"Since the International Polar Year, 2007-09, the Arctic has returned to international public attention over the last decade. Global climatic changes have resulted in unprecedented coverage of the plight of the polar bear, resource extraction, indigenous self-determination and competing definitions of sovereignty among Arctic nation-states. But how have these challenges impacted upon the practices of environmental science in the High Arctic? This book investigates the field cultures constructed by those individuals tasked with understanding global futures. In Studying Arctic Fields: Cultures, Practices, and Environmental Sciences, Richard Powell provides the first ethnographic account of a polar field station, conducted at Resolute, Nunavut in the Canadian High Arctic. By innovatively combining ethnography with the history of the Government of Canada's Polar Continental Shelf Program, founded in 1958 as part of John Diefenbaker's 'Northern Vision', the book investigates the post-war evolution of 'scientific sovereignty' and its social consequences in the Canadian Arctic. The Arctic scientific community today is structured along power differentials in response to gender, class, and race. In delineating this expanded conception of the scientific human, the book argues for greater appreciation of the activities that constitute science in remote places. By revealing these histories and cultures, Studying Arctic Fields makes a significant and distinctive contribution to anthropology, science studies and geography, as well as providing a landmark statement about the cultures and politics of Arctic science as a social practice.

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