Kirsten Thisted and Ann-Sofie N. Gremaud (eds.), Denmark and The New North Atlantic: Narratives and Memories in a Former Empire (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2020)

Denmark and The New North Atlantic – Narratives and Memories in a Former Empire presents a critical interdisciplinary study of a region marked by Danish imperialism and today affected by a renewed interest in the Arctic: the North Atlantic (i.e., coastal Norway, Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands). Edited by Kirsten Thisted and Ann-Sofie Gremaud, … Continue reading Kirsten Thisted and Ann-Sofie N. Gremaud (eds.), Denmark and The New North Atlantic: Narratives and Memories in a Former Empire (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2020)

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W. Friese et al. (eds.), Ascending and Descending the Acropolis: Movement in Athenian Religion; and T. Møbjerg et al. (eds.), The Hammerum Burial Site: Customs and Clothing in the Roman Iron Age (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2019)

A review of the books: W. Friese et al. (eds.), Ascending and Descending the Acropolis: Movement in Athenian Religion; and T. Møbjerg et al. (eds.), The Hammerum Burial Site: Customs and Clothing in the Roman Iron Age (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2019)

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Ole Høiris, Ole Marquard and Gitte Adler Reimer (eds.), Grønlændernes syn på Danmark. Historiske, kulturelle og sproglige perspektiver (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitets foreleg, 2019)

A review of the book: Ole Høiris, Ole Marquard and Gitte Adler Reimer (eds.), Grønlændernes syn på Danmark. Historiske, kulturelle og sproglige perspektiver [The Greenlander’s view of Denmark. Historical, Cultural and Language Perspectives](Aarhus: Aarhus Universitets foreleg, 2019)

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Rune Frederiksen, Elizabeth R. Gebhard & Alexander Sokolicek (eds.), The Architecture of the Ancient Greek Theatre, Monographs of the Danish Institute, Volume 17 (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press and The Danish Institute at Athens, 2015)

A review of the book: Rune Frederiksen, Elizabeth R. Gebhard & Alexander Sokolicek (eds.), The Architecture of the Ancient Greek Theatre, Monographs of the Danish Institute, Volume 17 (Aarhus:  Aarhus University Press and The Danish Institute at Athens, 2015)

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Caspar Jørgensen & Morten Pedersen (eds.), Industrial Heritage in Denmark: Landscapes, Environments and Historical Archaeology (Aarhus: Kultur Styrelsen & Aarhus University Press, 2015)

Book review of: Caspar Jørgensen and Morten Pedersen (eds.),  Industrial Heritage in Denmark: Landscapes, Environments and Historical Archaeology (Aarhus: Kultur Styrelsen and Aarhus University Press, 2015), 285 pp. ISBN 978 87 7124 108 2

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Pia Guldager Bilde & Mark L. Lawall (eds.), Pottery, Peoples and Places. Study and Interpretation of Late Hellenistic Pottery (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2014)

Getting to know the past is never easy and the challenge is even more arduous when one faces prehistory or, as in this case, antiquity. Lack of material evidence, unevenness in its distribution, absence of or conflicting written sources are just some of the obstacles that historians and archaeologists must face.

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George Hinge and Jens A. Krasilnikoff (eds.), Alexandria: A Cultural and Religious Melting Pot (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2009)

The Canopus region of Egypt on the Mediterranean coast was already inhabited and a port prior to Alexander’s founding of his city. Pseudo-Callisthenes reports that Alexander awaited “an oracle from the god as to where he should found a city bearing his name” (Krasilnikoff, “Alexandria as Place,” 26).[1] According to this account, Alexander was visited in his sleep by the god who spoke thus to him: “King, to you I speak. the god of the ram’s horn. / If you wish forever to flourish in youth eternal, / Build an illustrious city above the island of Proteus/ Where once Aion Plutonius first took his throne as ruler… (Krasilnikoff, “Alexandria as Place,” 26-27).

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Pia Guldager and Jane Hjar Petersen (eds.), Meetings of cultures in the Black Sea region. Between conflict and coexistence, (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2008)

The meetings of cultures in the Black Sea region was the subject of the seventh international conference in Black Sea Studies, held in January 2006 by the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre.

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Kristina Winther Jacobsen & Lone Wriedt Sørensen, Panayia Ematousa I + II: – A Rural Site in South-eastern Cyprus. Approaches to regional studies (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2006)

In 2006 the Danish Institute at Athens produced a monograph in two volumes which focused on the results of a series of excavations conducted at Panayia Ematousa over eight years between 1991 – 1999.

