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This article examines how gender hierarchies are (re)created within the context of northern landscapes. We analyse data from fieldwork and interviews with middle-class female Russians having settled in a small town in northernmost Norway, most of them as marriage migrants. Inspired by the phenomenology of the body, feminist phenomenology and gender theory, the analysis shows how the participants talk about nature as 'recreation' and 'poetry' , but also as a venue that is vital for (re)shaping their gendered identities. In particular, the Russian women talk about their strong, skilful outdoors Norwegian husbands as 'experts' in nature, and about themselves as 'novices' . This 'expert-novice' relationship creates a hierarchical distinction between the Norwegian man and the Russian woman, but also attributes additional value to the equality-oriented, but in several cases neither highly educated nor highly paid, Norwegian husband. Through this 'remasculinisation' of their Norwegian partners, the Russian women create a complementary, but subordinate space for themselves. The analysis reveals that our participants situate themselves in contrast to the Norwegian equality ideal while creating a room of their own where they can form a separate and unique Russian femininity. This illustrates how constructions of gender are interwoven in translocal 'minoritising' and 'majoritising' processes. ARTICLE HISTORY

Russian Women in Northern Norway: Stories about Mushroom Picking and the Soviet Past The article portrays and discusses various reorientation practices used by Russian women who have migrated to the Finnmark region in Northern Norway. It draws on participant observation, individual interviews and focus group interviews. The fieldwork revealed that mushroom related activites Á picking, talking about, preparing and eating Á constitute an important part of a shared Russian heritage accumulated through a communist-era childhood. The article makes particular use of Floya Anthias' concept of translocal positioning. Anthias conceptualizes social positioning as a practice that occurrs within and across both concrete locations and cultural contexts, and is shaped by specific processes of minoritizing and majoritizing. Through the perspective of translocation, and inspired by Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the body (1994), this article aims to show how my informants position themselves as Russian women in Finnmark. Based on an analysis of the experiences and practices related to mushrooms, the article argues that migrants' reorientations may fruitfully be viewed as practices that are constituted through the body across time and space.

I denne artikkelen vil jeg bruke sanselig fenomenologi for å argumentere for at ulike historiske og politiske fortellinger om Kvinnedagen etablerer hierarkiske forestillinger av vestlige og østlige feminiteter.  Jeg vil illustrere hvordan 8. mars kan forstås som et kulturelt og politisk fenomen som mobiliserer følelser, og som dessuten bidrar til å både differensiere og sedimentere forståelser av «oss» og «de andre». Dette vil vi gjøre gjennom en analytisk kobling av tre ulike fortellinger om Kvinnedagen, nemlig en historisk, politisk og det vi kan kalle en empirisk fortelling om Kvinnedagen. Mens den politiske fortellingen om Kvinnedagen illustreres gjennom en kort analyse av Russlands president Vladimir Putin og Norges statsminister Erna Solbergs 8. marstaler anno 2017, så baserer analysen av den empiriske fortellingen om 8. mars på russiske kvinners erfaringer med Kvinnedagen etter å ha bosatt seg i Norge. Artikkelen viser hvordan Kvinnedagen kan brukes som et eget russisk rom innenfor majoritetskonteksten for å uttrykke likestilling på egne måter, ikke som «likhet», men som «likeverd»; og feminitet, ikke som varianter av kjønnsnøytralitet, men heller «på russisk vis» med skjørt, oppsatt hår og rød leppestift. Artikkelen viser således hvordan forestillinger om kvinnelighet og likestilling veksler mellom individuelle og kollektive fortellinger, og belyser hvordan kvinnelighet aktualiseres og kommuniseres i fortellinger om 8. marsfeiring.

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