Northern Studies

Group coordinator
Prof. Urban Wråkberg, Dep. of Tourism and Northern Studies (IRNS), Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education, UiT The Arctic University of Norway (AUN) in Kirkenes

Subarctic Europe and the Circumarctic, including Russia, forms the extensive geographical scope of interest of the Northern Studies Research Group (NSRG). We often apply comparative perspectives in our interdisciplinary research, as well as in our research-based teaching in the Northern Studies program. Core region and home to the NSRG research group is the County of Finnmark, Northern Norway and its borderlands with Finnland, Sweden and Russia.

Interdisciplinary course programme: the Bachelor of Northern Study
We assume regional responsibility through public outreach and by internationally open teaching in the on-line program Bachelor of Northern Studies (BNS). The scope of knowledge conveyed in the BNS is northern studies including of geopolitical, economic, indigenous, environmental and cultural issues of the circumpolar north seen in a circumpolar and global geo-economic and cultural context.

The research group in northern studies

• The members of the group hold research competence in social sciences, technology, environmental history, geopolitics, indigenous study and social anthropology. 
• The core members are the course developers and teaching staff of the IRNS Bachelor of Northern Studies program (BNS)
• The research group aims to create new knowledge on the County of Finnmark, Norway not least by relating it to a global context. It has proved relevant to local societal sustainability, environmental security, indigenous issues, northern tourism and industry. The University-Society-Bussiness nexus often figures in our student-based local R & D. 
• Resilience in High North cross-border interaction is focussed in courses and projects we run.  We specialize in peace study, on raw material and energy security, entrepreneurship and Russian studies

Research methods
Comparative perspectives are instrumental in revealing differences and similarities between geographical areas. The northern researcher’s proficiency in languages is important but so is the ability to analyze subject matters of widely different academic fields. For example, multifactorial synthesis is the only way to be successful in business forecasting.

The meaning of cultural and industrial heritage has figured in NSRG projects, collective memory has been shown to function as a practical cognitive resource for local decision-making.

We have used unconventional methods in studying tourism by analysing trip-styles and choice-of-location triggers by participant observation and holistic interview techniques. 

We do discourse analysis, detect path-dependencies, do site visits, and use photography at site visits and communication results.