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The tourism industry, research activities, and governing institutions are often seen as three very different, independent, and partly antagonistic activities and sectors -tourism as pure profit-pursuing, research as indifferent to business, and governing as controlling both. In this paper, it is argued that this is not the case on Svalbard, where a symbiotic relationship exists between the three sectors. Tourism to the islands emerged in the wake of the exploration of the Arctic in the late 1800s, but for a long period tourism rates were low, mostly due to a strict environmental regime supported by researchers in the natural sciences as well as the government. However, tourism has increased over the past 20 years, partly due to changes in the relationships between the tourism industry, researchers, and governing bodies. The involvement of research in different types of governance and its influence on tourism development will be demonstrated using theories of modern governance as points of departure for an analysis of the current situation; how tourism has provided governors with activities to govern and researchers with a rationale for comprehensive research activity. This case study shows how a symbiosis between tourism, research, and governance can be seen to emerge.

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This article is a study of the tourism-identity nexus in a Sámi community called Karasjohka, often regarded as the Sámi capital in Norway. The aim is, based on focus group interviews, to look at the importance of tourism as a parameter for identity negotiations. The study indicates the existence of a strong Sámi ethos, but people have multiple roles and in many of these the Sáminess is of minor importance. The relation to tourists or to tourism as such seems to be handled through non-Sámi roles. The study unveiled three main reactions to tourism; the first one is to be irritated -by the way the tourism industry handles Sámi culture, and by the fact that the most profitable parts of the business is in the hands of non-Sámi; the second one is called reflexive rejection -tourism is maintained to be of minimal importance for cultural and identity issues; and the third one is called discursive awareness -people admitting that tourism is a significant institution and as such being part of the contexts that over time forms their views of themselves, their culture and of the outer world.

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