Maya Tekeli, First-Hand Notes from Greenland: Journalism When the World Suddenly Cares

Maya Tekeli is a global correspondent for Jyllands-Posten and a freelance reporter for The New York Times. Her work is defined by a sustained interest in how political authority, cultural identity, and historical legacies intersect in contemporary life. She approaches journalism through fieldwork: conversations, interviews, and close observation serve as her way of connecting everyday experiences to broader political and historical structures. 

She first began reporting on Greenland when the Trump Administration’s idea of “buying” the island suddenly turned a remote Arctic territory into front-page news. What began as a geopolitical spectacle soon became a crash course in Danish colonial history and Greenlandic daily life - part tradition, part resilience. Through repeated travel, small-town visits, conversations in kitchens and municipal offices, she found herself at dog-sled races, ice fishing holes, and participating in seal hunts. Along the way, she began to wonder whether the outside world truly understands what Greenland is or whether debates about its self-determination are too often carried out on uncertain ground.

In this conversation, Tekeli will reflect on how value is understood in Greenland - by the people who live there, by the state that once governed it as a colony, and by external powers that now show renewed interest - and how moments of global attention can turn forgotten history into political questions once again.

Tekeli’s talk is organized as part of the seminar PLSC 3456/GLBL 4405: Self-Determination, Secession, and Accommodation. The course provides specialized instruction on self-determination and secession, combining insights from scholarly research with detailed case studies to examine the complexities of contemporary secessionist conflicts. This lesson is part of a two-session class on third-party involvement in these conflicts, which also examines how U.S. strategic interests shape international responses and affect the conflicts' trajectory.

The talk is paired with a lecture on the “Territorial Status of Greenland,” delivered by Maya Tekeli and James Campbell, adjunct professor of law at Yale Law School and Georgetown University Law Center. The lecture forms part of the Center’s Co-Lectures in the Theory and Practice of Statecraft series.