Arve Hansen began working at the Norwegian Helsinki Committee in January 2022.
He has a PhD in area studies from the University of Tromsø, and he has researched urbanism, mass protest and culture of opposition in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, as well as the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Previously, Arve has lived in the East Slavic region for ten years. He has, among other things, studied at two Belarusian universities in Minsk, worked for the Norwegian MFA in Kyiv and Murmansk, and did fieldwork in Ukraine over several years. He speaks Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Norwegian and English.
The Helsinki Committee is a place where I can use my knowledge and experience to contribute to a region I am very fond of.
Arve Hansen
Arve is also an author and has published three books. He published ‘Ukraina: Historien. Menneskene. Krigen.’ in 2022 (in Norwegian). He wrote ‘Urban Protest: A Spatial Perspective on Kyiv, Minsk, and Moscow’ in 2021, and co-authored the book ’A war of songs: Popular Music and recent Russia-Ukraine relations’ in 2019.
Ukraine has been independent since 1991 and has since tried to balance the relationship between Russia and Europe. In fact, Ukraine, quite strikingly means “a country on the border”.
