Knowledge on the Nordics
Knowledge on the Nordics
NNL Pod 2: Can we identify with regions like the Nordics or the Baltic Sea region?
Pan-national regions – like the Nordics or the Baltic Sea region - can give us an alternative perspective to the nation state. What are the benefits and challenges of these pan-national regions and have feelings of identity changed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
This is the second of our podcasts for the New Nordic Lexicon where students get the chance to put questions to researchers. In this episode, students from Aarhus University, Chance Dorland and Sóley Eliasdottir, speak to Kazimierz Musiał from the University of Gdansk Scandinavian Studies and Finnish department and Alexander Drost from the Interdiscipliary Centre for Baltic Sea Region Research at Griefswald University in Germany. This podcast was made possible by funding from the A.P. Moller Foundation.
Sound credits: Summer by tictac9 from freesound.org.
Welcome to this podcast for the New Nordic Lexicon. We're here in Aarhus with students and researchers from Aarhus University, Gdansk, and Greifswald universities.
Nicola Witcombe:This is the second New Nordic Lexicon podcast on 'Can we identify with regions like the Nordics or the Baltic Sea region?' The New Nordic Lexicon is a collection of articles, podcasts and films based on research about the Nordic region in the world.
Chance Dorland:The subject of the next podcast will be the Baltic Sea region and the Nordics. And we have a few researchers who will be helping us cover these topics. First things first, my name is Chance. I'm from the US. I lived in South Korea about the last 10 years and I came here with my wife for a master's program at Aarhus University in the Danish School of media and journalism.
Nicola Witcombe:And my name is Nicola Witcombe, and I'm editor of Nordics info, a research dissemination website based here at Aarhus University and I'm also the project manager of the New Nordic lexicon.
Sóley Eliasdottir:My name is Sóley Eliasdottir. I am from the Faroe Islands and I am currently a master student at Aarhus University where I am studying philosophy with elective English.
Kazimierz Musiał:My name is Kazimierz Musiał and I am Polish. I come from Gdansk, the University of Gdansk from the Institute of Scandinavian and Finnish studies where I am Professor of Scandinavian studies dealing with their societies and politics of the Nordic countries but also increasingly of the Baltic Sea region. My background is in Scandinavian studies, political science, and sociology.
Alexander Drost:My name is Alexander Drost. And I'm an interdisciplinary historian and currently the Academic Coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Center for Baltic Sea region research.
Chance Dorland:So, Alexander, you are a historian you looked at borderland studies with respect to the Baltic Sea region. Many people think of the Baltic as being the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which all joined the EU and NATO back in 2004. So can you briefly describe the Baltic Sea region?
Alexander Drost:Kazimierz and I are actually very strong working against this notion of Baltic are only the Baltic states, but we are rather having this idea of an Baltic Sea region really including all the countries that are bordering the Baltic Sea, but also also including countries that are represented in political terms for instance, in the region or as we have heard also quite often, which belong to the Baltic Sea drainage basin. So, then actually, the definition of the Baltic Sea region goes up to Czech Republic, because we have rivers flowing into the Baltic Sea. Baltic Sea region is of course, very much more than geography. And in this regard, it is also a construction. So, there is not only one Baltic Sea region, but different ones. And it depends actually, which kind of events which kind of networks, which kind of institutions you actually put into into the forefront of the historical narrative you are using to describe the Baltic Sea region.
Chance Dorland:When talking about the geography, the culture interdisciplinary approach to the Baltic Sea region, is all of this focus even more important since the invasion of Ukraine?
Alexander Drost:Yeah, actually, it is very much the expression of how the importance of the region grew during the last decade and even the last year. And what is very important here is that we have very pressing question on these issues of security of energy of sustainability, and so on. And it became very important for German politics. So in the beginning of the 2000s, that were still actually complained that nothing happens actually in the Baltic Sea region, by journalists because the programs on the Baltic Sea region in the national TV around the Baltic, decreased more and more. I think the trend has totally changed now. And this also says something about the Baltic Sea region became quite a focus point point of media, of politicians, of alliances of institutions, and of course of research because that's what we want to do. We want to give answers to all these questions within the region.
Nicola Witcombe:Just to introduce Kazimierz Musiał at this point, you're a professor at the Scandinavian studies department at Gdansk University in Poland. And you've written about the Baltic Sea region, as well as lots of other things. But the Baltic Sea region, of course, is a region that crosses borders as well. Most people know what it's like to identify with their local area, the region where they live inside their country, and their nation state perhaps, do many people identify with a wider supranational region do you think like the Nordic region or the Baltic region?
