Between Political Regionalism and the Politics of Regionalisation: Identity and Protest in Finnmark

In recent years, Norway has experienced a wave of political protest which has accentuated oppositions between ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ in the country. This research project addresses expressions of regionalism and examples of regional identity construction through acts of political protest and resistance in Finnmark in this context. The purpose of the project is to explore how regional identities and by extension the region as a whole evolve under these conditions. Building on previous studies on the region’s emergence its purpose is to illuminate the role of regionalism and regional identity construction in political protest. Aside from this empirical aim, the project seeks to contribute more broadly to understanding ostensibly ‘populist’ regional movements beyond the case region, as well as to theoretical and methodological discussions regarding the dialectical relationship between the spatial and the social, material and discursive.