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Combining social- and nature science

Skrevet av Elise Strømseng, IPY Norge, underutvalget for utdanning (høyere utdanning)

Publisert: 15.01.2009

Maria Adolfovna Lvova (31) is in her second year of her Ph.D-studies at the University of Tromsø. Her thesis is related to the IPY-project GAPS - The Impacts of Oil and Gas Activity on Peoples in the Arctic Using a Multiple Securities Perspective. Marias thesis is focused especially on the situation in Murmansk, Russia and Hammerfest, Northern-Norway.

Maria from Arkhangelsk Foto: Maria Adolfova Lvova

Maria is originally from Arkhangelsk. She completed her Masters-degree at The University of Tromsø (UiTø) four years ago, and reentered The University of Tromsø as a Ph.D in 2007, after spending a few years working back home in Arkhangelsk. Her project is one of the few Norwegian IPY-projects focusing on social science during IPY.

Field-work
I started out last autumn doing data collection in Murmansk. My main interest was to investigate the spin-off effects on the local inhabitants, with the course of the development of the Shtokman field. Although the gas-production has not started yet - I am trying to get an overview of how this large business affects the society.

In her work Maria interviewed a total of 17 people representing stockholders, local inhabitants, media and the employees at Shtokman to get different opinions on the development. In this way she tries to balance both the drawbacks and the positive sides of the new infrastructure being built in Murmansk.

This year Maria will visit another place which has been debated in the media - the development of Snøhvit, a new gas field outside Hammerfest in northern-Norway. In this case she will investigate the spin-off effects from this establishment on the local community by making the same kind of interviews as in Murmansk, as well as look deeper into how people will cope with this new infrastructure and what it brings to the local people.

Hammerfest and Murmansk are both remote places with a harsh climate. The studies will therefore be seen upon as separate case-studies. However, I will also compare the two cities in some of my scientific articles, as the development of oil/gas fields might be of different importance for these two cities.

The human perspective Foto: Maria Adolfova Lvova

I hope to find some answers to several questions in my work.
How will the local society benefit from such a development? Will the local people have skills in order to get work at the new power plants? Will workers primarily move from other regions to these places or do the local people have enough specialized skills to get a job related to this infrastructure? Who brings security to the society? Who are the stockholders?

Maria underlines that it is important to look at this in a social perspective. The study is unique as it focuses on the human security concept.

- A lot of my work is basically to develop the method on how to actually study this concept. Additionally I also need to focus on the state security, ecological security, employment and housing. In total you might say that I am trying to see how the people's conditions for life get affected by petroleum activity in the Arctic.

Combining nature and social science Foto: Maria Adolfova Lvova

Maria is also working closely with people that are more into nature sciences, and together they will try to present the results as a combination of the two disciplines. She tells us that in this study there is for example one person working on climate change in relation to the human dimension. Historically, IPY has been focused on nature sciences - but this time the human dimension is also included. Hence, we are eager to show that knowledge from the one discipline could be used in describing the other.

Maria will be finished with her thesis by 2010, she is being supervised by Gunhild Hoogensen - which is also the project leader of GAPS.

Sist oppdatert: 15.01.2009

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