Gunhild Hoogensen Gjørv is Professor of Critical Peace and Conflict Studies at the UiT The Arctic University of Norway.

Keyword research interests: grayzone/hybrid threats and warfare, civil-military conflicts, counterinsurgency (COIN), civilian agency, human security, Arctic security, intersectional methodologies

Born in the Netherlands and raised in Canada, she obtained her education in Canada at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec (Bachelor in Science, Biology) and at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta (Masters of Arts and PhD in Political Science). Hoogensen Gjørv has taught for over 25 years, and supervised students at the masters and PhD levels for almost 20 years. Her teaching is heavily informed by her research projects. 

Hoogensen Gjørv's primary focus is the understanding of security within the context of hybrid threats and warfare (see below), drawing from and building upon a long-standing body of work in the area of security studies.

Hoogensen Gjørv’s research has interrogated the interactions and tensions between perceptions of state and human security in a variety of contexts, with a particular focus on civil-military interaction and Arctic perceptions of security. She is concerned with representations and performances of civilian agency, drawing upon intersectional approaches to better understand agency, “everyday” security, and possibilities for peace. Due to her work on civil-military interaction, she was one of ten experts selected as a member of the Norwegian national evaluation committee to examine Norway’s efforts in Afghanistan. Hoogensen Gjørv has led a number of projects examining human security in the context of Arctic extractive industries and the relationships between states, industry, and people in the Arctic. Her focus on security in the Arctic ensured that she was among the first awarded a Fulbright Arctic Initiative fellowship (2015-2016), coinciding with the US chairmanship of the Arctic Council, after which she was awarded the Nansen Professorship at the University of Akureyri (2017-2018).

Gunhild Hoogensen Gjørv currently leads the project Resilient Civilians examining civilian agency in population-centric and hybrid warfare scenarios (partially funded by the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme), and recently completed a project investigating the trajectories of indigenous territorial rights in Russia (funded by the Research Council of Norway). She is a partner and core theme leader for the EU-HYBNET project, a European network of researchers and practitioners focused on the mitigation of hybrid threats, as well as a partner with the THREAT DEFUSER project examining the ways in which language is manipulated for the purposes of disinformation.
Hoogensen Gjørv serves on various boards including within the Norwegian Research Council, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, and the International Arctic Science Committee.
Her book publications include "Understanding Civil-Military Interaction: Lessons Learned from the Norwegian Model" (Ashgate, 2014) and (co-editor and contributor) "Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic" (Routledge, 2014), and most recently, (co-editor and contributor) of “Routledge Handbook of Arctic Security” (Routledge, 2020). She has published in Review of International Studies, Security Dialogue, Political Psychology, International Studies Review, among other journals, as well as written numerous book chapters.

See the list below for more details about publications.

Areas of research: terrorism and political violence, international security with particular focus on societal security and resilience, international relations, religion and politics, political and religious radicalisation, migration, geopolitics, clash of civilisations, culture and identity in political processes.

FIELDWORK/RESEARCH

2018-2021 - comparative research on migration in Poland, Ukraine, Albania, UK, and the Czech Republic in cooperation with Collegium Civitas (Warsaw, Poland).

April/May 2014 – field research in Kosovo two main themes of this research were religious radicalisation and political radicalisation (of religious and nationalist origin). This research was carried out in cooperation with Amsterdam University College.

January 2013 and January 2012 – fieldwork in Kosovo including visits to international organisations and institutions (such as EULEX, UNMIK, UNDP, OBWE, OHCHR, KFOR), and to local and regional non-governmental organizations (including media and religious organisations) and interviews with senior, middle and junior staff members or field workers for inter-governmental, governmental, and non-governmental organisations as well as with Kosovo Albanians and Serbs.

2010 - 2012 – fieldwork in the United Kingdom (England and Scotland), The Netherlands, Denmark, and Poland carried out during the doctoral research.

2011 – an independent study on converts' radicalisation in the prison environment carried out in cooperation with the Scottish Prison Service. The research was conducted in four different prisons across Scotland.