Kazimierz Musiał:More people identify for the Nordic Region than people identify for the Baltic Sea region. And it's because of a very simple fact that Baltic Sea regionalism has been preached for a much shorter time than Nordic regionalism has existed as a figure of thought and as a point of reference for a different narratives about identity, both national but also individual identity. Baltic Sea regionalism is much younger, and its institutional form. There haven't been enough cultural proximity among the Baltic Sea region countries. Let's say the difference between Catholic Poland and Protestant Sweden is very big, because of the values because of the living patterns, family patterns. But nevertheless, I think what is uniting the Baltic Sea region for the future may become a possible platform for creating narratives that produce commonality. So if you have people speaking on the, for instance, ecology of the Baltic Sea, or the pollution of the Baltic Sea, and they are coming from different countries around the Baltic Sea, so most often it does not matter which country they come from, but that they have a common cause. And I think the idea of regionalism in the making is about defining as many common causes for the future as possible, not only on the scientific basis, but also NGOs, but also different local governments that are able to design their own futures with common denominators of common interest.
Nicola Witcombe:And you've also talked about the changing identity of the Baltic Sea region since the invasion of Ukraine. Can you tell us a bit more about this? How is it? How is the Baltic Sea regions identity changing?
Kazimierz Musiał:I think the basic change is that the myth of possibly having friendly and neighborly relations with Russia within the region has been withering away. This was a great hope of the early years of Baltic regionalism in 1989. That possibly you can have friend relations with such a big neighbor that is much bigger than other partners but can still sit at the same table and have common issues, common interest and common challenges to face. This has now been derailed. This dream is gone because of the war going on in Ukraine, which the Russian Federation has launched.
Nicola Witcombe:The New Nordic Lexicon brings young people together with researchers from across the Nordic countries and beyond.
Chance Dorland:Let's return to this idea of identity. We have many different identities president for today. In the podcast. Perhaps everyone could respond whether or not they feel a regional sense of identity or not, and perhaps was focused first on our Baltic Region colleagues.
Alexander Drost:Very interesting question actually. But yes, I think I can easily say that and it is the point how do people actually connect and on what terms do they connect to the region and the first thing is of course, as a child, our next holiday area was actually the beach at the Baltic Sea. And it still is actually, I still go with my kids to Sweden and Denmark and crossing the Baltic actually for the holiday becomes also very determining feature for our family. So, yes, I am very much connected. And I think they're the also the research focus of the last 15 years left left traces in this regard that very many things, very many research questions are actually also coming out of the very personal interest in the region and in its constitution. So, yes, I think I can very much identify with the sea, with the environmental problems, with the wonderful nature, but also with a lot of items like food culture, with architecture with other markers of identity, where one can actually connect to
Kazimierz Musiał:I think, I have enjoyed the fact of mobility and being able to be mobile around the Baltic Sea and I have really practice what you call elective affinity with places and spaces. I have learned to love the Baltic Sea region, after I have loved Denmark, for instance, when I studied Danish philology in my university years, then I expanded my understanding and my affinity with the region not love yet, or affection but affinity. To the extent that when I took up my second or third job in Germany, I moved to Greifswald for two years, and there I came closest probably to the Baltic Sea region. And after that, there was no other escape by to get to settle in another Baltic Sea city, perhaps in the center of the Baltic sea, sea universe in Gdansk, where you have Well, I think, the best of both worlds, but it's always when you talk to the polish that they will see Gdansk as one of the central cities and in the region. And of course, there you not only have the affinity, but you can really develop affection for the sea and for the Baltic Sea region.
Sóley Eliasdottir:And when I come to think about, like personal definitions and identity and being part of a Nordic country, I think that the Faroe Islands in some ways differ from other Nordic countries like Denmark, for example, since Yeah, the Faroe Islands are a part of Denmark both carry sensitive and different culture than, for example, Denmark. And since we're still a part of Denmark, but we do not define ourselves as Danish we define ourselves as Faroese. And I think that this goes for most various people, at least, that's for me and those that I have talked to throughout my life. And we don't really coincide with that of other Nordic countries in the same ways. And I think that Greenland can somewhat relate to this thing with identity and being part of Denmark since we have very different cultures. So I think that Faroese people and Danish citizens are Danish citizens, but do not feel as such in some areas. And which makes it a bit problematic because we clearly think about Denmark as being part of the Nordics, being a Nordic country, but since we're grouped in with them, I guess, that yeah, I guess that we are but it may not just be how we define ourselves.
