Kirkenes: a Case for Borderland Norwegians? an Analysis of the Discourses and Practices Towards Russia Following the Storskog and Frode Berg Cases

Kirkenes: a case for borderland Norwegians? An analysis of the discourses and practices towards Russia following the Storskog and Frode Berg cases

Leonor Oliveira de Almeida Toscano

Master’s Thesis in Peace and Conflict Studies Department of Political Science

UNIVERSITY OF OSLO

Autumn 2019

Kirkenes: a case for borderland Norwegians? An analysis of the discourses and practices towards Russia following the Storskog and Frode Berg cases

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© Leonor Oliveira de Almeida Toscano 2019 Kirkenes: A case for borderland Norwegians? Leonor Oliveira de Almeida Toscano http://www.duo.uio.no Print: Reprosentralen, University of Oslo Word Count: 25.361

Abstract

The Storskog and Frode Berg cases are arguably the most relevant cases in Norwegian- Russian relationships since the advent of Crimea in 2014. Both cases have prompted a wide variety of discourses, both across different regions in Norway and across different political actors. Besides their implications for Norway’s domestic policy, these cases also impacted the bilateral relationship through a series of mismatching interpretations on legal procedures, application of different protocols, the presence of espionage, and other factors. Both these cases have also a directly implication in the border area, either by its de facto occurrence in the border (Storskog) or by the involvement of local people (Frode Berg). Given their regional implications, it is of both academic and political relevance to explore how Norwegians living by the border interpreted Russia through these incidents. Therefore, this thesis conducts an analysis on the discourses and practices on Russian in the border town of Kirkenes around these two political incidents and examines the extent to which these discourses can be grounded in the existence of a community region. The thesis is theoretically informed by the practice turn and poststructuralist epistemologies. The analysis of the textual data is able to identity three main discourses and practices: the ‘cultural competence’ discourse and the practice of ‘normalisation’, the ‘cooperation’ discourse and the practice of ‘dialogue’, and the ‘high politics’ discourse and the practice of ‘accountability’. The interaction between practice and discourses suggests that Russia is framed as ‘neighbour’, but this denominator acquires different meanings. Thus, this thesis concludes that Kirkenes’ position towards Russia is multisided. Furthermore, multisided positions towards Russia can be grounded on the concept of security community as an intersubjective construction that embeds narratives with meaning.

Acknowledgments

First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Svein Vigeland Rottem for all the good insights and interesting discussions. Thank you for believing in the project from day one and for your support throughout the thesis. Likewise, I would like to thank all the research and administrative staff at Fridtjof Nansen Institute, the institute that welcomed me as a master’s student for one year. Thank you for the feedback and insightful discussions - and not least for all the lunch breaks by the fireplace.

Next, I would like to thank all my informants in Kirkenes for their time and valuable contributions to this thesis. I would particularly like to thank The Barents Institute for being so kind as to offer me an office seat while in Kirkenes. To all the people at the ‘Barents House’, thank you for making my field-work a memorable experience.

I also owe a big thanks to my fellow PECOS students and dear friends for this two-year journey. You made my time at Blindern unforgettable. A special thanks to Ingeborg and Fride for their valuable feedback and proof-reading. Thank you to my family, especially my mother, for the immeasurable support despite the many kilometres between us.

Lastly, thank you, Mohamed. You reassured me when I felt like giving up and patiently cheered me up every time. Thank you for your endless love and support.

All the mistakes and misconceptions in this thesis are my own.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Kirkenes: Between Norway and Russia ------1 1.1.2 The Border and Its Meanings ------2 1.1.3 The BEAR and Norwegian Duality ------3 1.2 Research Question and Objectives ------3 1.2.1 Context and Relevance ------4 1.2.2 Scope and Clarifications ------5 1.3 Analytical Tools and Selection of Empirical Material ------7 1.4 Structure of the Thesis ------7

Chapter 2 Theoretical Framework ------9 2.1 Social Constructivism and Interpretivism ------9 2.2 The Practice Turn ------10 2.2.1 Conceptualizations and Contributions ------11 2.2.2 Defining Social Practices ------13 2.2.3 On Symbolic Power ------15 2.2.4 On Background Knowledge ------15 2.3 Practice, Identity and Discourse ------17 2.4 Cross-Border Practices and Discourses? The Concept of Community Regions ------19 2.5 Application of the Theoretical Framework ------20

Chapter 3 Methodology ------21 3.1 A Three-Step Process: Induction, Interpretation and Historical/Contextual Positioning ------21 3.2 Data Selection and Collection ------23 3.3 Challenges and Pitfalls: Internal Validity, Reliability and Generalization ------26

Chapter 4 Norway and Russia: Between Fear and Cooperation ------29 4.1 The Cold War Period ------30 4.1.1 NATO: A Western Demarcation ------31 4.1.2 Fisheries Cooperation and The Grey Zone Agreement ------32 4.2 Post-Cold War ------33 4.2.1 The 1990s and the Barents Spirit ------35 4.2.2 The 2010 Barents Sea Delimitation Agreement ------36

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4.2.3 The Crimea Crisis ------36 4.3 After Crimea: What Next? ------38 4.3.1 Storskog ------38 4.3.2 Frode Berg ------38

Chapter 5 Analysis of the Textual Data and Interviews ------41 5.1 Identifying Dominant Discourses and Practices ------41 5.2 The Storskog Case ------42 5.2.1 The ‘Cultural Competence’ Discourse ------42 5.2.2 The ‘Cooperation’ Discourse ------44 5.2.3 The ‘High Politics’ Discourse ------46 5.3 The Frode Berg Case ------48 5.3.1 The ‘Cultural Competence’ Discourse ------48 5.3.2 The ‘Cooperation’ Discourse ------50 5.3.3 The ‘High Politics’ Discourse ------52 5.4 Summary: Meaning and Action ------54

Chapter 6 Discourse, Practice and Perceptions of Russia: A Cross-Border Discussion --55 6.1 The Interplay Between Practices and Discourses ------55 6.1.1 Power and Knowledge ------57 6.2 Identity Constructions: The Self and the Other(s) ------58 6.3 Kirkenes: The Case for a Community Region? ------59 Chapter 7 Conclusion ------62 7.1 Main Findings ------62 7.2 Further Research ------63 Literature List ------65 Appendix ------72

List of Figures

Figure 1 – Ideal Types of Knowledge ------16

Figure 2 – Culture/Identity as Interplay Between Practice and Discourse ------18

Figure 3 – Intertextual Research Models ------23

Figure 4 – Establishment and Reproduction of Positions Towards Russia ------57

List of Tables

Table 1 – Selection of Textual Data – Storskog ------24

Table 2 – Selection of Textual Data – Frode Berg ------25

List of Abbreviations

BEAR – Barents Euro-Arctic Region

BEARC – Barents Euro-Arctic Council

EU – European Union

FSB – The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation

NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organization

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1 Introduction

1.1 Kirkenes: Between Norway and Russia

Norway shares an almost 198km long border with Russia in the northern rim of Europe, stretching from the village Grense Jakobselv, on the shore of the Barents Sea, to the Three- Country-Cairn in Pasvikdalen, where the borders of Finland, Russia and Norway converge. On the Russian side of the border lies the municipality of Pechengsky, part of the Murmansk Oblast. One the Norwegian side of the border lies the municipality of Sør-Varanger, with Kirkenes as its administrative centre. The border is also located in a wider politically relevant region known as the Barents Euro-Arctic Region (hereby BEAR), which is situated in what is commonly referred the “High North” or the European portions of the Arctic. Compared to the Circumpolar Arctic, the BEAR is richer in resources, particularly in living marine resources and mineral resources, and it has been historically more accessible for both expeditions and human activity in general (Tamnes and Offerdal, 2014, p.5).

During the autumn months of 2015 several groups of asylum seekers arriving from Russia crossed the Norwegian-Russian border at Storskog, many of whom with bicycles. A total of 5500 people crossed the border in 2015, particularly in October and November (Utlendingsdirektoratet, 2015). The border town of Kirkenes and its approximately 3500 inhabitants were suddenly met with a big influx of people. The challenges were many: from the lack of proper infrastructure to the inability of separating asylum seekers from economic migrants (NRK, 2017). “The Arctic Route”, and thereby the Norwegian-Russian border, was a gateway to Europe.

Years later, in December of 2017, a former border inspector was arrested in Moscow and accused of espionage. Frode Berg, a known face in Kirkenes’ due to its presence and engagements in many local institutions and people-to-people cooperation projects, had been caught having secret documents on the Russian Northern Fleet and three thousand euros in cash (NRK, 2019). He later admitted having been on a mission for the Norwegian Secret Services. The case caught Kirkenes’ local society and political elite by surprise. Together with Storskog, these cases draw national attention not only to this local border town and the physical border, but also to the Norwegian-Russian relation.

1.1.1 The Border and Its Meanings

The Norwegian-Russian border and the area surrounding it work as a reflex of both the history of Norway-Russia relations and Norway’s Russia policy, “as historical changes in borders and state relations often play into contemporary meanings of the border” itself (Lynnebakken, 2018, p.4). During the Cold War, the border, albeit peaceful, was a typical hard border heavily guarded and protected (Jensen, 2017, p.127). Given that it was the only terrestrial border between the Soviet Union and a NATO member-state, the border was “both a manifestation and a symbol of the split between East and West, and between communism and capitalism” (Viken et al., 2008, p.27). After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and during the 1990s-2000s, the nature of the border shifted away from its hard signifier of division of two worlds. The many cross-border initiatives and projects, which lead to the establishment of the Barents Secretariat in 1993, brought the adjacent border municipalities closer together. It is in this context that the town of Kirkenes undergoes the process of self-reinvention from an industrial town to a centre for cross- border cooperation town, having since then served as an arena for the many formal and informal encounters between Russia and Norway. Besides that, the local economy and services, as well as cultural and social practices, have become heavily dependent on the border and Russian consumers and travellers (Viken et al., 2008, p.32). Dynamics of cross-border integration culminated with the establishment of a 30-kilometre visa-free zone, which was introduced on the 29th of May 2012 (The Norwegian Barents Secretariat, n.d.)1. This is the first visa-free zone between Russia and a Schengen agreement country (Mikhailova, 2018, p.448) Cross-border integration, regional organizations, and physical border crossings have heavily contributed to creation of a “Barents region” or at least the idea of a “borderland”, an area which one could say “is neither Russia nor Norway to the full extent” (Rogova, 2009, p.33). While the idea of a common “Barents Identity” is still questionable (Hønneland, 1998; 2013; Rogova, 2009), opening the border “has changed people’s experience and perception of themselves and the surrounding world” (Rogova, 2009, p.41). Yet ambiguity and diversity are still present, as “locals do not necessarily have neither a straightforward resistance nor embracement of new transborder regions” (Lynnebakken, 2018, p.4). Indeed, the Norwegian- Russian border may well be representative of successful cross-border and regional integration while remaining at its core an important division between East and West, between Schengen and Russia.

1 More information on the visa-free zone can be found here (in Norwegian): https://barents.no/en/node/982 2

1.1.2 The BEAR and Norwegian Duality

The BEAR has been an area historically marked by a strong military-strategic use that goes back to the First World War. The region achieved its highest prominence during the Cold War with the advents of superpower competition and the militarization of the region2, particularly because of its strategic position. Despite the tension felt in the region, the creation of the Joint Norwegian-Russian Fisheries Commission in 1976 is an example that there remained room for cooperation. During the 1990s, an époque when Arctic affairs were marginalized from the security arena, cooperation flourished at the Circumpolar level and at the Barents level, with the creation of the Barents Euro-Arctic Council in 1993

Since the 2000s however, we have witnessed a resurgence of Arctic and High North affairs mostly due to the impacts of climate change and the oil and gas sector (Tamnes and Offerdal, 2014, p.1). The region is also impacted by from external drivers, both when concerning climate change and pollution, but also on the realm of international politics. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 by Russia has altered the quality of East-West relations, especially with what concerns NATO allies, including Norway. Thus, the history of Norway and Russia in the BEAR reflects itself in what is often deemed as the duality of the Norwegian foreign policy. This translates into an alignment with the western powers and membership of NATO, while maintaining a level of good neighbouring relationships with Russia in the High North (Norwegian Ministries, 2017, p.18). This strategic option is particularly visible during the Cold War period, where deterrence through NATO and reassurance through self-imposed restrictions on military exercises, were a crucial part of Norway’s strategy to deal with the Soviet Union (Tamnes and Holtsmark, 2014, p.33).

1.2. Research Question and Objectives The Norwegian-Russian border is a complex site. Not only has it been subjected to the ups and downs of the bilateral relationship, including political incidents such as the Storskog and Frode Berg cases, but it has also undergone a series of cooperative efforts with have brought the countries closer together, at least regionally. It is therefore interesting to question how local Norwegians perceive Russia, and how they interact with it in practice. This thesis will therefore

2 The construction of the Kola Bases during the 1960s by the Soviet Union turned the Kola Peninsula into one of the most militarized regions in the world. The Kola Peninsula is still the base for Russia’s northern fleet and nuclear arsenal (Tamnes and Holtsmark, 2014, p.31).

explore both the local discourses and local practices in the border town of Kirkenes towards Russia. I will focus on Kirkenes’ political and cultural elite and I will be using the Storskog and Frode Berg incidents as structuring cases for the analysis. Albeit different in their nature, both cases have had an impact on Norway and Russia’s bilateral relationship since they directly involve both countries, but they also have a strong connection to the physical border and the borderland in general. In addition, they are arguably the most relevant political issues involving Russia and Norway in the post-Crimea period. I therefore formulate my research question as follows:

“What are the local discourses and practices in Kirkenes on Russia upon the Storskog and Frode Berg cases? How is Russia framed through these discourses and practices, and to what extent can they be informed by the presence of a community region?”

In order to address the question, it is necessary to first describe the different discourses and practices regarding Russia. This then implies describing not only how the local elite ascribes meaning to Russia, but also how they act towards it in a routinized way. Second, it is through the interplay between discourse and practice that I can evaluate how Russia is perceived. Given the relational quality of identity construction, looking at how Russia is framed and perceived also implies looking at how Kirkenes is framed. Finally, the third aspect involves addressing the concept of community region, and how this may serve as an explanatory concept for these discourses, practices and perceptions on Russia, insofar as they may articulates some of its key aspects. While I use the term explanatory, I do not mean strict cause-effect relationships. Interpretivism, and by that analysis on discourse, are more inclined to understand and analyse “how we construct, sustain, and challenge dominant mindsets and institutions we surround ourselves with” (Bratberg, 2017, p.58). That does not mean that interpretivist analysis cannot think in terms of cause and effect, but that “does not mean sharp causal effects” (Ibid., p. 59).

1.2.1 Context and Relevance Despite increasing tension, cooperation with Russia in the Barents region remains an important issue in Norwegian foreign policy, and Norway’s Arctic policy (Norwegian Ministries, 2017) reinforces the balance between geopolitics and social development. Cross-border and people- to-people cooperation projects have flourished since the 1990s and impacted the life of Norwegians at the border. Simultaneously, political incidents like Storskog and Frode Berg

remind us that border communities are often met with challenges. Incidents like these can also prompt reflections, speculations and debates that actualize the meaning of the border and the nature of Norwegian-Russian relations. It is therefore relevant to ask and investigate how border communities such as Kirkenes, which are more tightly related to Russia, perceive the neighbouring country. By using the Storskog and Frode Berg cases as analytical junctures, this thesis contributes with an update on the state of these perceptions. In the first instance, this thesis seeks to contribute to the broad field of border studies by providing and insight on “borderland Norwegians”, a term promptly borrowed from Hønneland (2013), who explores identity constructions and narratives in North-West Russia. This thesis seeks then to add up to the bulk of research made on the Norwegian side of the border, such as Viken et al. (2008), Rogova (2009) and Lynnebakken (2018). More particularly, this thesis seeks to expand the field of qualitative research by bridging the discursive and the practice turn in a theoretical and methodological attempt that moves away from the “armchair analysis”, that is, that seeks to compliment a text-based analysis with different experience-near observation and data from the field (Neumann, 2002, p.628). I therefore chose to conduct a textual analysis that also includes interviews conducted in Kirkenes. To my knowledge, this type of empirical analysis has not been conducted in the Norwegian border and its perceptions of Russia.

