[Originally published on The Arctic Circle website to promote the upcoming talk by Dr. Danita Catherine Burke on October 12th, 2021 on the establishment of the Women in the Arctic and Antarctic]
550th Meeting – The Arctic Circle
12 October 2021
Danita Catherine Burke
WOMEN IN THE ARCTIC AND ANTARCTIC: FINDING WAYS TO MAKE NETWORKING AND INFORMATION-SHARING ACCESSIBLE AND FREE
“Women in the Arctic and Antarctic” (WiAA), which was founded by the speaker, is a politically neutral initiative that helps to promote women’s activities in the Arctic, Antarctic and the North. Access to opportunities to promote one’s credentials and experiences doing Polar work is a challenge for many. Existing opportunities are often tied to conference attendance and access to events, networking through prior connections, preconditions of alignment with political or ideological views and access to funding and university support that many people do not have. The WiAA tries to simplify networking by removing many access barriers to participation, empowering individuals to promote their profiles to contribute to Polar scholarship and/or representation on their own terms and choosing people they want to network with based on their credentials, expertise and experiences.
Danita Catherine Burke hails from Newfoundland. She studied political science at Memorial University and then moved to Wales for a PhD in International Politics at Aberystwyth University. Since completing her PhD, Dr. Burke has been based at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense as a research fellow, first supported by a Carlsberg Foundation Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship and then a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship. She is currently a Fellow of the JR Smallwood Foundation for Newfoundland and Labrador Studies in St. John’s. Among Dr. Burke’s publications are International Disputes and Cultural Ideas in the Canadian Arctic: Arctic Sovereignty in the National Consciousness (2018, Palgrave Macmillan) and Diplomacy and the Arctic Council (2019, McGill-Queen’s University Press).
This meeting is the first of The Arctic Circle’s 2021-22 season and will be hosted on Zoom by Prof. Chris Burn (Carleton University), beginning at 7:45 pm. It will be open to members and their guests, who all must pre-register. Registration is free, but an intention to attend must be indicated before 5.30 pm on October 12 by sending an email to: christopher.burn@carleton.ca. Please provide your name in the text of the email. You will receive, by email, login instructions for Zoom, which will be an internet address for you to paste in your browser. On the night, you will be placed in a waiting room and admitted if your details have been received. We will not admit the general public in order to minimize the chances of sabotage. It is important that the managing host of the meeting should be able to recognize your name when you log in.
Women in the Arctic and Antarctic 