Climate change – probably the very core issue of the various disciplines of Arctic and polar research. Apart from environmental changes, climate change is also what is perceived as one of the core drivers of socio-economic change in the Arctic (ACIA 2004), contributing to a discourse which victimises especially the Arctic's indigenous peoples. The present volume by renowned anthropologist and Greenland-expert Frank Sejersen aims to go beyond this narrative and already in the opening pages of this book notes that ‘we have to rethink how we approach and understand the Arctic [. . .]’ as ‘Arctic peoples are actively changing, creating and anticipating the very world they perceive to be their homeland’ (page 3). As a consequence, these societal actions, Sejersen asserts, ‘cannot be understood purely as adaptation or simply in terms of coping with climate change’ since they are active players in ‘reorganising and transforming their societies’ (ibid.).

With these words in mind, the author engages into a truly thought-provoking and somewhat provocative discussion on the public discourse on the Arctic and the Arctic's indigenous peoples. He stipulates that the Arctic is a region of flow, integrated into the world's shifting system, and should thus not be considered an isolated region. Similarly, using Greenland as his case study, Sejersen shows how perceptions on the Arctic's indigenous peoples in light of climate change consider them primary as vulnerable stakeholders, while they themselves are indeed ‘future makers’, as Sejersen calls them, and rights holders. The Greenlandic debates concerning large-scale industrialisation and their recognition as a distinct people under international law as stipulated in the 2009 Self-government Act (Greenland 2009) underlines this.

Sejersen thus moves on to discuss the role of indigenous peoples in the decision-making processes and the need not only to consider them as stakeholders, but as fully integrated rights holders into larger legal and political framework, especially with regard to adaptation strategies, which are often barred by legal or political acts, preventing them from fully unfolding. By establishing the term ‘double agency’, the author highlights that it is participation in combination with right-holder possibilities/self-determination that would enable full adaptive capacities within already exiting legal frameworks, such as land claims agreements, in the Arctic. All existing agreements, however, show shortcomings in fully enabling ‘double agency’.

The somewhat contradictory roles Greenland plays within the discourse of climate change are elaborated upon by the author when he discusses Greenland's dual position as a symbol of climate change on the one hand, and on the other as an (emerging) independent economy establishing industrial mega-projects and thus contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. Sejersen skilfully links the different narratives that he discussed in the previous chapters into his discussion on the long-term transformation of the Greenlandic society, also touching upon the role of technology as a contributor to societal and cultural change.

The direct implications of societal change are presented by the author by depicting the shifts of consciousness about the community, the environment and identity of the community of Maniitsoq in south-western Greenland where an aluminium smelter is planned to be built. Contrary to large-scale industrial projects in other indigenous areas that are mostly faced with opposition (see for example Bush Reference Bush2013), the citizens of Maniitsoq by and large welcome the smelter to contribute to the town's future development and sustainability (page 141). And what this implies for the identity of the town's inhabitants and their understanding, interpretation and utilisation of place and places in and around Maniitsoq is impressively analysed by Sejersen. The transformation of the socio-economic and cultural fabric become understandable and the chapter provides a bottom-up insight into the local consciousness regarding industrialisation, place and development. Here must be mentioned that very short and summarised versions of the chapters 3, 4, and 5, Mega-industrialising Greenland, Reforming a society by means of society and Place consciousness and the renewal of Maniitsoq can also be found in Sejersen's contributions, albeit in very shortened and summarised form, to the outstanding volume Living with environmental change - Waterworlds (Hastrup and Rubow Reference Hastrup and Rubow2014).

This inevitably leads to the question of scaling: is climate change a locally or a globally perceived and acted-upon phenomenon? Sejersen shows different approaches to this question and highlights throughout the need for a local or ‘extra-local’ understanding of adaptation. He consequently explicates that scaling ‘is more than a question of size and extent but just as much a matter of perspective and room for social agency’ (page 184). He shows that by applying different scales, significant differences in analytical results are yielded, ‘allowing distinctive voices and forms of agency to emerge while other can be left in the analytical shadows’ (page 187). The importance of this finding cannot be stressed enough. Especially the chapter The social life of globalisation and scale-makers provides thus an important theoretical and methodological discussion relevant for social and political scientists.

In the last chapter of this thought-provoking and deeply insightful book leaves on an equally thought-provoking note: the disempowerment of indigenous peoples by including indigenous knowledge into the discourse on climate change adaptation and mitigation as well as community development. Sejersen's primary argument rests on the assertion that Inuit knowledge is reduced to a cultural ecology, stressing merely the Inuit's dependence on the environment rather than fully contextualising it within larger contexts of society, sustainability and agency. Sejersen in essence follows Procter's criticism who sees the utilisation of decontextualised indigenous knowledge as part of political power structures (Procter Reference Procter, Bauer, Donecker, Ehrenfried and Hinrsperger2005) and points out that ‘Inuit never simply react to climate change as an isolated issue, but engage, instead, in complex social, political and moral practices of re-orientation and envisioning’ (page 225). And by underlining that indigenous peoples, within the complex web of (de-)colonisation, development, knowledge, problems and solutions, are indeed ‘future-makers’ the book ends. . . and leaves this reviewer deeply impressed. Because not only provides Rethinking Greenland significant ethnographic data on contemporary Greenlandic society, but it also challenges contemporary ways of thinking about climate change, indigenous peoples, legal frameworks and methodologies. The cover of the book, a photo of a man dressed in black snowmobile clothing overlooking the, presumably, Greenlandic coast, underlines the fresh approach to these issues.

It can be concluded that apart from the ethnographic data provided in this book, the sophisticated discussions presented here challenge common understandings of Arctic and climate research. Irrespective of the discipline one conducts Arctic research in Sejersen's book should become an elementary part of the literature as it touches upon a multitude of facets of political, legal and naturally social research. Frank Sejersen once again underlines that he is a leading expert in critical thinking on prevailing (Arctic) discourses, yet always for the benefit of Arctic communities.