Books

The publications of the Northern Studies Research Group are listed for each individual on the "Members" page of this site. Below is a selection of international edited volumes in English in which NSRG scholars have contributed chapters

Thinking Russia's History Environmentally	Published in 2023 Urban Wråkberg & Peter Haugseth (2023). "Tracks across the Tundra: Making a Living from Nature in the Borderland of the Russian Northwest". In: Catherine Evtuhov, Julia Lajus & David Moon (eds). Thinking Russia's History Environmentally. New York: Berghahn, pp. 277-300. “Thinking Russia’s History Environmentally is a work of bold vision, grand synthesis, and fine detail in creative combination by an outstanding team of editors and authors. Making productive use of a growing body of international and domestic scholarship on Russian internal imperialism, infrastructures, industrial pollution, disasters, environmentalists, and natural resources from fish to fossil fuels this rich volume illuminates and opens up to global comparison a history that for a long time seemed both enclosed, enigmatic and exceptional.” – Sverker Sörlin, Professor of Environmental History, Royal Institute of Technology, Environmental Humanities Laboratory, Stockholm
Global Arctic	Published in 2022 Gunnar Rekvig (2022). "Understanding Cold War Trust-Building Between Norway and the Soviet Union: Norwegian-Russian Relations – A History of Peaceful Coexistence", in: Global Arctic: An Introduction to the Multifaceted Dynamics of the Arctic, eds. Matthias Finger & Gunnar Rekvig. Cham: Springer, pp. 1–17, 369–388. After the 2014 Ukraine crisis, the West imposed sanctions on the Russian Federation, which have revived the divisions of the Cold War. The reemergence of these postures is threatening the highly successful Barents Cooperation and other initiatives for peace in the circumpolar North. This book offers new insights and presents arguments for how to mitigate the challenges the Arctic is facing today.
The Coldest Coast: The 1873 Leigh Smith Expedition to Svalbard	Published in 2021 Urban Wråkberg, “Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld and His Svalbard Expedition of 1872–73”, in: The Coldest Coast: The 1873 Leigh Smith Expedition to Svalbard in the Diaries and Photographs of Herbert Chermside, ed., Pete Capelotti, Historical Geography and Geosciences vol. 1, Cham: Springer Nature, pp. 9–29. Urban Wråkberg's contribution to this edited volume was made possible by a travel grant from the MASD research program at Umeå University and kind assistance by staff at the Center for History of Science of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm. Prof. Pete Capelotty at Penn State University, Abington, USA, extended the invitation to contribute to the volume, and eminetly oversaw the production of this detailed account of a little know but dramatic part of the history of Arctic exploration in and around the Svalbard archipelago.
Russia and Norway: Multi-dimensional Relations in the Borderland	Published in 2020 Inna Ryzhkova, Victoria Tevlina & Urban Wråkberg, eds., Russia and Norway: Multidimensional Relations in the Borderland, Murmansk Arctic State University Press. The production of this multi-authored volume was sponsored by the NSRG and based on close collaboration between the Dep. of Tourism and Northern Studies office in Kirkenes, the Barents Institute and the publisher the Murmansk Arctic State University, Russia. The edition consists in 22 chapters in either English or Russian, contributed by authors from a wide scope of Norwegian and Russian public sector institutions with individuals active as, diplomats, museum curators, library professionals and university scholars.
Politics of Arctic Resources	Published in 2019 As one of the results of the multilateral Swedish research program MASD, in which NSRG coordinator Urban Wråkberg participated, there appeared an edited volume in the international publisher Routledge's book series Transforming environmental politics and policy. Wråkberg contributes the chapter "Oil and Gas Extraction in the Barents Sea: A Nordic State-industry Governance System Goes nNorth". He is co-author of three other chapters "Troubling the Northern Seas: The Turbulent History of Norwegian and Russian Fisheries", lead-author Sabine Höhler, "Constructing Northern Fennoscandia as a Mining Region", lead-author Dag Avango, and "Imageries and Historical Change in the European Russian Arctic" with lead-author Niklas Eklund. Carina Keskitalo, ed., The Politics of Arctic Resources: Change and Continuity in the "Old North" of Northern Europe, Routledge.
Border Aesthetics	Published in 2017 Nadir Kinossian & Urban Wråkberg, “Palimpsests in the North European borderland: The border-aesthetics of Post-Soviet space”, in: Border aesthetics: Concepts and intersections, eds., Johan Schimanski and Stephen F. Wolfe, Time and the World: Interdisciplinary Studies in Cultural Transformations vol. 3, London: Berghahn Publishers, pp. 90–110.
