The three VSA assignments—writing an analysis on the movie “The King’s Choice,” taking a virtual tour of Swedish Lapland and the Arctic, and completing a scavenger hunt within the context of polar exploration—allowed students to get an enticing and multi-perspective experience of the complexities of international relations. Though each experience was unique, several similarities and synergies emerged, focusing on increased global understanding, greater stakeholder awareness, and developing an appreciation of strategic communication across cultures.
One significant similarity was the personal view these projects presented of different cultures, histories, and environments from around the globe. “The King’s Choice” humanized the confusion of the Second World War from the perspective of Norwegian leadership, caught between neutrality and resistance to the invasion (The King’s Choice, 1940). The key is what the Lapland tours brought us: the traditional Sami native way of life and their balanced relationship with the Arctic environment (Treehotel 360 VERus Guided Tour—Virtually Visiting, n.d.). The polar expeditions carried out the adventures and scientific research of the early 20th century in Greenland, the Arctic Ocean, and Antarctica. The VSA instilled genuine empathy and respect for culture in the learners by leading them from factual learning to experiential connections in diverse contexts.
The compassionate mindset gained from the three VSA assignments is directly aligned with the core principles of international relations: the importance of the global perspective, understanding the perceptions of societies and belief systems, and building relationships across borders through mutual compassion. Suddenly, the VSA made concrete what had only been considered abstract: diplomacy, cooperation, and stakeholder dynamics, with stories of leaders such as the Norwegian king and the collaboration of Arctic researchers with indigenous Sami communities (Treehotel 360 VERus Guided Tour—Virtually Visiting, n.d.). We got to appreciate the details of the web of relationships among governments, NGOs, private entities, public citizens, and local populations.
Another similarity was realizing how strategic communication and public outreach remain critical in negotiating complex international issues and interests. The power of expression and moral persuasion in “The King’s Choice” was how King Haakon rallied his people in times of need (The King’s Choice, 1940). Virtual tours were engaging in their examples of science communication and heritage preservation. Interactive museum experiences were innovative ways to educate the public about pioneering explorers and climate research. These examples also emphasize our learning about correctly tuning messages for different audiences and stakeholders to create a shared understanding among them.
Although the VSAs proved the power of communication, they also revealed the inequities in whose voices receive primary international amplification. The indigenous Sami perspective perhaps illustrates how the interests of minoritized communities are far too often shifted to the sidelines in geopolitical conversations about their homelands. However, although such traditions go back thousands of years in the Arctic, when nations and corporations create policies around Arctic development, cultural practices and environmental concerns get swept aside, reducing the Sami to a category of critical stakeholders (Shupe et al., 2020). The virtual tours thus brought to light this disconnect between Sami’s ecological wisdom and the financial interests driving Arctic policymaking that wrap Indigenous voices. This underlined the crucial need to include the fringe voices in international decision-making that touch the most vulnerable populations.
There were also differences, as demonstrated by the VSAs, in how stakeholders prioritized issues concerning their motivations and circumstances. Arctic researchers set their paramount priorities for international scientific collaboration and environmental monitoring. For the Scandinavian filmmakers and museums, the priority was set on leaving a cultural legacy and underscoring resilience during conflicts (The King’s Choice, 1940). For today’s Sami, the defense of indigenous rights and environmental sustainability are existential imperatives. These diverging yet interrelated priorities and challenges highlight struggles to find common ground and ethical compromises among stakeholders who may have conflicting interests linked to their values, economies, and existences.
The dominant synergy was in how each VSA experience strengthened the pressing need for cooperative and compassionate international relations to address shared global challenges, such as climate change, military conflicts, and threats to cultural heritage. It was as though we were walking through two strikingly different landscapes—the ideal Arctic tundra and the lonely, war-torn streets of 1940s Oslo—where we could see very clearly what was at stake and the likely consequences of failure in both diplomacy and environmental stewardship (Shupe et al., 2020). These are not mere academic exercises; instead, these are deeply human stories with intensely demanding lessons about our common responsibility to work across borders better.
The Norwegian movie’s moral courage and patriotic resistance to aggression reminded us that good leadership is always imperative when a country’s core values—sovereignty and self-determination—are threatened. Such scientific cooperation across nationalities in the Arctic has demonstrated that the world’s nations can confront environmental emergencies whose scales are too extensive for any single nation to handle alone (Shupe et al., 2020). The Sami virtual tours showed that sustainable economic development and the defense of ancestral ways of life are often incompatible without meaningful inclusion of indigenous stakeholders.
The VSA multidimensional projects perfectly illustrate the skills we should cultivate in international relations: empathetic cross-cultural understanding, harmonious science diplomacy, amplifying marginalized voices, working towards ethical governance, and uplifting human dignity while protecting our collective home. While we learned theories and frameworks in class, it was in these assignments that the highest stakes were made clear through emotional storytelling and awareness. They have taught us what mere facts could never say: about our common human identity in a world community trying to prevent conflicts, navigate differences with wisdom, and ensure all people can thrive in harmony with the nature that sustains us all.
References
Treehotel 360 VERus Guided Tour – Virtually Visiting. (n.d.). Www.youtube.com. Retrieved April 9, 2024, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_112gvJfKBI
The King’s Choice. (1940, April). Www.amazon.com. https://www.amazon.com/Kings-Choice-Jesper-Christensen/dp/B074NZ76WH
Shupe, M. D., Rex, M., Dethloff, K., Damm, E., Fong, A. A., Gradinger, R., … & Sommerfeld, A. (2020). The MOSAiC expedition: A year drifting with the Arctic sea ice. Arctic report card.
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