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

• Main Author: Oliveira de Almeida Toscano, Leonor
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Norway; Storskog; Kirkenes
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10852/73226; http://urn.nb.no/URN:NBN:no-76347

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.