Arctic Tourism Experiences	Published in 2017 Peter Fischer, retired member of NSRG, "Emergence of experience production systems for mass tourism participation in peripheral regions: Evidence from arctic Scandinavia" pp. 119–129 and Peter Haugseth & Urban Wråkberg, “Tourism experiences of Post-Soviet Arctic borderlands”, pp. 181–190 both chapters in: Young-Sook Lee, Nina Prebensen & David Weaver, eds., Arctic tourism experiences: Production, consumption & sustainability, CABI, Wallingford.
Agening Resource Communities	Published in 2016 This book provides cutting edge theoretical and empirical insights into the emergent complexity of rural population change, to understand the diverse experiences of, and responses to, rural population ageing in the early 21st century. Tor Arne Gjertsen, retired member of NSRG, contributed to the book in the chapter: Tor Arne Gjertsen, Laura Ryser, & Greg Halseth "Gamvik, 'a good place to grow old': The role of voluntary organizations in an ageing resource-dependent municipality in northern Norway", pp. 106–118. Mark Skinner and Neil Hanlon, eds., Ageing resource communities: New frontiers of rural population change, community development and voluntarism, Routledge Studies in Human Geography, 2016.
Encyclopedia of the Barents Region	Published in 2016 Urban Wråkberg was advisor and one of the initiators of the recently concluded project of writing an encyclopedia of the Barents Region. Along with many other experts of the UiT NAU, he has written several articles in the two-volume Encyclopedia of the Barents Region. With many illustrations and maps, more than 400 in-depth articles, 7256 entries on over a thousand pages, written by some three hundred Russian, Finnish and Scandinavian authors, this encyclopedia is a unique Nordic-Russian cultural, geo-economic and scientific treasure-throve of facts and insights about the Euroarctic Region. Mats-Olov Olsson, Fredrick Backman, Alexey Golobev, Björn Norlin, Lars Ohlsson & Lars Elenius, eds., Encyclopedia of the Barents Region, 2. vols., Oslo: Pax forlag.
Expedition Svalbard	Published in 2015 Urban Wråkberg, “Re-photography in Northern Interdisciplinary Field Studies: Cultural Testing Grounds around Ice Fjord, Svalbard” in: Expedition Svalbard—Lost Views on the Shorelines of Economy, Tyrone Martinsson, Gunilla Knape & Hans Hedberg, eds., Göttingen: Steidl Verlag, pp. 157–169. A group of scientists, artists and writers embarked on an expedition to North-West Svalbard, the northernmost extremity of Norway. Traveling on a ship, the M/S Stockholm, each of them recorded the event from their own professional and personal perspective. The aim of the expedition was to discuss the discourse of the voyage regarding the environment and our relation to the land and nature. As such, this book turns out as an artistic account integrated by scientific documentation.
Empowering School eHealth in the Barents Region	Published in 2015 Former NSRG scholar and statistician Kjell Hines contributed to Lapland University of Applied Sciences report 2/15 by the article: Kjell Hines, Ole Martin Johansen & Eva C. Schjetne, "Coping - How do you meet difficult situations?", in: Eiri Sohlman, Catrine Kostenius, Ole Martin Johansen, Inna Ryzhkova & Minttu Merivirta eds., ArctiChildren InNet: Empowering School eHealth Model in the Barents Region, Rovaniemi: Lapland University of Applied Sciences, pp. 103–110.
Futures of Northern Cross-border Collaboration	Published in 2013 Urban Wråkberg, ed., Futures of Northern Cross-Border Collaboration (Tromsø: Tromsø University Munin Open Research Archive). 147pp. The Futures of Northern Cross-Border Collaboration Project was based at the Barents Institute in Kirkenes and the Centre for North European and Baltic Studies of the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Relations (MGIMO). Its was led by Prof. Lev Voronkov, Urban Wråkberg and Alexandra Chuvarayan, executive advisor on environment and climate, JSC RusHydro, Moscow. In 2011 we were awarded funding from the altruistic Fondation “Avec et pour autres” in Vaduz, Liechtenstein, to invite junior and senior researchers and entrepreneurs in Russia and Scandinavia to meet at MGIMO in Moscow to discuss issues of joint Russian-European interest in security, research and business. The proceedings from this symposium are published on-line, open access by the UiT The Arctic University of Norway.
Science, geopolitics and culture in the Polar Regions	Published in 2013 Urban Wråkberg contributed a chapter titled “Science and Industry in Northern Russia in Scandinavian Perspective” to the edited volume and main result from a then closing Baltic-Fennoscandian research network called Arctic Norden: Sverker Sörlin, ed., Science, Geopolitics and Culture in the Polar Region – Norden Beyond Borders, Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 195–223.