Urban Wråkberg - Senior Research Fellow at the Barents Institute

Urban Wråkberg conducts research on social, political and scientific issues in the Circum-Arctic. He has published in Swedish, English, Norwegian and Russian on the social construction of knowledge and regional development in the High North. More recently, his work focuses on cross-border issues, on theories and practices of sustainability, and on northern industrial development. Projects at the Barents Institute include research coordination and collaboration based on various international networks and alliances.
E-mail: urban at barinst.no

Before joining the Barents Institute in 2007, Wråkberg served as senior researcher and assistant director at the Centre for History of Science of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm. He holds a Ph.D. in the social construction of science from Uppsala University (1994); an M.Sc. in material science and metallurgical engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology (1990); and a B.A. in economic history, sociology and history of ideas and learning (1988).

In addition to being an initiator of the 1995 Swedish Programme for Social Science Research in the Polar Regions (funded by the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat), Wråkberg was the scientific leader of its multidisciplinary expeditions and fieldwork in Svalbard in 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000. Further field investigations took place in North East Greenland (2002) and Tierra del Fuego, Argentina (2003). Wråkberg returned to Svalbard in 2005 as an expert advisor on the historical archaeology of the Finnish IPY Kinnvika Reconnaissance Expedition to Northeast Land.

Currently Wråkberg is a member of the steering group of the "Barents Encyclopaedia" publication programme (funded by Interreg IVA); co-project leader of the international research group "Boreas: CEE;" and research fellow in the "Border Aesthetics" European Study Network (Tromsø University). The two latter programmes are funded by the Research Council of Norway.

