Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

Good health and well-being is one of the most important sustainability goals of today. Unfortunately the goal faces many challenges that show an uneven distribution of health improvements, and of life-expectancy. This is a global problem, but also a specific threat to vast parts of the Arctic. Furthermore there is a strong correlation between climate change and health risks. On top of these challenges are disfavoured indigenous peoples, globally and in the Arctic. This chapter deals with health encounters in the North, with a focus on the Swedish health care organization, Sami health and research efforts.

Scenarios are neither predictions nor forecasts, but explore a range of possible futures. Socio-economic scenarios enable the consideration of different uncertainties related to the future and may improve decision-making by enabling the development and analysis of robust decisions. The development of socio-economic scenarios in the Arctic has been a fairly popular topic for scenario analyses. This study reviews ten selected socio-economic scenarios developed for the Arctic region that differ in structure and geographic focus. The analysis shows that the key uncertainties are fairly similar across the different scenarios. The key uncertainties are mainly related to governance or management and natural resources, but recently the uncertainty and importance of political factors have risen. Climate change is included in all scenarios, but its contribution to the future development of the region and its perceived uncertainty varies depending on the scenario.

Effect of climate change on the populations of commercial fish is widely recognized. However, this recognition is currently insufficient and climate parameters are not incorporated into fishery forecasting models. Major fisheries of northern Russia targeting Alaska pollock, Pacific salmon in the North Pacific, and Atlantic cod in the Barents Sea are now in a good shape and showing record catches. This review discusses how climate change should be taken into account in the management of northern fish stocks in Russia. Given that climate conditions are currently favorable for these fisheries, it is difficult to assess the effectiveness of management system and predict how it will behave under less favorable climatic situation. Climate change might play a positive role in short-term perspective, but its role may be even negative in long-term perspective because of the possibility that the management system might lose its effectiveness in favorable conditions. To reduce risks for commercial fish stocks, it is necessary to incorporate an ecosystem-based approach in the management. One opportunity for that is provided by the program of ecological certification of Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) which became well established in Russia during the last decade. Without any support from the state, participants of the MSC program educate fishers, fishery managers, and governmental officers towards the use of ecosystem-based approach, specially accounting for the effect of climate change on northern Russian fisheries.

In Russia the right to traditional use of lands, biological and other resources such as reindeer pastures, harvesting fauna, fish, non-wood resources of forest including wild plants is declared with due regard to the priorities of indigenous peoples. However, in practice the northern indigenous communities can hardly get an access to their traditional lands. They cannot become owners of hunting lands, fishing areas, cannot obtain long-term licenses for the wildlife use rights, quotes for fishing. Due to many reasons the northern indigenous peoples are not able to compete with major industrial companies. As a consequence, the indigenous peoples do not conduct traditional economic activities, nor do they preserve their traditional lifestyle, values and language. Alongside with guaranteed rules concerning indigenous rights, in the Russian legislation there is a gap in proper regulations of traditional territories use. In the current period of intensive industrial development of the Arctic the legal rules should be revised and supplemented with effective mechanisms of granting and protection of traditional territories and activities of the northern indigenous peoples.

Arctic journey was an experiential exhibition series that was realized as a part of HumanSee research project at the University of Lapland in 2016. The exhibition series seeked to experiment the multisensory ways of presenting personal experiences in the Arctic and to invite exhibition visitors into the co-creation of the installations. By exploring the exhibition formats, this article asks what is the role of co-design process in the construction of an arctic experience. Two of the exhibition cases included co-creation sessions, where the creation of the arctic experience was taken into a closer experimentation through the co-design process. Through qualitative content analysis and discourse analysis, the research findings suggest that arctic experience, even when not connected to personal experiences in the actual arctic region, is a reflection of the personal understanding of the marginal context that brings the stories of an individual into the core of the experience.

In Alaska, alternative transport modes to cars and other motorized, petrol powered vehicles are gaining in importance due to increasing urbanization and as adaptive responses to risks of infrastructural damage to transportation networks in facing the climate change. Bicycling functions as a transportation practice in response to increasing infrastructure disruptions, offering a strategy towards sustainable and resilient means of transportation in the times of global climate change and its associated challenges. Changing weather conditions and demographic changes lead to the necessity to establish more adapted infrastructures. The use of the bicycle hereby offers a suitable mode of transport in Arctic and Subarctic areas. New technologies such as make bicycling throughout the winter season possible. The combination of the theoretical concepts of sustainability and resilience bears the potential to foster concrete solutions and action strategies for policy makers with respect to infrastructural challenges in the Arctic.

The article presents results of human capital status in the Russian Arctic and proposed measures to improve the situation. The main method for improvement is seen as the popularization of in-demand occupation list through federal web-portal to increase the balance between education system output and the labour market needs. Development of the Russian Arctic human capital is a strategic priority for increasing economy’s competitiveness in terms of globalization as well as considering raising interest and attention to this topic. There is an objective contradiction in the Russian Arctic development: it is expensive to explore and develop the Arctic, but the Arctic is a territory full of possibilities and resources. Today’s priority is the economic development. This will lead to development of labour market and to social aspects progress. As a result, the severe life conditions in the Arctic and health deterioration of population could be improved.

The research presented here examines the impact of wages on employment and migration in the High North regions of Russia. The unique features of the labour markets of these territories include compensative differentials and specific labour protection legislation. It makes the labour supply in the High North of Russia more flexible and labour demand more constrained compared with the rest of the country. Using the regional panel data provided by the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) for the High North regions of Russia from 2005 to 2013, fixed effects models for dependent variables such as the number of employees, number of unemployed and net migration was used to analyse the impact of wages on migration. The obtained estimates demonstrate that wage significantly and positively affects interregional migration to the northern regions. Growth of wages attracts immigrants from other regions of the country and eventually leads to lower wages and higher unemployment in the northern territories. The main findings of this research can be used in the implementation of social policy in the High North regions of Russia.

Research on bullying and harassment in Scandinavia has been going on for several decades, and is appearing in new frameworks and forms since the new categories of “cyber-harassment” or “cyber-bullying” have been introduced. Bullying is a phenomenon of great worry, as it seems to affect children and adolescents both on short and long term. A questionnaire on cyber-harassment was designed in this study, and answered by pupils and their parents and teachers, at five schools in the city of Tromsø, Norway. The questionnaire included a section of questions concerning traditional forms of harassment and bullying, as well as questions on quality of life (QoL), and the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). The main research questions were: (1) What is the prevalence of the three classical types of bullying and cyberbullying; (2) Are there gender or age differences; (3) What percentage of children bullied classically were also cyberbullied; (4) How and to what extend did those that were bullied also suffer a lower quality of life. The main novel contribution of this study to the ongoing research is that students who reported being cyber-harassed or cyberbullied, also reported significantly lower QoL-scores than their non-harassed peers.

Many issues about teacher evaluation have been discussed in Russia where evaluation procedures are constantly under review as the teachers seek continuous improvement. This chapter contributes to this discussion, first, by adding a wider international perspective, secondly, by exploring the experiences of participants (observers, in-service teachers) and, finally, by drawing on research related to teacher evaluation. The authors present the outcomes of the survey conducted among teachers in Russia’s Sakha Republic (Yakutia) and in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The research objectives were: evaluation of the adaptation process in professional and personal development of in-service teachers caused by changes in education system of Russia and the development of basic professional competences of teachers. The study aimed to explore the views of teachers and analyses of teacher evaluation via a mixed-method approach. The rationale for this study was born out of the disillusionment with teacher evaluation. Therefore, it was concluded that existing evaluation practices may need to be examined to see if they serve the best interests of teachers.