reported in this study substantially improve the isotopic record of Sr in seawater for the period between 650 and 800 Ma. The data indicate that delta 87Sr values of seawater were variable but low (delta 87Sr approximately -500 to -250) between 900 and 650 Ma, and rose rapidly to approximately +30 by 600 Ma. The range of variation of delta 87Sr in seawater during the Riphean-Vendian exceeds the entire range of delta 87Sr in seawater during the Phanerozoic. While variation in the average isotopic composition of Sr delivered to the oceans by rivers can account for some of the observed range, changes in the ratio of submarine hydrothermal flux to river water (continental) flux are responsible for the large variation in seawater Sr isotopic composition. Changes in the continental flux of Sr to the oceans can be related to tectonic factors. Large changes in the hydrothermal flux to river water flux ratio indicated by the data could have significant consequences for the chemistry of the ocean-atmosphere system.

The environmental impact of the Norse landnám (colonization) in Greenland has been studied extensively.
But to date, no study has quantified the soil erosion that Norse agricultural practices are believed
to have caused. To resolve this problem, a high resolution sedimentary record from Lake Igaliku in South
Greenland is used to quantitatively reconstruct 2500 years of soil erosion driven by climate and historical
land use. An accurate chronology, established on 18 AMS 14C, and 210Pb and 137Cs dates, allows for the
estimation of detritic fluxes and their uncertainties. Land clearance and the introduction of grazing
livestock by the Norse around 1010 AD caused an acceleration of soil erosion up to w8 mm century
1 in
1180 AD which is two-fold higher than the natural pre-landnám background. From 1335 AD to the end of
the Norse Eastern Settlement (in the mid-fifteenth century), the vegetation began to recover from initial
disturbance and soil erosion decreased. After an initial phase of modern sheep breeding similar to the
medieval one, the mechanization of agriculture in the 1980s caused an unprecedented soil erosion rate of
up to w21 mm century
1, five times the pre-anthropogenic levels. Independently, a suite of biological
and geochemical proxies (including Ti and diatom concentrations, C:N ratio, d13C and d15N of organic
matter) confirm that the medieval and modern anthropogenic erosion far exceeds any natural erosion
over the last 2500 years. Our findings question the veracity of the catastrophic scenario of overgrazing
and land degradation considered to have been the major factor responsible for Norse settlement demise.
They also shed light on the sustainability of modern practices and their consequences for the future of
agriculture in Greenland.

Five hundred years before Columbus sailed for the New World, the Norse came and colonized Greenland. Not only did they have to adapt to a harsh new environment but they also had to contend with the Inuit, a group of people with a lifestyle completely unfamiliar to the European Norse. The talk analyses the nature of the four hundred years of contact, or the lack of it, between the Norse and the Inuit and tries to explain why it was so.

This paper examines the consequences of the United States’ application of the Monroe Doctrine to Greenland for the governance of the island’s security. Among those consequences has been the establishment of US military bases, some of which continue to play key roles in US national security. It explores the probable consequences for US policy of two major developments: those of Greenland’s gradual move to full independence from Denmark, and of the warming of the Arctic region.

Deposits of iron-rich rock, described as "iron-formation" (IF) by previous investigators, are found on Simiûtat, a small island in the NW Buksefjorden region, ~50 km south of Nuuk (formerly Godthåb).  The IF occurs as conformable lenses (up to ~10 m across) within Malene metasedimentary gneisses containing qtz + crd ± anth/ged ± garn ± sill (QCG).  Each IF occurrence has a distinct set of assemblages:  [1] qtz + mgt + grunerite + gahnite, with a surrounding layer of massive gedridite;  [2] qtz + mgt + gedrite + gahnite ± apatite ± nigerite ± hbl ± plag;  [3] qtz + gedrite + crd + biot ± garn ± sill ± stl ± gahnite, with abundant sulfides.
Ten IF samples were analyzed by XRF and INA methods.  Major element compositions are highly variable (SiO2 =14-73 wt%, Al2O3 =2-14, Fe2O3-T =13-77 and MgO =6-22), with low Na2O (0.1-1.1 wt %), CaO (<0.7), K2O (<0.2) and TiO2 (<0.5).  Concentrations of Sc (<13 ppm), Cr (<14), Co (<64) and Ni (<35) are all low, but Cu and Zn range to high values (up to 1530 and 7920 ppm, respectivley).  Zr (75-1127 ppm), Hf (3-33), Nb (6.4-38) and Ta (0.4-4.5) also range to high values as does Ga (7-367 ppm) and Se (<0.4-33!).  REE pattern shapes are of three types, but do not correlate to assemblage or locality:  Type I (similar to the host QCG) are enriched and smoothly fractionated (LaN ~ 200 X chondrites; LuN ~50X) with prominent negative Eu-anomalies;  Type II are relatively flat (LaN ~ 35X; LuN ~ 25X) with small positive or no Eu-anomalies;  and Type III have depleted light REE (LaN ~15X), enriched heavy REE (LuN ~90X) and small negative Eu-anomalies.
In terms of trace element geochemistry, the Malene IF are unlike any previously reported occurrence of banded iron-formation of any age.  As such they cannot represent precipitates from either seawater or hydrothermal fluids diluted by seawater.  Furthermore, low concentrations of W (<0.1-14.4 ppm) and As (<1.1) and absence of scheelite belie current identification of this region as a tungsten mineral district.  On the other hand, certain aspects of the IF geochemistry (high Zr, Hf, Nb, Ta, Th, U, Ga) indicate an affinity to the host QCG.  We have previously interpreted the latter to represent metamorphosed felsic volcaniclastic sediments that underwent extensive, pre-metamorphic hydrothermal alteration by heated seawater.  We propose that the Malene IF represent the metamorphosed remnants of the conduit-system through which the fluids responsible for the alteration of the host gneisses were transported.