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Essay: The development of and tensions in the idea of sustainable development and SDG2030

This essay examines the evolution of sustainable development and the formulation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG2030). It traces the historical roots post-WWII, highlighting the tensions between sustainability and economic growth. Key events like the Stockholm Conference (1972), Brundtland Report (1987), and Rio Summit (1992) are discussed, alongside themes such as neoliberalism’s impact and counter-discourses on capability and commons. The essay also covers the transition from Agenda21 and the Millennium Development Goals to the 17 SDGs, emphasizing the need for an analytical framework. Lastly, it addresses the integration of culture, the Anthropocene, environmental humanities, and education in sustainable development.

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Per un’“archeologia filosofica” della secolarizzazione. Agostino, Gioacchino da Fiore e i paradigmi cristiani del pensiero secolare

This article aims to demonstrate that both secular and Protestant thinking of secularization are founded on a Christian and pre-Reformed “ruin” (as this notion is understood within Giorgio Agamben’s “philosophical archaeology”). In fact, it is shown that the thought of secularization and its path of rupture and criticism of religion have their foundation in pre-Reformation Christianity, and are already found, albeit in two completely opposite ways, in Augustine and Joachim of Fiore.

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In dubio pro natura: Environmental Constitutionalism and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the Arctic

The growing international interest in mitigating the effects of climate change and ecological degradation has required greater effort from national legislative systems. A specific approach to local needs and a greater understanding of the cultural values related to environmental well-being has gradually emerged from the legal procedures in dubio pro natura. Constitutional law is increasingly including environmental rights and principles in order to maintain biodiversity conservation. This process, known as environmental constitutionalism, has been promoted by the emergence of the ecological democracy, which is committed to preserve environmental sustainability through democratic processes, such as meaningful public participation, access to information and justice. The article discusses the in dubio pro natura approach, its connection with the rights of Indigenous Peoples, and its place in Arctic constitutions with examples drawn from Alaska and Norway. It concludes that an in dubio pro natura approach should be promoted to support both environmental protection and the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

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Four Perspectives on Dilemmas in Management Analysis in Greenland

In this paper we discuss how dilemmas are related to the study of management in Greenland. Different perspectives on the research situation are discussed, and we identify methodologies used by analysts, when they must deal with possible problems of legitimacy while doing analysis of organizing and management in an international academic perspective. Difference between perspectives implies different ways to identify dilemmas during the research process, due to the perspectives of managers and citizens in a small community like the Greenlandic. Four perspectives on the task and construction of analysis are presented – one we name traditional that is the common background for colonial and centralized modern studies, two realist interpretive methodologies and one temporal idiographic methodology. They organize in different ways the task to know about conflictual situations and the legitimacy of the academic activity and therefor they address different dilemmas in the study of management. We point to the perspectives general attention to internal and external situations of ethical conflicts and what is particular to the Greenlandic situation.

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Co-creazione della ricerca e del sapere nel sistema dell’ecologia integrale

Abstract: To effectively respond to the ecological challenges of our time, our research demands that we become accountable to the relations that we form and the answers that we give. Through the lens of critical analysis and participatory research, we explore the beneficial effects of co-creating knowledge with the help of a specific learning toolkit (LT), built around storytelling and designed to stimulate respectful relationships between participants. In this article, we investigate the implications of co-creating knowledge with a community of learners and research participants within the context of integral ecology, in its objective to develop an integrated understanding of the social relationships of all living beings. Through the lens of illustrated and participatory storytelling, we analyze how the process of looking for common solutions to environmental threats makes the participants reflect on their relational connection to the story and each other. We also observe how the discussion generates a sense of responsibility that comes with bringing a new idea into being. The result is that both education and research become part of the solution to the challenge itself in the shape of a harmonious relational and transformative experience. The solution lies in the recognition of the individual and collective capacity to change systems by changing relationships. We conclude that only through a collective effort towards a common sense of relational accountability and trust, we can heal the wounds of our Planet, and our individual and collective wounds.

Sommario: L’analisi delle sfide ambientali del nostro tempo richiede un processo di ricerca formativa, co-creata e relazionale. Attraverso il pensiero critico applicato alla ricerca azione partecipativa (RAP), il presente lavoro si propone di esplorare i benefici di un approccio co-creato nel paradigma dell’ecologia integrale. L’approccio si fonda sulla creazione di laboratori di ricerca e sulla sperimentazione dinamica di materiale didattico (learning toolkit, LT). Il LT è il luogo in cui l’ermeneutica e lo storytelling si incontrano, per la co-creazione di nuovi significati e saperi da parte della comunità coinvolta nell’opera co-creativa. Alcune tecniche adottate nella ricerca formativa, co-creata e relazionale vengono qui esaminate nel contesto dell’ecologica integrale (EI), nella ricerca del suo significato di sistema integrato che comprende le dimensioni relazionali ed emozionali che legano umani e non umani. Il processo dialettico e partecipato intorno a una storia artica sulla ricerca del sapere costituisce un esempio di risposta della comunità scientifica alle sfide ecologiche del nostro tempo e insegna come è possibile sanare le ferite del pianeta attraverso la cura delle ferite relazionali.

