Encountering the North: Cultural Geography, International Relations and Northern Landscapes(Marginal Regions (and in Association with IGU - Dynamics of Marginal and Critical Regions))

This text argues that culture - referring to artistic and intellectual products and systems of shared beliefs - and international relations are mutually dependent. For example, the cultural-aesthetic layers underlying international relations and how they have changed in space and time are necessary if one wishes to understand how power in international relations unfolds. The book investigates this claim by analysing cultural and political representations of the European North which is understood as a meeting place, a natural area unnaturally divided by national boundaries. Illustrated by a wide range of case studies, it explores issues such as gender, literature, history, folk culture, environment and climate change and cultural marginalization, and links these with the geopolitics of the region. The book also addresses Northern Europe in terms of postcolonialism and refers to inequalities within and between societies as a result of colonial practices of nation states.

Table of Contents:
The discursive landscapes of the European North, Frank Moller, Samu Pehkonen; mnemonic North - multilayered geographies of the Barents region, Ari Aukusti Lehtinen; shades of white - an essay on a political iconography of the North, Frank Moller; two Skolt geographies of Petsamo during the 1920s and 1930s, Paulo Susiluoto; Rosa Liksom's literary North - traditional confrontations or new discursive practices?, Juha Ridanpaa; explorers in the Arctic - doing feminine nature in a masculine way, Hanna-Mari Ikonen, Samu Pehkonen; the "thing" as an incarnation of Nordic political culture and its roots, Ulrich Albrecht; the Northern antipode to European integration, or why everybody expects Northern Norwegians to be sceptical of European integration, Jochen Hille; spaces of change frozen in time - global climate change in the Arctic, Monica Tennberg; competing industries and contested nature in Finnish Lapland after World War II, Leena Suopajarvi; can Europe be told from the North? tapping into the EU's Northern dimension, Pertti Joenniemi.