Current research and development projects include:
  • Special Economic Zones in Northern Russia
  • The organisation of research and development in the Euroarctic mining industry
  • Science and politics in the Barents Region.
  • An Encyclopaedia of the Barents Region
  • Webmaster of the Barents Institute
Selected editions and articles:
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “The Great Game of the North: A Global Scenario for Domestic Use?” Speculum Boreale (University of Tromsø) [forthcoming] 12 pp.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “Decolonising Technoscience in Northern Scandinavia: The Role of Scholarship in Indigenous Identity Making and Sámi Self-determination” Journal of Historical Geography [forthcoming]
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “Pomor Zone: A Cross-Border Initiative to Further Regional Development in Northern Norway and Northwest Russia,” article accepted and translated to Russian forthcoming in Proceedings of V Northern Social and Environmental Congress, Moscow. 15 pp.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “The Role of Research in Barents Region Cross-border Collaboration,” in: Russia and the World: History, International Relations, Science and Education, ed. L.B. Krasavshev (Arkhangelsk & Moscow: Solti, 2009), pp. 255-264. ISBN 5-7536-0360-2.
  • Wråkberg, Urban & Victoria Tevlina “Russlands Nordlige Interesser,” Nordlys 14th May (2009), p. 3.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “IPY Field Stations: Functions and Meanings,” in: Legacies and Change in Polar Sciences: Historical, Legal and Political Reflections on the International Polar Year, eds. Jessica M. Shadian & Monica Tennberg (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2009), pp. 47-71.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “Axel Hamberg mellan två polarår,” Ymer 129 (2009), pp. 81-103. [Year Book of the Swedish Society of Anthropology and Geography]
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “Pioneer or Balloonatic?: S. A. Andrée’s Fatal Balloon Expedition towards the North Pole in 1897” text on display as part of the permanent exhibition of the Spitsbergen Airship Museum, Longyearbyen since November 2008. 8 pp.
  • Nielsen, Jens Petter, Alexey Komarov, Urban Wråkberg & Yulia Bardileva, International Relations in the European North and the Barents Region: Proceedings of the Russian-Norwegian Seminar Murmansk, May 19-20, 2007 (Murmansk: Murmansk State Pedagogical University, 2008). 236 pp.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “Barents Institute: The agenda of a new institute,” in: Nordområdesatsingen i møte med den nordlige region: Konferensrapport 28.-29. november 2007, eds. Elisabeth Angell, Sveinung Eikeland & Per Selle, Norut Alta rapport 2008:3 (Alta: Norut Alta, 2008), pp. 141-150.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “The Quest for Authenticity in Narratives of Northern Border Lands,” Nordlit 22 (2007) Autumn, pp. 193-209.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “Nature Conservationism and the Arctic Commons of Spitsbergen 1900-1920,” Acta Borealia 23 (2006) no. 1, pp. 1-23.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, contributor in chapters 1 and 2 of: Einar-Arne Drivenes & Harald Dag Jølle, eds., Into the Ice: The History of Norway and the Polar Regions (Oslo: Gyldendal Akademisk, 2006).
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “In the Days of Pioneers and Amateurs: On the Early History of Arctic Archaeology,” in: Spitsbergen in the History Research Works, ed. Vadim Starkov, (Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences, 2006), pp. 40-87, Russian transl. on pp. 88-134.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “Arctic Sublime,” Merge vol. 14&15 (2005), p. 28. (5 pp.) spoken text of about 5 pp on MP3 file 06 on the CD.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “Historia och kunskapsarkeologi i polartrakterna,” Tvärsnitt: Humanistisk och samhällsvetenskaplig forskning 2004:3, pp. 2-7.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, Aant Elzinga, Torgny Nordin and David Turner, eds., Antarctic Challenges: Historical and Current Perspectives on Otto Nordenskjöld’s Antarctic Expedition 1901-1903, Acta Regia Societatis Scientiarum et Litterarum Gothoburgensis: Interdisciplinaria no. 5 (Göteborg: Kungl. Vetenskaps- och vitterhetssamhället i Göteborg, 2004). 330 pp.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “Det internationella intresset för Arktis 1800-1925,” in: Inn i riket: Svalbard, Nord-Norge og Norge: Rapport frå det 28. nordnorske historieseminar, Longyearbyen 3.-5 10. 2003, eds. Hallvard Tjelmeland & Ketil Zachariassen, Speculum Boreale no. 5 (Tromsø, 2004), pp. 7-25.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “Delineating a Continent of Ice and Snow: Cartographic Claims of Knowledge and Territory in Antarctica in the 19th and Early 20th Century,” in: Antarctic Challenges: Historical and Current Perspectives on Otto Nordenskjöld’s Antarctic Expedition, eds. Aant Elzinga, David Turner, Torgny Nordin & Urban Wråkberg, Acta Regia Societatis Scientiarum et Litterarum Gothoburgensis: Interdisciplinaria no. 5 (Göteborg: Kungl. Vetenskaps- och vitterhetssamhället i Göteborg, 2004), pp. 123-143.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “Polarområdenes gåter” in: Norsk Polarhistorie, eds. Einar-Arne Drivenes, Harald Dag Jølle & Ketil Zachariesen, 3 vols. (Oslo: Gyldendals, 2004), vol. I, pp. 15-49.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “Ruiner i förfallande landskap: Arktiska spår av kultur, vetenskap och industri,” in: Arbetets avtryck: Perspektiv på ett forskningsfält, ed. Dag Avango & Brita Lundström (Stockholm: Brutus Östlings förlag, 2003), pp. 337-365.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, Gunilla Lindberg-Wada, eds., An Arctic Passage to the Far East: The Visit of the Swedish Vega Expedition to Meiji Japan in 1879, Bidrag till Kungl. Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens Historia, no. 34 (Stockholm, 2002), 122 pp., 83 illustrations 30 in colour.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “The Russo-Swedish Arc of the Meridian Expeditions to Spitsbergen 1898-1902” in: International Scientific Cooperation in the Arctic: Proceedings of a Conference Devoted to the Centenary of the Swedish-Russian Arc-of-Meridian Expedition to Spitsbergen and 125 years of V. A. Rusanov’s Birth, ed. Eugene Bouzney (Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences & Scientific World, 2002), pp. 15-52.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “The Politics of Naming: Contested Observations and the Shaping of Geographical Knowledge,” in: Narrating the Arctic: A Cultural History of Nordic Scientific Practices, eds. Michael Bravo & Sverker Sörlin (Canton, Mass., USA: Science History Publications, 2002), pp. 155-197.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “Eugenio Parent and Giacomo Bove: Italians in 19th Century Swedish Polar Exploration,” in: A Galvanized Network: Italian-Swedish Scientific Relations from Galvani to Nobel, eds. Marco Beretta & Karl Grandin, Bidrag till Kungl. Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens Historia, no. 32 (Stockholm, 2001), pp. 169-205.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “Den internationella antarktisforskningen och Otto Nordenskjölds sydpolarexpedition 1901-03,” Ymer 121 (2001), pp. 25-50.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, ed., Arktisk gruvdrift: Teknik, historia och industriminnesvård i norr, Jernkontorets Bergshistoriska utskotts publikationsserie H, (Stockholm, 1999), 91 pp. (Arctic Mining: Technology, History and the Industrial Heritage of the North)
  • Wråkberg, Urban, ed., The Centennial of S. A. Andrée’s North Pole Expedition: Proceedings of a Conference on S. A. Andrée and the Agenda for Social Science Research of the Polar Regions, Bidrag till Kungl. Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens Historia, no. 28 (Stockholm, 1999), 212 pp.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, Vetenskapens Vikingatåg: Perspektiv på svensk polarforskning 1860-1930, (1995) 2nd rev. ed., Bidrag till Kungl. Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens Historia, no. 30 (Stockholm: Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 1999). 260 pp.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “Avstånd i isens och dimmans land: Gissning och precision vid längdmätning i Arktis under 1800-talet,” in: Tid, längd och vikt, eds. Inga Elmquist & Johan Florén, Observatoriemuseets skriftserie no. 1. (Stockholm: Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 1999), pp. 77-93.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “Andrée’s Folly: Time for Reappraisal?,” in: The Centennial of S.A. Andrée’s North Pole Expedition: Proceedings of a Conference on S.A. Andrée and the Agenda for Social Science Research of the Polar Regions, ed. Urban Wråkberg, Bidrag till Kungl. Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens Historia, no. 28 (Stockholm, 1999), pp. 67-116.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “Politik och vetenskap i A.E. Nordenskiölds ockupationsförsök av Spetsbergen år 1871-1873,” in: Arktisk gruvdrift: Teknik, historia och industriminnesvård i norr, ed. Urban Wråkberg, Jernkontorets Bergshistoriska utskotts publikationsserie H, (Stockholm, 1999), pp. 39-52.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, “Hundra år av historieskrivning kring S.A. Andrée och hans polarexpedition,” Ymer 117 (1998), pp. 60-76.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, & Susan Barr, “The Swedish Programme for Social Science Research in the Polar Regions,” Polarforskningssekretariatets årsbok 1998, pp. 94-100.
  • Wråkberg, Urban, The 1997 Arctic Expedition of the Swedish Programme for Social Science Research in the Polar Regions: Cruise Report, The Northern Space: The International Research Network on the History of Polar Science Working Paper, no. 12. (Umeå: Umeå Universitet, 1998), 49 pp.