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Introduction

The intricate relationship between land ownership and social sustainability is an exciting subject to show how this relationship can shape complex power dynamics in society and what effect it can have. In many countries, especially during the post-colonial era, land was commodified as an asset, leading to accumulated wealth and power being maintained within capitalist societies (Ormerod, n.d.). Thus, these policies have been significant in defining socio-economic dynamics in society. On the other hand, In Greenland, a much different approach has been followed about land ownership policies. This creates a different medium to understand the land ownership norms and their effects from another perspective. This essay investigates how land ownership policies have been transformed during colonization and the post-colonization era and their visible and non-visible effects on social sustainability in Greenland.

 

As part of the Danish Kingdom, Greenland was colonized in 1721 (Rud, 2017). Furthermore, when indigenous land ownership practices /concepts are compared to colonial and post-colonial eras, they offer similar approaches. However, with further research, it becomes more evident that their core approaches are quite different. This difference, when considering that they were tightly shaped under the control of Denmark and other global interests, and these policies were justified during the transformation to an autonomous territory, creates an environment with intricate power dynamics, forced change of Indigenous practices, and countless side effects. Greenland is a more straightforward and isolated example to examine complex and large-scale power dynamics created from the relationship between land ownership policies and social sustainability. While trying to focus on that, this essay will also expose some of the other aspects of this case, like economic, ecological, and ethical, by considering different social groups.

 

To reveal the complex relationship between land ownership policies and social sustainability, this essay will use the perspective of Urban Political Ecology (Swyngedouw & Heynen, n.d.) as a theoretical framework that examines political and ecological aspects of urban environments and partially feminist perspectives. Following that, within this concept, it will try to discover place attachment and sense of belonging and how these concepts are also affected by such relationships and power dynamics in this context. (I may also add Daniels papers in the future.)

 

Following these concepts, this paper will also try to find an answer to the question, "Who owns the land, who owns the city, and how?".

 

Answering this question will create a base to develop an idea of whether land ownership can enhance social sustainability through power dynamics, identity, place attachment, and sense of belonging within Greenland.

 

Brief Greenland History and Colonialism

As the world's largest island and a place known for its vast tundra and immersing glaciers, it is located in the North Atlantic Ocean. The Inuit, the current inhabitants, are believed to have migrated to Greenland around 1200 (Rud, 2017b). Aside from that, the colonial period began in 1721 when Danish-Norwegian missionary Hans Egede started a mission and started their settlements around the current city of Nuuk.

 

While continuing their colonialization activities, Danis-Norwegien missionaries also focused on spreading Christianity to existing Norse Greenlanders. They even baptized the Inuit Greenlanders. Along with these activities, Denmark and Norway developed their colonies around coastal lands. They quickly created a monopoly over trade, thus creating an obscure segregation between Indigenous people and their access to natural and other resources.

 

During the invasion of Denmark by Nazi Germany in World War II, Greenland became less attached to Denmark and started being more connected to America instead. After World War II, Denmark took over the colonization control of Greenland. Moreover, after some time, in 1953, with the consensus, Greenland became an overseas country connected to the Kingdom of Denmark rather than a colony. Even though this made Greenland more autonomous and self-governing, Greenland still depended on the Kingdom of Denmark on many levels (Nielsen, 1975).

Land Ownership Policies Before and After Colonization

Before Denmark and Norwegian colonization activities became more evident and dominant in the region, in the mid-18th century, the population of Greenland was nomadic and primarily dependent on fishing and hunting to be able to continue their lives. Also, when the population and the vast land area that Greenland took into consideration with the support of culture, it is easier to understand that land was not seen as an asset for the locals, unlike most other countries around the world. The land was there, and it belonged basically to everyone.

 

Nevertheless, this understanding of land ownership should not be summarized as "land belongs to everyone." Because the core thought and concept were more different than that and more profound, while land belonged to everyone, it also belonged to no one. While discovering the lands, fishing, hunting, and settling, there was no thought or intention behind the heads of the Inuit people if someone owned the land or if they should claim any rights on it. Moreover, this concept was deeply etched in their culture and collective memory. That is why such a concept has not shaped their social environment whatsoever in a negative sense (Inuit Perspectives on Land Ownership, n.d.-b).

 

Although, during and after Danish colonization in Greenland, these land ownership norms have been transformed into policies and rules, and while doing that, an unspoken norm has slowly evolved into something else. This happened under the control of Denmark due to the political power dynamics since Greenland was still primarily dependent on Denmark for political, economic, intellectual, and geographical aspects. Furthermore, this created an environment where Denmark had the loudest voice in deciding such policies.

 

Even today, owning land in Greenland as an individual or commercial body is impossible. The government has complete control over which lands are going to be used for what and whether someone can use them. In this concept, anyone can apply to build a house, do an extension, install a pipe, or even buy a car parking on the land (Housing in Greenland, n.d.). 

