Migrants walking along the road between a semi-open return centre and a small town in the countryside an hour away from Oslo.

Halvar Andreassen Kjærre is the second of our two new PhD fellows at IMER Bergen this year. He also started his project in October and he will follow IMER Bergen for four years. His scholarship is connected to the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. Kjærre’s PhD project investigates irregular/illegalized migration in Europe, and he will mainly focus upon three countries within the Schengen area: Norway, Sweden and Italy. Rather than investigating how migrants settle in a certain places or neighbourhoods, Kjærre will “follow the migrants” around. Continue reading →

Wanvik carried out research into Norwegian companies and their strategic and tactical use of CSR towards local stakeholders in Indonesia. Here we see one of the projects by Statoil in Mamuju, West Sulawesi.

In October Tarje Wanvik started working as a PhD fellow at IMER Bergen.  His scholarship is connected to IMER Bergen and the department of Geography at the University of Bergen. Wanviks PhD project will investigate the nature and consequences of encounters between transnational companies and how they interact with the relatively poor communities where they establish to gain profits. Among other things Wanvik will focus upon how expatriate managers and skilled workers interact with the local communities where they work. He will investigate how Norwegian companies abroad are received and perceived within the communities they operate. Are they subject to territorialising forces, and if so, are they responding relevant to local expectations? Continue reading →