1.2.2 Scope and Clarifications Some clarifications must be made in the preface of this thesis. The most important concerns the lack of a Russian perspective in this thesis. Despite addressing a cross-border relationship and the idea of a community region, this thesis will not explore the Russian side of the border and its perspectives, discourses and practices on Norway. Given the scope and length of this thesis, I did not consider this to be attainable. Furthermore, an analysis on Russian discourses and practices would not only require cultural competence on Russia and Russian language, but it would also imply extended field-work in Russia for data gathering and collection. Remaining focused on Norway does not, however, undermine the value of this thesis. It is still relevant to ask how Norwegians perceive Russia, particularly in the aftermath of Storskog and Frode Berg cases. Likewise, as mentioned before, addressing the concept of community region does not entail causality. The use of community regions is part of a methodology which moves from subjectivism to objectivism, and its use aims the construction of an understanding on why political actors hold certain discourses and practices and construct Russia in a certain way. In a

sense, I attempt to explore and explain where these discourses and practices come from (Bratberg, 2017, p.58). The second clarification concerns the impact of the Crimea Crisis of 2014, which substantially deteriorated West-East relationships, particularly the ones involving Russia and either the EU or NATO. Given the series of repercussions that followed the annexation, to both Russia in the form of economic sanctions and to the bilateral relationship, I decided to treat Crimea as an angle, not as the core, of my analysis. To treat Crimea as a core of my analysis would have involved a further analysis on the existing pre-Crimea discourses and practices, which would considerably increase the time frame and the amount of textual data, something which I considered not to be attainable in the time and length of this thesis. I therefore depart from a post-Crimea context of increased bilateral and international tensions, a factor which is supported by the secondary literature (see Åtland, 2016; Lindgren and Græger, 2017). Third, I decided to structure my analysis needed some junctures in order for it to be structured. I decided to choose two cases which in some way directly impacted, or could impact, the quality of the bilateral relationship, both at the national and the local level. The choice of the Storskog and Frode Berg cases revealed to be the best, since both cases have a very direct connection to the border and the town of Kirkenes, making local discourses and practices even more relevant. Some other cases could have been considered, for example GPS jamming under NATO’s “Trident Juncture” exercise, but this would imply the loss of the local border town reality which is the core of the project. Fourth, I am focusing on Kirkenes political and cultural elite, and this decision is grounded on both theoretical reasons and methodological or practical reasons. The first concerns with the role of symbolic power which, as I will explore later, is quite central in the formation of dominant discourses and practices. The second concerns with data availability. It is rather difficult to find media statements or any other form of discursive statements from local, random inhabitants in Kirkenes. Random interviews would also be quite difficult to attain, mostly for practical reasons since I do not have the necessary contacts in Kirkenes to get informants. Interviewing random individuals could also raise some issues regarding the operationalization of the concepts, not least because both cases are rather sensitive and could pose some barriers or create some level of discomfort. Lastly, I do not intend to compare local border town to central “Oslo” discourses and practices. This factor emerges later empirically, more than often being clearly stated in both the textual data and interviews, but as I have no data coverage for the capital region, a comparison is therefore impossible and outpasses the scope of this project.

1.3 Analytical Tools and Selection of Empirical Material This thesis conducts an analysis on the local Norwegian discourses and practices towards Russian as they emerged in the aftermath of the Storskog and Frode Berg cases. The analysis is informed by the theoretical and methodological contributions advanced by both the practice turn and poststructuralism in social sciences. There is not a single way of conducting discourse analysis, and I have therefore chosen Ted Hopf’s (2002) and Vicent Pouiliot’s (2007) methodological tools of induction, interpretation/intertextuality, and historical positioning. This methodological framework presupposes a move from subjectivism to objectivism, and allows me to conduct a discourse analysis which takes in experience-near observation and data, such as field-world and interviews. The textual analysis and coding itself is done with the help of predicate analysis which focuses on the verbs, adverbs and adjectives attached to nouns.

This thesis employs two different types of empirical material. On the one hand, speeches and statements retrieved only from local newspapers and media outlets, namely the Sør- Varanger Avis, The Independent Barents Observer, and NRK Finnmark. Albeit being a national news and broadcasting system, NRK does have a physical office in Kirkenes. On the other hand, semi-structured interviews conducted with key informants who were local political actors, local media actors, and local civil society actors. Due to the sensitivity of these cases, particularly the Frode Berg case, my informants will remain anonymous.

1.4 Structure of the Thesis Following this introductory section, chapter 2 provides the theoretical perspective for this thesis. I will address what is meant by “practice” as developed by the practice turn, together with theoretical insights on discourse, identity and community regions. The chapter is meant as a theoretical grounding for an analysis which is central on identity (how Russia is perceived and framed) and ascertains that identity is constituted intersubjectively through the interplay between practice and discourse. Chapter 3 provides a background on the Norwegian-Russian border, particularly on the periods and incidents that have had a more prominent impact in Finnmark and the border area. In chapter 4 I will present the research methodology I have chosen for the analysis, which is a discourse analysis combined with experience-near observation and data. I will address the methodological tools and process, data selection and collection, and pitfalls and weaknesses. Chapter 5 contains the analysis of the textual and interview data by using the selected analytical tools. Chapter 6 discusses the main findings

relating them to the theoretical framework and include the dominant practices and discourses and their interplay, identity construction and to what extent the latter articulates the idea of a community region.

2 Theoretical Framework

This chapter seeks to establish an analytical framework for the analysis of borderland Norwegians’ discourses and practices on Russia around the Storskog and Frode Berg cases. The point of departure herein lies in the interpretative branches of constructivism, mainly the theoretical contributions developed under the practice turn and poststructuralism in social sciences. This interdisciplinary school of thought points to the use of bottom-up approaches and focuses on the everyday knowledge and practices carried out by the actors under study, thus providing a new framework for the analysis of the dynamic relationship between human agency and social structures.

In order to map the various discourses and practices on Russia, I will first look at the practice turn and the concept of practices. I will then compliment this with poststructuralist accounts on identity and discourse, since it is through the interplay between practice and discourse that identities are constituted. This will be done by building on the theoretical contributions of Bourdieu (1990), Foucault (2002), Pouliot (2007; 2008; 2010), Adler (1997; 2008), Hopf (1998; 2002; 2007; 2017), Neumann (2002) and Hansen (2006). In order to address the second part of my research question, I will turn to the concept of community regions by building upon the contribution of Adler (1997; 2008).

Section 2.1 will lay the ground for the core aspects of interpretativism. This is followed by section 2.2 where I will explore the practice turn and some of its main contributors (particularly Bourdieu), followed by the core characteristics of social practices, the role of symbolic power and background knowledge. Section 2.3 will explore the relationship between identity, discourse and practice. The concept of communities of practice will be addressed in section 2.4, followed by section 2.5 on the application of this framework to the case of borderland Norwegians and their perceptions on Russia.

2.1 Social Constructivism and Interpretivism

Constructivism in political science and international relations evolved alongside other social science disciplines. As such, constructivism borrows insights from several different fields. As a school of thought, Constructivism holds several premises. The first one is that the world is socially constructed through intersubjective action (McDonald, in Williams, 2013). From this follows that things are brought into being and are given meaning through the social interaction between actors. Constructivism tends, therefore, to reject universal concepts, focusing instead

on how particular perspectives and practices materialize (Ibid., p.65). The second tenet is that actors and structures are mutually constituted (Hopf, 1998). Structures restrain actors’ behaviour by pointing out to a set of possible actions, but these actions reproduce the structures that constrained them in the first place. Identities play a central role in this relation, since they act “like an axis of interpretation” (Hopf, 2002, p.5), providing meaning to actor’s actions and ensuring some level of order (Hopf, 1998, 2002). This dynamic relation points out to Constructivism’s third tenet, which is that ideational and non-material factors matter. Norms and practices are crucial to the intersubjective social contexts because they provide meaning to action and behaviour, acting as a mediator for both the relationship and understandings established between actors, but also the production/reproduction of intersubjective structures (Hopf, 1998, p.173). This is not to say that material factors are to be ignored, rather that materiality gets its meaning through intersubjective action, by discourses which draw upon a set of identity constructions (Hansen, 2006). The Constructivist claims depicted above point out to an epistemological and ontological path which is distant from positivism. The interpretivist foundations of constructivism lie precisely in the assertion that the social world is apprehended and subjected to interpretation by different perceptions and understandings, which embed particular identity constructions and sets of norms and rules. Concepts become therefore context dependent. For the researcher, to understand the actor’s words and actions entails the reconstruction of the social structure that provides meaning to them (Hopf, in Lebow and Lichbach, 2007). It also entails acknowledging the researcher’s own account when interpreting evidence, since “she must comprehend the evidence through her own conceptions, while simultaneously realizing the perspective of her subject” (Ibid., p.62). A more thorough discussion on the interpretivist core of this research project will be addressed during the methodological model, in chapter 2.5.

2.2 The Practice Turn

The Practice Turn emerges as an opposition to an array of schools of thought operating under diverse fields of social sciences, like structuralism, individualism, and semiotics, and contests many of the dual conceptualizations of the social world (actor/structure, objectivism/subjectivism, materialism/idealism, etc). It presents a social ontology that focuses on social practices and on the realm of the everyday, that is, the “routinized way in which bodies are moved, objects are handled, subjects are treated, things are described and the world is understood” (Reckwitz, 2002). Accordingly then, an analysis under the practice theory lens will

interpret and understand the social world through the “logic of practice”, the results of an “inarticulate, practical knowledge that makes what is to be done appear self-evident or commonsensical” (Pouliot, 2010, p.12).

The practice turn has produced a multitude of sometimes unarticulated theoretical considerations and formulations regarding the nature of practices, activity mediation, possibility for change, the rule of habit and other topics. There is nevertheless consensus about what a practice analysis should be. As Schatzki (Schatzki et al., 2001) states, under the practice turn fall all analyses that “(1) develop an account of practices, either the field of practices or some subdomain thereof (e.g., science), or (2) treat the field of practices as the place to study the nature and transformation of their subject matter”. There is also consensus about the epistemological bridging that practice theory produces. By being centred on practice, a site where the opus operatum meets the modus operandi (Bourdieu, 1990, p.52), this theoretical framework compels the researcher to look beyond traditional dualisms. As we will see with the definition of social practice, the analysis cannot do without looking at both agency and structure, at both ideational and material factors, and at both discourse/text and bodily activities/field.

2.2.1 Conceptualizations and Contributions

A literature review on the practice turn is rather ambitious. As mentioned before, not only are we talking about an epistemological move that spread through several fields of social sciences, but we also must consider that there is no “practice theory”, rather an array of theories and conceptual frameworks for the everyday. In the field of sociology for example, Anthony Giddens offers an account of agency which is intrinsically related to that of practice. By defining agency as a “the stream of actual or contemplated causal interventions of corporeal beings in the ongoing process of events-in-the-world” (2007, p.81), Giddens argues that action does not necessarily mean reflexive anticipation or knowledge because of the “existence of conventions in terms of which ‘appropriate’ modes of response are taken for granted” (Ibid., p.98). Another important contribution to the practice turn is that of Foucault, particularly with the concept of discursive formations which can be defined as systems of dispersion. As Foucault (2002, p.41) further develops, “whenever, between objects, types of statement, concepts, or thematic choices, one can define a regularity (an order, correlations, positions and functionings, transformations), we will say, for the sake of convenience, that we are dealing with a discursive formation”.

One of the most cannoned contributions in the field that must be addressed is that of Pierre Bourdieu. The author emerges as one of the pioneers in practice turn, having formulated some of the core concepts that still operate in practice theories today. In his book “The Logic of Practice” (1990), Bourdieu presents three paradigmatic concepts: habitus, field, and doxa. It is the interplay between the three concepts makes up for a comprehensive understanding of the logic of practicality; how practices emerge, are ordered, and reproduce themselves. Bourdieu defines habitus as “systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is, as principles which generate and organize practices and representations that can be objectively adapted to their outcomes without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary in order to attain them” (Bourdieu, 1990, p.53). Habitus is historical because it builds up on former individual and collective experiences. Habitus is therefore “a present past that tends to perpetuate itself into the future by reactivation in similarly structured practices” (Bourdieu, 1990, p.54). Habitus is relational because “its dispositions are embodied traces of intersubjective interactions” (Ibid., 2010, p.32)3. Habitus is dispositional because it disposes actors to certain things, since through it “the structure of which it is the product governs practice, not along the paths of a mechanical determinism, but within the constraints and limits initially set on its inventions” (Bourdieu, 1990, p.56). Last, habitus is practical because it is formed by practical inarticulate knowledge. The field is a complex concept which could be simply defined as a social configuration. However, Bourdieu defines field along three main dimensions. Fields are structured by taken- for-grated rules which positively or negatively sanction actors’ behaviours and actions, thus limiting what these could do (Bourdieu, 1990, p.55-56; Pouliot, 2010, p.34). They are defined by stakes at hand or issue-areas that bring actors together in struggle and investment, that is, “a direction, an orientation, an impending outcome, for those who take part and therefore acknowledge what is at stake” which turn them into “games 'in themselves' and not 'for themselves'” (Bourdieu, 1990, p.67-68). Fields are also defined by power-relations in which the ones dominating hold the control over a range of socially constructed forms of capital that impact the rules of the game and the meanings of practices (Pouliot, 2010, p.34).

3 This process entails an “internalization of externality”, how these intersubjective dispositions are incorporated at the subjective level. As Bourdieu clarifies, practices “can therefore only be accounted for by relating the social conditions in which the habitus that generated them was constituted, to conditions in which it is implemented” (1990, p.57). 12

Finally, Bourdieu defines doxa as “the relationship of immediate adherence that is established in practice between a habitus and the field to which it is attuned, the pre-verbal taking-for-granted of the world that flows from practical sense” (Bourdieu, 1990, p.69). This practical sense is important because it organizes actor’s actions in a given practice, since they are “linked by the cross-referencing and interdependent know-hows that they express concerning their performance, identification, instigation, and response” (Schatzki, in Schatzki, p.59)

2.2.2 Defining Social Practices At its most elementary conceptualization, practice is human activity. On a more comprehensive level, practices can be defined as “socially meaningful patterns of action, which, in being performed more or less competently, simultaneously embody, act out, and possibly reify background knowledge and discourse in and on the material world” (Adler and Pouliot, 2011, p.2). Practices lie somewhere between agency and structure and establish a dynamic relationship between the two, allowing for stabilization and reproduction, but also change and transformation (Ibid., 2011, p.5). They materialize and constitute both the agent and the structure. It is also important to distinguish between practice, action, and behaviour. As Cook and Brown (1999, p.387) put it, “doing of any sort we call “behavior,” while “action” we see as behavior imbued with meaning”. A practice is then “action informed by meaning drawn from a particular group context” (Ibid., p.387). The definition of practice above points out to two main conceptual discussions. The first one is the dimension of “embodiment”, the idea that practices perform and reproduce knowledge and discourse in the material world, meaning that the body works as the site of the social and not just as mere instrument to be used by the agent (Reckwitz, 2002, p.251). Bodily activities are thus constituted in the realm of practices (Schatzki, in Schatzki et al., 2001, p.11). Notwithstanding, embodiment does not come in detriment of the mind. Know-how, shared understandings and thought are integral aspects of the social because they point to different interpretations, emotions, aims and goals that are to be used under certain practices (Reckwitz, 2002, p.252). The point is instead that these mental activities become routinized as well. The second is the structural dimension of practices. Practices are context dependent, but they can also point to an interdependence between social agents and the intersubjective structure. Some practice theorists, disagreeing ever so slightly with this last postulate, argue that by social practices one does not necessarily mean interaction. Schatzki (in Schatzki et al.,

2001, p.14) offers an account of practice which gives more room to agency, arguing that practices are not impermeable to individual intervention and do not act as omnipotent orderly structures. Order is embodied in practice, it is a feature and does not exist outside of its field. Reckwitz (2002, p.256) adds a layer to the debate, arguing that, even though the social quality of practices does not directly imply an intersubjective dimension, and even though structure is still embodied in practice, agents work mostly as carriers of practices and are “neither autonomous nor the judgmental dopes who conform to norms”. Reckwitz also clearly marks the difference between individual and agent. Agents operate and perform different practices from the fields they belong to, and so the individual lies precisely in the unique intercross of bodily and mental practices agents accumulate (Ibid., p.256). Barnes, on the other hand, moves to a conceptualization of practice as “collective action” which orient humans towards each other in a net of intersubjective meaning (Barnes, in Schatzki et al., 2001, p.32). Human beings are therefore “interdependent social agents, linked by a profound mutual susceptibility, who constantly modify their habituated individual responses as they interact with others, in order to sustain a shared practice” (Ibid., p.32). Hopf compliments this line with the conceptualization of “social cognitive structures” which limit our meaningful utterances by specifying rules and habits (2002, p.21). Hopf also clarify in other works (1998, 2010) that the presence of habits hinder change and leave little room for agency. This is not to say that breaking habits is impossible, rather that change happens always in relation with the prevailing social structure, resulting then in everyday micro disruptions (Hopf, 2017, p.706) Moving to some of the core characteristics of practices, Adler and Pouliot (2011, p.6-7) differentiate between five different conceptual elements: performance, pattern, (in)competence, background, and discursive/material nexus. Practices are performative in the sense that they create something, they add up to the bulk of history by representing institutions and discourses and by articulating preferences. They are patterned in the sense that they repeat themselves over time and space under an intersubjective context. They are either competent or incompetent because they materialize themselves in a recognizable and meaningful way and are thus subjected to interpretation and appraisal by social audiences. They embody, execute, and materialize practical, background knowledge (knowing-how), which is oriented towards action. And last, they bridge material and discursive realms. On the one hand, discourse “turns practices into the location and engine of social action” and enables us to distinguish practices from behaviour; on the other hand, “practices are mediated by material artifacts”. If objects and things are necessary for practice reproduction, then “stable relation between agents

(body/minds) and things within certain practices reproduces the social” and cannot be diminished in relation to subject-subject relations (Reckwitz, 2002, p.253).

