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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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

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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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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

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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.

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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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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

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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.

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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 29^th 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

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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).

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4 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

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5 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

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6 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.

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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

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8 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.

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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

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10 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

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11 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”.

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12 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).

3This 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).

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13 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.,

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14 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

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15 (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

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16 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)

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17 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.

7Hansen (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.

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18 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.

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19 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

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20 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.

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21

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

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22 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

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23 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.

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?

Kirkenes: a case for borderland Norwegians?

Abstract

Acknowledgments

Table of Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

List of Abbreviations

1 Introduction

1.1 Kirkenes: Between Norway and Russia

1.1.1 The Border and Its Meanings

1.1.2 The BEAR and Norwegian Duality

1.2. Research Question and Objectives

1.2.1 Context and Relevance

1.2.2 Scope and Clarifications

1.3 Analytical Tools and Selection of Empirical Material

1.4 Structure of the Thesis

2 Theoretical Framework

2.1 Social Constructivism and Interpretivism

2.2 The Practice Turn

2.2.1 Conceptualizations and Contributions

2.2.2 Defining Social Practices

2 . 2.3 On Symbolic Power

2.2.4 On Background Knowledge

.

2.3 Practice, Identity and Discourse

2.4 Cross-Border Practices and Discourses? The Case of Community Regions

2.5 Application of the Theoretical Framework

3 Methodology

3.1 A Three-Step Process: Induction, Interpretation and Historical/Contextual Positioning

3.2 Data Selection and Collection