Background of the research
During recent years, the world has experienced several ‘cosmology events’ that challenge how we regard ourselves and the world around us. One event that fundamentally changed Finland’s and Sweden’s geo-political realities was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. As a result of global and national security in turmoil, both Finland and Sweden are today full members of NATO.
In our research we have seen how changing global and national realities spur, often polarized, debates in the public and how such debates often revolve around identity and history. On social media, we collectively try to understand who we were, are, and the implications for our continued being. Social media is a public sphere for collective remembering as well as forgetting when faced with societal, organizational, and individual insecurity.
Identity in the NATO era
Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO memberships are in its beginning and mark a new historical era not only within NATO as an international defense alliance, but also between Finland and Sweden. Despite different war and military histories of the two countries, we have seen how shared views on Finnish, Swedish, and Nordic identities serve to unite people around the NATO memberships in the public debate, but also how questions around shared history can polarize opinions. By following the development of the NATO memberships embedded in a shifting national and global security landscape, the project aims to investigate such identity dynamics and memory work in the public debate in Finland and Sweden.
There’s also a pressing need to understand how the NATO memberships will shape cooperation between Finland and Sweden beyond the military context. The two countries hold close socio-cultural and economic relationships. They are historically important bilateral trade partners. We don’t know yet how such relationships will develop in the new security landscape. Therefore, the project will also explore how the new geo-political realities manifest in, and might alter, industry dynamics, business relationships, as well as cooperation in surrounding eco-systems.
Looking into the role of national and Nordic identity building with regards to the NATO memberships enables exploring the implications from one of the biggest geo-political challenges of our time for society, industry, and organizations. This might help us – as organizations and as individuals – to understand why we collectively negotiate national identities in the public arena in certain ways, and to navigate through the opportunities and challenges these very uncertain and increasingly volatile times present.
Eva-Lena Lundgren-Henriksson is an Assistant Professor (tenure track) at Hanken. Lundgren-Henriksson’s research group received a three-year grant of €120,000 in the 2024 grant round of the Foundation for Economic Education.