Call for Contributions: Arctic Multispecies Histories: Art, Community and Environmental Change

This collection proposes a new approach to environmental history in the Arctic by positioning art and community practice as living archives of ecological entanglement. In contrast to conventional environmental histories that rely primarily on documentary archives and scientific records, this volume explores how Indigenous and non-Indigenous heritage craft, design, visual art, music, storytelling, and performance actively participate in making, remembering, transmitting, and reinventing multispecies relations over time.

The book foregrounds the Arctic as a historically layered and politically contested region shaped by extraction, colonial governance, climate change, and Indigenous resurgence. It foregrounds art as a vital form of situated environmental knowledge. Music, storytelling, and crafts transmit relational ontologies where Land, water, animals, and spirits are recognized as integral members of ecological communities. Arctic art and design embed intergenerational ecological memory within material practices, while contemporary forms of Arctic art document and critique extractivism, negotiating sustainability, protection, and resource-based livelihoods.

Bringing together environmental history, Arctic studies, arts-based research, and community-based methodologies, this book will advance the concept of art as a transformative and transmitting medium of ecological relations. It will examine how artistic and cultural practices sustain cultural continuity while simultaneously innovating new forms of expression and material use, thereby responding to melting ice, shifting livelihoods, industrial expansion, and social injustice. Through diverse case studies from circumpolar contexts, the book will demonstrate how art mediates environmental justice claims, articulates multispecies ethics, and supports collective resilience.

Included in this call is a list of potential sections for the collection, all of which should be broadly interpreted. Importantly, this is a draft list and can be modified depending on the contributions in response to this call and to accommodate the interests of contributing authors.

If you are interested in contributing to this collection, please submit an abstract of your proposed contribution for review (up to 1 page in length) along with a short (~150 word) biography by April 30, 2026. (Note: submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis beginning immediately).

Please send all submissions to Maria Huhmarniemi and Antonia Sohns: aasohns@gmail.com  and maria.huhmarniemi@ulapland.fi. 

We are currently developing this edited collection for submission to Routledge's Environmental History series, and the final shape of the volume will be refined in dialogue with the selected contributors. Thank you for your consideration and we look forward to receiving your proposals.

Preliminary Structure of the Collection

Part I: Art as Living Archives: Reimagining Arctic Environmental Histories

• art and community practice as environmental archives
• limitations of conventional historiography in Arctic contexts
• Indigenous art forms and alternative frameworks for environmental history
• ecological memory, relational ontologies, and multispecies histories
• the role of Indigenous knowledge systems in shaping multispecies relations and ecological memory.

Part II: Material Practices and Ecological Memory: Craft, Design, and Visual Art

• textile arts, craft, and material knowledge
• carving, design, and visual storytelling
• artistic documentation of ecological transformation
• human-animal-land relationships in material and visual practices
• case studies will highlight how these art forms transmit knowledge about multispecies interactions over time.

Part III: Sonic and Oral Histories: Music, Storytelling, and Performance

• storytelling and oral traditions as environmental history
• the role of music and sound in transmitting relational ontologies, where Land, water, animals, and spirits are recognized as members of ecological communities.
• case studies will explore traditional and contemporary Arctic music forms.

Part IV: Art, Activism, and Resilience: Mediating Environmental Justice and Multispecies Ethics

• case studies on how contemporary Arctic art actively participates in documenting and critiquing extractivism, negotiating sustainability, and advocating for environmental justice.
• collaborative projects that foster reciprocal relationships with the more-than-human world.
• multispecies ethics and the more-than-human world
• future directions in arts-based Arctic environmental histories