WOMEN OF THE ARCTIC: BRIDGING POLICY, RESEARCH, AND LIVED EXPERIENCE

Tahnee Prior and Gosia Smieszek are Arctic researchers working on themes of governance and environmental law. Despite the fact that there are many women experts and community leaders in the Arctic, Tahnee and Gosia noticed that there was very little representation of women at high levels in Arctic discussions. So they decided to do something about it, and created the first Women of the Arctic conference, as well as the organisation Plan A, which aims to elevate the discussion of gender in the Arctic.

Our collaboration with them involved creating a series of interviews with women attendees of the conference. As well as Tahnee and Gosia, the interviewees included; Valentina Sovkina, speaker of the Saami Parliament Kola Peninsula; the Honourable Tarja Halonen, former Finnish Prime Minister; and Sigthruður Guðmundsdóttir, Director of Kvennaathvarf which is Iceland’s first and only women’s shelter. These videos were released and will be archived online for those who have access to the internet. Audio-only versions were also released in order to provide access to those living in Arctic regions without stable access to the internet.

Women of the Arctic is now a registered nonprofit organisation.

You can learn more at genderisnotplanb.com, and on the Plan A Instagram.