Nicola Witcombe:Do you see yourself as part of like the the maybe the North Atlantic region then instead so you still define yourself perhaps with a region, it just happens to be a different one?
Sóley Eliasdottir:Yeah, I think that may be closer to what I was thinking or what I'm feeling because the Nordic may not be as close as for example, the northern region. That seems more, yeah, better grip in some way.
Nicola Witcombe:So I'm British originally but have Danish citizenship. While I was going through getting my Danish citizenship, Great Britain left the European Union. So it made me want to embrace Europeanism a bit more I think. I don't yet feel Nordic, but obviously being editor of nordics.info for five years, I've got friends and colleagues across the Nordic countries, which I really like. Because sometimes I feel that discussions and research, just based in Denmark can be a little bit too, looking inwards rather than outwards. So maybe I'm on my way to being Nordic.
Chance Dorland:How do I answer this?
Nicola Witcombe:Northern America.
Chance Dorland:So this is interesting, because I've lived abroad so much. Lived in Australia, Colombia, from the US, Germany, Denmark, South Korea. So I didn't quite understand where I was from, until I left it for a very long time, and all the ways I just described, but at least for myself, being from a very small town, like 900 people small in rural Iowa, my region was Iowa. So not even the US but I was from Iowa, because everywhere else felt very different. But now that I've become an adult, and I moved around, I feel very comfortable, that I am just kind of formed as an American United States citizen, and there's no undoing that. But I guess my country compared to some other countries is just so big. I was always surrounded by people who mostly were from my country and my state. So my regionalism is actually kind of on the lower end of things.
Kazimierz Musiał:Because I find this question very, on the estimators in the sense of so many cultures and so many ethnic groups living on the Baltic Sea, or on the borders of the Baltic Sea, they have largely been forgotten and unifying discourse of Baltic Sea regionalism unless you really concentrate on culture and cultural difference. And I think that's, that's the beauty of the European Union projects that they allow for the regional identities to thrive, exist and be supported. While a national projects usually, somehow, sooner or later, attempt to unify the culture and unify the minorities. So in that sense, there is perhaps hope in the European Union strategy for the Baltic region that there will be support to cultural diversity to very rare languages where just a few 100 People speak it's some rare cultures, some indigenous communities that will never be part of this grand narratives about the Baltic Sea region as one and united but as collaborating community where you find unity despite diversity.
Nicola Witcombe:This is the second New Nordic Lexicon podcast on 'Can we identify with regions like the Nordics or the Baltic Sea region?' You've talked about the Council of Baltic sea states. And you've also talked about the Nordic Council, the regional actors similar in the two regions, or do they overlap sometimes? Or how does that work?
Kazimierz Musiał:So very good question, because we see quite a lot of similarity and distractors. And the whole idea of the Baltic Sea regionalism was the involvement of not only high ranking politicians and officials, but also involving the civil society into the making of the region. And I think the template that came from Nordic cooperation was exactly that. You do not only sign official agreements among politicians, and among prime ministers and presidents and kings, but they also involve common folk, common people into the region building project. This is I think, the greatest lessons that Baltic Sea regionalism has taken over from the Nordic initiatives where you have a lively and kicking civil society. it and we're initiatives are rather supported than imposed upon the people. The Nordic Council has showed a tremendously good example in cultural cooperation, for instance, working in the areas that became so prominent, like soft security measures in the Baltic Sea region. Without the good example of these measures actually having effect on creating commonality and understanding and creating feeling of unity among peoples that live within the region, we wouldn't have such good practice than in the Baltic Sea region initiatives, the initiatives that the Council of the Baltic sea states tries to bring about, which from 2009 are then confirmed by the EU strategy for the Baltic Sea region, where they are institutionalized within the European project was in a bigger EU project. But definitely the examples that in the initial phase of Baltic Sea regionalism that came from the Nordic countries, were very helpful.
Sóley Eliasdottir:We have become more accessible to one another that this has formed a sense of strength and security net, like not only with NATO and other things that have combined the countries on another level, but like with the sub common subject positions that we have come to share with one another, across borders, if that has like a part to play, especially in the Nordic countries, because we may not share so much with each with each other's culture. But in no sense, we're all intertwined in some way, on some level.
