Category Archives: Volume 18, no. 1 (2023)

The Curious Stranger: An Approach to Fieldwork

27/02/2023Article (double blind peer review)Fieldwork, Greenland, curiosity, observations, reflexivity, unfolding eventsKevin Perry & Mette Rasmussen

This paper explores the interactions and processes that empower researchers to qualify and change research questions during fieldwork. Turning to the concepts of reflexivity and Simmel’s Stranger gives a valuable understanding of the processes that qualify research projects while they are happening. Reporting on two separate fieldwork studies in Greenland, the paper explores how the researchers respond to unfolding events in the two different Greenlandic contexts. Study A) investigated homelessness in Tasiilaq but changed direction to embrace new national and local developments. A unique opportunity arose due to a broadcast sent via Denmark’s Radio. Consequently, the researcher in the field responded by broadening the interview guide and scope of the study. Study B) discusses how leadership unfolds in fish processing factories in Nuuk and Maniitsoq. The researcher emerged in everyday organisational life, observing day-to-day activities based on participant observations, shadowing, conversations, and interviews.

Equity and the Pareto Principle: Does the Pareto Principle Have Moral Force?

27/02/2023Article (double blind peer review)Pareto, economics, ethicsMikael M. Karlsson

This paper was submitted to Nordicum-Mediterraneum in the wake of a call from the journal for papers having to do with Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), to be published in commemoration of the centenary of his death. The original version of the paper was written in 1998 but has never been published previously. It has been heavily revised in response to severe, but well-directed, peer review. The paper analyzes and criticizes the use of what is herein labeled the “Pareto Efficiency Principle” as a normative mandate justifying, or even requiring, various “Pareto-efficient” allocative decisions, and it likewise views with a fishy eye the concealed pretense that such justification is delivered by economic science. Some devices commonly used by economists to stave off criticisms of the use of Pareto efficiency as a criterion of “good”, “correct”, or normatively mandated allocative decisions are also explored.

Weaving a Journey: 19th-Century Iceland in an Italian Female Narrative

26/02/2023Article (double blind peer review)Iceland, environment, folklore, history, travel literature, women’s writingRosella Perugi

At the end of the 19^th century an Italian woman writer, Maria Savi Lopez, published the fictionalized version of a journey to Iceland, Nei Paesi del Nord (In the Northern Countries, 1893). Through the eyes of a group of English people sailing from their home country, the author weaves a choral narrative that spreads among the Italian reading public heterogeneous information about largely unknown cultures, folklores and natural environments. The narrative discourse creates a structured net, where different voices perform specific roles and encourage the readers to partake their adventures while sailing into the protective, comfortable atmosphere of the steamer.

The EU and Its Southern Neighborhood Policy: Resilience in the Era of Science Diplomacy

25/02/2023Article (double blind peer review)European Southern Neighbourhood, diplomacy studies, resilience, science diplomacy, structural diplomacyZane Šime

The European Union science diplomacy toward the Southern Neighbourhood could take advantage of some compartments of diplomacy studies and literature on resilience to build on earlier scholarly accomplishments and avoid duplication of efforts. Structural diplomacy is the selected framework for dwelling on the intricacies and challenging aspects of the overall topic. Conceptually and policy-wise, complexities revolving around multifaceted meanings of resilience and the polyphony of terminology employed in the diplomacy studies represent contemporary legacies and a densely layered context for the launch of the European Science Diplomacy Agenda.

Anna Herranz-Surrallés, Israel Solorio, and Jenny Fairbrass (eds.), Renegotiating Authority in EU Energy and Climate Policy (Abington/New York: Routledge, 2022)

24/02/2023Volume 18, no. 1 (2023), Book review (editorial review)Climate, EU, European Union, energyGabriella Gricius

The collection of articles originally published in a Special Issue of the Journal of European Integration brought together in book form by Anna-Herranz Surrallés, Israel Solorio, and Jenny Fairbrass asks important questions about the nature of authority in EU energy and climate policy. For both political scientists and those broadly interested in EU policymaking, the … Continue reading Anna Herranz-Surrallés, Israel Solorio, and Jenny Fairbrass (eds.), Renegotiating Authority in EU Energy and Climate Policy (Abington/New York: Routledge, 2022) →

Dirk Booms and Peter John Higgs (eds.), Sicily: Heritage of the World (London: The British Museum, 2019)

23/02/2023Volume 18, no. 1 (2023), Book review (editorial review)Sicily, exhibition, history, museumGuðmundur Heiðar Frímannsson

The remarkable connection between the North and the South Booms, D., J. Higgs. (2019). Sicily: Heritage of the World. London, The British Museum. This journal is about the relations between the south, The Mediterranean, and the north, the Arctic, the Nordic countries and generally the northern Europe. Half of the book under review here is … Continue reading Dirk Booms and Peter John Higgs (eds.), Sicily: Heritage of the World (London: The British Museum, 2019) →

Sanna Valkonen, Áile Aikio, Saara Alakorva and Sigga-Marja Magga (eds.), The Sámi World (London and New York: Routledge, 2022)

22/02/2023Volume 18, no. 1 (2023), Book review (editorial review)Arctic, Sami, indigenous rightsIlona Kater

Long has cultural research involved scholars heading out into the ‘unknown’, writing gripping (and often inaccurate) tales about the peoples and societies they have met along the way. Understandably, this has caused much frustration for these ‘unknown’ people who know themselves very well, and who have had few opportunities to correct inaccurate representations, or to … Continue reading Sanna Valkonen, Áile Aikio, Saara Alakorva and Sigga-Marja Magga (eds.), The Sámi World (London and New York: Routledge, 2022) →