2011 – consultant and expert invited to Our Shared Europe project implemented in Denmark by the British Council in a response to cultural challenges facing contemporary Europe.

2010 – research assistant and interpreter in the European Survey of Youth Mobilization (ESYM), an innovative and multidisciplinary study of youth political activity in Europe (11 countries covered) managed by Dr Jeffrey Stevenson Murer at St Andrews University, Scotland, UK.

Crisis Management

Resilience

Critical Infrastructure

Decision-making theories

Climate change adaptation

Ongoing externally funded projects:

Disinformation and people: impacts on societal trust and resilience (FAKENEWS) 

• Funding: Norwegian Research Council
• Project period: September 2021-August 2025 

Arctic International Relations and International Political Economy

Sample Publications

Books

Chinese Foreign Policy: An Introduction (London and New York: Routledge, 2009). (Second edition published January 2013, Third edition published December 2015, Fourth edition published 2019).

Nordic-China Diplomacy ed. with Wrenn Yennie Lindgren and Bjørnar Sverdrup-Thygeson, (New York and London: Routledge, 2017).

China’s Evolving Approach to Peacekeeping ed. with Miwa Hirono (London and New York: Routledge, 2012). (Paperback version, August 2014).

The Chinese Party-State in the 21st Century: Adaptation and the Reinvention of Legitimacy, ed. with André Laliberté (London and New York: Routledge, 2008); (paperback version, 2013).

China and International Institutions: Alternate Paths to Global Power (London and New York: Routledge, 2005); (Paperback version, 2007).

Chapters

‘The Path of Most Resistance? CPEC, Governance and China’s Belt and Road in South Asia,’ in Routledge Handbook of Autocratization in South Asia, ed. Sten Widmalm, (London: Routledge, 2021), <https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003042211/routledge-handbook-autocratization-south-asia-sten-widmalm>.

‘“Not Being Absent”: China’s Polar Silk Road and the Politics of Identity,’ Research Handbook on the Belt and Road Initiative, ed. Joseph Chinyong Liow, Hong Liu and Gong Xue (Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2021), 404-15.

‘Only Connect? The Polar Silk Road and China’s Geo-economic Policies,’ Nordic-Baltic Connectivity with Asia via the Arctic: Assessing Opportunities and Risks, ed. Bart Gaens, Frank Jüris and Kristi Raik (Tallinn: International Centre for Defence and Security, 2021), 107-25. <https://icds.ee/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/ICDS_EFPI_Book_Nordic-Baltic_Connectivity_with-Asia_via_the_Arctic_Gaens_Juris_Raik_September_2021.pdf>

‘Inside, Outside, Upside Down? Non-Arctic States in Emerging Arctic Security Discourses,’ The Arctic and World Order, ed. Kristina Spohr, Daniel S. Hamilton and Jason Moyer, (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2020), 379-404. <https://transatlanticrelations.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/The-Arctic-and-World-Order-ch16.pdf>.

(with Gunhild Hoogensen Gjørv and Horatio Sam-Aggrey) ‘Understanding Arctic Security: What Has Changed? What Hasn’t?’ in Routledge Handbook of Arctic Security, (New York and London: Routledge, 2020), 1-12. 

(with Horatio Sam-Aggrey) Environmental Security in the Arctic: Shades of Grey?’ in Routledge Handbook of Arctic Security, (New York and London: Routledge, 2020), 102-13.

‘Concerning the Arctic as a Security Region: The Roles of China and Russia,’ in Routledge Handbook of Arctic Security, (New York and London: Routledge, 2020), 311-23.

‘The “Greenland Factor” in China’s Expanding Arctic Diplomacy,’ The Yearbook of Polar Law 10, 2018, (Leiden and Boston: Brill Nijhoff, 2019), 415-26.

