Brynhild Granås

Name, academic degree:

Brynhild Granås

Academic title:

Associate Professor

Affiliation:

UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Department of Tourism and Northern Studies

E-mail:

brynhild.granas@uit.no

Link to CV:

 CV

Research Interests/Activities in the Winter project:

Granås has an MA in sociology from the University of Oslo and a PhD in sociology from the UiT The Arctic University of Norway, and is Associate Professor at the UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Department of Tourism and Northern Studies. She has conducted research in place- and urban studies, with a particular focus on the interface between the industrial, cultural, political and material aspects of northern societal development processes. Among her publications are international journal articles in Geografiska Annaler and Acta Borealia, and her PhD dissertation was titled The Recalcitrant Manifold. Behind Slogans and Headlines of Northern Urban Development. She coedited the book Mobility and Place. Enacting Northern European Peripheries (Ashgate 2008) together with J. O. Bærenholdt.

Granås’ research activities in the Winter project draw attention to the practice of dog sledding, constituting one of the core products in a growing arctic winter tourism. While inhabitants of other arctic areas have practiced dog sledding since pre modern times, the practice was introduced in Scandinavia by the end of the 20^th Century. Hence, dog sledding is a new outdoor practice in the area, both as a leisure activity, a sport activity and a tourism product. As manifested through the growth of the Finnmark Race and its extensive media coverage, as well as in the growing winter tourism, dog sledding has had a “breakthrough” while also being “put on display” in meetings with tourists and through media exposure. Granås will explore the questions of why and how the breakthrough of dog sledding has come about. The project will encircle the human-nature relationship negotiated through dog-sledding and explore the genealogy of Scandinavian dog sledding and its temporal-spatial characteristics.

The research will relate to WP 1, 2 and 4.