Kazimierz Musiał:If you read the region, building literature, you've got two basic patterns, which are sort of mechanical, how you should build or you can build the region and they have two directions, one is inside out, the other is outside in. And inside out is when you build up a certain community based on a common 'we' feeling of the members of this community. Well, of course, you cannot know everybody face to face, but you are being told that they belong with you to the same community. And then you have the outside in perspective, which means that you have external conflicts or wars or some very important events which make the community understand that its shares a common fate. And I think this is exactly what happens when you have the war coming in Ukraine that out of the sudden people in the Baltic Sea region, even the the Nordic countries that understand well, we share a common fate against greater evil. If you have an external threat to a community then the community perhaps will be able to define itself. Perhaps we will experience something similar with the countries that remain the Baltics region, even if Russia pulls out of the region, that there will be a greater feeling of common fate and of community.
Sóley Eliasdottir:The Baltic sea states council consists of all the Nordic countries, including Denmark, do we also assume that the Faroe Islands and Greenland are a part of it because of Denmark? Or how, how would you define this?
Kazimierz Musiał:Well, Faroe Islands and Greenland being part of the Danish realm are parts of the Council of the Baltic states. It's the Danish state, the Danish government, or at least the way that council of the Baltic sea states function is that each country nominates an ambassador or high standing official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs usually to represent its interest in the council. So once the council convenes, you would see representative of Finland, representative of Sweden, Denmark, and so on and so forth. Coming to Stockholm, coming to other capitals where their meetings are held, and there Faroe Islands and Greenland will be represented by the Danish representative.
Nicola Witcombe:So you could say that the Baltic Sea relations were softer after the Soviet breakup, but have now gone back to being harder or more to do with realist policies. How do ideas of identity and abstract ideas that you've researched, feed into realist policies, namely the number of boots on the ground for Russia, Ukraine and other nations?
Kazimierz Musiał:I would say the 1990s were full of the, what you would call friendly narratives about building a common future for common goals and solving problems that we possibly might have. With the sea or with the region or with the people with the border crossings, which should be gone sometime. Since 2004, we could say that there is a growing tendency to employ what we would call hostile narratives. When you look at friendly narratives, you have people sitting at one table, they will say, well, it's not because we have a conflict that we can always resolve it by finding some social reality problems that need to be solved. But when we employ or start using hostile narratives, we sit at the same table, we have a conflict. And we say, well, this might be very problematic, because it's not only you that is bad, but your fathers and forefathers, and perhaps the 10th generation was bad, there is something inherently evil in you. And of course, if you start seeing this change from the friend and narratives of the 1990s, where certain third spaces were in, were included in the dialogue, finding solutions for common challenges was favored over finding division lines. This contrasted very clearly with the discourse after 2004, when Russia thought it was somehow excluded from the European project, at least you read that in the narratives and of course, the situation 2014 10 years later, and 2022 makes things only worse, because now it's not only Russia, that is saying that the collective West is corrupt. But Russia has been betrayed. This is the official narrative by the West, not keeping its promises, while at the same time, Western countries are the countries in the Baltic Sea region, being members of the European Union say, well, Russia has really gone into the direction of an authoritarian regime. And here comes the bit about the hostile narratives. And it has always been so it has always been authoritarian. It has always been Imperial, it has always been evil. And of course, it is so depressing to see these narratives now furnish our public discussions that do not allow for more friendly frameworks for discussing about who we are and seeing individuals but rather using the stereotypes, collectively assigning people with bad intentions, guilt, or wrongdoings, whereas in fact, well, the world is not always black and white is usually in gray.
Chance Dorland:Well, of course, many thanks to everybody for participating in today's podcast episode. Does anyone have any concluding comments, observations about everything that we've discussed today before we call it a finished product?
Nicola Witcombe:I have one. I think it's interesting how in discussing the Baltic Sea region and the North Nordic region, Alexander talked earlier about how they are constructions and in discussing them when making them alive today in this podcast, so I thought that would be an interesting summary comment. So thanks very much for today. The researchers you have been listening to in this podcast are Kazimierz Musiał from the University of Gdansk and Alexander Drost from Greifswald University. The students you have been listening to were Chance Dorland and Sóley Eliasdottir both from Aarhus University and my name is Nicola Witcombe, and I'm editor of Nordics info and the project manager of the New Nordic Lexicon. The New Nordic lexicon podcast series will mainly be in English with some episodes in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. Subjects range from the invasion of Ukraine and security in Europe, to minority languages in Finland and Sweden. This podcast series is brought to you by the team behind Nordics info at Aarhus University in Denmark, together with colleagues from across the Nordics and beyond. The New Nordic Lexicon is supported by the A.P. Møller Foundation and grew out of the university hub Reimagining Norden in an Evolving World.