‘Russia, China and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization: Diverging Security Interests and the “Crimea Effect”,’ Russia's Turn to the East: Domestic Policymaking and Regional Cooperation, ed. Helge Blakkisrud and Elana Wilson Rowe (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2017), 119-38. <https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-69790-1>.

(with Ulf Sverdrup) ‘Sino-Nordic Sub-regional Diplomacy and the “5+1” Model,’ China and Nordic Diplomacy, ed. Bjørnar Sverdrup-Thygeson, Wrenn Yennie Lindgren and Marc Lanteigne (London and New York, Routledge, 2017), 121-32.

‘Iceland’s Small State Diplomacy with China,’ China and Nordic Diplomacy, ed. Bjørnar Sverdrup-Thygeson, Wrenn Yennie Lindgren and Marc Lanteigne (London and New York, Routledge, 2017), 60-76.

(with Lina A. Alexandra) ‘New Actors and Innovative Approaches to Peacebuilding: The Case of Myanmar,’ Rising Powers and Peacebuilding: Breaking the Mould? Ed. Charles T. Call, Cedric de Coning (Cham, Switzerland: SpringerLink, 2017), 191-241.

‘The Russian Far East and the Northern Sea Route in Evolving Sino-Russian Strategic Relations’, Huang Jing and Alexander Korolev (eds.) The Political Economy of Pacific Russia: Regional Developments in East Asia (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2017), 181-202.

‘Vanuatu,’ Pacific Ways: Government and Politics in the Pacific Islands, ed. Stephen Levine (2nd edition) (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2016). 261-71.

‘The South China Sea in China’s Developing Maritime Strategy,’ Power Politics in Asia’s Contested Waters: Territorial Disputes in the South China Sea, ed. Enrico Fels and Truong-Minh Vu (New York: Springer, 2016), 97-115.

‘China’s Economic Security,’ Routledge Handbook of Chinese Security, ed. Lowell Dittmer and Maochun Yu, (New York and London: Routledge, 2015), 49-63.

Articles

‘Great Powers in the Arctic: Changing Perspectives,’ Global Asia 15(4)(December 2020): 16-21.
 
‘“Observing” the Arctic: Asia in the Arctic Council and Beyond,’ (Book Review), Contemporary Southeast Asia 42(3)(2020), pp. 443-5 DOI: 10.1355/cs42-3j.

The Changing Shape of Arctic Security,' NATO Review, 28 June 2019, https://www.nato.int/docu/review/2019/Also-in-2019/the-changing-shape-of-arctic-security/EN/index.htm.

'European Troubles and Norway’s Three-Point Game,' Global Brief, 20 June 2019, https://globalbrief.ca/2019/06/european-troubles-and-norways-three-point-game/.

'China's UN Peacekeeping in Mali and Comprehensive Diplomacy,' China Quarterly (March 2019), https://doi.org/10.1017/S030574101800173X.

(with Miwa Hirono and Yang Jiang), 'China's New Roles and Behaviour in Conflict-Affected Regions: Reconsidering Non-Interference and Non-Intervention,' China Quarterly (March 2019), 
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741018001741.

'The China–Switzerland Free Trade Agreement and Economic Identity-Building,' Journal of Contemporary China, (January 2019), https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2018.1557949.

‘The Role of U.N. Peacekeeping in China’s Expanding Strategic Interests,’ United States Institute of Peace - Special Report (18 September 2018), <https://www.usip.org/publications/2018/09/role-un-peacekeeping-chinas-expanding-strategic-interests>.

‘Kiina kurottaa pohjoiseen,’ [‘China Reaches the North’], Ulkopolitiikka, 12 September 2018, <https://www.ulkopolitiikka.fi/lehti/3-2018/kiina-kurottaa-pohjoiseen/>.

‘Book Review: “China’s Soft Power Diplomacy in South Asia: Myth or Reality?” by B.M. Jain, China Quarterly 233(March 2018): 249-50.

‘ “The Rock That Can’t be Moved”: China’s Revised Geo-strategies in Myanmar,’ Pacific Review (December 2017), https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2017.1419276: 1-19.

