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UTENRIKS-Internasjonale forhold - utenriks- og sikkerhetspolitikk og norske interesser

Adapting to a changing society. The case of civil society in the Murmansk region

Alternative title: Tilpasning til et samfunn i endring. Sosiale virkninger av frivillig organisasjoners arbeid i Murmansk fylke

Awarded: NOK 5.7 mill.

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 Murmansk region, Russia, worked together in this project. The covid-19 pandemic forced us to organize the project such that data collection in Murmansk oblast could only be done by the Russian partner. It was impossible for the NORCE-researchers to go and participate in data collection in Russia. Not being able to meet physically, we 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 digital meetings. Most of our research focus changes with the covid-19 pandemic and became directed towards the voluntary sector in Murmansk oblast and how they mobilized and adapted their activity to help vulnerable groups during the pandemic. We made exciting findings on completely new structures developing on local and regional level, and their contribution in helping out the much-burdened public health and wellbeing sector. Our findings reveals that well established voluntary organizations to a variable degree adapted to the period of crisis. An increasingly hard climate for international cooperation and financing changed the patterns that partly opened for new financial possibilities through Russian financed support through “Presidential Grant Fund”. Our initial plan to study structures, goals, and activities of civic society in Murmansk oblast, was extended to follow the changes in these structures throughout the pandemic, and the resilience of volunteers meeting new tasks and framework conditions. The comparison of voluntary sector meeting challenges of the pandemic in Murmansk oblast and Troms and Finnmark region is presented in articles and presentations. 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 contributes 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. The cooperation is partly carried on with the Russian researchers on an individual basis, according to the policy of NFR. The project emphasizes 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. We studied how covid 19 affected long-term cooperation in the Barents region, as well as the effect of the invasion of Ukraine as two added dimensions. Special focus was on the border municipality Sør-Varanger and how organizations have adapted to a new situation where most of the cooperation stopped. Despite multitude challenges caused by the covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the collaboration project has worked towards the main goal: To understand how voluntary organizations operating in the Border region of Murmansk oblast adapt to changing legal, political and social circumstances.

The project has generated insights of direct relevance both to policy makers and the public, but the situation of covid-19 and Russian war in Ukraine has constrained planned dialogue and dissemination, particularly in Russia were the pandemic restrictions of meeting in person made it impossible to gather in workshops and discuss with civil society representatives and politicians as planned. The Russian partner has to some extent communicated with the interviewed organizations and given advice based on preliminary findings from the project, but the political level was not reachable. Results are presented in research conferences in Russia and in Russian language journals, but with limited reach outside the academic circles. One popular science article had a wider audience. At the Norwegian side we have participated in relevant forms for research and communication like Arctic Frontiers, as well as several international conferences. Nevertheless, we find that the topic of cross-border civil society cooperation to a lesser extent is interesting for the public, and simply looked at as something that belongs to the past. Our main popular dissemination activity took place in Kirkenes in February 2023, during the Kirkenes Conference and Barents Spektakel, and meet a wide local and regional audience. Further approaches to inform about the results to the political and administrative regional level of Troms and Finnmark fylkeskommune was unsuccessful, probably due to the political situation and limited interest in present internal Russian matters, as well as a turbulent year for the regional level with election and geographical split-up. The project results and activities has resulted in building new knowledge of the research partners, also complementing ongoing scholarly inquiry at other Norwegian research institutions by getting access to and disseminate local and regional level information in Russia. This knowledge on socially oriented non-profit organizations in Russia is scarce in a time where limited information is shared over the border and should be of wider interest, at least for researchers. We must admit that the project had limited practical implications for policy and practitioners due to lack of forums for discussion, and mainly serves as a source of information about a cold and difficult period in the Norwegian-Russian civil society and research collaboration.

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.

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UTENRIKS-Internasjonale forhold - utenriks- og sikkerhetspolitikk og norske interesser