2.2.3 On Symbolic Power Symbolic power, or symbolic capital, plays a central role in practice theory. In its essence, symbolic power is “the ability to endow material objects with lasting socially legitimate meanings” (Adler, 2008, p.203). Symbolic power is then necessary in order to fix and pattern meaning, since it is through it that particular orders become legitimate (Pouliot, 2010, p.47). Therefore, symbolic power limits what is possible by excluding/including components of practices, discourses and identity constructions, and it works “partly through the control of other people's bodies and belief that is given by the collectively recognized capacity to act in various ways on deep-rooted linguistic and muscular patterns of behaviour, either by neutralizing them or by reactivating them to function mimetically” (Bourdieu, 1990, p.69). But symbolic power, and sequentially power relations, do not exist outside of intersubjective structures. They are rather “set up, in objectivity, among institutions, that is, among socially guaranteed qualifications and socially defined positions, and through them, among the social mechanisms that produce and guarantee both the social value of the qualifications and the distribution of these social attributes among biological individuals” (Ibid., p.132). Accordingly, symbolic power is also dependent on visible expenditure in order to be easily known, recognized and legitimized (Ibid., p.131).

2.2.4 On Background Knowledge Practice consists of meaningful patterned social activities that embody background knowledge. By shifting the focus to what is inarticulate and taken-for-granted, they allow the researcher to move the background to the spotlight of social life. But in order for one to thoroughly explore, one needs to also consider what is meant by background knowledge and its role. Background knowledge, as referenced before, is oriented towards action. This type of knowledge triggers a self-evident automatic response to a situation. This is so because practical knowledge is learned implicitly through bodily experience and practice, remaining bound up in it instead of behind it (Pouliot, 2008, p.267). It informs individuals that “in situation X, Y follows”, being therefore tacit, inarticulate and automatic (Ibid., 2010, p.28). There are two other important features of background knowledge. The first is its deeply contextual dimension which means both that it materializes in a particular local and situation

and also that it is nested in other practices (Pouliot, 2010, p.28; Neumann, 2002, p.636). The second is its plastic and decentralized nature, because background knowledge is “continually changing with the practices it informs” (Pouliot, 2010, p.28). It is therefore subjected to everyday microrupture because “no two phenomena are ever identical”, and since there is still room for the individual, two actors will not perform the same practice equally (Hopf, 2017, p.693). Practical knowledge contrasts largely with representational knowledge, which is conscious, verbalizable and intentional, acquired by formal schemes (Ibid., 2008, p.270). The figure below opposes in a simplified way both types of knowledge.

Figure 1. Ideal types of knowledge4

Inevitably, the logic of practicality then points to a relational rather than a structural dimension of social action. From the interplay between habitus and fields follows a non- representational practical sense that fits a social pattern (Pouliot, 2010, p.36). At its core lies the the dialetic of the “internalization of exteriority and externalization of interiority” (Bourdieu, quoted in Pouliot, 2010, p.36). On the one hand, actors internalize the set of intersubjective dispositions. On the other hand, these subjective dispositions help reproduce the social structures or fields in which actors are situated. The logic of practicality is therefore substantially different from the other logics of social action which are either constructed on the basis of external motivations or reflective internalization (Ibid, p.18-19). Pouliot goes even further by arguing that instrumental rationality, appropriateness, and communicative action all stem from practice, since these are constituted through time in habitus and fields (Ibid., p.37-

4 Figure retrieved from Pouliot (2008, p.271) 16

38)5. The logic of practicality also differs from the logic of habit as theorized by Hopf (2010; 2017), the former being slightly more reflexive and allowing for practical change. Hopf states that habits are “unintentional, unconscious, involuntary, and effortless” and tend to support the status quo by preventing the reflective system of the brain and facilitating mutual understanding (2010, p.541-543). The logic of habit leaves therefore very little room for agency6.

2.3 Practice, Identity and Discourse The practice turn, as previously mentioned, has produced a multitude of unarticulated theoretical contributions. While all wish to bring the background to the foreground, they attribute slightly different weights and roles to agency, structure, identity and discourse. Given that my analysis is very discursive, I need to compliment the theoretical framework with some accounts on identity and discourse. This will be done mostly with references from poststructuralism. This does not produce an antagonism given that practice theory is to a greater extent grounded in poststructuralism (Adler and Pouliot, 2011, p.2). We can define discourse as a “system of meaning production” (Dunn and Neumann, 2016, p.4). Discourses construct social reality, reproduce the reality by themselves constructed, and are at the same time established by practice, in the sense that they require articulation and materialization (Milliken, 1999, p.229). Discourses and language are social, in the sense that they are not “private property of the individual but as a series of collective codes and conventions that each individual needs to employ to make oneself comprehensible” (Hansen, 2006, p.16). This series of collective codes and conventions contains different signs which are organized and juxtaposed through language practice which requires the existence of a meaningful Other (Ibid., p.17). In order to produce meaning then, discursive practices make use of what poststructuralists call “processes of linking”, whereby attributes, signs or nodes are connected positively, and “processes of differentiation”, whereby these attributes and signs are negatively juxtaposed to other sets7. Language and discourses are therefore also political, in the

5 Pouliot argues that it is the practical sense informing which representational and conscious logic of social action should be at use in a given situation, based on the actors’ positions and dispositions (2010, p.37). 6 It is also important to mention that Pouliot and Hopf appreciate the other forms of social action quite differently. Unlike Pouliot, who argues that the logic of practicality is ontologically superior to the others, Hopf argues that the logic of habit “frees up the reflective mind to consciously deliberate about the world” (2017, p.689). Accordingly, the other logics of social action are still present and allow for change through reflective action. 7 Hansen (2006, p.17-8) exemplifies this with the concepts of “man” and “woman”. While woman “is defined through a positive process of linking emotional, motherly, reliant and simple (…) this series of links is at the same time juxtaposed to the male series of links through a negative process of differentiation”, which consist of rational, intellectual, complex and independent. 17

sense that they produce and reproduce “particular subjectivities and identities while others are simultaneously excluded” (Ibid., p.16). Identity on the other hand can be defined as an arrangement which composes the social orders of the fields of practice and is brought about and established in practice (Schatzki, 2001, p.61). Identities are then established in an intersubjective level of practice (that is, through social interaction); by informing the self and the other who the self is and vice-versa, they then produce social order by creating patterns of action, expectation, and preferences (Hopf, 1998, p.175). This last feature also points to a feature of identity which is informed by the processes of linking and differentiation mentioned before, i.e. its relational quality. Taken together, identity-discourse-practice form an axis of being-meaning-doing and can be synthetized by the figure below.

Figure 2. Culture/Identity as Interplay Between Practice and Discourse8

This theoretical approach does assume an interplay between discourse, practice and identity. As Schatzki (2001, p.53) formulates, discourse “is being, while practice is the becoming from which discourses result and to which they eventually succumb. Conversely, discourses are the precarious fixities that precipitate from human practice and from which further practice arises”. I take thereby with caution the postulate that practice is ontologically superior. While it is true that discourse needs practice in order to fix meaning on a patterned manner, that is, it needs the logic of practicality to act and naturalize meaning and therefore “becoming”, the same dependency can be applied to practice. As Neumann (2002, p.628) argues, “practices are discursive, both in the sense that some practices involve speech acts (acts which in themselves gesture outside of narrative), and in the sense that practice cannot be

8 Figure taken from Neumann, 2002, p.637. 18

thought “outside of’ discourse”. Simultaneously, this conceptualization places “discourse and practice in two different time tracks by letting them emerge in different ways” (Ibid., p.631) and leaves room for change. Discourse is therefore an essential part of this thesis, not only because discourse is a meaningful set of “preconditions for action” (Dunn and Neumann, 2016, p. 66), but because it is the interplay between discourse and practice than can inform how Kirkenes’ local elite sees Russia, and ultimately how it sees itself.

2.4 Cross-Border Practices and Discourses? The Case of Community Regions One last theoretical consideration remains to be addressed. The theoretical enunciate explored above deals with complex, abstract concepts How can these be articulated and applied to a borderland? Can Kirkenes’ perception of Russia and its practices and discourses articulate a community region? Community regions can be defined as groups of people who share the same background knowledge and apply/learn common practices. These are formed by “processes of social communication and identity formation through which practitioners bargain about and fix meanings, learn practices, and exercise political control” (Adler, 2008, p.200). Meanings, identities and norms are therefore discussed and negotiated. Yet again, power becomes relevant insofar as it is important for the successful negotiation and reification of meanings (Ibid., p.201). It is through power that the rules of the game are defined, that goods and benefits are allocated, and that other’s actors are drawn to comply with those same rules (Adler, 1997, p.261). Adler (1997, p.253) offers an encompassing definition on community regions:

“Community regions are regional systems of meaning (…) they are made of people whose common identities and interests are constituted by shared understanding and normative principles other than territorial sovereignty and who actively communicate and interact across state borders, who are actively involved in the political life of an (international or transnational) region, and, who as citizens of states, impel the constituent states of the community-region to act as agents of regional good, on the basis of regional systems of governance”.

Community regions are therefore communities of practice. Community regions act like cognitive regions since intersubjective knowledge and common identity establish practices and fix meanings to the members of the community. Establishment, institutionalization and even expansion occur through processes of cognitive evolution. This process occurs and is sustained

by a macro-mechanism of meaning investment, that is, the “endowment of meanings of identity and interests with authority and naturalness of the kind that may only come with practice” (Adler, 2008, p.203). The process is also sustained by micro-mechanisms involving “practice driven changes in expectations and dispositions” and consist of “reflexivity, judgment, and emotion” (Ibid., p.204). Each of these elements contributes to the evolution of background knowledge through microrupture, as previously discussed in the sub-chapter on practicality and background knowledge.

2.5 Application of the Theoretical Framework Combining practice and discursive turns provides a theoretical framework which allows for an innovative analysis on how groups construct and relate themselves to Others, and how practices and discourses reiterate these constructions. Borderlands are suitable and interesting for an analysis through this lens because, due to transnational networks and cross-border contacts, they are prone to the development of common identities which challenge physical border conceptions. An analysis of Kirkenes’ local elite perceptions on Russia through this framework entails, therefore, an analysis on meaning but also on materiality and action. If we consider identity-discourse-practice to be an axis of being-meaning- doing/becoming, then there are three points that need to be accessed. Firstly, I need to recordthe discourses and practices that are articulated in the two cases of my analysis. This allows me to inductively recover how the local elite in the border town of Kirkenes frames Russia, and subsequentially how they frames themselves or Kirkenes. Moving towards interpretativism, these discourses and practices will then have to be grouped into meaningful categories. These meaningful categories will then provide the base for the more theory-driven exercise, which is the application of the concept of community region, in attempt to provide a “cause” or an origin/root from where these discourses, practices and identity constructions stem for.

3 Methodology

This thesis is grounded on the interpretivist roots of constructivism and employs a theoretical framework that bridges the practice and the discursive turn. I will present the methodological approaches and tools for the analysis of discourses and practices. I will base my approach on Ted Hopf’s (2002) and Vincent Pouliot’s (2007) and their three-step methodological process which is inductive in nature, further moving to more use of theory and objectivism as the analysis develops. This was named by Pouliot a “sobjectivist” methodology, a merging of both subjectivism and objectivism, an exercise that moves from induction to theory.

The chapter will first address the methodological process and tools. This will be followed by section 4.2 on data selection and collection. The chapter ends with a section on challenges and pitfalls, mostly focusing of validity, reliability and generalization.

3.1 A Three-Step Process: Induction, Interpretation and Historical/Contextual Positioning A “sobjective” methodology combines insights from both experience-near and experience- distant knowledge. It is a methodology which seeks to provide an alternative to the antagonism between subjectivism and objectivism, since “the modes of knowledge which [this antagonism] distinguishes are equally indispensable to a science of the social world that cannot be reduced either to a social phenomenology or to a social physics” (Bourdieu, 1990, p.25). In order to achieve this, Pouliot (2007) argues that the analysis should be inductive, interpretative and historical. The first step deals with the inductive recovery of the intersubjective structure, the taken-for-granted world of the actors. Induction is necessary because “theorizing destroys meanings as they exist” for the social agents (Pouliot, 2007, p. 364) and prevents the imposition of the researcher’s own intersubjective habitual world. Induction also allows for the record and report of all evidence that does not fit, thereby eliminating anomalies (Hopf, 2002). This stage of the analysis corresponds firstly to the recording of the discourses and practices in the form of delimitation and selection of textual data and also fieldwork and interviews. This stage also implies the treatment of the textual and interview data without any theoretical preloading. That is, positions towards Russia need to be found empirically. I therefore cannot expect to find “shared cross-border understandings” or “common solutions”, as these are meanings that the theorization of community regions imposes, which would eliminate alternative discourses and

impact on the overall mapping. To remain as inductive as possible during the process of treatment of the data, I decided to code my data material two times. The first coding was conducted to extract all examples of collective framings of Russia, where I employed words such as “corruption”, “cooperation”, “normalization”, and “complexification”. The second coding was conducted in order to extract the most representative statements. Due to the amount of textual data, I used Nvivo 12, a qualitative analysis software. The second step refers to a broader contextualization relying on interpretivism and intertextuality. Interpretation and intertextuality imply the cross-reading of multiple texts from which discourses will be gathered, named and categorized, but also organized and positioned to each other (Hopf, 2002). Discourses then lose their temporal and spatial dimensions and become open to timeless universal interpretation, themselves fixed in an intersubjective structure (Pouliot, 2007, p.366). In this stage of the analysis, the goal is to group the emerging discourses under meaningful categories where identity/culture is centered and the main vectors are synthetized: how Kirkenes constructs the other (Russia) through the cases; which structures of meaning and action are present. Besides the tool of intertextuality, I will use the tool of predicative analysis, which focuses on the adverbs, verbs and adjectives attached to nouns. As Milliken (1999, p. 232) explains, “predications of a noun construct the thing(s) named as a particular sort of thing, with particular features and capacities”. This tool is both useful to establish particular discourses, how they overlap and which structures of meaning they share (Ibid., p.234). I consider this tool to be optimal for this step of inductive recovery since predicate analysis proposes “a process where empirical analysis and abstraction goes hand in hand” (Ibid., p.234). The third step is historical positioning to access the broader discursive formations, the orderly and patterned reproduction of discourse and practices and how they became dominant. As Pouliot puts it, it is the goal of the analysis to trace “contingent practices that have historically made a given social fact possible” (2007, p. 367). A constructivist and interpretivist standpoint sees phenomena as socially constructed, which implies that social phenomena are historical. Thus, an historical methodology is concerned with the genesis of its object of study, that is, with the historical processes that make possible the constitution of specific social contexts (Ibid., p.367). A way to achieve this is through narrative-building which “traces the historical evolution of meanings (both subjective and intersubjective) in order to explain how they brought about, or made possible, a given social context (Ibid., p.367). This step implies thus backwards reasoning and detachment from current meanings (Ibid., p.367). In order to provide some understand why certain discourses, practices and thereby identity constructions

came to being, I construct a narrative around the concept of community region and try discuss my findings through its lens, which is informed by a historical background on the relationship between Norway and Russia and its impact in the Barents region.

3.2 Data Selection and Collection Hopf (2007, p.73) states that “meaningful evidence for interpretivists is intersubjective, intertextual evidence”. In order to be able to collect the most evidence possible for the case of borderland Norwegians, I decided to select an array of data that differ both in nature and in origin. When it comes to the nature of my data, I based my criteria on Hansen’s intertextual research models (2006, p.57), roughly following model number two as formulated in the figure 3. I considered this to be an appropriate model given that I am focusing on Kirkenes’ political and cultural elite. I therefore move beyond the centralized and official discourse to a wider debate or perception of Russia in Kirkenes.

