International research collaboration and business development in the High North have become hot topics at the governmental policy level in many countries. However, despite prior research on co-oper ...
The Earth system is threatened by the continuous growth and expanding scope of human activity. At the same time, offshore petroleum operations in the Arctic are increasing the burdens on vulnerable marine ecological systems. In research on offshore industries, the environmental focus is on contributions to climate change and “worst-case scenarios” of oil spills. An undesirable implication of such spills is that other common polluting operations escape critical review, also due to a predominant marginalistic approach to considering environmental problems. In the wake of economic activities and industries expanding into increasingly more exposed and vulnerable areas, the article centres on the discharge of drilling waste from petroleum operations in the Barents Sea. The purpose of the qualitative research is to present suggestions for environmental improvements to the Norwegian regime for discharging drilling waste. A theory of definite stakeholders is applied to bring together the most crucial views on the increased pollution. The principal result is a suggestion to enhance ecological integrity by changing the decision-making system regarding permission to pollute. The authors conclude that the applied systemic methodology yields new knowledge and salient policy recommendations for a part of the Barents Sea petroleum regime that has been less studied to date.
This paper examines how different policy areas are coordinated in two Nordic municipalities affected by mining megaprojects. Drawing on institutional theories in public administration and governance, the article demonstrates how the emergence of new corporate interests sparks the formation of interactive governance networks which focus on business development and economic growth, and leave welfare departments out of strategic policy development. The article argues that the Nordic welfare model entails certain challenges for municipalities hosting industrial megaprojects. Local governments must therefore acknowledge welfare services as a local political tool instead of perceiving them merely as tasks mandated by the central government.
In political, popular, and scholarly debates, the Arctic – and most importantly within it the Barents region – is portrayed as being on the brink of becoming the “world’s new energy province”. Growth in global energy demand, dwindling reserves, political instabilities at existing production sites, warming climate, as well as advancements in extraction and transportation technologies are pushing energy activities further towards the previously inaccessible north. In these framings, energy in the Arctic is mostly understood as synonymous with oil and gas production for international exports and as a concern of markets and politics, and of technology, science, and economics. Exploring media representations of the regional energyscape through the “theorymethods package” (Clarke 2015, 87) of situational analysis, this article highlights the diversity of regional energy beyond oil and gas production; the simplistic manners in which the societal dimensions of energy are understood; the absence of everyday life, ordinary people, and the female gender from the depictions of the regional energyscape; and the lack of attention to climate impacts of northern energy production.
This article discusses theoretical concepts with regard to informal networks in the Russian and Norwegian society and higher education institutions (HEI) in particular. Informal networks are operative in both public and private organizations criss-crossing social and job-related networks within these organizations. Formal and informal contacts between representatives of HEIs in the Barents region are often the result of years of close cooperation on student exchange, research projects and joint academic programmes. The aim of this study is to explain theoretical perspectives in relation to informal networks from a Norwegian and a Russian perspective. Understanding both perspectives is essential before describing informal networks across different HEIs in the Barents region and valuable if we seek to study the impact of informal networks on the formal decision-making process. Informal networks are perceived differently because the formal structure in which they operate is different. Analysing the formal structure is therefore suggested in order to better understand the different perspectives surrounding formal/informal networks.
Sustainable mining is an objective as well as a tool for balancing economic, social, and environmental considerations. Each of these three dimensions of mining – and sustainable development – has many components, some of which were chosen for closer study in the SUMILCERE project. While there is no single component that in itself provides a definitive argument for or against sustainable mining, the research reveals some that have proven valuable in the process of balancing the different dimensions of sustainability. In the SUMILCERE project, comparative studies enabled us to identify factors such as the following, which are essential when discussing the balancing in practice of the three dimensions of sustainable mining cited above: the framework and functionality of environmental regulation to protect the environment (environmental sustainability); competitiveness of the mining industry in light of environmental regulation and its enforcement (economic sustainability); public participation and the opportunities local communities have to influence their surroundings, as well as communities’ acceptance of projects (social sustainability) before and during operations; and the protection of Sámi cultural rights in mining projects (social and cultural sustainability). Although each of the three dimensions of sustainability leaves room for discretion in the weight assigned to it, ecological sustainability, protected by smart environmental regulation and minimum standards, sets essential boundaries that leave no room for compromises. Economic and social sustainability are possible only within these limits. Details of the analyses in the Kolarctic area and accounts of the methods used can befound in the cited SUMILCERE articles.
Northern Sweden is increasingly influenced by competing social interests striving for advantages and claiming territorial influence through "scalar politics". The strategic deployment of scalar con ...
