Transforming NOrms Research through Practices: Weaponised Artificial

For generations, states have used education as a tool of soft power projection, but despite the large body of literature investigating the foreign policy strategy, there is remarkably little theoretical and empirical engagement that examines soft power strategic adaptations of states when engaging minority groups with elevated political status beyond their territory. Using four case studies focused on Asian states (specifically China, Singapore, South Korea and Japan) and their engagement of Arctic indigenous peoples through a range of subsidized education opportunities, this project will explore how sub-state actors, particularly those with major resource limitations, are being engaged by states through their use of education as a tool of soft power projection. This project will explore how systemic indigenous education issues are being used as a point of diplomatic soft power engagement, such as in the Arctic by Asian states seeking to further their ties to, and access to current and future economic opportunities in, the region. This project is ground-breaking as it will address a major gap in (a) current soft power literature through the creation of a theoretical model to explain strategic adaptations by states engaging minority groups outside of a state’s territory and (b) Arctic governance and diplomacy studies by critically engaging in a detailed exploration of the new range of education opportunities emerging for Arctic indigenous peoples and the place of the education programs within the new dynamics of bilateral Asian states-Arctic indigenous peoples’ relations.