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Participation, Sharing, and Cooperation: The rights of indigenous peoples over natural resources in the Arctic

Abstract: Climate change is an issue at the heart of Arctic policies, as its effects are most visible in the polar regions. Climate change puts the unique Arctic ecosystem and cultural diversity of the region at serious risk. The strong link between environment and culture is very evident among indigenous communities, whose identity is closely linked to traditional nature-based activities. This article explores the mechanisms of deliberative democracy in ​​natural resource management in the Arctic. The analysis was carried out through the disquisition of national legal sources and international instruments on human rights, indigenous rights, and constitutional texts. The paper also includes a brief examination of the effectiveness of the public consultation processes that the author collected in March 2019 during fieldwork in Kiruna, Sweden.

Sommario: Il cambiamento climatico è una questione al centro delle politiche artiche, poiché i suoi effetti sono più visibili nelle regioni polari. Il cambiamento climatico pone  l’ecosistema artico e la diversità culturale della regione a grave rischio. Il forte legame tra ambiente e cultura è molto forte tra le comunità indigene, la cui identità è strettamente legata alle attività tradizionali basate sulla natura. Le attività come la caccia, pesca, agricoltura si basano sul know-how indigeno tramandato da millenni. Questo articolo esplora i meccanismi della democrazia deliberativa nella gestione delle risorse naturali nell’Artico. L’analisi è stata condotta attraverso la disquisizione di fonti giuridiche nazionali e strumenti internazionali sui diritti umani, sui diritti indigeni e sui testi costituzionali. Il documento include anche un breve esame dell’efficacia dei processi di consultazione pubblica che l’autore ha raccolto nel marzo 2019 durante una ricerca sul campo a Kiruna, in Svezia. 

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November 2020 – Issue 15(3)

This special issue of Nordicum-Mediterraneum contains select papers from the research seminar Environmental Aesthetics and Citizenship (https://estenci.wordpress.com/), coordinated by Neli Dobreva, Oleg Bresky, Mogens Chrom Jacobsen and Oliver Kauffmann at the École des Arts de la Sorbonne, University Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, in partnership with the research circles Patterns of Dysfunction in Contemporary Democracies. Impact on Human Rights and Governance, … Continue reading November 2020 – Issue 15(3)

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October 2019 (and ALL successive updates) – DOI-number attribution (volumes 1/2006 – 19/2024)

As of October 2019, all published items in Nordicum-Mediterraneum are going to be attributed a DOI number (“Digital Object Identifier”). Operated by Iceland’s National/University Library in Reykjavik, the attribution is to begin with issue 14(2)/2019 (cf. list below), and then continue with the older volumes, proceeding backwards in time (i.e., 13, 12, 11, etc.), plus … Continue reading October 2019 (and ALL successive updates) – DOI-number attribution (volumes 1/2006 – 19/2024)

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When the Treasury and its Models Seize Power

This paper explains how short- and medium-term macroeconomic projections are undertaken within the Danish Ministry of Finance (DMF) by the use of an annual macroeconometric model, ADAM, together with a theoretical, structural general equilibrium model, DREAM. DREAM is used to calculate the structural public sector budget deficit, which by law is required never to exceed ½ percent of GDP. This legal restriction on fiscal policy gives the structural model (and the ‘model-operators’) a hitherto unseen political power. This ‘institutional’ status of DREAM causes a number of questions about democracy to be asked. First, why has an elected government accepted to surrender its legal right to undertake an active fiscal policy? Secondly, how can it be that DREAM – a neoliberal general equilibrium model without proper empirical tests and operated by anonymous civil servants – has been elevated to a position akin to a high court’s? The paper demonstrates how this model set-up within the DMF reproduces reality poorly. Therefore, these models should rather be seen as social constructs predetermined be neoclassical/neoliberal economic theory, which has to be acknowledged as a democratic challenge.

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“Crisis and Crisis Scenarios: Normativity, Possibilities and Dilemmas” (Lysebu Conference Centre in Oslo, Norway, April 9th — 12th, 2015)

This special issue of Nordicum-Mediterraneum contains select proceedings from the third meeting of the Nordic Summer University research circle called “Crisis and Crisis Scenarios: Normativity, Possibilities and Dilemmas”, held April 9th — 12th, 2015 at the Lysebu Conference Centre in Oslo, Norway. The circle’s research program runs from 2014 to 2016 and is aimed at examining the concept of crisis as it is used today in academia and public discussion. In this collection of papers from the symposium we present some of the different ways in which the topic of the study group was addressed.

