The article examines China’s Arctic policy features and the meaning of the first published White Paper of 2018 for the future behaviours of the PRC. The author reviews the interests of the PRC in the High North, and the political objectives and means. The article pays special attention to the origins of Chinese policy in the Arctic, including the national strategy, expert discourse and regional ...

Chinese presence in the Nordic Arctic is increasing, but whereas many large-scale initiatives such as mining projects, trade deals or political alliances have yet to materialise, tourism encounters between Chinese visitors and Nordic Arctic communities are already happening. We use tourism as a lens and bring together perspectives and empirical examples from various disciplines, including international ...

Global crises drastically alter human behavior, rapidly impacting patterns of movement and consumption. A rapid-response analysis of material culture brings new perspective to disasters as they unfold. We present a case study of the coronavirus pandemic in Tromsø, Norway, based on fieldwork from March 2020 to April 2021. Using a methodology rooted in social distancing and through systematic, diachronic, ...

Corporatisation in Norwegian local government, although not a new phenomenon, has grown rapidly during the last 20–25 years, especially since 2003–2004. Considering its relatively small population, Norway has a high number of municipally owned companies (MOCs), compared to its Scandinavian neighbours. Despite this, measured by the number of employees, the size of MOCs constitutes less than 10% of ...

Corporatization implies disintegration of public authority, leading to not only structural but also cultural differentiation of government, transforming it into a fragmented and hybrid governance system consisting of an authority and multiple autonomous or semi-autonomous operators. This article addresses corporatization at the local government level in Norway, exploring if and how this change ...

During the past 20–30 years, scholars from different academic disciplines, as well as practitioners and local politicians, have observed a marked growth in the number of municipally-owned companies (MOCs) in local government service provision (Grossi & Reichard, 2008; Aars & Ringkjøb, 2011; Erlingsson, Fogelgren, Olsson, Thomasson, & Öhrvall, 2015; Ferry, Andrews, Skelcher, & Wegorowski, 2018). This ...

I dag regnes uttrykket «den tredje alder» gjerne som ensbetydende med pensjonisttilværelsen, selv om forestillingen om at menneskelivet kan deles inn i tre aldre er svært mye eldre enn pensjonsinstituttet. Denne forestillingen kan spores til tidlig i menneskeslektas utvikling, da behovet for «reservemødre» nødvendiggjorde sosial integrering av tre (snarere enn bare to) generasjoner. Denne ...

Cooperation between Norwegian and Russian scientists on marine science in the Barents Sea dates back to the 1950s. Science, as well as the resource management it serves, has evolved dramatically since then. In terms of its substance, scientific foci and methods have increased substantially. Previously, research efforts targeted a few commercial fish species, whereas entire ecosystems and non–commercial ...

When municipalities merge, they grow and, at the same time, experience a comprehensive reform process, both of which may affect political trust. We explore whether and how the large-scale municipal amalgamation reforms in Norway in the 2010s affected citizens’ trust in local and national elected officials and assemblies. We examine the effects of both changes in size and reform processes using survey ...

This article addresses the relation between gender and social change in the context of east-west migration. Using a feminist phenomenologist and interpretative approach, the analysis shows that Russian female migrants in Northern Norway, although well-educated and generally well-integrated in the local labor market, often felt that they were on display and judged through their bodies. Their bodily ...