BCS 100 Module 9: Northern Governance

This module will explore the multifaceted and complex governing structures of the Arctic region, how these structures relate to one another, and the importance of these structures to the future of the Circumpolar North. The required reading focuses on devolution and local governance structures. We, therefore, balance this with module information on supranational governance structures in the North – those that transcend established national boundaries or spheres of interest. Together, the reading and the module should provide you with a good introduction to the very complex world of Northern governance

Multiscalar entanglements in the post-socialist city: monotown restructuring, spatial re-ordering and urban inequality in Russia

Monotowns in Russia epitomize the mixed history of Soviet industrialized urbanization and post-soviet transformation. The 2007–8 global financial crisis magnified socio-economic pro- blems in these cities. In spite of the deepened neoliberal urbanization observed across post-socialist cities and the glo- bal impetus of the crisis, monotowns were typically discussed within a national political framework. Our point of departure is that the monotown is an instructive site in which to explore the conundrum of global-local interconnections. To develop this argument, we conceptualize multiscalar entanglements as a base to combine analytical attention to subjective narratives with an interest in (global) structuring forces. We use this to empirically examine logics of spatial re-ordering in Russian monotowns in two analytical steps: First, we observe how federal policy introduced in response to the global crisis rede- fined monotowns from being territories of “crisis” and “risk” into those that offered spaces of development. Second, we focus on a particular study-site, the city of Zapolyarny and explain how the city-forming enterprise has initiated a recon- struction of the city. We find that the enterprise has reemerged as an urban governing body. In conclusion, we draw attention to emerging trends in urban inequality and insecurity consti- tuted by these logics of spatial reordering.Multiscalar entanglements in the post-socialist city: monotown restructuring, spatial re-ordering and urban inequality in RussiapublishedVersio

Konfliktanalyse i Rogaland og Hordaland. Konkurrerende brukerinteresser til evakuerte oppdrettsanlegg under algeoppblomstringen våren 1988

Denne konfliktanalysen viste at fiskeoppdrett og villfiskinteressene var hyppigst konkurrerende brukerinteresser til evakuerte oppdrettsanlegg i Rogaland og Hordaland. Det største problemet ved flytting av anlegg er å hindre spredning av sykdom. Krav om godkjent helseattest og minstestandard på merdanlegget før flytting tillates, samt plan for fluktruter/nødlokalisering kan bidra til å redusere de negative konsekvensene ved evakuering av oppdrettsanlegg

'The Foreign Within': State-Civil Society Relations in Russia

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Kvinnefrigjøring og krig - en selvmotsigelse? FNs sikkerhetsrådsresolusjon 1325 og kvinners rettigheter i Afghanistan

Flere tiår med feministisk aktivisme kan sies å ha satt sine spor i internasjonal politikk. Et eksempel er å finne i FNs sikkerhetsrådsresolusjon 1325. Afghanistan har blitt en testcase for denne resolusjonens kvinnepolitiske siktemål. Søkelyset her rettes inn mot denne resolusjonen og hvordan den vil kunne virke inn på kvinners liv og rettigheter. Vi kritiserer måten hensynet til kvinner og kvinners rettigheter blir brukt i begrunnelser for krig eller militære intervensjoner, og problematiserer forestillinger om likestilling som synes mer innrettet mot å legitimere vår egen maktbruk enn mot å forstå de lokale maktforhold som påvirker kvinners liv og resolusjonens effekter

Accounting for the money-made parenthood of transnational surrogacy

In the last decade, transnational surrogacy has attracted world-wide attention for making babies and pregnancies exchangeable with money. Involuntarily childless couples and individuals travel abroad and pay to have the desired child and to become parents. Acknowledging the importance of asking into the consequences of this monetization of reproduction, the author takes issue with universalistic assumptions about money and markets, and their presumed universal effects on social relations. Instead, it is argued that we need to explore how money works, and, by extension, how transnational surrogacy works out and becomes viable to people as a way to become parents. Putting together insights from economic sociology, and the assisted reproductive technology and parenting culture literature, the author employs the notion of accounting to grasp how people make sense of the money involved in making them parents. Based on a study involving 21 interviews with Norwegian gay and straight couples and single men and women seeking surrogacy abroad, the author explores how money is accounted for in three cases, set in three different countries; India, the United States and Canada. The analysis shows how money is accounted for in particular ways to confirm parenthood. These ways differ depending on the local context and transnational relations; ultimately making differentiated monetized parenthood. This is of significance when we try to conceptualize contemporary parenthood and how money seemingly sustains parenthood in ever more radical ways

