Our research

Research at the Arctic Centre

Our research combines approaches from the human, social, legal and natural sciences. It is organized into four research programmes:

Close cooperation with the people living in the area is central to all our research. In many research projects, new knowledge is generated through participatory methods in collaboration with local people and stakeholders, respecting local knowledge.

Examples of current research themes

State and change of northern ecosystems

The research focuses on the effects of global warming and human activities on Arctic nature. When studying the state and change of ecosystems, we combine the expertise from various disciplines, such as plant ecology, soil microbiology and environmental history – not forgetting the local knowledge of people living in the area.

Adaptation of Arctic livelihoods

People of the North need to adapt to various changes. We study the past, current and future adaptations in various Arctic livelihoods, and the resilience of local communities. Knowledge is co-produced with participatory methods within the projects on northern nature-based livelihoods such as reindeer herding, fishing and Lapland cattle husbandry.

Cryosphere

Studying the cryosphere – all things frozen – includes studies on seasonal snow cover, permafrost dynamics and ice sheets, for example, the potential for rapid sea level rise due to ice sheet collapse. Methodologies range from large-scale simulations of glaciers to snow pit measurements. The researchers work closely with local communities, also developing citizen observations.

Power dynamics in the Arctic

We examine conditions for cooperation, stability and peace within the Arctic region, and analyse how the changing dynamics of global power shape regional politics and economics. By analysing trends in and beyond the Arctic, we develop scenarios to envision what alternative developments and plausible futures can be anticipated in the Arctic.

Human-animal relations

In the Arctic human life has relied on people’s relations to animals. People provided all their needs such as food, clothing, transport and housing as well as spiritual fulfilment through their hunting of wild and herding of domestic animals. Human-animal-environment relations are therefore at the core of our understanding of how people subsist, live and thrive in the Arctic.

Wellbeing in the North

In the Arctic region, people are constructing their lives in various ways, all considering the building blocks of a good life differently. Anthropological research shows that wellbeing is a multifaceted concept and can be perceived differently by diverse groups of people, culturally, collectively, and individually.

Arctic Industries and cultural impacts

The Arctic continues to experience increased industrialisation, also related to the green transition. Anthropological research shows how such industries impact Arctic livelihoods and cultures – knowledge which becomes useful for environmental and social impact assessments in our research sites.

Planetary approach

Planetary approach to Arctic politics means that we advance research on multispecies justice where politics and governance no longer focus exclusively on state and human interests, but the needs and interests of non-humans, such as animals, plants, oceans and rivers, are also put at the heart of politics.

Politics and power of resilience

Current global uncertainties have made calls for individual and community resilience more frequent, both in politics and research. By developing resilience, it is claimed, individuals and communities can avoid the worst-case scenarios deriving from uncertainty and be prepared to cope with the unknown. In our research we ask: How does resilience structure the society, and what are the power implications of such calls for resilience?

Environmental governance in the Arctic

The research focuses on environmental governance in the Arctic from the perspectives of climate change, climate justice, human rights, and climate litigation, while exploring the legal frameworks related to biodiversity and the law of the sea.

Arctic geopolitics

The research is centered around the changes in the Arctic region and the resulting geopolitical dimensions that influence both hard and soft security concerns in the region.

Indigenous rights

We study legal issues related to Indigenous peoples in the Arctic region such as the application of human rights law to Arctic Indigenous peoples and their active participatory role in shaping Arctic governance.

Green transition

The impacts of land use in the Arctic are studied from the perspectives of mining, wind power, traditional livelihoods, Indigenous peoples, children, and youth. Attention is especially paid to the equity, sustainability, and inclusiveness of a green economic transition in the Arctic.

Examples of on-going projects

Reconceptualizing Boundaries Together Towards Resilient and Just Arctic Future(s) - REBOUND

The project REBOUND contributes to the significant social and economic challenges driven by climate change, biodiversity loss, and related land use changes. A critical social science perspective on the planetary boundaries framework concept has been called for and urged to (re)define these boundaries through transdisciplinary and democratic processes.

REBOUND focuses on the Circumpolar Arctic, where rapid climatic changes are already visible.

Rebound homepage.

Post-anthropocentric water relations in the Bothnian Bay

The separation between humans and nature is the root cause of the global ecological crisis. This approach can be found in the Arctic water-society relations. Research is dominated by a particular "hydro-hegemony" of anthropocentricity, state-centricity and human intentionality.

The project develops an alternative post-anthropocentric approach to investigate water-society relations as complex entanglements of human/non-human relations. In the project, multidisciplinary, qualitative case-based research will be conducted, and multisite, ethnographic data will be collected and analyzed with the Grounded theory-based Situational analysis. The research will focus on both the past and current relations to the sea, rivers and islands; diverse cross-border interactions; multiple meanings of water and ice; multi-level governance and transformations in the environment in the Bothnian Bay.

Project homepage.

Climate Responsibility 2035

Climate Responsibility as a Normative Cornerstone of Multilateral Cooperation? project will develop International Relations theorisation that will take the norm of climate responsibility at the centre of politics. Drawing insights from an Arctic case study with a backcasting scenario approach of Futures Studies, the project aims to identify what kind of development trajectories would plausibly bring climate responsibility as the 'grund norm' of the international society by 2035.

Project Homepage.

Charter: Drivers and Feedbacks of Changes in Arctic Terrestrial Biodiversity

CHARTER is an ambitious effort to advance adaptive capacity of Arctic communities to climatic and biodiversity changes through state-of-the-art synthesis based on thorough data collection, analysis and modelling of Arctic change with major socio-economic implications and feedbacks.

To achieve this goal, we will combine expertise from Earth System sciences and biodiversity studies within the social-ecological system framework and strongly participatory approach. Strategies co-developed in CHARTER with indigenous and local communities will comprise synergies between their ambitions for adaptation actions with novel forms of land management geared towards climate mitigation and sustainable development.

Charter homepage.

Wire: Fluid realities of the wild

This research aims to revise our understanding of human-animal relations: we will study the diversity of ways in which people perceive the domesticity, wildness, hybridity and ferality of northern animals, which are fundamental to local cultures in our case sites in Finland and Russia. The project team will re-think human-animal sustainability through ethnographic documentation (anthropology), analysis of past human-animal partnerships (history), gene expressions (genetics), and comparative analysis of norms (law).

Perspectivist approaches will be used for showing that the reality of 'what is an animal' is not static but depends on the standpoint. With participatory research, we shall integrate these perspectives to contribute to theoretical renewal in the field of human-animal sustainability, advance perspectivism as a theoretical direction in interdisciplinary research, and raise awareness in society of the diversity of understandings of domestic and wild animals in our environment.

Project homepage >>

Latest publications