‘试析中国维和观念的演变,’ [‘Analysis of the Evolution of China's Peacekeeping Concept,’] 国际政治研究 International Political Studies – Peking University 4(September 2017): 53-67.

‘Walking the Walk: Science Diplomacy and Identity-building in Asia-Arctic Relations,’ Jindal Global Law Review 8(1)(April 2017): 87-101.

‘ “Have You Entered the Storehouses of the Snow?” China as a Norm Entrepreneur in the Arctic,’ Polar Record 53(2)(March 2017): 117-30.

 ‘Norden og Kina: «Smått er godt» Islands økonomiske diplomati med Kina,’ (“Small is Beautiful”: Iceland’s Economic Diplomacy with China,’ Internasjonal Politikk 74(3)(Autumn 2016), <https://tidsskriftet-ip.no/index.php/intpol/article/view/497>.

‘Choppy Waters: The “Return” of Fiji to Pacific Affairs After the 2014 Election,’ Third World Thematics: A Third World Quarterly Journal (June 2016),

<http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23802014.2016.1188673>.

‘The Role of China in Emerging Arctic Security Discourses,’ S+F Sicherheit und Frieden / Security and Peace 3(2015): 150-5.

(with Su Ping) ‘China’s Developing Arctic Policies: Myths and Misconceptions,’ Journal of China and International Relations 3(1) (May 2015): 1-25.

(with Aglaya Snetkov), ‘The Loud Dissenter and its Cautious Partner – Russia, China, and Global Governance and Humanitarian Interventions,’ International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 15(1)(January 2015): 113-46.

‘Fire Over Water: China’s Naval Modernisation and the Anti-Piracy Operations,’ Pacific Review 26(3)(2013): 289-312.

Other

[Citation] Isabelle Facon, ‘Pékin et Moscou, complices mais pas allies,’ Le Monde diplomatique, August 2018, 7-8. <https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2018/08/FACON/58982>.

‘Zimbabwe's Election and an Uncertain Future,’ New Zealand Herald, 11 August 2018, <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503459&objectid=12104598>.

[Quotation] A Silk Road Through the Ice: China Wants to be a Polar Power,’ The Economist, (12 April 2018): 27-8.

(with Mingming Shi), ‘The (Many) Roles of Greenland in China’s Developing Arctic Policy.’ The Diplomat, 30 March 2018, <https://thediplomat.com/2018/03/the-many-roles-of-greenland-in-chinas-developing-arctic-policy/>.

‘Northern Crossroads: China and Russia in the Arctic,’ National Bureau of Asian Research, Washington DC, 27 March 2018, <http://www.nbr.org/research/activity.aspx?id=853>

‘Trump-Kim talks: What's at Stake for New Zealand Isn't Just Peace,’ Stuff (New Zealand), 9 March 2018, <https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/102146500/trumpkim-talks-whats-at-stake-for-new-zealand-isnt-just-peace>.

[Interview] ‘Breyttar horfur í Asíu,’ (‘Changed Outlook in Asia’), Interview for Morgunblaðið, Reykjavík, 8 March 2018, <https://www.mbl.is/mogginn/bladid/innskraning/?redirect=%2Fmogginn%2Fbladid%2Fgrein%2F1675217%2F%3Ft%3D261026944&page_name=grein&grein_id=1675217>

[Podcast] ‘China’s Polar Push: A Conversation with Marc Lanteigne,’ China Power Project, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC, 26 February 2018, <https://www.csis.org/podcasts/chinapower/chinas-polar-push-conversation-marc-lanteigne>.

Risk communication, Risk decision-making, Contemporary security issues (Environmental-politics, Climate security, migration, humanitarian aid) Sustainability, Emergency preparedness and Crisis collaboration. 

Primary research interest include:

Assessing risk communication strateges in conflict and disaster prone areas 

Correlation between disaster management and climate- induced security threats

Impacts of  discourses (climate change among other risks) on risk governance, among others.