Figure 3. Intertextual Research Models9

For the “experience-distant” data, I selected and collected media and political statements retrieved from three local newspapers in Kirkenes: Sør-Varanger Avis, The Independent

9 Figure retrieved from Hansen, 2006, p.57. 23

Barents Observer and NRK Finnmark. The selection was made from a pool of texts that directly addressed the political junctures of the analysis within a timeframe of two years. This timeframe was necessary to be established since these are recent incidents whose consequences and implications are still developing. In order to guarantee a view on Russia, I used search words such as “Storskog” and “Frode Berg” plus “Russia” in the respective newspapers webpages. Regarding the experience-distant or textual data, two considerations need to be made. Firstly, given that Kirkenes is a small town and small society, the mayor becomes the most prominent political figure. Therefore, statements made by Rune Rafaelsen, current mayor of Kirkenes, are overrepresented in the data. I tried to select my texts to ensure variety and the representation of other actors, such local politicians or journalists, but this is a pitfall which results from the lack of empirical data. Secondly, the three newspapers I collected my textual data from are rather different in their nature and even motivations. While Sør-Varanger Avis is a very local newspaper, NRK Finnmark and The Independent Barents Observer are not. NRK Finnmark has a wider national reach and tabloid standpoint. The Independent Barents Observer, on the other hand, is a very different newspaper, in that it only publishes in Russian and English and therefore serves a different audience. This variety is something that I am aware of and that I purposefully decided to keep as to ensure better data.

Table 1. Selection of Textual Data - Storskog

Newspaper Author Date Link

Sør- Rune 04.11.2015 http://www.sva.no/nyheter/--russland-maa-haandheve-egen-lov Varanger Rafaelsen Avis Sør- Ole- 30.03.2017 http://www.sva.no/debatt/ingen-bevis-for-russisk- Varanger Tommy hybridkrig-paa-storskog Avis Pedersen NRK Rune 19.01.2016 https://www.nrk.no/finnmark/utsendelser-bekymrer-

Finnmark Rafaelsen ordforeren-i-sor-varanger-1.12758765 NRK Rune 03.11.2015 https://www.nrk.no/finnmark/ordforer-i-sor-varanger- Finnmark Rafaelsen frykter-humanitaer-katastrofe-1.12635776 The Rune 02.11.2015 https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/borders/2015/11/mayor-

Independent Rafaelsen border-town-calls-prime-ministers-act-refugee-crisis Barents Observer

The Rune 19.01.2016 https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/borders/2016/01/kirkenes-

Independent Rafaelsen rune-asks-prime-minister-treat-refugees-respect Barents Observer

Table 2. Selection of Textual Data - Frode Berg

Newspaper Author Date Link Sør- Ole- 23.04.2018 http://sva.no/debatt/frode-berg-saken---en-komplett- Varanger Tommy katastrofe Avis Pedersen Sør- Torbjørn 30.12.2017 http://sva.no/nyheter/vil-ha-frode-berg-hjem Varanger Webber / Avis Rune Rafaelsen / Support Group NRK Support 16.04.2019 https://www.nrk.no/finnmark/stottegruppa-til-frode- Finnmark Group berg_-_-forventer-at-norske-myndigheter-far-berg-hjem-

1.14518589 NRK Support 13.08.2019 https://www.nrk.no/finnmark/frode-bergs-helse- Finnmark Group / forverret---stottegruppa-ber-myndighetene-ta-ansvar- Rune 1.14659210 Rafaelsen The Rune 30.12.2017 https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/2017/12/rally-support- Independent Rafaelsen frode-berg Barents / Robert Observer Nesje The Support 01.05.2018 https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/life-and- Independent Group / public/2018/05/may-day-show-solidarity-frode-berg Barents Civil Observer Society

For the “experience-near”, I have conducted fieldwork and semi-structured interviews in Kirkenes in February 2019, with a total of seven interviews. The interviewees were grouped

into three different categories, those being local political actors, media actors, and civil society actors, and were selected by their level of expertise or contact with either cross-border cooperation projects or Russian actors in general. Given the sensitivity of the cases, my interviewees will be totally anonymised. While it could be possible to provide their workplace, this detail can be quite revealing given that Kirkenes is a small town with a small local community. I have therefore attributed them a number to keep the data organized and structured. Interviews can be incorporated in discourse analysis if conducted in an “explorative, conversation based” way where the interviewees have “the opportunity to individually formulate their ideas” (Bratberg, 2014, p.39). In addition, whilst political statements in media texts cover essential aspects of junctures and the framing of Russia, they would not provide the complete picture given the overrepresentation of the mayor and the general lack of data. With semi-structured interviews, I was aiming for a deeper understanding and knowledge on both the political junctures, but most importantly on how actors perceive Russia through them. The interview guide can be consulted in appendix I. I had the consent from my interviewees to use a recording device during the interviews, but I decided to take notes during the interviews to account for any technical problems with the device.

3.3 Challenges and Pitfalls: Internal Validity, Reliability and Generalization My thesis is, like any other thesis or academic text, subjected to challenges and pitfalls. Some of the challenges concern cultural competence, while the pitfalls are related to internal validity, reliability and generalization. It is worth mentioning that discourse analysis and other interpretative methods cannot be evaluated with rigid and traditional understandings on validity, reliability and generalization. If the same criteria as positivist research are applied to , these methods would not comply with the standards, as an interpretivist analysis is greatly focused on how objects come into being and are given meaning (or are constructed as true), and not necessarily on how they really are (Bratberg, 2014, p.61). One of the challenges I have encountered is the one related to cultural competence, which Neumann (2001, p.50-55) explores in depth. I am not Norwegian, and therefore having a thesis centred on Norwegian cases, discourses and sources can be challenging for two reasons. The first one concerns language and conventions, as it takes cultural competence to understand expressions and representations as they are depicted in texts. The second reason concerns the reading and selection of texts themselves, as it may not be as straightforward for me to recognize when I have read enough or if what I have read is relevant. Despite not being Norwegian, I live,

work and study in Norway, and consider that I have a fluent level of Norwegian. Furthermore, the purpose of my field work was precisely to help with this challenge. It was important for me to talk with my interviewees face-to-face and to see how and where they work and live. Equally important was to visit Kirkenes and observe its dynamic as a border town. When it comes to internal validity, this becomes particularly difficult since discourse analysis “seldom provides a basis for neither a clear operationalization nor a delimited and unambiguous causal relation” (Ibid., p.62-3). Causality implies the existence of two variables which are observed independently, which is not possible in a theoretical and methodological framework where identities are produced and reproduced through discourse and practice (Hansen, 2006, p.23). In addition, Hopf (2002, p.32-33) asserts that one can only aim for tentative claims to validity, given the amount of additional texts and meanings which remain unaccounted for. Validity can nevertheless be increased if understood from a broader perspective. That is, I can assure some level of validity by remaining transparent: if the reasons for a specific interpretation are made clear from the start (as well as the analytical tools) and if the implications from this interpretation are discussed (Bratberg, 2014., p.63). Hopf (2002, p.32-33) also adds that we can always compare our findings to alternative understandings of the same phenomena or check if our measured elements of one period are still operating in another. Reliability can also become a problem given the nature of the analysis and the selection of texts. When it comes to the analysis itself, Hopf (2002, p.29-30) argues that the inductive recovering of identities and discourses can produce high reliability, but that this tends to decrease if theoretical priors are introduced to group these same identities and discourses. Regarding the selection of texts, it would be impossible to collect the totality of texts relevant to a subject. My option for a variety of texts from different areas that compose Kirkenes political and cultural elite, even though possibly flawed, represents a middle ground between the solutions proposed by Hopf (2002) and Hansen (2006), between diversity of texts and core texts (Bratberg, 2014, p.64). This middle ground, as well as the use of interviews and field work, is important to ensure some relevel of reliability in my thesis. While I cannot explore all the possible texts produced by other objects (i.e. economic elite, working class, film, etc.), I also cannot restrict myself to core texts alone due to the overrepresentation of the figure of Rune Rafaelsen, the mayor of Kirkenes. Regarding generalizability, an analysis of this sort is seldom suitable for generalizations and predictability (Ibid., p.64). As Hopf (2002, p.30-31) puts it, empirical generalizations must be done cautiously. This is not necessarily a problem, as most interpretivists “do not expect to

gather evidence that would allow them to make predictions about the future behaviour of subjects, even within a case, let alone about a class of subjects across the universe” (Hopf, 2007, p.66). Notwithstanding, theoretical generalizations can be done without many limitations (Hopf, 2002, p.30-31) and I therefore expect that my theoretical framework can be used with different empirical cases and data.

4 Norway and Russia: Between Fear and Cooperation

Norway and Russia have a long history of neighbouring relations. While diplomatic relationships were only officially established with Norway’s independence in 1905, the two countries have had established contacts which date back to the Early Modern Era. Alliances, interests and priorities have changed throughout the years, and so has the border and its meanings. Despite these, the countries have managed a relatively peaceful coexistence. It is also worth noting that Norway’s approach to Russia does not exclusively depend on the two countries alone. On the contrary, it is extremely influenced by the overall architecture of the regional and international systems in which Norway is part of. Neumann and Ulriksen (1996) thoroughly address this question and explore the concept of “triangle of power”, or the three big powers circling Norway: Russia, Europe, and USA. As Ulriksen (1996, p.15) puts it, “the relations between the states, or groups of states, that comprise the triangle of power, are fundamentally meaningful for Norwegian security”.

This chapter seeks to provide an historical background to the object of analysis of this thesis. An historical background is important to the analysis of both Storskog and Frode Berg because these cases do not emerge in a vacuum. They rather illustrate, as do all the other political incidents mentioned in this chapter, two important and persisting dynamics of the bilateral relationship between Norway and Russia. On the one hand, there is almost always a national and regional (Finnmark/Barents) component to the cases. On the other hand, most of the cases are marked by the presence fear and tension, but also cooperation and anticipation. These can be found in different amounts throughout different periods, but more than often do the pairs of meanings co-occur in time. An historical background is also important given my methodology, which calls for historical positioning and contextualization in order to build a narrative and to understand where discourses, practices and identity constructions come from.

I am not able to cover all the relevant historical periods, neither do I aim for an intensive, thorough description of the history of bilateral relationships, so I have rather decided to focus on key historical events. Three periods shall be addressed: The Cold War (1949-1991) and Post- Cold War (1991-). Section 3.1 will deal with the Cold-War Period, particularly the Norwegian adherence to NATO and the roots of the fisheries cooperation. Section 3.2 will sequentially focus on the Post-Cold War period, namely the Barents Cooperation, the agreement on the Barents maritime border and the Crimea crisis. Section 3.3 will focus on the post-Crimea period and the two political junctures that structure my analysis.

4.1 The Cold-War Period

The years that followed the Second World War were marked by a profound ideological and military rivalry between two superpowers. On the one hand, the United States and its allies of the Western Bloc, consisting mostly of capitalist democracies; on the other hand, the Soviet Union and its allies of the Eastern or Socialist bloc, consisting mostly of communist states. While the blocs never engaged in direct large-scale confrontation, there was nevertheless a great deal of military competition characterized by an arms race, the establishment of military alliances (NATO and the Warsaw Pact), and the development and threat of nuclear warfare. In addition, the two blocs did compete for power in a series of proxy wars, particularly in developing nations after the advent of decolonization in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Cold War gave Norway little room for autonomy when it came to its security and foreign policy, but despite its alignment with the Western bloc (which I will approach later in this chapter), there was some allowance for cooperation and rapprochement to Russia. Holtsmark (2015, p.347) divides this period roughly in two: from 1945 to 1953, which the author calls the “deep Cold War years”, and from 1953 to 1991, where we assist to an establishment of contacts and a normalization of Norwegian approaches to the Soviet Union. The first sub-period is arguably most influenced by Norway’s positioning towards NATO, which it joined as a founding member in April 1949. As a result, the bilateral relationship deteriorated and Russia’s policy towards Norway became “defensive and reactive” as to prevent further integration into the Western bloc and to impede foreign military presence in Norwegian soil (Holtsmark, 2015, p.317). This period was also characterized by an increase in espionage, surveillance and intelligence activities, not only across the border, but also against national groups and established political parties like the Norwegian Communist Party (Ibid, p.322-23). It was also under this period that several cases around the partisans emerge. The partisans, Norwegian citizens who were recruited, trained and collaborated with the Red Army against Nazi Germany, form a substantial part of the local history in the border area. Due to their relationship with the Soviet Union, a lot of the partisans were submitted to political surveillance, and their work in the liberation of Finnmark was not fully recognized up until the 1980s. Contrastingly, some partisans were also captured by the Soviet Union and imprisoned in political camps due to suspicions of betrayal (Ibid., p.319-326)

The second sub-period corresponds to a normalization of relationships and Norwegians approaches to the Soviet Union, a distinguishable period due to the bilateral contacts established

in several political, cultural and economical areas, but also due to Norway’s international role, which shifted to that of a “bridge-builder” whose aim was to “nuance ruling western threat- images around the Soviet Union” (Ibid., p.348). Individual actors were particularly important to this turning point. On the Soviet side, Nikita Khrusjtsjov emerges as First Secretary of the CPSU and therefore as the new Soviet leader. This new leadership saw Stalin’s foreign policy as an instigator to hostile threat-images and opted for its refurbishing by focusing on cultural diplomacy and propaganda (Ibid., p.349-51). On the Norwegian side, Einar Gerhardsen and his third cabinet, who saw the new Soviet leadership as a transition to a “Lockean world, where the parts see each other as rivals but can negotiate and get to an agreement” (Ibid., p.352)10. A series of cooperative frameworks, like the Fisheries Cooperation Agreement or the Grey Zone Agreement, were agreed upon during this period, despite the many bilateral and international crisis.

4.1.1 NATO: A Western Demarcation

The way to the North Atlantic Treaty was not linear and straightforward. Quite the contrary, since 1949 and even before formal membership, the challenge for Norway has lied in the need “to balance the alliance obligations with other important foreign policy and domestic policy considerations” (Græger, 2019, p.85). Alternative scenarios to NATO were deliberated in Norwegian foreign policy discussions, namely a form for a Norwegian-Russia security pact and neutral Scandinavian defence alliance. Yet, the period of 1948-1949 would change this foreign policy line. Events like the Bevin plan, to which Norway responded rather positively, and a series of Soviet diplomatic notes and rumours of a possible Soviet expansion in Scandinavia, led to unrest and fear over a possible Soviet attack. A new policy line emerged, which depicted the West and the “USA as the only ones who can guarantee Norway’s security over Russia” (Ulriksen, 1996, p.17). This would influence Norway’s defence policy until today, as “the understanding that external support and reinforcement were an absolute necessity” is still present nowadays. In that sense, British and American promises of protection, and Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, served as a guarantee for Western support should any crisis or possible attack or invasion materialize (Holtsmark, 2015, p. 309; Lindgren and Græger, 2017, p.94).

10 Gerhardsen would also pay an official visit to the Soviet Union, to Moscow, in 1955, together with its Minister of Commerce. 31

Despite its Western demarcation, Norway still considered the balance required to appease its Soviet neighbour, and in order to do so it introduced a series of self-restrictions. A good example of this is 1949 Base Declaration. The declaration set limits to allied military activity in Norwegian soil, particularly when it came to nuclear weapons and military bases by pledging “no storage of nuclear weapons on Norwegian soil, calls on vessels with nuclear weapons on board or landing of allied aircraft that can deliver nuclear weapons in Norway in peacetime” (Græger, 2019, p.86). Another restriction was self-imposed during the 1960s, that “other NATO countries were not allowed to participate in military exercises east of the 24th parallel”, which roughly divides the northernmost county of Finnmark in two (Jensen, 2017, p.127). The need for reassurance was also articulated in official discourses, the most emblematic being perhaps Gerhardsen’s intervention in the 1957 Paris NATO meeting, in which he called for “a "constructive and realistic peace policy" coupled with continued military readiness that "prevents the balance from tilting substantially in the favour of the other party” (Gerhardsen, quoted in Holtsmark, 2015, p.360).

4.1.2 Fisheries Cooperation and The Grey Zone Agreement

I have so far highlighted some of the main political topics where Norway and the Soviet Union met with disagreement and conflicting interests. But the previous sub-chapters also accentuated the goal of reassurance, that is, avoidance of direct conflict and self-imposition of restrictions in order to achieve balance and meet with some Soviet security demands. As mentioned before, tension and fear more than often coexisted with opportunities for cooperation and common understanding, and the Cold War period is also an example of this. Two important cooperation frameworks were achieved during this period: The Fisheries Cooperation Agreement and The Grey Zone Agreement.