 

At first glance, these policies may seem to comply with indigenous practice in "no one owns the land;" thus, it has been advertised as something that goes along the collective memory and practices. But, as pointed out earlier, it should be remembered that only some people own the land in this concept. "Government owns the land" and decides how land will be used and thus will shape the urban fabric and social life/dynamics in the area.

 

 

Place Attachment and Sense of Belonging

Since it has covered the history of Greenland and colonization effects on land ownership and how it relates to much older and more profound issues of cognitive memory and culture, and how these policies can affect social sustainability in urban scape, this paper, as stated earlier, will try to investigate how these policies affect place attachment and sense of belonging and, thus social sustainability. Nevertheless, first, it needs to be clarified what these terms mean.

Place attachment is something that human beings create a relation or attachment to a specific place/location/space. Nevertheless, it is unlikely the first thought of this attachment is more about emotions and psychological attachment rather than physical or functional relation. These attachments can be created in various places, like homes, landscapes, neighborhoods, cities, or countries. Thus, this concept includes more profound interconnectedness and relations in different scales within the self, like emotional attachment, cognitive attachment, Social attachment, identity, and self-definition. That is why place attachment is dependent on location/place. It can affect individuals' social and psychological health and thus directly affect their interaction with others and urban life, as described by Dang, L., & Weiss, J. "Attachment theory teaches us that true autonomy relies on feeling securely connected to other human beings. Current developments in attachment science have recognized that bonded pairs, such as couples or parents and children, build bonds that physiologically shape their nervous systems. Contrary to many Western conceptions of the self as disconnected and atomized, operating in isolation using nothing but grit and determination, it turns out that close-knit connections to others are in large part how we grow into our own, fully expressed, autonomous selves." (Dang & Weiss, n.d.). With these effects, place attachment can also affect social sustainability.

 

A similar but also connected concept to place attachment is the sense of belonging. Again, a sense of belonging is also an emotional and psychological concept that can be easily affected by place attachment. That is why a second step to understanding a sense of belonging might help us investigate quickly how these concepts are interconnected to social sustainability. Sense of belonging can be explained as how an individual feels emotionally connected and part of a group, community, organization, or place. Like Place attachment, a sense of belonging also has different components within the self, like identification, emotional connection, inclusion, shared experiences and values, and security. 

 

That is why the sense of belonging can affect and shape individuals' perception of the environment and community. In cases like Greenland, individuals lose their place attachments and cognitive memory while being forcefully removed from one place and moved to another. It can affect their place attachment and thus a sense of belonging, resulting in bad relations and connection with community and urban life. These effects can be transformed into other results like alcohol addiction and high suicide rates, as it is in Greenland.

 

 

 

 

Efforts to Enhance Social Sustainability in the Late Colonization Era and Implementation of Scandinavian Norms

 

During the late colonization and post-colonial era in Greenland, with the increasing population, Greenland became even more dependent on Denmark and exports from other countries. This dependency was on goods and services, workforce, know-how, and intellectual assets. However, one of the most influential "improvements" and imports for Greenland was in the real estate market. This era has been called "Denization" or "modernization" by Danes. Even having two names for this era shows clearly how different social groups perceived the actions and effects during this era (Johansen, n.d), (Petersen, 2016).

 

In the real estate market, with the help of specialized workforce imports from Denmark, new "modern houses" started to be made. Meanwhile, people living in places other than the central places like Nuuk and Ilulissat were forced to move to Nuuk and Ilulissat to start living in newly built houses. Even with this aggressive approach, it needs to be acknowledged that with these new facilities, the living conditions of the Greenlanders have been drastically improved. For example, it reduced the number of people with tuberculosis (Petersen, 2016).

 

However, we must also connect this context to "Place attachment" and "Sense of belonging." Because these Greenlanders have been forcefully moved here and to a place where they did not have any cognitive memory or place attachment to it. This could have resulted from individuals negatively changing their sense of belonging.

Also, another aspect that should be noticed is how these improvements were made and by considering which inputs. Since all these imports and workforce have been from Denmark and other Scandinavian countries, their norms have been used to design the new facilities and urban life. Furthermore, indigenous and local practices etched into the culture have been skipped. Even this has resulted in adverse social and psychological side effects. That directly relates to place attachment and a sense of belonging—for instance, corridors needed to be more comprehensive for the required outer wearables.