We report new data for major, minor and trace elements in forty-nine samples of Malene supracrustal rocks, NW Buksefjorden region, West Greenland. The samples consist principally of quartz±cordierite±biotite±garnet±anthophyllite/gedrite±sillimanite, with abundant accessory zircon, and minor rutile, allanite and monazite; plagioclase is rare to absent, while muscovite occurs in only a few cases. Thus, the Malene paragneisses closely resemble cordierite-orthoamphibole rocks found in other metamorphic complexes. The NW Buksefjorden Malene paragneisses have, on average, high SiO2, moderate Al2O3, Fe2O3(T) and MgO, and low K2O, Na2O and (especially) CaO. Distinctive trace element characteristics include: (1) low Sc, Co, Cr, Ni and Sr; (2) high Y, Zr, Nb, Hf, Ta, Th, U and REE, with prominent negative Eu-anomalies in nearly every case; and (3) high Ga (up to 65 ppm), with ratios significantly higher than average crustal material. On the basis of AFM assemblage type, the paragneisses can be divided into distinct groups which preserve the field distinctions noted by previous workers. However, these groupings primarily reflect variations in mg (total range from 0.26–0.89), with no meaningful distinctions appearing among trace elements except possibly Cu.The trace element characteristics of the NW Buksefjorden Malene paragneisses are identical to those of the Malene quartz-cordierite gneisses found throughout the greater Godthåbsfjord region. These gneisses are different from the Malene quartzite-psammite-pelite group of clastic metasediments. The trace element data of the quartz-cordierite gneisses are compatible with a protolith dominated by material derived from felsic igneous precursors, an interpretation supported by immobile element discriminant plots and ternary La-Th-Sc and Th-Co-Hf plots. However, negative Eu-anomalies and low Sr and Ca suggest that plagioclase was lost from the protolith or from the precursor lithology (or both). The high concentrations of Ga indicate either that the source rocks for the paragneisses were unusually Ga-rich, or that assembly of the protolith was accompanied by a major fractionation of Al from Ga.We propose that the protolith for most of the NW Buksefjorden Malene paragneisses was a quartz-chlorite-sericite schist derived from felsic volcaniclastic sediment hydrothermally altered by seawater prior to metamorphism. This alteration resulted in gain of Mg (and possibly Fe) and loss of lime and alkalis (and possibly Sr and Eu). This hypothesis contrasts with earlier proposals that the protolith included Mg-rich clay (palygorskite) that precipitated directly from seawater, but it is more consistent with the new data. There is a remarkably close correspondence between the element enrichments (and depletions) shown by the Malene paragneisses and those found in A-type granitic rocks and their volcanic equivalents. Consequently, we suggest a comparable source for the paragneisses. The petrogenesis of A-type granites is associated typically with thickened, stable continental crust. This implies that the protolith for the Malene paragneisses formed after, or in conjunction with, a major event of Archaean crustal thickening.

Legal Pluralism in the World Society? The Customary Law of Indigenous Peoples Based on the Example of the Greenlandic Inuit

The traditional Greenlandic customary law, which is of significance for villagers in the small settlements on Greenland's west coast, is confronted with conflicting demands by the global environmental regime. Can traditional customary rights of indigenous peoples be maintained in a global society? As the example of the Greenlandic Inuit illustrates the conflict to ensure the continuation of hunting activities, however, cannot be understood as a conflict between societies that have different legal and rationality conceptions. The intellectual elites in the Greenland Self-Government are taking over the structural patterns of the global model of nature and run information campaigns about the biological status of the species. Hunters cite their traditional hunting rights and reject this information and those hunting restrictions. As a consequence, intra-societal conflicts develop between Greenland elites and hunters and thus in situations of legal pluralism within Greenland.

Ninety-seven percent of Danish territory lies outside metropolitan Denmark, making Denmark the Western European state with the largest territory. Yet Danish political discourse and its translations into English systematically render the strategically important North Atlantic territories invisible. The chapter analyses five contemporary translations of the official Danish name for Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands (Danmarks Rige) and the derived term used since 1975 for the relationship between the territorial units of the state (Rigsfællesskabet). In spite of strong uncertainty as to what to call the collective in English, all governmental and most non-governmental translations tend to avoid language that reminds the reader of the colonial history out of which today's constitutional arrangements and terminology arose. It is suggested that this is due, on the one hand, to a pervasive myth of Denmark as a small state with no significant colonial history and, on the other hand, a perceived need to conform to a global "standard of civilization" set by the United States and postcolonial states since 1945. The hegemonic discourse of Danish national identity, however, is strongly influenced by its colonial past and incompletely decolonized present. This colonial intellectual legacy marginalizes the bulk of Danish territory and its population to a positions "outside universal history".

According to the neoinstitutional theory of the world polity, peripheral societies switch to the complete institutional apparatus of modern social organization. The system of the United Nations leads to the expansion of legal “global models,” for instance global models of how to perceive nature and indigeneity. As rational actors, peripheral societies follow global models, which appear as given “scripts,” to gain recognition. As a local peripheral society, Greenland develops in a manner influenced by global formal structures. Hence, the impact of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) has been immense: First, environmental management and environmental protection institutions and organizations have been established in line with the global model of nature. Second, the Greenlandic Inuit have been recognized as an indigenous people possessing traditional ecological knowledge (global model of indigeneity). Hence, the CBD adopted the image of the “noble eco-savage” living in harmony with nature, an image that the Greenlandic Inuit later reproduced themselves. However, the institutionalization of the CBD is not without contradictions.