This publication is one result of the thematic session ‘Contested borders and identities’ organised at the conference entitled Contested identities, contested cultures and contested rights – Change and challenges in the Northern European periphery held on 23–25 September 2009 at the University of Tromsø, Norway. The conference was organised and financed by the university's Citizenship, encounters and place enactment in the north (CEPIN) group, a multi-disciplinary research school that examines globalisation and modernisation processes in the north. The conference gathered researchers from 19 countries representing different fields of social sciences and addressed various issues relating to political, economic, social and cultural processes in the north.