Troublesome reproduction: surrogacy under scrutiny

In recent years, the emergence of transnational commercial surrogacy arrangements has prompted consideration of how and whether it is possible to bridge claims for reproductive rights from involuntarily childless couples and singles, many of whom historically have been excluded from reproduction, with the rights and well-being of the reproductive assisters. In this article, I suggest that a fruitful starting point for a conversation on how to tackle such a challenge is to examine the way in which surrogacy is conceptualized. Thus, I examine how scholars have queried surrogacy, asking how different conceptualizations of who this reproductive phenomenon concerns have led to the formulations of different types of ‘troubles’ of surrogacy. I delineate three different conceptualizations of surrogacy. Firstly, how surrogacy as a way to make parents has troubled scholars because of the conflation of reproduction with consumption, thereby making reproduction a matter of financial resource. Secondly, the trouble emerging when surrogacy is conceptualized as baby-making relates to how surrogacy turns babies and bodies into commodities. Thirdly, surrogacy understood as a phenomenon that concerns the women gestating and birthing the children has brought attention to issues of exploitation. These different formulations of trouble point towards tensions in the literature, while also offering reminders that surrogacy is not one thing alone; a finding that provides an opening for new forms of reproductive justice. This brings me to propose a rethinking of the notion of ‘reproductive assistance’, arguing in favour of moving away from substitution and transaction towards a relational being-together

Security under construction : a Bourdieusian approach to non-state crisis centres in northwest Russia

This study examines the work of non-state crisis centres for women in Northwest Russia by asking “How do non-state crisis centres for women in Northwest Russia produce security?” The work of Pierre Bourdieu contributes to an analytical approach that illustrates security practices in regard to this context. On the basis of interviews conducted with crisis centre representatives, Moscow-based national women’s groups and Norwegian collaborators in Northern crisis centre work, this analytical approach is used to explain the dynamics of the local security production. Three thinking tools in Bourdieu’s work, field, capital and habitus are used in this study. The concept of field defines an analytical framework characterized by the relations between the crisis centres and local stakeholders as well as between the crisis centres and their clients. The concepts of capital and habitus depict the objective constraints and subjective aspects relevant to the local security production. In result the study illustrates that crisis centres in Northwest Russia manoeuvre in the field on the basis of their social capital. This implies in this context that security production is ad hoc and personalized. Most centres do not offer a physical shelter but nonetheless provide a discursive space and an information hub for victims’ process of re-describing self and thus recreating a situation of security. This novel analytical approach to examining local security practices and the work of non-state crisis centres displays a de-militarized understanding of security. This conceptualization of security reflects human security and its concern with people-centred security. A weakness in human security research however concerns empirical study, and this is addressed in this case study of non-state crisis centres in Northwest Russia. The study contributes by making visible ongoing practices of security production that define people’s security reality and thereby challenges pre-conceived conceptions of security and its connection to the use of military force

Governing parental desires and vulnerabilities: Affective bio politics in the context of Norwegian citizens' repro-migration

In the early 2010s, transnational surrogacy was a hotly debated topic in Norway following Norwegian citizens’ repro-migration. One of the oft-repeated policy proposals in the debate was to criminalise transnational surrogacy in the same fashion as the purchase of sex. However, instead of introducing a prohibition, the Parliament, in 2013, voted in favour of an addition to the Biotechnology Act, clarifying that private individuals could not be punished for participating in surrogacy abroad. Of concern to me in this paper is how transnational surrogacy came to be handled in a manner that facilitated, rather than stopped, this type of repro-migration. I examine the legislative process that led to the current regulation of transnational surrogacy, with particular attention to the aff ective biopolitics of repro-migration. I fi nd that reproductive vulnerability and desire circulated in the debate, which fi nally resulted in an exemption of the Norwegian repro-migrants from punishment

Evakuering av oppdrettsanlegg i Rogaland og Hordaland. Problemer som følge av Chrysochromulina polylepsis-oppblomstringen mai-juni 1988

Rapporten oppsummerer de viktigste erfaringene fra evakueringen av matfiskanlegg under Chrysochromulina polylepsis - oppblomstringen mai-juni 1988. Organisering og administrasjon av flyttesaken vil bli beskrevet, samt aktuelle lover som setter rammer for en slik aksjon. rapporten tar også for seg de problemer/konflikter som oppsto som følge av flytting av anlegg fra ytre kyststrøk til indre fjordsystem i Rogaland og Hordaland.Miljøverndepartementet v/LENKA-prosjekte