The 1975 The Fisheries Cooperation Agreement was an important framework which sought to expand and materialize existing cooperation in management and research on marine resources (Holtsmark, 2015, p.483). It established a Joint Norwegian-Soviet Fisheries Comission which met for the first time in January 1976. The Comission coordinates the regulation of the fish stocks in the Barents Sea, particularly cod, haddock and capelin. It also sets “total allowable catches for the three fish stocks”, with Cod and haddock being “shared on a 50-50 basis, while the capelin quota is shared 60-40 in Norway’s favour” (Hønneland, 2010, p.843-44). This framework has worked well, and it is still active today, showing that “sustainable bilateral management regimes were established and operated relatively smoothly

also during times when security affairs were running at a high temperature” (Jensen and Rottem, 2010, p.78). The 1978 Grey Zone Agreement comes to establish some for of compromise to a long sea border dispute in the Barents Sea, where two different interpretations and claims ruled. On the Norwegian side, the principle of the median line, “according to which a boundary is drawn that is equidistant from the nearest points of the coastlines of two countries” (Moe et al., 2011, p.147). On the Soviet side, the principle of the sectoral line, which “included demographic and military considerations” (Ibid., p.147). Albeit temporary, the agreement served “to avoid unregulated fishing in the disputed area” (Jensen, 2017, p. 129), and has potentiated the 2010 Barents Sea Agreement (which I will address later in this chapter). Yet again, political rather than military ends seemed to be most important, and military tensions caused by the unresolved border between Russia and Norway have remained fairly insignificant” (Jensen and Rottem, 2010, p.78).

4.2 Post-Cold War

The Post-Cold War period was marked by big structural changes. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 has led to a shift in the nature of the international system, which went from being bipolar to multipolar. The shift translated into more freedom for individual states, as one has moved “from a fixed, almost permanent confrontation between two blocks to a situation the many players compete and collaborate in more alternating patterns” (Ulriksen, 1996, p.12). To Norway, the challenge was how to address this new reality and deal with the new neighbour, now Russian Federation, under the leadership of Boris Jeltsin (Holtsmark, 2015, p.551). With Russia’s weak international position and retracement in military development and deployment, Norway enjoyed some flexibility to redefine the bilateral relationship, which it did through the establishment of contact through a multilateral arena. Regarding the border itself, it was only after 1991 that “communication across the border became possible”, which launches “a new period of Russian-Norwegian cross-border contacts” (Rogova, 2009, p.33). Holtsmark (2015, p.551-53) equally divides this period in two, from 1991 to the mid- 2000s and from roughly mid-2000s until now. The first sub-period was marked by a lot of shifts in the Russian economy. Firstly, a strong economic recession, with its peak in 1998 with the devaluation of the Rubel (Ibid., 551). The lives of ordinary Russians were impacted by this, and locally in the border area the early 1990s were often associated with the fear of crime, communicable diseases, substance abuse and prostitution, which now travelled to Norway due

to the increase in cross-border passages (Lynnebakken, 2018, p.9). Secondly, economic growth, mainly due to the increase in oil and gas prices. The question remained however how sustainable and long-lasting this growth would be, given the lack of modernisation and pluralism in Russia’s economy. Lastly, and particularly during Vladimir Putin’s early years, there was a focus on the centralization of political power (Holtsmark, 2015, p.552). Moreover, it was during this period that one of the biggest cooperation frameworks in the borderland, the Barents Cooperation.

The second sub-period corresponds to the years of Dmitrij Medvedev presidency, with Putin taking over again in 2012. This period was characterized by yet another economic recession. This was mostly due to the decrease of oil and gas prices, but the trend was intensified by the economic sanctions that followed the annexation of Crimea in 2014 (Ibid., p.552). In addition, this period was also characterized by a tentative restoration of Russia’s big power status, and by a series of crisis which ultimately led to rising tensions between Russia and the West/NATO. Illustrating this is Russia’s approach to the many separatist movements in North Caucasus and the wars in Chechen, Russia’s intervention in Georgia and in Ukraine in 2008 and 2014 respectively, but also NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999, which sparked some hostilities in the UN Security Council (Ibid., p.558; Græger, 2019, p.86; Lindgren and Græger, 2017, p.92).

In this connection, Norway developed two rather different policy lines to its neighbour which are still present nowadays. One is the policy line developed during the euphoria of the early 1990 and the wave of positivism around the Barents region and the borderland, in which “the idea was to promote peace, expand infrastructure and, above all, encourage growth in commerce, business and trade between the peoples of Norway and Russia” (Jensen and Hønneland, 2011, p.41). But Norway still had a rather asymmetric relationship with Russia, particularly in terms of military capabilities11. At the same time, there was some continuity in Russia’s security and defence policy, particularly when it came to its neighbouring countries. In this context, Norway also engaged in what could be called a “balance policy” by prioritizing its Atlantic direction and membership in NATO (Holtsmark, 2015, p.562). It also led Norway to emphasize the need for NATO’s readiness and preparedness for the challenges in neighbouring areas, and to focus on its core tasks (Lindgren and Græger, 2017, p.103).

11 It is important to remember that Russia’s northern fleet is stationed in the Kola Peninsula, and that the region was highly militarized during the Second World War and Cold War. As Åtland (2016, p.172) states, “in the Barents Sea region, Norway is not, and will never be, able to “match” the Russian naval, air, and ground forces that are located on the Kola Peninsula”. 34

4.2.1 The 1990s and the Barents Spirit

The early-1990s were particularly fruitful for Norwegian-Russian cooperation, particularly in the border region of the BEAR. As Jensen and Hønneland emphasize, “this was the great period of excitement and anticipation about everything Barents” (2011, p.42), as many positive discourses and high expectations were nurtured by the sets of changes and shifts that the new Russian Federation underwent. It is in this context that the Barents Cooperation emerges, a Norwegian initiative that was first suggested by Thorvald Stoltenberg in 1992 and later materialized in 1993 with the Kirkenes Declaration12 (Hønneland, 2010, p.838). There are two institutional pillars in the Barents Cooperation (Hønneland, 2010; Kvistad, 1995). The first one is regional, with the regional council, where the northernmost counties of the signatory countries and indigenous peoples are represented. The second one is inter-governmental, with the Barents Euro-Arctic Council, where observers also participate. Kvistad (1995, p.7-9) articulates the reasons lying being this Norwegian initiative. On the one hand, the change of international climate and the many regionalization efforts across Europe which were also felt in the old borders of the east-west divide (Ibid, p.7). This implies “turning previously peripheral border areas into places where governments can meet in a transnational forum serving a diversity of interests” (Hønneland, 2010, p.383), and it is precisely in this context that the small town of Kirkenes becomes a “political destination” and transforms its local economy and services, now tailored to cross-border passing (Viken et al., 2008, p.30). On the other hand, it was of security interest to create a cooperative framework in the region due to the “unstable political and ecological situation in north western Russia”, more specifically the bad management of nuclear power plants and waste in the border area (Kvistad, 1995, p.8). Health concerns were also at the core of the initiative, particularly initiatives that supported the control of communicable diseases (see Rowe and Hønneland, 2006). Generally speaking, though, the initiative evolved around the concepts of “normalization, stabilization and regionalization” (Hønneland, 1998, p.278), and the project was since its formulation “evaluated within the framework of human security” (Holtsmark, 2015, p.615).

12 The Barents Cooperation is not a bilateral initiative, rather a regional one. Besides Russia and Norway, the other two signatory countries of the Kirkenes Declaration are Sweden and Finland. Its northernmost counties are part of the regional council. 35

4.2.2 The 2010 Barents Sea Delimitation Agreement

It was mentioned previously that the second half on the post-cold war period was not particularly characterized by the same wave of positivism of the early-1990s. The Elektron incident may, to some extent, illustrate that. Notwithstanding, and given the core of this chapter, which generally seeks to illustrate how Norway and Russia managed their neighbouring relationships through tension and cooperation, there was also an important achievement in the other half of the 2000s. With its precedents on the Grey Zone Agreement, Norway and Russia finally came to an agreement on the disputed border in the Barents Sea. The agreed delimitation line applies “applies both to the water areas and the continental shelf” and lies practically “half- way between Norway’s old median line claim and Russia’s sector claim” (Jensen, 2011, p. 152- 53). The agreed line is therefore a compromise solution. In addition, the treaty makes some advances regarding resource cooperation, particularly living marine resources and oil.

Moe et al (2011) advance some possible explanations for why both parties got to an agreement precisely in 2010. They conclude that a combination of factors played a significant role and that it is not possible to individualize causes. The authors do however emphasize the role that “mature negotiations”, as well as “Russia’s general effort to tidy up its spatial ringes by finalizing borders and boundaries and Russia’s desire to be seen as a constructive and rule- abiding international actor”, played (2011, p.158). The last factors are in line with some authors conclusions on the pragmatism of Russia’s policy in the High North (Konyshev and Sergunin, 2014; Flake, 2017). In order to defend its interests and reach its policy goals in the region, Russia “will prefer to use non-violent, diplomatic, economic and cultural methods as well as to act via international organizations and for a rather than on a unilateral basis” (Konyshev and Sergunin, 2014, p.333).

4.2.3 The Crimea Crisis

Despite academic research pointing to Russia’s option for diplomatic, non-violent methods in the High North region as ways to solve conflict, Russia’s foreign policy to its other neighbouring regions is arguably different, particularly when Russian speaking minorities inhabit these regions13. As Rowe (2018, p.2) states, the revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and

13 One of the lessons that one could learn from Crimea is that “Russia is willing to go to great lengths to “defend” ethnic Russians and Russian speakers who live outside the Russian Federation, or to use them as a pretext for military intervention and territorial expansion”, particularly in countries which have “significant, “poorly integrated, or dissatisfied Russian minorities within their borders” (Åtland, 2016, p.167). 36

Kirgizstan contributed to a discursive line and practical measures that were more authoritarian and anti-West, since the Kremlin considered itself surrounded by liberal, anti-authoritarian regimes which were inspired (and financially supported) by western countries14. An Ukrainian rapprochement to the EU and NATO, which was understood by the Russian political elite as a “natural part of Russia’s regional project, whether the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Eurasian Economic Union, or a restored Soviet Union” (Hopf, 2016, p.247-48) fostered a sense of a unrest, mainly due to the possible scenario of a NATO naval base in Crimea (Ibid., p.247). As a consequence of this policy and discursive line comes Russian military intervention in Eastern Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The consequences of the Crimea crisis were substantial. For the EU and NATO allies, it contributed to the on-going deterioration of relationships. Both the EU and the US announced a series of economic sanctions to Russia in the aftermath of the occupation of Crimea, as well as a series of travel restrictions to high-level individuals possibly involved in the process. For Norway, it carved the path to a more pronounced dual policy. On the one hand, Norway aligned with its Western allies in support of sanctions and travel restrictions, and further decided to “put its military cooperation with Russia on hold, including all planned visits, exchanges, and joint exercises” (Åtland, 2016, p.171). Russia as a conventional, but also hybrid, threat was very present in some of the discourses that emerged upon this period15. On the other hand, Norway did carry on “day-to-day practical collaboration in coast and border guard activities and search and rescue operations, and cooperation regarding the Incidents at Sea Agreement” (Lindgren and Græger, 2017, p.106-7), and collaboration frameworks like environmental cooperation were also maintained. Insofar as the Ukrainian revolution and Crimea crisis represented a turning point for NATO-Russia relations, Norway’s reactions demonstrate nevertheless the inclination to a long-standing dual policy line.

14 Ted Hopf (2016) explores the discursive history behind the Crimea crisis. Many Russian identities and discourses, some of them contrasting in nature, shape internal and foreign policy in Russia during the 1990s. Yet the idea of a liberal Russia faded away, since “economic collapse, political chaos, corruption, violence, and uncertainty of the 1990s discredited the Liberal understanding of Russia and its future. Western failure to invest economically in Russia in the 1990s in sums expected by Russians and required to make a difference, combined with creeping NATO expansion and the war in Kosovo undermined Liberal discourse, apparently fatally” (p.247). 15 Russia as a conventional threat corresponds to the probability of Russian military power being used for an attack or invasion of Norwegian soil, whereas Russia as a hybrid threat corresponds to the use of diplomatic, economic, information based and/or technological tools in order to achieve policy goals (Rowe, 2018, p.4-6). Cyber-attacks would fall into the last category. 37

4.3 After Crimea: What Next?

It is rather difficult to predict accurate scenarios for the future of Norway-Russia relations, but a few points must be stated. As stated in the previous sub-chapter, the Crimea crisis has substantially undermined East-West relations. Its impact on Norwegian-Russian relationships is extensive, but there are some buffer areas of cooperation which were kept active and even emphasized. With respect to Norway’s policy towards Russia, for Åtland (2016), finding a common ground with Russia in areas of mutual interest contributes to the security and the stability of the BEAR, and sub sequentially, of the bilateral relationship. When it comes to the dual policy during the Crimea crisis, the author adds that it was indeed possible “to maintain cordial relations and a healthy degree of people-to-people dialogue and interaction at the local level, simultaneously with the enforcement of the sanctions regime and the freeze in military- to-military contacts» (p.173). While Norway needs to be prepared for new emerging security challenges, including hybrid warfare methods, duality is also expected to persist, as these type of confidence-building measures and a neighbouring policy in the North promote common interests and strengthen the peaceful coexistence in the borderland region (Ibid., p.173). With respect to Russia’s internal and foreign policy, Rowe (2018) adds that 1990s were a period of anomaly, and that Putin’s Russia and its actions in its neighbouring areas are rather a normal trait in Russia if seen from a long-historical perspective. These should be, to some extent, expected by Norwegian authorities. The author clarifies, “Putin’s centralized and authoritarian Russia is far more normal than the decentralized chaos of the 1990s under President Boris Yeltsin. Similarly, Russian self-assertion in the international arena is far more normal than a Russia that passively exerts influence in its neighbouring areas” (p.17). Accordingly, then, Russia’s rejection of Western-liberal models should not come as a surprise to Norwegian authorities. It is precisely under this context that the core political junctures of my analysis emerge.

4.3.1 Storskog One year after the Crimea crisis, more precisely from late August to mid-November 2015, more than 5000 migrants crossed the Norwegian-Russian border through Storskog, many of them using bicycles, and attempted to apply for resident permits or asylum in Norway (Sør-Varanger Avis, 2015; NRK, 2017). The Storskog case was soon to become one of the biggest political incidents after Crimea. The case was first marked by both an incoordination on the national and local level, and between different official authorities. The municipality of Sør-Varanger spent

around 10 to 20 million Norwegian krones alone in order to tackle the situation, which led to a confrontation between the municipality the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration regarding payments and financial support (NRK, 2016). The case was also marked by some incongruencies and diverging opinions regarding the establishment of new legal procedures. These tensions were particularly visible between the National Police Directorate and the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, when the latter applied instructions that complied the police to process all asylum applications by the border and not on Norwegian territory, but also to test and send individual migrants back to Russia (NRK, 2017). The case was also marked by a mismatch in Norway’s and Russia’s perspectives on legal procedures. While Norway attempted to establish a procedure that would result in sending back individuals back to Russia, this soon became impossible. Russian authorities did not accept the return of migrants and condemned this practice (NRK, 2017). Additionally, the case prompted a lot of speculation regarding the role of Russia and whether Storskog was an example of hybrid action against Russia. As Rowe (2018, p.10) states, “several participants in the political debate were certain that the migration flow was initiated and controlled by the Russian authorities. They assumed that Russia wanted to punish Norway for the country's support for EU sanctions”.

4.3.2 Frode Berg In December 2017, former border inspector Frode Berg was caught with secret documents and money and arrested in Moscow. Berg was accused of espionage by having broken the paragraph 276 of the Russian penal code. As many incidents which deal with intelligence services, little is still known about the details of the case, which prompted a lot of speculation and conspiracy theories about whether it was just a stratagem from Russian authorities. This also stems, in part, from the fact that Berg “saw himself as a friend of the Russians” (Hamran, 2019, p.33). He served as a border inspector, was a board member in Pikene på Broen and a member of Red Cross Finnmark (Ibid., p.41-46). He was a known face and an active member of Kirkenes’ civil society, having been involved in a series of people-to- people cooperation projects. In April 2018, Berg admitted that his travel to Russia was done on behalf of the Norwegian Intelligence Services. However, he claimed to be just a courier and having no knowledge on the types of documents he carried nor who was supposed to collect the sum (NRK, 2019). Berg also admitted that he did not realized how dangerous and the extent of the

case he got himself into (NRK, 2018). In the aftermath of FSB’s investigation, which ended on the 27th December of 208, Berg was to declare himself not guilty (Hamran, 2019, p.191). In April 2019, Frode Berg was sentenced to 14 years in jail. A pardon application together with the exchange of Russian spies in Lithuania is now being processed.

