From November 2013 until March 2014, Maiken, a social anthropologist based in Norway, will be living and working in Spain. Working with fishermen and scientists involved in the Red Shrimp case study, Maiken will be studying how management plans are implemented from a “people perspective”. You can read all her blog posts here.

Adios España – and GAP2!

The last day here in Barcelona is approaching rapidly. This week is filled with the worst part of doing fieldwork: packing, organizing and so on. And yes, it is even worse than packing to go there, since it means you have to say goodbye to a lot of people. However, being sad for leaving also reflects that one has had a great time, so that is good.

On a professional level, I have done everything I planned to do. Well, I have not done any workshops with fishers simply because they were too busy and it was more important to use my time with them for interviews. Other than that, I have conducted a good number of interviews with fishers and policy makers, observed a lot and participated some. In summary, I have a thorough insight into the case study.

On a personal level, we have really enjoyed ourselves as a family both in Barcelona and Palamos. Having a baby in Spain is very recommendable since they LOVE babies and Alma is super spoilt with all the attention everywhere (metro, restaurants, etc). We have had a lot of visits (apparently Barcelona is closer than Tromsø to any other Norwegian city…) and had a lot (too much) of the delicious Spanish food. Oh, the stories we could tell about seafood, the famous iberico ham and the wine of course!

New job, new challenges!

Another big personal event is that I have been offered and accepted a new job in my hometown Mo I Rana. This means that I will be leaving GAP2 shortly. Again, it is sad because I have had a great time as doing my post-doctoral studies with all of you. I have been able to carry on a lot of my PhD work and I have learnt a lot from being in this interdisciplinary environment that GAP2 generates.

I wish you all the best and if you have any questions I will still be available on my uit mail address: maiken.bjorkan@uit.no. Also, if you decide to pass by Mo I Rana, make sure to drop by!