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?

Wanvik will also explore how different parties in the encounters of these polarised realities employ different mediating and mitigating activities. He will carry out an extensive fieldwork in Indonesia, and he will also look into a similar case in Canada.

His focus will be on three hypotheses: 1) Corruption is a manifestation of the lack of reciprocity between transnational companies, expatriates and the local community. 2) Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities may curb expectations of corruption and other irregular resource transfers, and contribute to a more transparent and accountable reciprocity between the parties, and 3) that both companies and local communities develop strategies of attachment and detachment in the intersection of these hyper mobile corporate activities and more place bound local communities.

Fishing family in Mamuju

Wanvik has already looked into the Indonesian case, and he has also lived in the area where he now will carry out his fieldwork. Wanvik took the pictures in this article as he was living in the area where he now wants to conduct fieldwork in Indonesia.

Seaweed farming in Indonesia

Academically, Wanviks approach is limited if not missing in the discourse of transnationalism and mobility. Wewelcome Tarje Wanvik to IMER Bergen and wish him good luck with his PhD project.

Tarja Wanvik

To view Tarje Wanviks profil, click here.

KEYWORDS:

Territorialisation, grounding, dwelling, mobility, tensions global – local, assemblages, corruption, CSR, reciprocity, corporate citizenship, stakeholders, power, network, emerging economies.