What is the role and impact of civil society in assisting vulnerable groups in present day Murmansk region, and how has cross-border cooperation among civil society actors been affected by political changes in Russia, and changes in diplomatic relations between Norway and Russia, as well as changes in security policy?
Researchers from Norce in Northern Norway, and Kola Science Center in Russia worked together in this project. The covid-19 pandemic forced us to organize the project in a different way, not quite as planned, as the data collection in Murmansk oblast could only be done by the Russian partner. We have not yet met physically during the project period, but have worked together with literature studies, participated in several (virtual) conferences with shared presentations, and published articles in journals and popular science publications. This activity was possible by frequent zoom-meeting.
Most of our focus was directed towards the voluntary sector in Murmansk oblast and how they mobilized and adapted their activity to help vulnerable groups during the covid-19 pandemic. We can present exciting findings on completely new structures developed on local and regional level, and their contribution in helping out the much-burdened public health and wellbeing sector. The researchers will continue to follow the development and investigate to what extent these new structures will survive the pandemic. Our findings reveals that well established voluntary organizations to a different degree adapted to the period of crisis, and we will continue to follow a selection of voluntary organizations over a period of time. Our initial plan of a work package devoted to structures, goals, and activities of civic society in Murmansk oblast, is now extended to follow the changes in these structures throughout the pandemic, and the resilience of volunteers meeting new tasks and framework conditions. One of our articles compares the role of voluntary sector meeting challenges of the pandemic in Murmansk oblast and Troms and Finnmark region.
Researcher from KSC reveals interesting findings based on conducted interviews in different parts of Murmansk oblast; rural areas, bigger cities, industrial towns and border communities. This can contribute with new knowledge of conditions for volunteerism in different types of local communities. We ended the institutional cooperation with KSC in March 2022 as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but will continue cooperating with individual Russian researchers,
Two work-packages emphasize cross-border cooperation between voluntary organizations within the domain of health and well-being, and how this cooperation is affected by changes in the political climate. The work packages now have two added dimensions by studying how covid 19 affected long-term cooperation in the Barents region, as well as the effect of the invasion of Ukraine. All kinds of visits and exchange stopped, but some partners found new ways to collaborate. The researchers have so far collected data in the border municipalities of Nikel and Sør-Varanger and will extend the gathering geographically in the time to come.
Despite multitude challenges caused by the covid-19 pandemic and the invasion, the collaboration project has seen considerable progress with the intention to reach the main goal: Understand how voluntary organizations operating in the Border region of Murmansk oblast adapt to changing legal, political and social circumstances.
We study voluntary organizations' adaption to changing legal, political and socioeconomic circumstances in the Murmansk region, as a joint effort between NORCE in Norway and Kola Science Center in Russia. Research question:
1)What are the characteristics of civil society in the Murmansk region?
2)How is civil society in Murmansk region affected by national policies, regulations and laws?
3)How has changes in the political climate affected ties between civil society in Murmansk region and Norway?
4)How has internal and external changes and politics affected cross border cooperation between civil society in Murmansk and Norway?
5) How has the covid-19 pandemic affected the work of civil society, and how have they adapted to the changing circumstances?
We address the role of social and health related NGOs working in Murmansk oblast. This will be placed within a larger context of the changing legal, political and social circumstances of the past decade. Of specific relevance is the significant levels of social inquality in Russia. The project is a research contribution into individual, group and societal responses to such changes.The project is divided into four work packages: WP1 Characteristics of civil society in Murmansk region WP2: Civil society-state relations, WP3 External ties of civil organizations, WP4 Trends in cross-border cooperation since 1990. A literature review of legal, political and economic circumstances affecting the Murmansk region and how it may have affected NGOs and voluntary groups, and on research done on voluntary work and NGOs in the Barents region in general and in the Murmansk region in particular, will inform how NGOs have been impacted by the changing conditions. We will undertake fieldwork in two industrial sites and at two villages in the Murmansk region. We will do focus group interviews, semi-structured individual interviews and observation in the different sites, as well as inviting stakeholders to workshops for follow-up on the information and provide status analyses.
