Heather N. Nicol

While Alaska is often positioned as a state which has equivalency with others in the United States of America, there are clear geographical elements reinforcing its “peninsularity” that define and distinguish it from the remainder of the nation. Alaska is indeed complicated by the fact that it is a ‘peninsula of peninsulas’ both materially, and in terms of its appendiceal relationship to the contemporary centres of power, economy, and politics within the USA, but also by its peripheral status within first colonial and then American empires. On the far edges of colonial Russia prior to 1867, and consequently seen as a foolish purchase by American legislators, conflict over the borders of the state and the ownership of its elongated “panhandled” coastline, a peninsula on terra firma , was resolved through a distinctive and exceptional narrative. The peninsular nature of the state has also complicated its security relationship in the early 21st century. As a ‘state of the Union’ its equivalency is clear – but as a state on the northern periphery of a contested North, its peninsular status profoundly shapes contemporary choices and strategies. This chapter queries the contours of Alaska's peninsular geography, and explores its influence on contemporary human and traditional security dialogues.

The Harrassowitz Verlag publishes scholarly books and periodicals on Oriental, Slavic and Book and Library Studies. The publishing section forms one part of Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG. Buch | Le Canada et l’imaginaire du Nord / Canada and the Imagined North | 978-3-447-12250-4

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