Jérôme Duberry, Artificial Intelligence and Democracy: Risks and Promises of AI-Mediated Citizen–Government Relations (Cheltenham/Northampton: Edward Elgar, 2022)

21/02/2023Volume 18, no. 1 (2023), Book review (editorial review)Democracy, governance, technologyKristina Egumenovska

The thirst for data generated by digital slaves Artificial Intelligence and Democracy: Risks and Promises of AI-Mediated Citizen–Government Relations is a book by Jérôme Duberry, published in 2022 as the result of a research project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. The book structurally and thematically spans across several important issues which AI as … Continue reading Jérôme Duberry, Artificial Intelligence and Democracy: Risks and Promises of AI-Mediated Citizen–Government Relations (Cheltenham/Northampton: Edward Elgar, 2022) →

Mathieu Landriault, Jean-François Payette and Stéphane Roussel (eds.), Mapping Arctic Paradiplomacy – Limits and Opportunities for Sub-National Actors in Arctic Governance (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2022)

20/02/2023Volume 18, no. 1 (2023), Book review (editorial review)Arctic governance, Arctic studies, diplomacy, international law, international relationsMaria Ackrén

The book is an anthology covering the concept of paradiplomacy and other forms of diplomacy in 10 chapters focusing on the North America and Russian Arctic with some example cases also from Scotland and China. The introductory chapter is a typical state-of-the-art chapter going through the literature in the field of Arctic paradiplomacy and is … Continue reading Mathieu Landriault, Jean-François Payette and Stéphane Roussel (eds.), Mapping Arctic Paradiplomacy – Limits and Opportunities for Sub-National Actors in Arctic Governance (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2022) →

Monica Tennberg, Else Grete Broderstad, Hans-Kristian Hernes (eds.), Indigenous Peoples, Natural Resources and Governance: Agencies and Interactions (London: Routledge, 2021)

19/02/2023Volume 18, no. 1 (2023), Book review (editorial review)Arctic, Law, Oceania, governance, indigenous rightsRenata Colwell

As Indigenous Peoples around the world face new and increasing forms of extractive pressure in their traditional territories, what opportunities do they have to exercise agency and protect their interests in local resource governance processes? In Indigenous Peoples, Natural Resources and Governance: Agencies and Interactions, editors Tennberg, Broderstad and Hernes seek to broaden their readers’ … Continue reading Monica Tennberg, Else Grete Broderstad, Hans-Kristian Hernes (eds.), Indigenous Peoples, Natural Resources and Governance: Agencies and Interactions (London: Routledge, 2021) →

Marjo Lindroth and Heidi Sinevaara-Niskanen, The Colonial Politics of Hope: Critical Junctures of Indigenous-State Relations (London: Routledge, 2022)

18/02/2023Volume 18, no. 1 (2023), Book review (editorial review)Arctic, Law, critical theory, indigenous peoples, indigenous rightsSara Fusco

The volume is edited by Routledge, the British publishing house founded in 1951 and now a safe haven for many publications on Arctic studies. The authors are Marjo Lindroth and Heidi Sinevaara-Niskanen, both affiliates of the Arctic Centre in Rovaniemi and University of Lapland. As the title “The Colonial Politics of Hope” suggests, the volume … Continue reading Marjo Lindroth and Heidi Sinevaara-Niskanen, The Colonial Politics of Hope: Critical Junctures of Indigenous-State Relations (London: Routledge, 2022) →

Philip E. Phillis, Greek Cinema and Migration, 1991–2016 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020)

17/02/2023Volume 18, no. 1 (2023), Book review (editorial review)Greece, Migration, cinema, cultureViviana Tagliaferri

With this engaging work on the contemporary filmic representation of migration by Greek cinema, Philip Phillis enters significantly into the hotly debated the issue of migration en masse to Europe of the last decades, doing so with an approach that is both artistic and historical. In focusing on the border crossings that have particularly affected … Continue reading Philip E. Phillis, Greek Cinema and Migration, 1991–2016 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020) →

Simon Mills, A Commerce of Knowledge: Trade, Religion, and Scholarship between England and the Ottoman Empire, c.1600-1760 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020)

16/02/2023Volume 18, no. 1 (2023), Book review (editorial review)Christianity, Commerce, Orientalism, Syria, colonialismViviana Tagliaferri

“The traveller observing in the light of the day and the scholar ‘blundering’ in the dark corner of a college library” (p. 2) are some of the protagonists of the ‘commerce of knowledge’ interrogated by Simon Mills in this accurate and elegantly written monograph. These Western characters, however, represented just the beginning of the story … Continue reading Simon Mills, A Commerce of Knowledge: Trade, Religion, and Scholarship between England and the Ottoman Empire, c.1600-1760 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020) →

Jules Pretty, Sea Sagas of the North: Travels & Tales at Warming Waters (Stroud: Hawthorne Press, 2022)

15/02/2023Volume 18, no. 1 (2023), Book review (editorial review)Iceland, ecology, history, ocean, travel literatureÞorlákur Axel Jónsson

I welcome this book, a keen Icelandic reader of the coastal culture and communities more or less connected here in the North Atlantic and the North Sea east to Öresund since the Viking Age. Besides the general public, students in teacher education, humanities, and social sciences could get inspired by the tales and the method. … Continue reading Jules Pretty, Sea Sagas of the North: Travels & Tales at Warming Waters (Stroud: Hawthorne Press, 2022) →