Pulling back the curtain: coloniality-based narratives of wilderness in US Arctic policy

ABSTRACT Traditional readings of state-centric security in the Arctic centre questions of physical, political, and economic security as the primary issues for the eight Arctic states. These more material aspects of security, however, do not adequately explain the role of coloniality in Arctic security policies and the prevalence of coloniality-based narratives of wilderness in Arctic policy. I argue that in sustaining its ontological security in the Arctic, the United States – across the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations – uses coloniality-based narratives of wilderness to justify policy. By conducting a discourse analysis focused on ‘wilderness’ conceptualisations of American Arctic policy from 2009 to 2021, I demonstrate that the United States continues to use coloniality-based narratives to understand the Arctic and that this has serious consequences for how the United States can act in the Arctic now and in the future. As a settler colonial state, the continuation of the United States’ sense of self is intrinsically connected to coloniality, which has profound implications for Indigenous and northern peoples.