Conclusion: sustainability reconfiguring identity, space, and time

In the conclusion, we condense our take on how sustainability works as a political concept in the Arctic. The different sustainability narratives analysed in the individual contributions of the book only to clearly show how the complexities of the Arctic obstructs easy conclusions. However, abstracting from the individual narratives, we strive to show general patterns and tendencies stemming from peculiarities of the Arctic shared across the region. We discuss, in turn, the reconfigurations of identity, space, and time. These discussions reveal how sustainability both turns to reconfirm states and markets as central identities for the future development of the Arctic. En route, there is a sense in which sustainability simply has become a license to exploit. As such, we see privilege ascribed to national spaces and a territorial order. Countering narratives, however, do not challenge sustainability per se but rather its referent object. In other words, future struggles will not revolve around the question whether we should strive for sustainability. Rather they will be a contest between competing narratives about what it is, that should be sustained.