Lapland, the northernmost county of Finland, has promising mineral deposits and over half of all Finnish mining operations. In the 2000s two new metallic mineral mines were opened in Lapland, while three projects are undergoing the environmental impact assessment procedure (EIA). This process also involves a social impact assessment (SIA) that reports on the expected impacts of mining on the host communities. SIAs influence the permit process and the ensuing activity and officially represent the views of the local people in the planning and decision-making process. In this study, social impact assessment are examined by discourse analysis introduced by Maarten Hajer. The document analysis identified three recurrent story lines shared by all the investigated SIAs. A story line combines elements form different domains and suggests a common understanding of an issue. The second phase of the discourse was to analyse these story lines in the context they were produced. The first story line sees mines as teh only way to develop the remote regions of Lapland. Large-scale mining projects are seen as a solution to eocnmic problems, unemployment and out-migration. The second story line stresses the importance of mines in supporting the "general interest" of the whole province. After the Second World War, the intensive use ofnatural resources was justified by national interests; now it is justified by the interests of the region. The third story line argues that nature has no intrinsic value - it is merely a resource to be used. With the help of such story lines, SIAs grant the right to mine in Lapland.
This paper investigates the ways in which the economy has been incorporated into the political reasoning and practice of region-building in the Barents Region among experts. While economic regionalism has been a key strand of studies on historic regionalism, this is not the case for the Barents Region. Yet, the natural resources of the region continue to raise high expectations about cross-border economic cooperation and development. Full appreciation of any regional development is underpinned by research and knowledge combining both political and economic considerations, but this basis is somewhat less solid in the Barents area. The knowledge base about the region and its development is therefore fragmented, limited and partial. This is an obvious problem, as many of the recent developments in the Barents Region, and also in the larger Arctic context, relate to economic opportunities, cooperation and development with implications also for political cooperation and governance. The paper analyses the development of political Barents studies from early 1990s until today, in particular its relation with economic developments in the region.
Increasing globalisation and global market forces shape the development of resource peripheries in the Barents region. Foreign direct investments are concrete example of global market forces. Their glocalisation forces the locals to evaluate their consequences for the local development and reposition their communities in global context. This article studies glocalisation of global market forces and preferred directions of repositioning of a peripheral single-industry mining community in the Russian Barents region. The study is based on a case study of local opinions about actual and potential external actors in the economic development of Kovdor, located in the Murmansk region. The paper analyses the preferred owner of the town-constituting enterprise and the local opinions about the EU, USA and China as potential investors to the case study community. The study reveals how local opinions about external forces in the local development are related to local life-worlds. Moreover, the paper shows the impact that economic, political, cultural, historical and technological factors have in forming these opinions about potential foreign investors. The study shows generally positive local opinions about FDI. However, significant differences were found in opinions about different investing countries.
The article focuses on research of existing legal tools of public participation in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process and on practical issues of their application in the countries of the Barents Euro-Arctic Region (BEAR). The EIA is mandatory for projects which can have negative impacts on the environment and/or human health. Public participation in the EIA is one of the instruments used both on the international and national level that helps prevent or minimise the negative consequences of the project for the environment and human health. This article is based on research of national EIA legislation and on the analysis of the findings from interviews conducted with private and public organisations during benchmarking visits and fact-finding trips to the northern regions of Finland, Norway, Sweden and Northwest Russia. In addition, feedback was collected from participants during four seminars. Participatory methods, focused on public‒private communication and participation during the environmental impact assessment process, provides the theoretical basis for the article. This research results from work in a two-year strategic project funded by the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation Tekes.
This paper reports on a study of the linguistic situation in the border region where Norway meets Russia in the north. The aim of the study was to investigate language use when contact is revitalised after a long period with closed borders. The Norwegian and Russian languages are very different in vocabulary and structure, which makes communication difficult. How are the two languages affected by extended contact and migration across the border? The study was carried out by the author and Marit Bjerkeng through interviews, a questionnaire and observation of the linguistic situations in two Norwegian communities. The results show an ongoing development where the neighbouring language is increasingly noticeable, and there is a clear link between attitudes, identity and language use. The role of public policy seems to play an important role for the developing linguistic situation, as the Barents region as a political concept introduced in the 1990s has led to cross-border contact within various fields and also inspired local language policy, contributing to cultural pride an
There are currently high hopes in the Barents Region for economic growth, higheremployment and improved well-being, encouraged by developments in the energy industry,tourism and mining. The article ...
