Welcome to SmallerPlanet.org!
This project has been in a steady state of evolutionary change since its inception. In contrast to my personal homepage (at BarryZellen.com), which focuses on my book projects, this site will focus largely on a series of projects inspired by my time in the Arctic, and the many valued life lessons I brought home with me on endurance, survival, empowerment, maintaining wit and humor in the face of great adversity, and the preservation of indigenous culture, heritage and identity in the modern world.
Some of these projects exist off site, such as our newest set of web publications: TribalVoice.org, ArcticBusinessJournal.com, AboriginalBusinessJournal.com, and TheSourdough.com which are part of Smaller Planet Press; and several of my books exploring indigenous issues, such as Fast Changing Arctic - Rethinking Arctic Security for a Warmer World, The Art of War in an Asymmetric World, Arctic Doom / Arctic Boom - The Geopolitics of Climate Change in the Arctic, On Thin Ice - The Inuit, the State and the Challenge of Arctic Sovereignty, and Breaking the Ice - From Land Claims to Tribal Sovereignty in the Arctic.
Others, like my two-decade long research project exploring Arctic geopolitics, security and sovereignty, the Fast Changing Arctic Project (FCAP), are hosted here on an interim basis as I migrate from my previous institutional affiliation (from 2004-2012) to a new, inspirational, and collaborative environment!
We have a bunch of new ideas on the drawing board, some exciting, some perhaps just dreams! We're presently in northern Thailand, hill tribe country home to many indigenous peoples from the greater southeast Asian/southern China region - some refugees, some residents for centuries, some marginalized from the economic mainstream, some well adapted to the 21st century, and all working hard to balance their traditional identity, cultural heritage, ans sovereign yearnings with modern-day realities. We will surely be inspired and learn much; where it will lead remains uncertain, but that is half the fun. We also hope to travel down to Borneo at summer's end to start a comparative project looking at indigenous sovereignty and identity in a homeland divided, much the way the Arctic was transformed by new colonial boundaries as the state reached north.
An interesting notion on our minds: northern Thailand grows some of the best coffee beans in the world - though not yet as widely recognized by coffee drinkers as better know spots like Sumatra and the iconic Java. There are lots of small growers here, many are hill tribes. Some ventures such as Doi Chaang Coffee and Duang Dee Hill Tribe Coffee have been around and well known in Chiang Mai. We're curious to learn more of the smaller efforts, and would love to help share their story!
And so, SmallerPlanet.org continues to evolve - part publisher, part research organization, part incubator of ideas on the ongoing efforts by indigenous peoples to adapt to the modernizing world while retaining their traditional values!
Some of these projects exist off site, such as our newest set of web publications: TribalVoice.org, ArcticBusinessJournal.com, AboriginalBusinessJournal.com, and TheSourdough.com which are part of Smaller Planet Press; and several of my books exploring indigenous issues, such as Fast Changing Arctic - Rethinking Arctic Security for a Warmer World, The Art of War in an Asymmetric World, Arctic Doom / Arctic Boom - The Geopolitics of Climate Change in the Arctic, On Thin Ice - The Inuit, the State and the Challenge of Arctic Sovereignty, and Breaking the Ice - From Land Claims to Tribal Sovereignty in the Arctic.
Others, like my two-decade long research project exploring Arctic geopolitics, security and sovereignty, the Fast Changing Arctic Project (FCAP), are hosted here on an interim basis as I migrate from my previous institutional affiliation (from 2004-2012) to a new, inspirational, and collaborative environment!
We have a bunch of new ideas on the drawing board, some exciting, some perhaps just dreams! We're presently in northern Thailand, hill tribe country home to many indigenous peoples from the greater southeast Asian/southern China region - some refugees, some residents for centuries, some marginalized from the economic mainstream, some well adapted to the 21st century, and all working hard to balance their traditional identity, cultural heritage, ans sovereign yearnings with modern-day realities. We will surely be inspired and learn much; where it will lead remains uncertain, but that is half the fun. We also hope to travel down to Borneo at summer's end to start a comparative project looking at indigenous sovereignty and identity in a homeland divided, much the way the Arctic was transformed by new colonial boundaries as the state reached north.
An interesting notion on our minds: northern Thailand grows some of the best coffee beans in the world - though not yet as widely recognized by coffee drinkers as better know spots like Sumatra and the iconic Java. There are lots of small growers here, many are hill tribes. Some ventures such as Doi Chaang Coffee and Duang Dee Hill Tribe Coffee have been around and well known in Chiang Mai. We're curious to learn more of the smaller efforts, and would love to help share their story!
And so, SmallerPlanet.org continues to evolve - part publisher, part research organization, part incubator of ideas on the ongoing efforts by indigenous peoples to adapt to the modernizing world while retaining their traditional values!
