Constructing low tension : The role of experts and narratives in the case of Greenland

Abstract

As the Arctic has grown more popular across academia, policymaking. and news media, it begs important questions about how non-traditional actors in the region such as Greenland have been narrated over time. This article frames Greenland as a Nordic actor in the Arctic that has many different roles—a paradiplomatic actor, the site of US–China competition, or the potential site of uranium mining, asks how narratives from the United States, Denmark, and Greenland have framed Greenland in security discourse over time, and how these narratives constrain outside expert influence. These low-tension narratives are largely predominant across both US and Danish narratives. By contrast, Greenlandic narratives desecuritize the island as part of its longstanding quest for sovereignty. This dominance of low-tension narratives suggests that even for a close-knit community of practice surrounding Greenland, the narrative power of low-tension limits the influence of experts, even if they have heightened access.