Paparazzi Ethnography

8/8: The Tromsø town library — where I decided to work today, is located downtown. There is (relative) quiet, great light, plenty of workspace, electricity, and internet.

But yesterday, meeting at noon on Campus, Sidsel S., Peter A., and I, at the canteen of the medical faculty, where Peter brought his lunch, Sidsel collected an open sandwich, and I chose salad from the bar, my trip began to take on dimension.

At the salad bar, I had made the discovery of placing all of my selected items on a porcelain plate, after which Peter instructed me to find a way to scrape the collection of lettuce, beans, corn, egg, and pasta, into a plastic cup that was available, which is the proper container for weighing salad at the register.

Immediately, I thought to myself, “well, I will pay for the the extra weight provided by the porcelain plate.” Or a better thought intervened, “I will bring an extra porcelain plate to the register so that the cashier can weigh and deduct the weight of this extra plate from my plate of salad”.

In fact, I managed to transfer the salad into the plastic container. I then moved on without too much more thinking on the subject.

We did not gather simply to lunch, but instead, Peter and Sidsel were kind enough to meet for a discussion on the possibility of re-formulating a proposal for submission to the European Research Council (ERC).

Having brought my computer with me, I began typing out alternative approaches suggested by Peter and Sidsel. One issue I had mentioned, there were several actually, was that the proposal, a study of consultants working on arctic natural gas development, had been quite successful, up to a point.

But that this point, was receding from view.

In return, Peter suggested that we reframe the approach to focus more on consultancies, while using the Arctic as a case study to illustrate the role of intermediaries, a field imbued with insecurities, and thus, we could look at how consultants work in this context.

On the other side, he suggested, we begin from the energy perspective, with the issue focused on the opening up of new petroleum provinces, and how these activities become legitimated, but then downplay the consultancies, because they are but one actor.

Both agreed that the core the of the project focuses on what is going on inside the companies, how are they collecting, transmitting, using knowledge, as discursive agents – and that one neglected aspect I have not yet considered is indeed – who pays?

These are business organizations, and so who is paying them and for what purpose (aspect of payments and linkages to retainers).

They operate in the interstices between academia, government, and companies, and through knowledge production, new modes of production, consultancies are serving as boundary expanding organizations.

Well, in fact, “you could take any region of the world,” but of course these companies that I am interested in are involved with money — and oil and gas is a monied economy.

“We need to narrow the project”, say from a Russian decision making process, “to make a comparative situation, or can we talk about this as a transnational community, or that they are change agents for the same logic of decision making and policy.”

Well, the proposed application, how it is structured, is in fact completely open. The ERC proposal. For this, then, we agreed to investigate the role of consultancy companies, wherein, we will use arctic oil and gas illustrating this role.

The Glamour of Uncertainty

This was my favorite phrase used by Sidsel for the afternoon. Though in truth, she had stated the role of uncertainty.

I misunderstood her, but simply agreed that The Glamour of Uncertainty is certainly a great title. Well, in fact, there is an extreme level of uncertainty on arctic oil/gas development which raises the question of how to perceive the empirical area.

But in truth, we did spend considerable time approaching the topic from the other vantage point, from the perspective of oil and gas in the Arctic.

And we subsequently agreed, that if we start from that angle, with oil and gas, there are deficiencies in my descriptions so far. Arctic as a region of extreme uncertainty, how is risk reduced, how is operation made manageable, and here it is the oil companies and the sub-actors who are the main agents. Thus, the methodological part, ethnographic part, from the inside, the ethnography of expertise, bringing in the arctic and uncharacteristic character of creating images of the future would fall by the wayside.

And thus, we decided to settle on a project that examines the consultancies.

Of course, and here Sidsel suggested steps to avoid certain concerns, over secrecy, over how much companies would be willing to tell me. To present the project in a way that does not look threatening, and looking into the secrets of the trade, the logic of operation.

The logic of the Ethnographic – my contacts are an advantage, and that various companies seem to be willing to let me in and give admission to this work. I would need to work this as a privilege. Fortune tellers. Secrets of the trade.

Well, we were through. Our discussion was complete. We were pleased indeed.

But then, briefly, we turned to the topic of a PhD seminar that I was invited to teach next year at U. Tromsø, with a specific methodology of Ethnography of Expertise. Of course, I had absolutely no idea how they teach seminars in Norway, having taught only in the States (and Canada). This was an enlightening moment. The course structure takes place over three days. Three full days.

There is a budget to invite 2-3 persons, experts in my field who would also provide instruction with about 12 hours overall of lecture combined with discussion of readings and presentations by “successful applicants to the course” who would provide an overview of their own projects. The course could stand with only 3-4 students with an upper limit of 20 students. I would include a reading list included with the invitation, some of the readings are compulsory, with additional readings, selecting some 500 pages.

After the seminar, the students would have about one month to submit a paper (10 pages) demonstrating competency of the materials.

I was intrigued. How could I refuse? If only all PhD courses were the same.

Without further ado, we parted with me following Sidsel back to the Department of Anthropology to go over some more of the details of the PhD seminar, and to debrief on how to move forward.

Based on our conversations, I had agreed to return to Tromsø in October, to begin working for a few weeks on the proposal with team members from Peter’s group, perhaps working in some kind of seminar.