 

Moreover, on the other hand, this "modernization" has affected place attachment and sense of belonging by standardizing people as the same individuals. This created an effect that reduced the sense of belonging and harmed identity. As stated, "Another key planning principle for modernists was equal access to housing. People have universal needs, so housing must meet those needs without discrimination. Unfortunately, housing has thus become very uniform. In an apartment complex, either everyone has a balcony or nobody has one, and just because an apartment is on the ground floor does not mean that it should have access to a veranda, as that would be unfair to the other tenants (Bech-Danielsen, 2004, pp. 76-77). This principle has been followed consistently throughout the apartment complexes in Nuuk." by Serensen& Ulla Willumsen (Serensen& Ulla Willumsen, 2013).

 

Understandably, these side effects should have been addressed, so designers have tried to improve the social quality of their designs by minimal interventions that still lack situated solutions. For example, as stated, "Nuuk's expansion to Nussuaq in the late 1970s and 1980s resulted in low-rise, high-density housing celebrating diversity in color, height, and expression. Here, designers replaced the industrial anonymity of the central housing blocks with external access stairs, balconies, and courtyards that allowed for informal meetings between the inhabitants. At this time, growing attention to the cultural practices of foraging, hunting, and fishing also prompted architects to design appropriate spaces in or outside the flats. The intimate scale of the low-rise clusters or central courtyard spaces from which most residences are accessed through semi-private stairs and spaces still speak of the designers' intention to create a new Greenlandic city- following Danish postmodern trends.

 

Directly on the exposed rock, they were reducing construction costs. Architectural typologies change, however, and where the 1960s blocks were used to frame urban space and the informal architectural language of the 1970s and 1980s created intimate spaces, the government favored tower blocks in recent years and has yet to produce quality outdoor realm. Nevertheless, these new urban spaces, wind-blown as they might be, feature playgrounds, bicycle sheds, fire pits, benches, and wintertime sliding slopes." By Peter Hemmersam and Lisbet Barboe, (Skjellum, n.d.).

 

Other Aspects of the Issue and Effects on Different Social Groups

We previously discussed how land ownership policies impact social sustainability. To fully understand this, we must consider the impact on different social groups in Greenland. For instance, the closure of Moriusaq, a small settlement in North Greenland, due to low population, high service costs, and economic instability, forced its inhabitants to move to more central locations like Nuuk (École normale supérieure de Lyon, n.d.-b). This event created social issues, such as displacement and detachment from their homeland.

 

The government's control over land ownership is opposite to the indigenous approach, where the community decides who will live where. The government decides which villages will exist, and this happened after the "Home Rule Act." The closure of Moriusaq shows how political decisions and living conditions affect social groups differently. While addressing social sustainability issues, we must also consider other aspects, such as the mining industry's environmental, ethical, and political aspects.

 

Since the legalization of self-governance, the Greenland government has encouraged mining activities, which have attracted international interest in the area. However, land ownership policies after colonization conflicting with indigenous practices have resulted in adverse side effects, such as mine sites in Isukasia intersecting with traditional reindeer hunting spaces, mine tailings being discharged into fjords in Affarlikassaa, and unbalanced employment environments affecting both economic and environmental aspects of livelihoods.

 

Social Sustainability Issues and Their Connection to Land Ownership Policies

Land ownership policies have a significant impact on the social sustainability of a community, as discussed. These policies can create long-lasting power dynamics that reduce people's sense of place, attachment, and belonging. As a result, individuals may become less engaged with their community and grow distant from their neighborhood. It is essential to recognize that this issue has a ripple effect, as low place attachment and community inactivity can affect others in the area. To address this, a broader approach incorporating the perspective of Urban Political Ecology should be taken when developing policies and urban planning, as Lawhon, Ernstson, and Silver suggested. "UPE thus investigates how social relations of class, gender, and race inform the process of urbanization and come to codify unjust urban geographies—producing healthy environments for some, while others live

close to hazards and with less access to resources." (Lawhon et al., 2013c).

 

                    While discussing that, investigating this issue from a feminist perspective can also help us understand how these power dynamics affect minorities. From a feminist perspective, it is crucial to consider marginalized groups' experiences and perspectives. This includes addressing representation, knowledge production, historical contextualization, and ethical responsibilities (Phillips & Bowling, 2003). Intersectionality, which examines the interconnectedness of various social identities and systems of oppression, is a crucial framework within feminist theory that emphasizes the importance of considering the experiences of marginalized groups (Shields, 2008). This perspective recognizes that individuals may face multiple forms of discrimination and oppression based on race, gender, sexuality, and other intersecting identities (Few‐Demo, 2014). In the context of urban safety and the politics of space, feminist struggles highlight the need to address the specific concerns and experiences of minority communities. This involves challenging dominant narratives and power structures perpetuating inequalities and exclusion (Miller et al., 2009). However, we should also ask another question by Haritaworn, Gossett, Rodriguez, and Ware: "Who has the power to make a place their own, and who does not? Who has the power to have their history reflected in a neighborhood? (Haritaworn et al., 2018)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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