These two cases are, once again, illustrative of the qualities of Norwegian-Russian bilateral relations. Firstly, there is a regional and a national level to both. On the Storskog case, the migrant-wave and its pressures were felt, and naturally managed, locally at the border, but had national implications, both when concerning the debate on Russia’s use of hybrid warfare tools and the wide immigration debate in Norway. The same applies to the Frode Berg case, which raised a lot of debate on the role of Norwegian intelligence and its impact on the wider bilateral relationship with Russia, but also on local border societies like Kirkenes. Secondly, both cases are to some extent marked by the presence of fear and cooperation. Despite the many threat assessments and “hybrid war” or “conspiracy” theories, and even disagreements between the two parts, some minimum level of dialogue was kept.

5 Analysis of the textual data and interviews

This chapter will now lay down the analysis of the textual and interview data. I will first start by briefly identifying dominant discourses and their associated practices, and then move to the specific political junctures where these discourses and practices are articulated. I end this chapter with a brief summary of the main findings.

5.1 Identifying Dominant Discourses and Practices

Upon the analysis of both the textual and the interview material, I was able to identify three dominant discourses. Each of these discourses is articulated through associated through a practice, which fixes the meaning that discourses produce, thus becoming meaningful itself. Each of these discourses also articulates a framing and construction of Russia. I have labelled the ‘cultural competence’ discourse, the ‘cooperation’ discourse, and the ‘high politics’ discourse. The ‘cultural competence’ discourse has its core in Kirkenes’ proximity to Russia and the historical, informal contacts and connections that have existed across the border. An associated practice with this discourse is the practice of ‘normalisation’. Russia is for the most part framed as complex neighbour. The ‘cooperation’ discourse is largely based on the formal Barents Cooperation and the open and mutual-beneficial channels of communication and cooperation that this allows for and supports. An associated practice is ‘dialogue’ and Russia is largely framed as a collaborative neighbour. The ‘high politics’ discourse, with historical roots in the Cold War “East-West” divide, is constituted of an idea of entrapment. A common practice is ‘accountability’. Russia is to a greater extent framed as difficult or challenging neighbour.

Despite the establishment of these groups or axis, it is important to reinforce that these work as abstract analytical categories. Moreover, while I treat these discourses and practices in isolation, they are to a certain extent interwoven, and are intersubjectively constituted through common narratives, or what will be later labelled exercises of power: a separation between the national and the local level and Russia’s continuous presence in Kirkenes. Furthermore even though these discourses can be found evenly across both cases, the geopolitical discourse gains more traction in the Frode Berg case. As the following chapters will show, this does not necessarily translate into a more negative impact on Kirkenes’ perspective on Russia, but it does seem to contribute to a growing tension between Kirkenes and Oslo, particularly when it concerns Norway’s intelligence services.

5.2 The Storskog case

The local debate in Kirkenes about the Storskog case revolved around two issues. The first issue corresponds to migration policy, the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees, and local mobilisation efforts. The second issue refers to Russia, how it is placed in the case, how it is framed and how its role is understood. In this case, the migration aspect of the debate stands out particularly through what could be labelled a ‘humanitarian’ discourse. This discourse does not frame Russia in any aspect, and thus is not a focus of this thesis, but it is important to mention its prominence nevertheless. This discourse reiterates that Norway must comply with international law and treat migrants and asylum seekers as ethically as possible and has its roots in Kirkenes long history with migration flows16. When it comes to Russia, two discourses are especially prominent and clearly represented. These are the ‘cultural competence’ discourse, which is particularly pronounced, and the ‘cooperation’ discourse. A rather marginal discourse, but notwithstanding represented, is the ‘high politics’ discourse.

5.2.1 The ‘Cultural Competence’ Discourse

The importance of Kirkenes’ proximity to Russia, which translates to a cultural understanding of the neighbouring country, is heavily expressed throughout the time period of analysis and are particularly prominent in the case of Storskog. In this discourse, knowledge is a significant nodal point and is the core for arguments concerning Kirkenes’ ability to acquire information on Russia and to understand and interpret it. It also provides the core for the argument around the impacts of the migration flux on the Russian side, which to some extent invalidates the ‘geopolitical’ discourse. Important signifiers in this discourse are normalisation, complexity, and observation.

The ‘cultural competence’ discourse is deeply grounded in Kirkenes territorial proximity to Russia and the daily, ordinary activities that bring the two countries together, particularly border crossings for shopping and leisure. These activities are seen in a continuum despite moments of political tension between the two countries, as illustrated by the statement bellow:

We have actually had an historical relationship with Russia since the Viking age on trade and other areas, and then comes the Soviet Union and then the border gets closed. And in many ways, I think that for the people that live up here at least, it is normal to be able to travel over. I think it was, that is, it has

16 Kirkenes has dealt with migration flows in two periods: during World War II, when the population in Eastern Finnmark was forced to leave due to German occupation; during the 1990s, when Kirkenes and the municipality of Sør-Varanger received refugees and asylum-seekers from Bosnia due to the Yugoslav wars. 42

been a normalization back to what is in a sense "normal", after the actual opening of the border. To be able to get multiple visas, especially the one here with border resident's certificate, you can travel visa- free (Interviewee 6, 2019).

The use of the adjective “normal” in connection with “be able to travel over”, that is, with movement, indicates a predication. Actions such as crossing the border to Russia and performing daily tasks are perceived as mundane and naturalized. Presenting the idea of a permeable border as normal contributes, on the one hand, to legitimize the idea that contact is routinized, and on the other hand, dismisses the idea of Russia as a remote, inaccessible neighbour. When it comes to intertextuality, the statement also refers to the Soviet period, where the border was rather hermetic, and the present, where the local border traffic permit allows freedom of movement between the two border municipalities. Contrasting these two periods by using terms like normal and normalization further enhances the argument that what is to some extent the reality for people at the border is to move and connect, and that this reality was interrupted. At the same time, it articulates the narrative that Russia’s presence in Kirkenes is historical, not only in what concerns the border and its meanings (intrastate relations), but also in what concerns a transnational and informal relation. Below there is another statement that fosters this argument:

After having lived twenty years up here by the Russian border, I have noticed that I have a more nuanced outlook on Russia then before. But this is because I have also cooperated with Russians for many years, I sit on the board with Russians, I have worked with Russians in my free time” (Interviewee 7, 2019).

In this statement, normalization is bolstered not only through the verbs associated with actions and “Russians”, but also their tenses and the use of the expression “many years”. Actions such work and board meetings are and have been conducted with nationals from the neighbouring country, thus materializing and routinising the cross-border contact. Another important predication is the one arising from the use of “nuanced” in combination with “outlook”. This predication implies that living close to the border and being thus subjected to a routinized contact with Russia and Russian nationals allows for in loco observation of details and differences, which contributes to a position on Russia which takes into account complexity and is less one-sided. The practice of observation of details and differences is also clearly articulated bellow, in a statement referring more particularly to the Storskog case:

As far as I have experienced, the municipality here locally had some contact with the Petsjenga municipality in handling this situation here. And a colleague of mine and me, we went to Nikel one and interviewed the Russian mayor of Nikel. And there he claims, this is no hybrid war on us, we have just

as much trouble dealing with all the migrations that were not taken by Kirkenes, so it becomes absurd of the Norwegian side to accuse us of hybrid war, because it created a lot of trouble for us as well. So I as a journalist set an hour to go to Russia to find answers, instead of sitting here and having strong opinions on why it happened (Interviewee 5, 2019)

In this statement, the interviewee contrasts the action of crossing the border to Russia in order to obtain more information on the Storskog case, including a Russian perspective, with that of staying in Norway and forming an opinion. A predication arises from the use of the adjective “strong”, which indicates that a near observation of events, once again, helps to tone down the opinions on why the case happened in the first place. The action of acquiring information on the case by looking at it from Russia and through Russia is also used in a lot of statements referring to Storskog’s meaning for common Russians on the other side of the border:

There are probably many people that have earned good money here, from drivers, hoteliers and bike sellers to maybe some border guards that had to be bribed in the check-points from Murmansk (Pedersen, 2017)

My impression is that most people believe, have opinions going in the direction that this happened because probably someone in Russia has seen financial gains and, yes, somehow got through it (Interviewee 1, 2019)

In both statements, predications such as “good money” and “financial gains” indicate that Storskog had an economic significance for Russian nationals, particularly at the border. Contextually, Russia was suffering the consequences of the economic sanctions after the annexation of Crimea, which resulted in a sharp devaluation of the Russian ruble. Therefore, moments like the ones of Storskog were seized. The “Russian national” is also framed by the figure of the driver and the seller, or even just an unidentified person (someone), and not by the political elite or even Moscow, which further enhances the construction of closeness. This framing, taken together with the understanding of Storskog’s impact on the Russian side of the border, supports the overall argument that opinions become complexified and nuanced once enough knowledge and cultural understanding on Russia are gathered.

5.2.2 The “Ccooperation’ Discourse

The beneficial impacts of keeping formal channels of communication between the two countries are clearly stated throughout the period of analysis, but the focus is slightly different in each case. In both cases, communication is a node from which arguments and important terms and moments are ordered and structured. Important terminology is practicality, common interests,

and joint action. In the Storskog case, the ‘cooperation’ discourse places particular emphasis on the necessity of extending formal and open communication channels to higher political bodies at the national level.

The ‘cooperation’ discourse is deeply grounded in the formal Barents Cooperation from 1993. The idea that having open communication channels on the regional level is seen as a starting point for a sustainable national relationship. The statement below illustrates this:

It gives national politicians, what should I say, more to talk about, or a better starting point for dialogue, because the more contact points one has, the more naturally it is to meet, the better we know each other and the fewer foundations for conflict we have. It is a trust-building and a conflict-relieving instrument which is probably more important right now in order to counteract the national tensions (Interviewee 2, 2019)

The predication arising from the use of “better” points out to the positive impacts of the Barents Cooperation in the region and its possible spillover effect. That is, the regional cooperation in the north acts as an instrument that soothes the national tensions between the two countries, thus reducing chances of conflict and misunderstanding. It also provides an extended platform for meetings and contact. Regarding intertextuality, the reference the current national tensions points out to the post-Crimea period, a very recurrent discursive trait in the ‘cooperation’ discourse. Simultaneously, the statement points to the practice of dialogue by uttering verbs like “talk” and “meet”. Another statement enhances this same argument:

The Barents Cooperation is associated with enthusiasm and it is not just something Norwegians desire, it is also something that Russians desire because they have benefited from it. So one has something positive to talk about and I think it has been, I mean all the last meetings between the Norwegian Foreign Ministry and the Russian Foreign Ministry have been conducted within the formal Barents Cooperation. And then one has also been able to discuss other questions of course, but in a positive context (Interviewee 6, 2019)

The statement above makes use of adjectives such as positive and expressions such as “with enthusiasm”, indicating that there is a perception that the formal Barents Cooperation, the projects it supports financially, and the platform for contact it creates, are grounded in something that produces valuable results. The statement also mentions the common wish to bolster this cooperation due to the benefits it has brought to the Russian side. Taken together, the open channels of communication are considered important and beneficial for both parts, being therefore embedded with practicality. These channels are also deemed to open for national dialogue on “other questions”, that is, the ones not covered by the areas that the Barents

Cooperation touches upon. The latter has been particularly present in the Storskog case, as the statements below show:

The only way to get to a normal situation is that political contacts are made at the national level and that new political conversations are established. That is the only thing that can solve this (Rafaelsen, 2015)

There is no benefit to closing the border. But it is important to get dialogue with Russian authorities on the highest level and get to an agreement so that Russia enforces its own law, the mayor says (Rafaelsen, 2015).

Once again, there is an intentional negation combined with “benefit” to imply that a closed border would not be an ideal situation, even in events like Storskog. At the same time, events like Storskog are deemed as extraordinary, given the predication arising from the use of “normal” and “situation”, and they demand new political contacts, political conversations and agreements between the two parts. Therefore, there is a perception in Kirkenes’ political and cultural elite that extraordinary situations call for joint action, and that dialogue is necessary and possible to be sustained in the future, partly because it builds up on the positive and beneficial arena that the Barents Cooperation has carved.

5.2.3 The ‘high politics’ discourse

Albeit not being as present in this case, the influence of big power politics and geopolitics are still mentioned. In this regard, entrapment is a node which structures the arguments regarding the weight of the East-West divide, the special position of Kirkenes, and the intensions of Russia. Important terms are the ones of difficulty, vulnerability, responsibility but also hybrid threat. In the case of Storskog, the ‘high politics’ discourse emphasizes intrastate tensions and the role of Russia.

The ‘high politics’ discourse is grounded in the East-West divide and superpower or alliance competition which persists until today. More precisely, the discourse focuses on how this East- West divide has been updated and become more relevant in the last decade. The following statement exemplifies this:

I would say that in 2012 a pretty dramatic change happened to people-to-people cooperation, and that is when version 3.0 Vladimir Putin became president, then he tightened in on the laws in relation to civil society in Russia. (…) So, things are more difficult. So the Barents cooperation goes very much like this and it is not due to border regional conditions, it is not due to the Kirkenes, it is due to international big politics (Interviewee 4, 2019)

The use of “dramatic” points to a predication, indicating that the presidential election of Vladimir Putin in 2012 marks a turning point not only for Norway and Russia, but to some extent for Kirkenes and Russia or the regional cooperation. There is an intertextual reference to tighter civil society laws which correspond to the “foreign agent” laws introduced in Russia in 2012, which establishes that non-governmental organizations receiving foreign support or cooperating with foreign organizations must be registered as “foreign agents”. The idea of difficulty which stems from big power politics, is present throughout the sentence and is further supported by the statements below:

This is a tough area to have border responsibilities. We must have a long-term predictable relation at the border (Rafaelsen, 2015).

After all, this is not just any border, it is a Schengen and NATO border (Interviewee 6, 2019).

Associating “tough” with the border indicates once again the difficult task that border managing represents, precisely because this particular border is permeable to international politics and confrontation. At the same time, there statement also proclaims the need for a “long-term” and “predictable” relation at the border. That is, the idea of anything short-term is neither meaningful nor feasible at the border because the presence of neighbouring is a constant. The idea of difficulty is linked with the idea of vulnerability, because by being located at the border, Kirkenes is impacted directly by geopolitics. This impact can stem from both sides, but in the Storskog case, the ‘high politics’ discourse places particular focus on the actions committed by the Russian state.:

That is, after all, one of the most guarded borders in all of Europe. The fact that the FSB has opened the border to let people through, that was quite a surprise. So I mean that without a doubt, this was a hybrid operation, a hybrid action against Norway. The FSB wanted to see the everyday consequences this had for Norway (Interviewee 4, 2019)

The predication arising from “most guarded borders in all of Europe” is interesting. Not only does it contrast greatly with most of the associations created by the other discourses, which often includes concepts like “open” or “fluid”, but it also demarks the Norwegian-Russian border as a special border, as formulated in the sentences above. It also creates a juxtaposition with the section after, that is, that the FSB has “opened” the border, thus creating an unexpected situation. There is therefore the presupposition that the FSB exerts a great amount of power at the border, and their actions can therefore, in practice, be held accountable. This argument is furthered by the idea that this was a conscious “hybrid” operation. It was meant to have an

impact on Norway generally, not just Kirkenes, because the case is analysed through a lens of big politics. The impact should therefore go beyond this region.

5.3 The Frode Berg Case

The debate in Kirkenes around Frode Berg is much more centered on Russia than the case of Storskog. This has to do with the case itself, in the sense that it is an issue exclusively related to Russia and Norway and does not involve any other variables like migration routes (and thereby migration and internal policy). In this regard, there are some minor changes when compared to the Storskog case. Firstly, the ‘high politics’ discourse, which was rather minor in the Storskog case, becomes more pronounced. Secondly, Oslo is much more present and framed through discourses and practices. It is also worth mentioning that the Frode Berg case changed in nature when Frode Berg admitted he had been on mission for the Norwegian Intelligence Services, and that a lot of the statements and references I have collected (particularly the interviews) reflect this.

