Living with uncertainties: Qeqertarsuarmiut perceptions of changing sea ice: Qeqertarsuarmiut perceptions of changing sea ice

In Qeqertarsuaq on Disco Island, west Greenland, residents continue to rely on sea ice for the harvest of maritime resources across the Arctic seasons. Sea ice is important to local households because it represents an essential platform for everyday harvesting efforts along the coast. The article considers coastal dwellers' ways of engaging with environmental forces (such as winds, currents, and sea ice), in a time where climate change crisis narratives feature Inuit populations as increasingly ‘exposed’ victims on an envisioned ‘front-line’ of global warming. Since melting glaciers and ice remain the focus of climate crisis-driven narratives, which inevitably obscure the more complex engagements that abound locally, the article considers local experiences that reflect underlying socio-environmental relations. These relations are expressed through Qeqertarsuarmiut narratives that reflect interactions with a familiar environment and suggest how locals engage with an environment that has always been perceived as lively, shifting, and ever changeable. These coastal narratives reflect the complexities of local livelihoods in ways that run counter to the dominant crisis narratives about Arctic climate change. By focusing on sea ice and how it is represented in environmental change science narratives, and conversely, what it means to a Greenlandic coastal community, the article explores alternative receptions of climate change in Qeqertarsuaq.