The purpose of the article is to explore the concept of a trade development strategy and to identify its impact on cross-border trade and cooperation. The case focuses on the Murmansk region and cross-border trade with Finland. This study is designed as a qualitative, single-case, embedded study. Primary data collection was executed by means of a survey and semi-structured interviews. The acquired data were analyzed by developing a case description. In this study trade development strategy is understood from the practice theory perspective and is defined as a set of strategic activities initiated by formal and informal institutions. The concept of a trade development strategy includes activities related to (1) intelligent growth, (2) trade promotion, (3) infrastructure development, and (4) support for market access and international trade cooperation. This study reveals that the absence of a thoroughly devised international trade development strategy in the Murmansk region does not allow for the streamlining of strategizing activities related to trade development; therefore the activities tend to be uncoordinated and unbalanced.
This article analyses prostitution in the Barents Region as a social question through the subjective experiences of female Russian prostitutes. The women who were interviewed for this research live their everyday lives in the context of Russia. The operational possibilities of the women are based on a sociocultural framework which differs from that of Western countries. This article addresses the following question: How does prostitution construct the agency of women in the Barents Region? The question is explored in terms of the social relationships of the women, their everyday agency within the local environment, their living conditions, and the marginal conditions of their lives. Our focus is on the social structures and the position of the women within them. The data used in this article consist of observational material as well as interviews with 17 women, wherein they discuss their experiences of prostitution in the Barents Region. All of the material was collected in Murmansk, Russia between 2004 and 2008. Qualitative content analysis was performed as a means to understand the aforementioned women’s experiences of prostitution and its relation to everyday life. Prostitution is a product of social structures, a woman’s position, the accessibility of support, and the available personal, social and mental resources. Sometimes prostitution is a way to survive. Women who practice prostitution are often seen only as stereotypes, but the individual paths of their lives and the social contexts in which they live are integral to an understanding of the causes and effects of sex work.
The aim of the article is to identify challenges for strategic planning at the municipal level in Russia in the light of local self-government practices in the Nordic countries. Data for the study were collected from literature sources, as well as through analysis of legal documents and statistics, participatory observations of Russian municipal practices, and participation in the Presidential Program for the training of young managerial staff for the national economy of Russia in Norway in 2012. Municipal practices in Russia and the Nordic countries are examined and compared, and the problems which hinder the Russian municipalities in the elaboration and successful implementation of strategic plans for their development are indicated. The study reveals that there are two major groups of problems: that that have an institutional origin and those that are related to the economic situation within which the local authorities in Russia must work. It is shown that formal institutions at the national level to stimulate strategic planning at the municipal level – especially, necessary laws and regulations – are lacking. The same applies to informal institutions such as traditions and the culture of strategic planning at the local level. A typical economic situation within which the local authorities have to work is extremely low budget security at the municipal level, which gives rise to the competition for funds from the regional consolidated budget between the regional and municipal administrations, instead of making them partners in the process of municipal strategic planning. Taking Nordic experiences into account, policy suggestions for the improvement of strategic planning at the municipal level in Russia are made.
Johan Turi (1854–1936), Nils Nilsson Skum (1872–1951) and John Savio (1902–1938) were among the first Sámi visual artists. The production of their art work occurred between the 1910s and the early 1950s. Sámi aesthetics had its basis in folklore, i.e., handicraft or duodji, which did not follow the principle of art for art’s sake but combined beauty and practicality. Art was part of community life. Not until the 1970s was the word daidda, which is Finnish in origin and which means “art”, adopted into the Sámi language. Turi and Skum became famous through their books. They drew and wrote in order to pass the traditional knowledge of their people on to succeeding generations. They also wanted to introduce Sámi life and culture to non-Sámi people. One typical feature of their work is that they depicted Sáminess in a realistic way and sought to strengthen and preserve the Sámi identity through their art. In Turi and Skum’s work, both the documentation of community life and their own personal expression were strongly present and equally important; for this reason their pictures and texts have both practical and aesthetic dimensions. They did not attend school and were self-taught artists. The third pioneer of Sámi visual arts was John Savio, who, unlike the other two, attended secondary school and studied visual arts both independently and under the guidance of a mentor. He expressively combined Western ways of depiction with Sámi subjects. My article examines what made these early Sámi artists change over from Sámi handicraft, duodji, to Western visual arts, how they used Western pictorial conventions in dealing with their Sámi subjects, and the significance of their art for Sámi identity and culture. They lived and worked under cross pressure: the first few decades of the 20th century were characterized by racial theories that denigrated Sámi people, and the period following World War II was marked by demands for modernization and assimilation. Therefore, I also discuss how the conflicts of the time influenced the art of these three early Sámi artists.
