Abstract for: Peace Engineering in the Arctic: Accommodating diverse interests in a changing environment.

This research engages diverse Arctic researchers, practitioners, and stakeholders in building a dynamic, systems-level understanding of interdependencies between Arctic activities motivated by “negative peace” goals and concerns (e.g., deterring, detecting and responding to environmental and security risks); and “positive peace” goals and concerns (e. g, leveraging technological advances and economic incentives, providing robust emergency response capabilities, building indigenous community resilience, and providing individuals and communities in the Arctic a measure of fate control) in a context of changing geopolitical, economic, and environmental conditions. In such a rapidly morphing environment, there is a large benefit in recognizing the intertwined risks and their evolving consequences – and how to work together to overcome development and implementation delays for effective mitigation/response. Ultimately, the model will be used to identify transformational opportunities to bring together “negative” and “positive” peace agendas and explore potential impacts of uncertainties on system-level outcomes of activities as a whole. With this understanding, stakeholders can collaboratively develop a framework for prioritizing and managing the sequencing, resourcing, and staging of key current and future activities. In so doing, we hope to establish a mechanism of addressing conflicts in the Arctic before they reach a point of contention, in order to maintain the Arctic as a zone of peace.