Sustainable Naturecultures and Multispecies Futures

The salmon populations of Teno River have plummeted, regardless of Finland and Norway’s operative agreement, scientific monitoring and other institutional measures. 

The prohibition of salmon fishing tries to protect the salmon of Teno River as well as the local lifestyles and livelihoods that are dependent on salmon, including Sámi culture and society. The fishing prohibition has had a crushing effect on the residents. 

In the DEATNU project, conducted jointly with the Natural Resources Institute Finland, we examine the problematic situation at Teno River, the institutional decision-making and the importance of local knowledge in salmon fishing. Historically, salmon populations and salmon fishing in Teno River have been based on the local community’s values, rights, needs, practices and concepts. 

We map out the knowledge-based decision-making criteria behind salmon policies and investigate how local knowledge could be incorporated into the decision-making related salmon fishing. 

Project in LaCris portal 

In her dissertation, Birgitta Vinkka studies the mutual formation of snow and Arctic cities. Vinkka’s research is based in sociology, and in her research, she examines how snow becomes part of the political, cultural and economic structures of the city, both challenging and enabling such structures. 

Examining the everyday life in urban spaces is still marginal in research conducted on Arctic regions. Vinkka’s research on living with snow offers knowledge on the formation of Arctic urbanism from the viewpoint of living everyday life. 

For Vinkka, working on snow offers new tools for studying the current period of climate change: instead of sustainability, loss becomes the central point of research. 

Read more about the dissertation here. (only in Finnish) 

In their multidisciplinary book intended for international audiences, researchers Emily Höckert, Afroja Khanam, Outi Rantala, Tarja Salmela, Tiina Seppälä and Anu Valtonen envision alternative narratives for the age of the Anthropocene – particularly ones that emphasise the significance of localised and situated knowledge. 

The book outlines new and radical ways of addressing the environmental crisis. It presents empirical studies from various contexts, highlighting the potentiality of non-Western knowledge, concepts and categories as well as recognising the role of multispecies entanglements in addressing the crises of the age of the Anthropocene. The book offers more sustainable and context-specific ways of examining and discussing the global environmental crisis. It offers critical engagement with the debates around the Anthropocene by challenging the dominant techno-rational agenda that often prevails in socio-political and academic discussions. 

Further information on the publication is available here.