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. Core region and home to the NSRG research group is the County of Finnmark, Northern Norway and its borderlands with Finland, Sweden and Russia.

Interdisciplinary course partnerships
We assume regional North Norwegian responsibility through public outreach and by internationally open teaching. NSRG members have developed University of the Arctic Courses and created new such geared to emerging circumarctic issues of major consern. What we do in teaching is related to the NSRG group's research which explores geopolitical, economic, indigenous, environmental and cultural issues of the circumpolar north by placing such in a circumpolar and global geo-economic and cultural context. 

BANHER 2023-2026 enables us to engage in development of on-line teaching in circumarctic partnership with scholars at the Trent University School of Environment, Canada, the University of Akureyri, Iceland, and with researchers of the University of Alaska at Anchorage. 

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 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.