Nationalism and Education in the Arctic: A Study of Greenland in the Context of the Kingdom of Denmark

ABSTRACT This article analyses the coconstitution of nationalism and education in Greenland ( Kalaallit Nunaat ) within the Kingdom of Denmark. Drawing on Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson, Michael Billig and Siniša Malešević, it argues that schooling standardises language, history and civic repertoires, thereby fabricating the modern national subject. Situated in a postcolonial and settler‐colonial context, the analysis traces Greenland's trajectory from its status as a Danish‐led colony—a period during which Greenland was relatively isolated (1721–1953)—through county status and assimilation (1953–1979), to Greenlandisation under Home Rule from 1979 and Self‐Government from 2009. Despite linguistic reorientation in recent decades, a de facto hierarchy persists: Danish remains the principal medium of upper secondary education and a vector of social mobility. Against the backdrop of demographic decline and geopolitical intensification, the article contends that Arctic sovereignty is best conceived as multilayered and interdependent and that education is pivotal to nation formation and capacity building, irrespective of future constitutional choices.