5.3.1 The ‘Cultural Competence’ Discourse

Albeit not as strongly pronounced, the ‘cultural competence’ discourse is nevertheless expressed in the Frode Berg case. Knowledge is still a nodal point which forms the core of the main central arguments. Important signifiers are once again complexity, observation and normalisation. Building upon some of the main characteristics of this discourse, knowledge on Russia allows for the observation of complexity. Below is a statement that follows this presupposition:

For those who have a more nuanced outlook, then I believe they know that Russia is in many ways corrupt right, and has system that are, like everything, adapted to Russia and the challenges they have there. It is easy for us to wish that Russia becomes democratic in the understanding we have with civil rights, but we forget that there many millions of people living in Russia and the big surrounding area. We also discuss how one can govern a country that is so big and with so many ethnical minorities, languages and cultures (Interviewee 1, 2019)

The predication arising from the use of “nuanced outlook” is once again present. That is, an outlook on Russia that takes into account its details and characteristics (i.e. corruption, diverse population, etc.) will result in a position that understands that Russia is a different, but also complex, country. Thus, situations like being arrested for espionage and the conditions in

Russian prisons are understood and nested in this. This predication also points to an alternative scenario: that a lack of knowledge will probably lead to unrealistic expectations, as furthered by the expression “it is easy for us to wish that Russia becomes democratic”. Another statement develops this argument:

When it came forward that he was actually on a mission for the intelligence services then that is the way it is, then it becomes a turning point. One knows that to work with intelligence is risky and you do not want to be caught for that in Russia, you just do not want that. So, it did not do anything, that is just the reality, it is not like it has made it worse or that one became more afraid of Russia. It was actually quite reassuring (betryggende) when we learnt that he worked for the intelligence services, it would have been much scarier if one was sure that he was totally innocent and that they had just taken him for some power game (Interviewee 3, 2019).

A predication is made with the wore “risky” associated with work in intelligence services. That is, if dealt with uncarefully, intelligence and espionage may cause harm or loss to the ones conducting the job. This is perceived as a fact, as illustrated by the expression “one knows” which has no articulated subject. This predication is also linked to Russia, advancing the argument developed above. Russia has its characteristics and methods and thus deals with cases like Frode Berg in its own way. The use of the adjective “reassuring” or “comforting” (betryggende) helps link this argument to that of normalisation. There is the perception that arrestation is to be expected if there is any ground and evidence for espionage. Therefore, cases like Frode Berg became just factual and normalised, and Russia’s placement and/or involvement in them becomes de-problematized. Whilst normalisation is reflected in this attempt to make Russia’s behaviour seem “normal”, the argument is also extended to the restoration of normality, as the statements bellow illustrate:

People are getting afraid of travelling to Russia, and that could have a major negative effect on this town which is so dependent on cross-border traveling, he says. At the same time, Nesje underlines, local Russians must not become victims of the situation: “Ordinary Russians cannot be blamed for any of this, and no Russians, neither the ones living in Kirkenes, nor the ones visiting, must suffer” (Nesje, 2017).

When Frode Berg was arrested, one became in a way emotional and influenced by it. And I was going to travel to Russia in the Christmas holidays just one week after he was… and then I had this feeling “do I really want to travel to Russia?” right. But we travelled to Russia and ate dinner and went shopping… and life goes on. I think that cannot stop cooperation even though there are things. There are many things I do not like about Russia, but one cannot stop talking with the neighbour (Interviewee 1, 2019).

The use of “ordinary” with Russians implies a focus on the common Russian citizen, the one with whom one trades, dines and works, both abroad in Russia or in Norway. The idea of avoiding blaming and suffering ultimately supports the argument that there cannot be an extraordinary or different treatment of “ordinary” Russians, and that the informal, routinized contact cannot be interrupted. It also reinforces the narrative that Russia, either in the form of immigrants or visitors, is and will continue to be present in Kirkenes. In addition, the second statement introduces the expression “life goes on” connected with common, daily activities practiced across the border. This is juxtaposed with the state of being “emotional” upon an initial analysis of the Frode Berg case, an adjective which sets a differentiation with a rational, factual analysis. Whilst there are characteristics in Russia that the Kirkenes elite does not necessarily agree with, these are treated as reality. That is, life and the local, informal connections between Norwegians and Russians at the border must continue normally, despite the tense climate and the level of uncertainty.

5.3.2 The ‘Cooperation’ Discourse

The ‘cooperation’ discourse has visibly lost some of its traction with the Frode Berg case. The nature of this case arguably has an impact on how it can be discussed and framed, because much of it is still unknown and is dealt with in high profile political bodies and not regional or even local institutions. This could also be due to the more pronounced position of the ‘high politics’ discourse. Notwithstanding, there is some representation of this discourse, particularly when concerning the necessity and practicality of continuing with cooperation projects, and also the extrapolation to the national level. Communication remains an important node, and important moments are practicality, common interests, and joint action.

Cooperation and the need for communication are presented as necessary and are articulated continuously despite possible scepticism or lack of knowledge/data on the case. To a certain extent, meanings and practices become frozen, even if the context around them has changed. Below are two statements that illustrate this:

What happened in the beginning was that a lot of people called us and were sceptical about travelling to Russia, they wondered if they should terminate their cooperation projects. Our answer has always been “no” (Interviewee 2, 2019)

He admits that local Norwegians now are starting to make more considerations before crossing the border but underlines that «people must not be afraid of traveling to Russia». According to Webber, people in Kirkenes are not angry, but sad, about the situation. Still, he argues, what is needed is more

cooperation. «It is very important that the good cross-border cooperation is preserved and strengthened», he told the Barents Observer (Webber, 2017)

Both statements were made in December 2017, before Frode Berg admitted his involvement with the intelligence services. The use of the expression “in the beginning” indicates a shift, suggesting that scepticism and fear were present in an initial phase. Despite scepticism and fear, there is a perception that cross-border cooperation and projects should not only be pursued, but also “strengthened”. The use of verbs such as “must” indicates that there is an urge/need in keeping the formal cooperation ties and communication channels, which can be linked with the idea of practicality and the fact that both parts wish to move forwards the Barents project and the partnership with Russia. The idea of contact, communication and common solutions is extrapolated to the national scene, in similar fashion with the Storskog case:

«It is not a good signal when such a positive and distinguished bridge-builder like Frode is arrested, it is not a good sign», Rafaelsen underlines to the Barents Observer and adds that only a political deal can now help resolve the situation (Rafaelsen, 2017)

He is convinced that the Frode Berg case would have been cleared off the table if Norway had invited Russia’s president Vladimir Putin to the liberation anniversary.

- These negotiations cannot just be delayed and delayed, says Hansen, who demands visible action.

Last year, the mayor in Sør-Varanger, Rune Rafaelsen (Ap) encouraged the prime-minister Erna Solberg to invite Vladimir Putin to the liberation anniversary in Kirkenes in the autumn of 2019 (Øystein Hansen and Rune Rafaelsen, 2019)

The idea of keeping clear and open communication channels on the national level, which translate to the actions of speaking and meeting with Russia, is once again formulated as a problem-solving tool. The use of “political deal” implies that the solution lies on the national level and should be pursued there. There is also a demand for “visible” action, a predication which points to the perception that so far, no clear negotiation has been achieved. The proposed solution is to take it to the highest political body, that is Russia’s presidency, and invite President Putin as a clear signal in order to get to a common solution.

5.3.3 The ‘High Politics’ Discourse

The ‘high politics’ discourse is more marked and present in the Frode Berg case. Emphasis is put on Kirkenes special and vulnerable position to power games. Compared to what was observed in the Storskog case, the ‘high politics’ discourse not only frames Russia, but also Norway and Oslo. In this regard, entrapment is still a node which structures the core arguments, and important terms are the ones of difficulty, vulnerability, responsibility and exploitation. Below some statements that introduce Kirkenes’ and its special position vis-à-vis the East-West divide:

We are neighbours to an area of enormous strategic attraction to Russia, and the military development between East and West is very negative. This with GPS-jamming is a sign of something which is going to become much worse in the future ahead. So Kirkene’s position as a laboratory will not be less important in the future, I do not think so. It is not going to become anything stable, it is a very labile society. (Interviewee #5)

It is a confirmation that it is in Kirkenes and in Finnmark that Norway as a close relationship to Russia, and that one notices Russia for better or worse here in the North. And that it is also here one notices the bad political climate very clearly (Interviewee #6)

The idea of difficulty is once again present in the statement. The use of adjectives like “negative” and “much worse” indicates a position that anticipates a future tendentiously hostile, where the tension and competition between Russia and other Western/NATO countries is likely to increase. Simultaneously, Kirkenes is presented as both a “neighbour”, but also a “laboratory”, an area for testing and where one can expect the first results or impacts from this hostility, the place where the bad political climate is felt most intensely and clearly. Simultaneously, Russia’s presence in Kirkenes is not presented as to be diminished in the future. This is illustrated by the GPS-jamming that hit Northern Norway earlier in 2019. Kirkenes is therefore to be perceived vulnerable to these sort of high politics cases, as furthered by the use of “anything stable” and “labile society”. The Frode Berg case, being a case of espionage and use of intelligence, falls under this category. The statement below illustrates this:

It is naïve to believe that this is the only case of Norwegian e-business in Russia. We spy on them via the Vardø radar, human contact and cooperation with other NATO countries. And of course, Russia has agents and informants both in Sør-Varanger and elsewhere in the country. That's the game. But it is extremely rare for anyone to be taken - and this case has played out in the worst possible way (Pedersen, 2018)

The “game” of high politics is perceived to entail activities related to intelligence services and espionage. The “game” is also portrayed as being common knowledge with the predications arising from the use of “naïve to believe” and the expression “of course”. That is, the local elite is aware that both Norway and Russia use East-Finnmark as an arena for espionage. However, the statement also includes some level of problematization by stating that the Frode Berg case has played out “in the worst possible way”, particularly if seen in a context where only a few people got caught. Frode Berg is thus seen as an example of an operation that went wrong. The following statements furthers the argument and links it to the idea of responsibility:

We now expect him to come home, home, home. The greatest responsibility lies with the Norwegian government, sier Hansen, who points out that it is the Norwegian intelligence that got him imprisoned in Russia (Hansen, 2019)

As I said, Kirkenes it is more like that one has become angrier at Oslo. Oslo intelligence services use local people in Kirkenes for this type of mission. One means that that is stupid. (Interviewee 4, 2019)

The statements produce a shift in the ‘high politics’ discourse compared to Storskog. While in the latter case, tne discourse focused on Russia and tended to attribute blame to it, to see it as the root cause of the crisis, here the discourse looks more at Oslo and its responsibility. This does not necessarily mean that Russia is no longer involved, because the case is seen in the context of East-West divide, rather that the “greatest” responsibility lies on Norwegian authorities. The argument that the intelligence services located in Oslo “use” local people for missions is seen as a mindless decision likely to produce bad results. Moreover, this encourages and links to arguments related to exploitation, as the statement below summarizes:

“This local society has through history had to carry the raw and faceless geopolitics on its shoulders,” Webber underlined.

“The ones who could have given this troubled local people support, they have entrenched themselves in downtown Oslo, in the office of the Norwegian Prime Minister and deep into the nearby mountains of the military intelligence, and also in other corridors where power is exerted” he said. “It is high time that Big Society lets us alone, so that we can develop this whole area across borders and nations in a way which puts the local population in focus ahead of the hostile game of Big Politics” (Webber, 2019)

A predication is made with the use of “raw” and “faceless” together with “geopolitics”, as well as “hostile” and “game of big politics”. There is the perception that high politics and geopolitics are inherently crude and negative, particularly for the local society that has had to carry them

“on its shoulders” for a long time. Furthermore, big politics is also conceived as an impediment to the cross-border development of the area because it does not put local populations in focus. There is also a juxtaposition arising from the use of “faceless” and the second paragraph where actors are identified, but one does not necessarily exclude the other. It is more a question of the responsibility of individuals vs. the responsibility of institutions or authorities. Geopolitics and big politics are in a way anonymous, because they are nondescript. Thus, locals are subjected to a pressure which, albeit having a source, it is difficult to identify and hold accountable.

5.4 Summary: Meaning and Action

The analysis of the textual and interview data established meaningful categories for the different discourses and practices towards Russia. The analysis was based on Kirkenes’ political and cultural elite and its articulation of these discourses and practices upon two political junctures, the Storskog and Frode Berg cases. I was able to recover and establish three dominant discourses and practices. The ‘cultural competence’ discourse with important signifiers such as complex, nuanced, and close. A practice which is articulated through this discourse is ‘normalisation’. The ‘cooperation discourse’ with signifiers such as common, wishful and beneficial, which articulate the practice of ‘dialogue’. The ‘high politics’ discourse with signifiers such as difficult and exploitive, which articulate the practice ‘of accountability’.

The analysis has clarified that all these discourses and practices articulate, mostly through discursive utterances, two important constituting narratives, namely the idea that the local level is not the national level, and that Russia has historically been, and will most likely continue to be, present in Kirkenes. The analysis has also shown that there is a relative stability regarding both the presence and the hierarchy of these discourses, given that the ‘cultural competence’ discourse and the ‘cooperation’ discourse are clearly demarcated in both cases. There is, however, room for change, as the ‘high politics’ discourse becomes more present in the Frode Berg case. These findings will now be discussed and seen in light of the practice- discourse axis, identity constructions, and the community regions concept.

6 Discourse, Practice and perceptions of Russia: A Cross-Border Discussion

In the previous chapter, I identified three dominant discourses and their associated practices on Russia, as they were articulated by Kirkenes’ cultural and political elite around the Storskog and Frode Berg cases: the ‘cultural competence’ discourse, the ‘cooperation’ discourse, and the ‘big politics’ discourse. By using the tools of predication and intertextuality, I was able to uncover pattern actions and ascription of meaning, but also taken-for-granted positionings towards the neighbouring country. In this section, I will discuss some of the main findings considering the analytical framework developed in chapter 2. I will first address the interplay between practice and discourse. I will then move to the question of identity construction to further explore how Kirkenes frames Russia and subsequentially itself. Lastly, I will address the framework of community regions and to what extent does it provide a conceptual tool for understanding Kirkenes’ framing of the neighbouring country.

6.1 The Interplay Between Practices and Discourses

As developed in chapter 2, practices can be defined as competent performances. They are not “merely descriptive ‘arrows’ that connect structure to agency and back, but rather the dynamic material and ideational processes that enable structures to be stable or to evolve, and agents to reproduce or transform structures” (Adler and Pouliot, 2011, p.5). Practices, as patterned actions, are nested, insofar as they are grounded on similar practices and insofar as they have to fit with other existing practices in a field (Neumann, 2002, p. 636). Practices, as sets of actions, are composed of “either bodily doings and sayings or actions that these doings and sayings constitute”. Yet practices remain discursive, or require discourse, in order to be recognized as meaningful and competent. It is also through discourse that practices can be apprehended. Therefore, an analysis on interplay between discourse and practice is an analysis that allows focuses on culture and identity. An analysis of this sort moves towards the unconscious and habitual but remains focused on what is collectively hold or impersonal. As Ann Swidler (2001, p.84) states:

Practice theory moves the level of sociological attention ‘down’ from conscious ideas and values to the physical and the habitual. But this move is complemented by a move ‘up,’ from ideas located in individual consciousness to the impersonal arena of ‘discourse.’ A focus on discourses, or on ‘semiotic codes’ permits attention to meaning without having to focus on whether particular actors believe, think, or act on any specific ideas.

The analysis has been able to recover this interplay by drawing attention to what is to some extent physical, material and habitual but also to what is language and meaning. That is, the three identified discourses produce linguistic signifiers on Russia that make make practices towards Russia meaningful and easily recognisable for the audience. Likewise, these same practices fix those meanings by reproducing them in action and patterning them. From here, different axis of meaning-doing can be formed. The practice of ‘normalisation’ includes bodily doings such as travelling to Russia for private purposes, such as shopping and leisure, but also for work-related purposes, such as collection of information and evidence. It also entails actions such as working or meeting Russian nationals on a daily-basis, who are either neighbours, friends or colleagues, and bodily sayings like acceptance of difference or complexity. This practice is made meaningful and recognisable through a ‘cultural competence’ discourse, which reiterates that Russia is a complex neighbour, with and that Kirkenes has, or can acquire, knowledge on it. This allows for multisided observation and the production of nuanced outlooks. The axis of normalisation- cultural competence The practice of ‘dialogue’ entails bodily doings such as meeting Russian nationals and authorities for the establishment of cooperative frameworks or joint-action, both through people-to-people cooperation projects or through more formal forms of dialogue, such as the one existing between mayors of the border municipalities. The practice of ‘dialogue’ becomes meaningful through a ‘cooperative’ discourse which reinforces that open channels communication and cooperation initiatives are mutually beneficial and desirable. When a local figure automatically says “no” when asked if one should interrupt people-to-people cooperation projects in the aftermath of the Frode Berg case, he/she is articulating this interaction. Communication and cooperation are desirable and beneficial, so even in a political juncture like Frode Berg, it is not conceivable to disrupt the collaboration as a practice. The practice of “accountability” is not as pronounced as the other two, and it is mostly comprised by bodily sayings like holing national political bodies and agencies in Norway and Russia responsible for political incidents. This practice is made meaningful through a ‘high politics’ discourse, which comprised of the idea that Kirkenes is vulnerable to the consequences of big-power politics.

