Saami Council

This essay explores the development of an artistic persona and choices within the creative processes of border-crossing artists. Similar to the act of border crossing, the transcorporeal experience contains attempts to enter the unity of the body of the artist and the artwork with the socio-politics of the new site for artistic expression. In the action of border-crossing, artistic practice enters the holistic approach as the human, functioning in the new and unfamiliar society, and as the artist, thus continually shaping the individual’s artistic persona and artistic voice. The focus group data from the early-career border-crossing artists originating from Belarus and living in Lithuania are used alongside my autoethnographic data as a Lithuanian artist living in the Arctic North and the visual data from a middle-career artist from Lithuania living and working in the Nordic and Arctic North regions. This data was used for the reflexive analysis. The results outline the possible impact of border-crossing on artistic practice.

Historically, health research in the Arctic has focused on documenting ill-health using a narrow set of deficit-oriented epidemiologic indicators (i.e., prevalence of disease and mortality rates). While useful, this type of research does not adequately capture the breadth and complexities of community health and well-being, and fails to highlight solutions. A community's context, strengths, and continued expressions of well-being need to guide inquiries, inform processes, and contextualize recommendations. In this paper, we present a conceptual framework developed to address the aforementioned concerns and inform community-led health and social research in the Arctic. The proposed framework is informed by our collective collaborations with circumpolar communities, and syntheses of individual and group research undertaken throughout the Circumpolar North. Our framework encourages investigation into the contextual factors that promote circumpolar communities to thrive. Our framework centers on the visual imagery of an iceberg. There is a need to dive deeper than superficial indicators of health to examine individual, family, social, cultural, historical, linguistic, and environmental contexts that support communities in the Circumpolar North to thrive. A participatory community-based approach in conjunction with ongoing epidemiologic research is necessary in order to effectively support health and wellness. Conclusions: The iceberg framework is a way to conceptualize circumpolar health research and encourage investigators to both monitor epidemiologic indicators and also dive below the surface using participatory methodology to investigate contextual factors that support thriving communities.

Background and Aims: Despite known Indigenous health and socioeconomic disadvantage in countries with a Very High Human Development Index, data on the incidence of stroke in these populations are sparse. With oversight from an Indigenous Advisory Board, we will undertake a systematic review of the incidence of stroke in Indigenous populations of developed countries or regions, with comparisons between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations of the same region, though not between different Indigenous populations.Methods: Using PubMed, OVID-EMBASE, and Global Health databases, we will examine population-based incidence studies of stroke in Indigenous adult populations of developed countries published 1990-current, without language restriction. Non-peer-reviewed sources, studies including <10 Indigenous People, or with insufficient data to determine incidence, will be excluded. Two reviewers will independently validate the search strategies, screen titles and abstracts, and record reasons for rejection. Relevant articles will undergo full-text screening, with standard data extracted for all studies included. Quality assessment will include Sudlow and Warlow's criteria for population-based stroke incidence studies, the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale for risk of bias, and the CONSIDER checklist for Indigenous research.Results: Primary outcomes include crude, age-specific and/or age-standardized incidence of stroke. Secondary outcomes include overall stroke rates, incidence rate ratio and case-fatality. Results will be synthesized in figures and tables, describing data sources, populations, methodology, and findings. Within-population meta-analysis will be performed if, and where, methodologically sound and comparable studies allow this.Conclusion: We will undertake the first systematic review assessing disparities in stroke incidence in Indigenous populations of developed countries. Data outputs will be disseminated to relevant Indigenous stakeholders to inform public health and policy research.

This paper documents changes in three villages of the Ponoy River region, Murmansk, Russia between 2006 and 2020. Two keystone species—the Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and northern pike (Esox lucius) as well as an introduced species, the pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha), were studied to determine changes to fish and fisheries. Oral histories, community-based observations and literature data are used to establish key messages on river health from the 1800s to 2020, including temperature data from 1864 to present. Climate change becomes increasingly evident and impacts the Ponoy River system from 1980s onwards with system-relevant changes becoming more pronounced in late 2010s. This coincides with proliferation of pink salmon from 2006 onwards. The species was introduced from the Russian Far East in the 1930s. Very few long-term community-based observation processes have taken place in the Russian North and this paper corrects this to certain extent. Ponoy River and region are important as the last major roadless wilderness area of the European North. Societal and climate changes are rapidly impacting the river and its catchment area as well as the available biological resources and consequently the local culture. This study shows the value of local communities to determine base lines and highlight ongoing changes when establishing climate change impacts and impacts of an alien species.