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Critique of War Reason. A Perspective on Self-referential Systems, 11th-21st Centuries

This paper is a summary of my 700-page very academic thesis, in Danish, to be published by Aarhus University Press (AUP). A shorter booklet based on it was published by AUP too (November 2014, 250 pages) and so were a number of shorter articles in English, French and German. In Luhmann’s systems theory and in sociology at large there is a missing link consisting in the lack of a sociology of war. A number of German systems theoreticians use Luhmann’s theory to fill that gap. Yet Luhmann (born 1927), who was a soldier and a prisoner of war from age 15-17, would not write a “Der Krieg der Gesellschaft”. The attempt to narrow this lacuna is indeed a heavy burden and a difficult task, in which it is decisive firstly to get the basic distinctions right about a second order observation of war as a conflict system – to be distinct from a military organisational system. This, I do by beginning with a reconceptualization of Carl von Clausewitz’ form analysis and self-description of war from Vom Kriege (1832). The central point is to observe the self-reference of war, or how war became war about war. Conflict is basically a problem of essentially contested communication. Once this historical self-reference established around the 17th century was in place, war became delimited by its structural couplings to religion, mass media (propaganda), finance, welfare for victims and veterans, law, politics and other functional systems. The costs of war increased, reconstituted and transformed modern society in a way that has formed a range of risks and – of course – neglected blind spots.

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Teaching History in a multicultural society

Meeting the history and heritage of the majority culture in a pluralist society might, at worst, mean giving up the control of one’s own past and assimilating into a new ’master narrative’. By re-defining history as a school subject, putting at its core not a set narrative of the past but the cognitive process of thinking about the past, the very process of knowing and understanding might form a ground for a shared experience of history while at the same time allow for the co-existence of different narratives. History curricula in the Nordic countries have for the last two decades gradually moved in this direction. Whether classroom work has done so as well remains less certain. Recent studies suggest that History teachers acknowledge that teaching and learning must adjust to the reality of pluralism but are less confident about how to meet the challenge in concrete terms. 

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The World of Wars: Risky Systems – A second-order observation of future wars

The world of the future will not be one without wars. The many hopes we have about a future peace governed by a more or less confederal state will not make wars obsolete. Regular wars and irregular wars will continue and probably on different subjects than we are used to. The article proposes that the form of war will be more about temporalities, i.e. fast interchanges or, rather, more risky protracted wars of attrition and exhaustion and less on tactical well defined territories. The West can neither dominate such wars nor establish one world that is ruled or even governed. The risk is that we have the systems we have. They have their own path dependencies, their temporal bindings and their own stories to tell. In the worst case, the West sticks to an imaginary of almighty power – and then it will lose. We tend to forget that our present past will be experienced and told differently in the future. The “extreme 20th century” will have another history and another impact. Its extremes will be narrated as more extreme, and its temporal bindings become easier to observe. The much celebrated “revolutions in military affairs” will not dominate future war systems. Unipolarity is fading away. Kantian convergences may appear.

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The Paradigmatic Struggle for Legitimacy of the Danish Welfare State regarding the Provision of Welfare Services – Taking care of vulnerable children and youths as a core problem

The Danish welfare state constitutes a paradigmatic case of the welfare struggle of modern welfare states. Taking care of vulnerable children and youths is used as a case study here, to illustrate the efforts of the welfare state to acquire legitimacy as a body of public administration. That is, the efforts to close the gap between the welfare state´s ideology of doing what is ‘good’ for its citizens and doing this in practice. In this article, we analyze this struggle for legitimacy of the Danish welfare state with illustrations based on the case study. We present the concepts of biopower and moral blindness, in order to test the legitimacy of the welfare state´s provision of welfare services at the beginning of this century. We propose a new paradigm to improve the welfare state´s legitimacy. Our case is considered critical. 

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Has the Competition among Professions in the Nordic Welfare States Intensified? A Danish Case

Has the competition among professions in the Nordic welfare states intensified in recent decades? Yes, and in a manner that has resulted in predictable classic struggles and conflicts among professions. We argue that the struggles and conflicts that arise translate into insufficient provision of welfare services for taxpayers’ money. To avoid this predicament, further developing co-operation among professions is important. Public managers, as argued in this article using a Danish case, play a significant role in achieving this. The Danish case studied shows how some public managers, in their efforts to create co-operation among professions, have developed a modern, dialogue-based management technique built on dialectical refutation, similar to Socratic elenchus. 

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The Idea of University in a Cosmopolitan Perspective

The aim of this paper is to show why the humanities are more necessary than ever as part of the university education in our contemporary cosmopolitan age. We need the humanities if our educational institutions are to overcome the threats from narrow-minded politicians and business people to reduce education in schools and universities to simple instruction in management without guidance from the cultures of the world as expressed in art and literature, knowledge of languages, history and philosophy.

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