This article reports findings from two research projects that aimed to understand the vulnerabilities of cultural heritage sites in Svalbard and investigated factors that influence tourism-induced pressures and site degradation. It draws upon fieldwork conducted at ten selected historic locations, including interviews with tourists and guides, consultations with regional and central cultural heritage management authorities, on-site observations, and condition assessments. The primary goal was to explore indicators rendering cultural heritage sites susceptible to the impacts of tourism and human visitors. These indicators were common denominators and encompassed the sites’ physical state/degree of decay, legibility, accessibility, and quantity and quality of objects at the sites. This article seeks to enhance the understanding of these sites’ vulnerabilities and provide insights for effective heritage site management and sustainable tourism development. The principal findings highlight key factors contributing to cultural heritage sites’ vulnerability. These factors encompass intensity and frequency of visitor traffic, suboptimal visitor management strategies, tourists’ limited awareness of proper site behaviour and conservation practices, and restricted resources for site maintenance and protection. These findings can guide policymakers, site managers, and tourism stakeholders in formulating strategies to balance tourism promotion with site conservation, ensuring the long-term preservation of cultural heritage in this unique and vulnerable environment.

This paper contributes to the debate on sustainable water consumption by exploring the relation between consumers’ personality, understanding of risk/trust and social distinction in water drinking practices in Norway. Our main research question, how can we understand preferences for water consumption?, is approached by answering a set of hypotheses inspired by a combination of three theoretical approaches. Latent variables measuring personality and conspicuous attitudes are included in frequency models based on the statistical beta distribution together with other predictors. Statistical tests were performed to find the connection between expected frequency of water consumption, personality, risk/trust and conspicuous attitudes. The conclusion is that the consequence of the connections between consumers’ personality, understanding of risk and conspicuous consumption of water should be considered by Norwegian stakeholders when planning future strategies and methods for more sustainable water consumption.

Purpose: An important requirement when producers apply for protected designation of origin (PDO) or protected geographical indications (PGIs) is to adapt and agree on a concise definition of the geographical boundaries and area of the product. Whereas PDO products must be both strongly ecologically and culturally embedded in the specific area, PGI products are allowed a weaker degree of embeddedness. The research question of this paper is: How are geographical boundaries becoming PDOs and PGIs? The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis is based on diverse forms of empirical material. Document studies of laws, policy documents, etc. have been analyzed to uncover what kind of measures and concepts that have been important for implementation of the scheme in Norway. Interviews with producer organizations have involved the persons responsible for working out product regulations in producer organizations. Interviews have also been conducted with key informants representing public administrative bodies administering the regulation. All interviews have been semi-structured. Findings: The analysis identifies a set of important conditions for the boundary work of PDO-PGI in Norway. The conditions can generally be said to be characterized by a weak understanding of the food-people-places nexus and a strong reliance on instrumentalised system logic in how to deal with the map-nature dimension in boundary work. The short answer to the research question is that geographical boundaries are becoming PDO and PGI through controversies. Originality/value: The controversies are characterized by what is defined as cultural adaptation work. The actors overall adaptation work is understood as the sum of the practices that takes place in the interplay between people’s translations of language and knowledge, reorganization of social relationships and transformation of materiality. The interplay is embedded in the tension between the global and the local, the old and the new and results in both intended and unintended consequences.

This research note offers a critical-constructive discussion of the article ‘Class, Culture and Culinary Tastes: Cultural Distinctions and Social Class Divisions in Contemporary Norway’, written by Flemmen, Hjellbrekke and Jarness (FHJ) (Sociology, 2018(1)). Concerns are raised about the methods and the use of the data. A robustness analysis with alternative data and/or alternative methods is suggested. Conceptually, the analysis of FHJ is considered not to engage adequately with a more qualitative body of historical and ethnological literature, as well as the impact of Norwegian agricultural policy. To describe and understand the evolution of social meaning and social patterns of the consumption of ‘traditional’ Norwegian foodstuffs, a qualitative approach could have contributed constructively. Overall, wider implications for Bourdieu-inspired analyses of cultural consumption are addressed.

It is widely acknowledged that interdisciplinary research is required for adequately addressing global challenges. This article explores what interdisciplinary research implies for research libraries assisting such work, and for researchers receiving support. The main research question is: In what manner is interdisciplinary research support shaped and constructed as a result of contact and collaboration between researchers and the research library? Along with document studies, 15 semi-structured interviews have been conducted involving academic staff at the University of Oslo (UiO) and librarians at the UiO research library. Theoretical insight from the fields of Library and Information Science and Science and Technology Studies are combined using Boundary Objects (BO) as an analytical concept. In analysing empirical data, two dual-level competencies and library practices are identified: those that are technical and librarian, and those that are academically-professional and socio-emotional. In the junctions between these, interdisciplinary research support appears as a boundary object characterized as SubjectSocioTechnical. Collaboration and support for interdisciplinary research call for a complex of competencies, primarily because various support practices must be tailored to fit researchers’ disciplines and needs.