Research on the Euro-Arctic Borderland under Pressure: A Case and Some Reflections

Abstract

While belief has recently all but evaporated in the media and among North-European governments, in the Barents Euroarctic Region 1993-2022 cross-border program, modelled on EU neighborhood policies, faith was high for some decades in the institutional cross-border partnerships it facilitated, governed by top-down funding and political promotion. Among the components of this were cross-border interaction on regional level by "people-to-people" relationships. After Russia’s military attack on Ukraine in 2022 this peace-work is now seen as highly problematic, stamped in hindsight by many as naïve and counter to the real security interests of the Nordic countries. Is this maneuvering the necessary flip-side of a responsible top-down monitoring of northern regional activities including university borderland research, Russian studies and cross-border education? Most Scandinavian scholars seem to say yes to that today. Somehow lost in the present new-old “security from above” concern are people still residing under the pressure of outmigration in the Euroarctic, and those who take seriously the Euroarctic collective memory – dating far back to similar times of conflict that were brought north from the south.