Research Projects

Ongoing research and develoment projects

  • Travelling Post-corona – Revisiting Guests & Hosts (Project lead)
    Koronaviruset har påminnet oss om vår globale avhengighet og vår sårbarhet. Dette prosjektet skal skape kunnskap om måter denne pandemien endrer fremtidige reisemønster, hvem gjestene vil være og hvilke preferanser de kommer til å ha. I tillegg bidrar prosjektet med kunnskap om hvordan reiselivet kan bidra til lokal verdiskapning og trygge arbeidsplasser og understøtte sosial, kulturell og økonomisk gjenreising av nordlige destinasjoner. Prosjektet består av to pilarer. I den første pilaren vil det settes søkelys på hva turistene gjør etter koronaen og hvordan de tenker rundt egen feriemobilitet. I den andre pilaren vil vi være opptatt av destinasjonsutvikling.

  • Tuulessa - I vinden (Project lead)
    Vandreutstilling med lokal forankring.
    Funded by: Forskningsrådet, SAMKUL-programmet

  • The contested nature of Allemannsretten: Renegotiating local customs and small-scale farming in periphery landscapes

    This project explores local customs, understood as an informal «law» that determines «good behaviour» within the frames of Allemannsretten. With reference cases outside Oslo, Norway, and in Finland and Iceland, we ask how local customs may be renegotiated and what may be at stake for humans, floras and faunas in such negotiations. Along the way, we consider local customs as collective “assemblages” where different knowledges and understandings of nature intersect and entangle.
    Funded by: Forskningsrådet

  • FUGLAN VEIT – safeguarding diversity in a time of climate change and biodiversity loss (project partner)
    The main objectives of FUGLAN VEIT are to generate new knowledge and public awareness about seabirds as part of coastal heritage, and to improve and safeguard the nesting situation for red-listed and endangered coastal seabirds, through new alliances and collaboration between scientific experts and local knowledge-holders in traditional seabird practices that centres on more-than-human approaches.
    Funded by: Forskningsrådet

  • Taking back the Museum - Opening the Space of Community Museums
    to Recover the Art of Indigenous People     (project partner)
    This project aims at working with both indigenous communities in Sápmi and Mexico to engage with strengthening local ownership and community (project leader Prof. Lea Kantonen, University of Helsinki)
    Funded by: Kone foundation

  • Mediating Arctic Geographies (project partner)
    This interdisciplinary project that explores the poetics and politics of Arctic geographies in contemporary fiction and art.
    Funded by: The Academy of Finland

  • TRUCOM: Forventninger, sannhet og forsoning i en demokratisk velferdsstat (project partner)

    Forskningsprosjektet TRUCOM skal etablere kunnskap om hvordan den norske Sannhets- og forsoningskommisjonen som ble opprettet av Stortinget i 2018, fortolker og iverksetter sitt mandat.
    Funded by: Forskningsrådet

  • Okta: Kunst og friksjonsfylte fellesskap i Sápmi (Research Partner)
    Forskningsprosjektet Okta: Kunst og friksjonsfylte fellesskap i Sápmi undersøker hvordan kunst inngår i og virker på møtesteder for den samiske minoritet og de nordiske majoritetsbefolkninger. Med utgangspunkt i analyser av kunstens rolle og funksjon på kulturfestivaler i Sápmi søker prosjektet å arbeide frem ny kunnskap om hvordan kunst kan skape friksjon og sprekker som åpner for at samisk kulturkunnskap og kunstneriske uttrykk kan artikuleres og forhandles i felles offentligheter.
    Funded by: Kulturrådet - Arts Council Norway

  • Sustainability: Arctic Tourism in Times of Change (Research Partner)
    The project focuses on three specific issues in order to enhance the sustainability of Arctic tourism: 1) seasonality of Arctic tourism, 2) urban tourism in the Arctic and 3) overtourism in the Arctic. These three core issues relate closely to the recent rapid growth of tourism in Northern areas and need to be addressed in order to balance the growth and in order to enable sustainable prosperity of the area.
    Funded by: Nordic Council of Ministers.

 

Completed research and development projects

  • Intangiblization, Materializations and Mobilities of Kven Heritage: Contemporary Articulations in Fields of Family, Museums, and Culture Industry (Project lead)
    This project deals with contemporary Kven heritage and revitalization processes that take place in the intersection between commodification, political and institutional boundary making of different scale in Northern Norway today.
    Funded by: Forskningsrådet, SAMKUL-programmet
  • ‘Culturally Sensitive Tourism in the Arctic’ – ARCTISEN (Partner, WP lead)
    The project develops a support system for start-ups and existing small and medium-sized enterprises offering innovative tourism products and services. Expanding tourist interest in the Arctic brings unforeseen opportunities to maintain local livelihoods and lifestyles. The project partners in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Canada and Denmark/Greenland highlight the pressing demand for new tourism products and services that draw on the rich natural and cultural resources of the region. Simultaneously, limited knowledge of indigenous and other local cultures in Northern communities calls for more open and sensitive dialogue among different tourism actors. Here you can visit the Arctisen Facebook page.
    Funded by: Northern Periphery and Arctic Programme

  • Winter: New Turns in Arctic Winter Tourism (Project leader)
    In this project we explore winter tourism developments in the Arctic linked to 1. Winter Tourism Activities: Soft and Hard Adventures; 2. Finnmarkslopet and the Iditarod of Alaska: Event Tourism; 3. Hurtigruten: Potensials and Barriers in Mass Tourism Developments; and 4 Aurora Borealis: Tourism Performances and Symbolic Meanings

    Funded by: Forskningsrådet

  • Joint Higher Education on Northern Tourism (Project lead)
    The project aims to foster quality improvements, innovation and excellence of higher education on northern tourism, in the context of the Arctic region.
    Funded by: DIKU Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Education
  • Resource Extraction and Sustainable Arctic Communities, REXSAC (Research partner)
    REXSAC focuses on the study of extractive resource industries in the Arctic as cultural, social, economic, and ecological phenomena from analysis of why resource extraction commences, what consequences it has for communities in the Arctic and beyond, and what opportunities exist for transitioning toward post-extractive futures.
    Funded by: NordForsk Programme: Responsible Development of the Arctic: Opportunities and Challenges – Pathways to Action.
  • Sami Entrepreneurs and Research Collaboration (Partner, WP leader)
    The overall objective is to address entrepreneurial innovation in Sami areas through research collaborations.
    Funded by: Regionalt forskningsfond Nord
  • Čatnat (project lead)
    Forskning med og for innovasjon i samisk reiseliv og kreative næringer.
    Funded by: Regionale forskningsfond
  • Strangers on the Tourist Route (Internal project, collaboration with Univ of Lapland)
    This research project investigates the encounterings of/on a tourist route that leads to Havøysund in Northern Norway.
  • Nærmiljø og lokalsamfunn som fremmer folkehelse (collaboration project)
    Funded by: Helsedirektoratet
  • WhaleFeast - Ecological, commercial and social challenges of the recent extreme winter arrivals of whales in Northern Norway. Funded by: Norges forskningsråd (2018-2020)
  • Arctic Encounters: Contemporary Travel/Writing in the European High North.
    Funded by: HERA (2013-2016)
  • Dark Ecology
    Funded by: BarentsKult, Public Art Norway, Arts Council Norway, Creative Industries Fund NL, Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, PNEK, Mondriaan Fund, Paradiso, Arts Council Norway - The Audio Visual Fund, Finnmark County Municipality, Bergen Municipality, Norwegian Visual Artists Association, Nordland County Council, City of Bergen and Troms County Council (2013-2016)