Dear Cryolist members,
I would like draw your attention to the AGORA initiative workshop during the upcoming ASSW 2023 in Vienna:
"The AGORA initiative (A collaborative Arctic research community assessment of interactions between global change drivers, societies and subsystems through space and time) represents a common ground to bring together Arctic scientists, indigenous researchers, and community stakeholders as a collective to discuss the core problems faced by the Arctic in the 21st Century. This workshop will focus on how these issues may be better understood by providing a firm historical context that extends beyond our currently limited instrumental monitoring. We aim to assess the impacts of main factors associated with global change (e.g., climate, ice thaw, environmental pollution and wildlife abundance and diversity) on the Arctic and its human inhabitants using Panarctic lake sediment core records and indigenous knowledge extending back ~1000 years. Looking at the past provides the opportunity to document the complex relationships between climate, ecosystems and human societies, providing a deeper understanding of how they will respond to future changes."
The call for participants is copy-pasted at the end of this message.
Please share this information with anyone you think may be interested. For more information, please contact Sergi Pla-Rabés (sergiplarabes[at]gmail.com) and Clay Prater (prater.clay[at]gmail.com).
The workshop is scheduled for 20th of February and the format of the meeting is hybrid.
Travel funding is available for early career researchers (application deadline is 28th of December):
On behalf of the AGORA Initiative,
Mariana Verdonen
Early Stage Researcher
University of Eastern Finland
Department of Geographical and Historical Studies
"Call to participate in the Agora Workshop during the ASSW23.
Dear all,
We are writing to you because we are organising the AGORA workshop (an IASC crosscutting funded initiative) at the upcoming ASSW23 in Vienna and value your participation in our event. AGORA means "community meeting place", and our goal is to bring together researchers from all IASC working groups, Arctic stakeholders, and indigenous peoples to establish synergies for studying critical questions about the current Arctic emergency. Our approach is to start by looking to the past by combining historical approaches (i.e., traditional knowledge, archaeology, long-term monitoring records and paleo-sciences) to help document and understand the complex relationships between climate, ecosystems, and human societies throughout the Arctic. Then, with your help, we would like to discuss how best to use this knowledge to help frame current environmental and social changes in the context of the recent past (100-1000 years) and develop interdisciplinary efforts to help predict future change.
The workshop structure will begin with a short overview of the initiative, followed by a round of introductions to help break the ice. Then, we will invite indigenous representatives, IASC working group representatives (especially ECRs) and ASWW23 attendees to discuss the use of indigenous knowledge/methods, monitoring data, and historical research approaches in Arctic science. Before the coffee break, we will discuss potential research foci/interests of individual groups and outline interdisciplinary topics across groups (e.g., arctic fires, fisheries, tourism, permafrost dynamics, water & atmospheric pollution, health, biodiversity & biogeochemistry, geological risks, resources availability…)
As this is a community-led initiative, what happens next is up to you! In general, we would like to have an open discussion of the use of indigenous and historical perspectives for improving our understanding of current and future environmental and social change. So please, send us your ideas for critical topics/themes to be addressed by one or more working groups and your ideas for activities within the workshop. We have room for the day, so let's see what we can accomplish together!
We currently have a call out for travel grants (now extended until the 28th of December) for ECR's to attend the full ASSW, including our workshop and the AWG and S&HWG meetings (to go along with candidates already selected from the CWG and TWG) and for indigenous representatives/scientists to attend our meeting and any other meetings of interest over the ASSW. As nearly our entire budget is going to support these groups, we are razor thin, so if you can, please consider donating additional funds if you are able, which will go directly towards offsetting the costs of our guests.
Please share this call with anyone you think may be interested in joining our effort. To start the ball rolling, we are planning an early January meeting. Until then, please send your ideas, questions, and feedback to sergiplarabe[at]gmail.com and prater.clay[at]gmail.com, and we will do our best to incorporate your suggestions into our program. Finally, if you are interested in the January online meeting, we will send you a doodle to select the best time for all of us.
Sincerely,
The AGORA Initiative"