6.1.2 Power and Knowledge

Power is an essential aspect of practice and discourse, because it is through power that orders can be established. As Neumann (2007, p.190) formulates, “making the world seem to be stable when it is in fact in constant flux, means that having power among other things involves having the ability to freeze meaning”. Arguably, Kirkenes’ political and cultural elite holds ¨the control of a variety of historically constructed capitals” (Pouliot, 2008, p.275), such as economic power, social prestige, level of education, etc. Freezing meaning also entails repetition “until what one repeats is naturalized to such an extent that it appears doxic” (Neumann, 2007, p.190). Therefore, when establishing and reproducing practices and discourses, Kirkenes’ elite is fielding and reproducing background knowledge. Fielding knowledge implies a construction of a story or narratives which precede that same practice and make it possible, an exercise which wields power (Ibid., 2002, p. 648). When patterned through practice and made meaningful through discourse, these same narratives become doxic or apprehended as taken-for-granted. This does not however entail crystallization, as there is room for change. Given that “the social world, and the audience for one’s words, gestures, practices, and actions, is constantly changing” (Hopf, 2017, p.693), knowledge and axis of meaning-doing are constantly being subjected to microrupture. Change can be more than just microrupture, since when “marginal practice becomes more frequent, then that may change the discourse as such (Neumann, 2002, p.649). The axis of being-meaning-doing/becoming applied to Kirkenes’ local elite perception on Russia can synthetized in the figure below:

Figure 4. Establishment and Reproduction of Positions Towards Russia17

17 Adapted from Neumann (2002, p.649). 57

In the field of Kirkenes’ perception of Russia, the political and cultural elite occupies a position which allows it to establish and reproduce practices and meanings/discourses. The latters are grounded on a story or narrative which preconizes a separation between the local and national levels (or the “borderland” is neither Oslo nor Moscow) and which also that Russia has been, and will continue to be, present. These discourses and practices remain rather stable throughout the time period of analysis, despite potentially changing political incidents and junctures. However, events such as the Storskog and Frode Berg cases do contribute to the realm of change through microrupture and change through marginal practices.

6.2 Identity Constructions: The Self and the Other(s)

Focusing on the interaction between practice and discourses allows for the recovery of how Russia is framed by political and cultural elite in Kirkenes. Addressing the framing of Russia implies addressing identity constructions, since an individual “needs her own identity in order to make sense of herself and others and needs the identity of others to make sense of them and herself” (Hopf, 2002, p.4-5). As explored in the analytical framework, identity is constructed through processes of linking and differentiation, that is, “meaning and identity are constructed through a series of signs that are linked to each other to constitute relations of sameness as well as through a differentiation to another series of juxtaposed” (Hansen, 2006, p.37). The interaction between “cultural competence” and “normalisation” as well as the interaction between “high politics” and “accountability” creates two interesting differentiations. The former establishes and frames Russia as a complex site, which does not entail or imply the construction of Russia as a problem. This complexity stems from Russia’s many characteristics, from it being a multi-ethnic state to the quality of its democratic institutions. Linking Russia with complex implies then a juxtaposition: Kirkenes is simpler, or at least more straightforward. The latter interaction establishes and frames Russia as a difficult or challenging. This challenge stems from Russia’s many actions and behaviour on the regional and international sphere (particularly with Vladimir Putin), which demark the division between East and West. When juxtaposed with Russia, Kirkenes sees itself as easy or smooth. Yet Russia retains as aspect of closeness, insofar as Kirkenes perceives it always through the lens of the “neighbour” and insofar as narratives on the historical presence of Russia ground meaning. The difference lies in which meanings are ascribed to the condition of neighbour. The interaction between “cooperation” and “dialogue” produces, contrastingly, a process of linking between Kirkenes and Russia, as there is no articulation of difference

between the two entities. Through the axis of dialogue, Russia is largely framed and perceived as collaborative, as interested in bolstering the formal Barents cooperation and keeping some form of dialogue. The discourse and practice suggest however that, by attributing meanings such as mutual beneficial to cooperation, and by seeking to actively meet Russia, Kirkenes also frames itself as a collaborative. However, insofar as narratives on separation of the national and the local ground meaning production, it becomes challenging to perceive whether this linking is done to Russia or to North-West Russia, the region inscribed in the borderland. Additionally, grounded on this narrative is the establishment of processes of differentiation with Oslo which can be seen as to have been constructed as a territorial Other. A good example stems from the axis “high politics” and “accountability”, which results in discursive utterances that imply that Oslo is responsible for certain problems in Kirkenes; that Kirkenes is vulnerable to geopolitics and to Oslo’s interests in the region. While this was not initially a focus with this thesis, this is construction was articulated in my empirical data and naturally emerged in the analysis Taken together, Kirkenes’ political and cultural elite framing of Russia is not straightforward. One could group this perception under one common denominator, that of the “neighbour”. However, the different discourses and practices towards Russia ascribe and pattern slightly different meanings to this denominator. Thus, it is fair to conclude that Kirkenes has a multisided perception of, and position towards, the neighbouring country.

6.3 Kirkenes: The Case for a Community Region?

So far, I have delineated three meaningful axes for being-meaning-doing. I have established that this intersubjective interaction is grounded on narratives which eventually have become knowledge through exercises of power. I have also recovered the multisided construction of Russia as a neighbour that they sustain, articulate and reproduce. One last theoretical exercise is needed, namely the discussion around the concept of community regional as an explanatory concept for the origin of these discourses, practices and multisided constructions of Russia.

Returning to the definition of community region, we can define three main characteristics that can be used for discussion. First, “members of a community have shared identities, values, and meanings” (Adler and Barnett, 1998, p.31). Secondly, “those in a community have many-sided and direct relations” an interaction between members occurs “through some form of face-to-face encounter and relations in numerous settings” (Ibid., p.31). Thirdly, members of a community region exhibit “a reciprocity that expresses some degree of

long-term interest and perhaps even altruism; long-term interest derives from knowledge of those with whom one is interacting, and altruism can be understood as a sense of obligation and responsibility (Ibid., p.31) Finally, members in a community region urge national states to act as “agents of regional good” Adler (1997, p.253) A part of Kirkenes’ perceptions of Russia, and their associated discourses and practices, can be traced back in light of a community region. Firstly, Kirkenes, and more precisely its political and cultural elite, has had a diverse array of contacts with Russia both when concerning with their fields and presence. This is something which is roughly reiterated by all practices and discourses. These contacts range from informal cross-border contacts and travels to formal meetings and dialogue through political, regional organizations and institutions. The fields of contact are varied, ranging from shopping to sports and culture. If seen historically, contact between Kirkenes and Russia is not new. While it may have been formally established on the political level with the Barents Cooperation 1993, its roots can be traced back to the Second World War, the example of the partisans and the liberation of Eastern-Finnmark being prime examples. Secondly, one can affirm that there is some degree of reciprocity between Kirkenes and Russia, in the sense that Kirkenes knows with whom it is interacting and has, to some extent, developed a sense of responsibility. Knowledge is a nodal point on the axis of ‘cultural competence’ and ‘normalisation’. By keeping multisided, routinized and informal contact with Russia, Kirkenes gathers enough knowledge which allows it to apprehend its complexity through a nuanced, standardised way. Equally so, responsibility and obligation can provide some grounding for the axis ‘cooperation’ and ‘dialogue’, particularly because this axis is largely rooted on the formal Barents cooperation. As explored in the background least the Barents cooperation was, at least in an initial phase, a Norwegian initiative which aimed the tackling of the many human security problems emerging in Russia in the 1990s. Finally, the axis of ‘high politics’ and ‘accountability’ can be grounded on the urgency of appealing national states to focus on regional-good, mainly on the basis of regional governance institutions and frameworks. Regarding identity formation and interests, there appears to be a slight mismatch. While an historical narrative on a community region contextualizes and positions Kirkenes’ meaning production and patterned action towards Russia, it is not possible to say that the interaction between discourse and practice has constituted a common identity. The local elite in Kirkenes still formulates Russia as an “Other” through processes of differentiation of the signs “complex” and “challenging” with “simple” or “easy, straightforward”. The data and the analysis suggest

a complex and multisided nature of identity construction which does is not corroborated by conceptual notion of common identity. That being said, it is rather difficult to establish which Russia Kirkenes’ elite is framing. Furthermore, Kirkenes’ elite continuously separates the national from the local level, both in Norway and Moscow, which suggests that there is some grounding for thinking in terms of commonality, insofar as the “borderland” (Kirkenes and Pechengsky or North-West Russia) are perceived as not being, or at least being more than, Oslo and Moscow. In conclusion, the concept of community region provides an interesting grounding that corroborates the narratives and knowledge which sustain the interaction between practices and discourses towards Russia. To some extent, Kirkenes elite’s multisided perception of Russia through the denominator of neighbour can be explained and historically contextualized through an intersubjective community region or community of practice in the borderland.

7 Conclusion

7.1 Main Findings

Kirkenes is a Norwegian border town that is highly interrelated with Russia. Like many order border towns, it has historically been a site for informal contacts and cross-border activities. Unlike many other border towns, Kirkenes is a knowledge and political hub for many formal institutions that deal with Russia and people-to-people cooperation and that promote deeper and better contact with the neighbouring country. The meaning of the Norwegian-Russian border has changed substantially since the 1990s, but the border remains an important division, particularly if seen from a national or high politics stand point. Due to its closeness to Russia, Kirkenes has often felt the impact of political junctures that contribute to an overall climate of national tensions. The Storskog and the Frode Berg cases are two examples. In broader terms, thus, the purpose of these thesis was to explore how Kirkenes’ political and cultural elite perceives Russia. This will be done by conducting an analysis on discourses, practices and later identity, following a methodology that is both inductive, interpretative and historical/contextual. More specifically, the thesis sought to answer the following questions:

What are the local discourses and practices in Kirkenes on Russia upon the Storskog and Frode Berg cases? How is Russia framed through these discourses and practices, and to what extent can they be informed by the presence of a community region?”

Regarding local discourses and practices, this thesis has established three different discourses and associated categories, which can be considered axes of being-meaning-doing. The ‘cultural competence’ discourse and the practice of ‘normalisation’. This axis is grounded on Kirkenes proximity to Russia and reiterates that informal contacts and travels to Russia allow the elite to observe nuances and collect knowledge on Russia’s complex characteristics. The ‘cooperation’ discourse and the practice of ‘dialogue’, which are grounded on the formal Barents cooperation and the many collaborative frameworks it supports and established and which are perceived as mutual beneficial and desirable. The ‘high politics’ discourse and the practice of ‘accountability”. This axis is grounded of the idea of an East-West divide to which Kirkenes is particularly vulnerable and reinforces discursive utterances that hold national governments accountable for the spillovers of geopolitics. These discourses cannot be said to have a strict hierarchy between them, and they remain for the most part stable, although there are some shifts throughout the time period of analysis. The biggest shift concerns the ‘high

politics’ discourse, which is much more pronounced in the Frode Berg case than in the Storskog case.

The different axis of being-meaning-doing produce a multifaceted framing of Russia. This thesis has argued that while Russia is for the most part framed through the denominator of “neighbour”, different processes of linking and differentiation ascribe different meanings to the quality of this denominator. These can be grouped as “complex neighbour”, “collaborative neighbour”, and “challenging neighbour”. This framing of Russia can be informed by the concept of community region, insofar as this concept is an intersubjective construction that constitutes a narrative and fields knowledge, thereby sustaining the interplay between practice and discourse. The narrative that Russia is historically present in Kirkenes, and that Russia is more than Moscow (or that the “borderland” is not Kirkenes), coupled together with the discourses and practices it fields, are quite consistent with the main characteristics of a community region. Thus, the intersubjective presence of a community region can provide an explanatory framework for the many discourses and practices towards Russia, such as dialogue and meetings, travels, shopping, and collaboration projects. The concept fails however to explain the lack of a common identity.

7.2 Further Research

The scientific outcome of this thesis was profoundly impacted by the choice of my analytical tools and my data material. Bridging the practice and the discursive turns is a challenging theoretical and methodological exercise. I consider this to be the best approach given the aim of this thesis, which is the recovery of patterned action and the taken-for-granted, but also of meaning and language. Regarding data material, I am only looking at Kirkenes’ political and cultural elite, i.e. local politicians, journalists and civil society actors. Different sources of data could produce slightly different results which could result in an interesting comparison. For example, one could instead look at Kirkenes’ political and economic elite. As stated before, it is challenging to find discursive statements from local actors which ensure diversity, as the figure of the mayor is very pronounced. Therefore, it became quite imperative to supplement the textual data with fieldwork and experience-near data, i.e. interviews. The scope of this thesis also impacts the scientific outcome.

By being only focused on Norway, I am missing a Russian perspective which could have altered my analysis and discussion, particularly the considerations around the concept of community region. Thus, an exercise for further research could be the approach of these

research question or topic by exploring the Russian side of the border to further test the concept of community region and the theoretical framework. Another interesting approach to the topic and question could be the construction of a genealogical analysis on dominant discourses in Kirkenes, which would reveal ruptures. My analysis has also concluded that Oslo is often constructed in terms of otherness. This otherness of Oslo lays a fruitful ground for research on Kirkenes’ discourses and practices on Oslo, approached with same theoretical and methodological framework this thesis employs. Lastly, this thesis concludes that Kirkenes’ positions and framings of Russia are multisided, which lays some ground for comparison. This could be done by looking at two different borders, i.e. Norway-Russia and Finland-Russia. In sum, the findings of this thesis prove a ground which could be fruitful for hypothesis-testing and theory-testing, both of which would be valuable contributions to the field of border studies.

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Appendix

Interview guide (in Norwegian)

Løs prat (5 minutter)

• Uformell prat Informasjon (5-7 minutter)

• Temaet for samtalen: diskurser og praksis i Kirkenes mot Russland. • Forklare formålet med intervjuet (til en masteroppgave). Jeg har taushetsplikt, og dersom det er ønskelig, kan informasjon om respondenten anonymiseres. • Spør om noe er uklart eller om respondenten har noen spørsmål • Start lydopptak (hvis intervjuobjektet har godkjent) Overgangsspørsmål (15-20 minutter)

• Hvilken tanker har du rundt forholdet mellom Norge og Russland? (generelt) • Har Barentssamarbeidet påvirket forholdet mellom Norge og Russland? Hvordan? (koble til regionen)? • Hvordan opplevde du at grensen åpnet seg? • Spiller Kirkenes en rolle i formingen av det bilaterale forholdet? Hvilken? Nøkkelspørsmål (35 minutter)

• Storskog-saken: o Hvordan ble denne saken innrammet i debatten i Kirkenes? Mest som en sak om utenriks- og sikkerhetspolitikk, innvandringspolitikk eller begge? o Kan du nevne noen praktiske handlinger som fulgte av Storskog-saken i Kirkenes? For eksempel mer (eller mindre) dialog mellom myndigheter/kommuner fra begge sider av grensen? o Har denne saken forandret meningene nordmenn i Kirkenes har om Russland? • Frode Berg-saken: o Hvordan har debatten i Kirkenes plassert Frode-Berg saken i den større folk- til-folk samarbeid konteksten? o Hva slags toner hadde debatten rundt denne saken i Kirkenes? Har den blitt innrammet som en trussel eller eksempel av Russlands oppførsel (internasjonalt og internt), eller som en tilfeldighet som må løses diplomatisk/lovlig?

o Kan du nevne noen praktiske handlinger som fulgte av Frode Berg-saken i Kirkenes? o Har denne saken forandret meningene nordmenn i Kirkenes har om Russland? • Hvordan kan disse debattene i Kirkenes settes i den større debatten om Russland i Norge? • Har disse sakene hatt en innflytelse i hvordan Kirkenes opplever sine daglige forhold med Russland? Spesifiser gjerne om ditt felt Oppsummering (10 minutter)

• Oppsummerende funn • Er det noe du vil legge til? • Nevn mulighet for oppfølgingsspørsmål