There are other details. These are large projects, with postdocs, fieldwork, a certain percentage of time at U. Tromsø and so on and so forth, which we discussed in some detail.



8/6: Plugs, outlets, and nature.

I met with Dr. Marius Næss at CICERO, which stands for Center for International Climate and Environmental Research – Oslo. But if you Google CICERO without adding “Norway” next to the word, you hit a Wikipedia entry titled Marcus Tullius Cicero, born January 3, 106 BC, died December 7, 43 BC, “Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, orator, political theorist, Roman consul and constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome’s greatest orators and prose stylists”.

It is a heavy title to be laboring under. Luckily, Marius is as genial a scientist as they come, filled with knowledge about all the workings of Norway, and enlightening indeed. He tuned me into the successful NRC proposal, a similar topic that I am proposing for the ERC, submitted by Dr. Ilan Kelman, in the Oslo office of CICERO, Marius’ office being physically located at the Fram Centre in downtown Tromsø.

This bit of news was quite remarkable. Indeed. As I sat facing Marius, and the project outline he provided me with, indicating that Ilan had shortly thereafter given him a phone call based on an email Marius sent to him describing our similar approach — in a stupefied manner, glancing back and forth between the sheets of paper and Marius, over a cup of joe, I announced, “well, we should send Ilan an email or rather, call him now”.

And that is how we were able to organize a meeting with Ilan in Oslo on Saturday at CICERO, with many thanks to Marius. The Genius.

From there, and without too much irreverence, we headed into town to munch lunch and gossip about our respective careers. I dropped on his every word, so interested I found myself in the operations of Norwegian science communities. In fairness, there was not much Marius could tell without peaking my interest, so it is perhaps over stating the case that Marius revealed state secrets. And it was the obvious that captured my interest.

We soon returned to his office for a last debriefing, where I found myself distracted by what seemed to be Venetian Blinds installed on the outside of the window at the Fram Centre. In this, I found something unique, akin in my mind to placing socks over shoes, and I had to capture an image of that which fascinates me, as seen here:

After lunch, I headed up to the Anthropology Department, where I had the opportunity to have my afternoon coffee with a one, Dr. Bjørn Berkli, who is written recently on the intersection of law and indigenous representation, discussing the different modes of communication and means and ends implications. Here is Bjørn in his office, with a Dr. of Philosophy’s wall of books.

Here too, I was fascinated with all that Bjørn could instruct me in the ways of academia in Norway, for which I have no idea why. Perhaps it is the case that he was on the committee that mulled over my own application several years ago, when I applied to the U. Tromsø department of anthropology, and all the epistemological glue that he could recommend which holds career steps in place.

At any rate, it was good to get caught up, and I explained that the proposal I had come to discuss was much in the inchoate-stage, and that, as with Marius, I would look forward to his participation, particularly given his long-term experience working with indigenous communities in the Northern Europe.

8/3: Yesterday, I blew into Tromsø around noon, a little rain notwithstanding, managed to get through the day in my flip-flops.

I showed up at the anthropology department, got keys to my office and mulled around before meeting up with Thorbjørg H. and Bjørg M. about the European Research Council (ERC) proposal.

We discussed timing of events and expectations in developing the proposal. It was a good meeting overall, though I was a bit hung over from jet lag. They mentioned several issues that later that afternoon I formulated as two questions: (a) why is this proposal being done here at U. Tromsø?; (b) why is the project innovative?


I picked up some vegetables, little things around town that remind me of Berkeley and headed back to my apartment to catch some shut eye and write a few emails before dinner.

At dinner several hours later, I sought to address questions brought up earlier in the day.

I met with UiT professor Peter A., who represents persons on Campus working on oil/gas, futures, and discourse. I sought him out because of a talk he gave in at Arctic Frontiers in January, here in Tromsø, from which he provided valuable intellectual contributions.

At dinner, Peter discussed what his group had been doing on Arctic oil/gas, which is similar to my proposed direction. I told him that working together, we could lay out the broad collaborative design, from which we would then form an alignment here at UiT, and then move outward to other folks across Norway, and then to Europe and Russia.

Once we have that alignment, we could then easily move to other universities and institutes in Norway, letting them know we plan to do this proposal, the folks at Bodø for example, who do oil/gas work, or the institutes in Oslo (nupi, econ pory, fni) and sprinkle them into the proposal. The same for UK and Russia partners.

And that was yesterday.

I left Berkeley several days ago. I had not slept on the flight over to Amsterdam, and realized upon arrival the lay over was quite long. In Oslo, I managed to not sleep either, but sat at the usual bar over the usual dinner. And finally, today, sleep caught up with me, not at first however, but only later on in the day, when I came home.

Something more? About a dinner conversation in which I recalled Bjørg stating she grew up in the same town as Peter? I do not recall.



7/31: Walking blithely through…

6/30: Visiting U. Tromsø August 1-9, on a proposal for the European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant. Quite a few collaborators including Sidsel S., Thorbjørg H., Bjørn B., Bjørg M., Yulian K., Marius W. N.

Putting together the draft with reviews received from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Norwegian Research Council (NRC).

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