The construction and negotiation of borders.
Discourses related to the border between Norway and Russia.
(A research project funded by Norwegian Research Council)

Goal:
The goal for this project is to developop knowledge on how border discourses are inscribed in social and political practices, identities and perceptions of the neighbour country in the Norwegian-Russian borderlands.

Sub-goals:

• To produce knowledge about the Norwegian-Russian border relevant for the development of the areas facing this border, the Barents Region and High North politcs.
• To further develop the competence about border and High North issues in north, and at Finnmark University College in particular
• To develop a research based platform for collaboration between northern instituttions coping with issues related to the Norwegian-Russian border and the Barents Region.

Project summary:
This project will focus on discourses and practices related to the Norwegian-Russian border in the borderlands. The border represents barriers and opportunities. More than 50 0000 people cross the border every year. The research question is how different discourses and perceptions concerning the Russian-Norwegian border and borderlands are created and inscribed in people?s private and professional lives, and in institutions and policies on different arenas. The arenas chosen are the political-administrative, police, cultural exchange, education and leisure tourism. The study will be undertaken on the basis of the academic discourse known as border studies. The political-administrative arena will be studied through a discourse analysis of documents and interviews with people that have significant contact across the borders. Another frontier aspect has to do with the way the border is under surveillance and control, functions that employ lots of people. In this project focus will be on perceptions, knowledge and attitudes in police staff on both sides concerning border control problems and collaboration. Another set of issues relate to the borderlands as a sphere for cross-cultural communication and interaction. One perspective is to look at borderlands as an arena for exchange of arts and folklore, and how these contacts give rise to public and individual border narratives, often modified and spread through media exposures. Cultural exchange also includes tourism; how tourists perceive the Norwegian-Russian border as such and the borderlands, and how the presentations from the tourism industry, hosts and guides, influence the perceptions of this particular border and the adjacent countries. As the boundary also is a border between languages, this project will focus on the significance of language skills for perceptions of border and border practice, and student exchange as a way into international careers.

Project period:
January 2008 to December 2011

Staff:
Project leader: Arvid Viken, Finnmark University College
Participants: Marit Bjerkeng, Finnmark University College, Helena Karma, Barents Institute and University of Helsinki, Kjell Olsen, Finnmark University College, Sonni Olsen, Finnmark University College, Stein R. Mathisen, Finnmark University College, Jessica Michelle Shadian, Barents Institute,
Urban Wråkberg, Barents Institute.