Joanna Kafarowski PhD. is a Canadian independent scholar and geographer who researches and writes about women and polar exploration. While at NIRS her research will focus on the involvement of local women at the forefront of the development and work of Uraani Naamik, in opposition to the Kvanefjeld mining Project.

Where Bold Women Go: Gender, Exploration and Climate Change in Greenland, to be published by Princeton University Press, presents a story of women’s exploration of Greenland and a portrait of Greenland as revealed by this exploration. The first part of the book will examine the historic legacy of women including Taqullituq, Josephine Peary, Aleqasina, Arnarulunnguaq, Isobel Wylie Hutchison and Louise Arner Boyd. The second section argues that, today, exploring Greenland assumes a broader meaning. Scientists are tackling the greatest environmental challenge of our time but climate change is a complex problem that cannot be solved by conventional Western science alone. Exploring Greenland today means looking at this problem from various perspectives, involving Indigenous traditional knowledge and Western science and asking different questions. The women who explore Greenland today and highlight Greenland’s environment and culture do exactly that. 

For Greenlanders, a positive consequence of climate change is greater accessibility to mineral extraction. While some women support this, others oppose it on the grounds of environmental justice. This has been evident in the case of the Chinese-controlled, rare earth and uranium mine known as the Kvanefjeld Project, located outside of Narsaq. Founder Mariane Paviasen and other local women have been in the forefront of Uraani Naamik- an environmental group which successfully won support for its opposition to the Kvanefjeld Project. This opposition highlights the likely negative consequences for the local community and the land if the project had proceeded.

Joanna Kafarowski is a Fellow of The Explorers Club and a Fellow of The Royal Geographical Society and holds a doctorate in Natural Resources and Environmental Studies. She wrote the first comprehensive biography of a female Arctic explorer entitled, The Polar Adventures of a Rich American Dame A Life of Louise Arner Boyd by Dundurn Press in 2017. Her most recent book is Antarctic Pioneer The Trailblazing Life of Jackie Ronne. This is the first biography of a female Antarctic explorer and will be published in May, 2022. She edited Gender, Culture and Northern Fisheries (Canadian Circumpolar Institute, 2009). Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked as a university lecturer in Arctic issues and with organizations including Pauktuutit Inuit Women’s Association, the Aboriginal Health Network and the Arctic Council.