Feelings of sustainability

Amidst the heat of the grant application season, it is difficult to keep up with the blog. But very cool things are happening: over the past two weeks, I have taken part in conversations on emotional practices and relations within sustainability transitions at two conferences in opposite parts of Finland.

First, at the Science for Sustainability conference in the heart of Helsinki, we held a panel devoted to actors often marginalized in energy transition debates in the North: Indigenous residents, migrant workers, animals, and nature. Our five-minute lightning talks were followed by a discussion on just transition and belonging (including some critical remarks on whether justice for all is actually achievable).

On the second day, I attended a panel on “harmful hopes”, which explored whether hope is instrumental for sustainability transformations. Or could we speak about toxic hopes shifting our minds away from the present in anticipation of imagined better future? Despite our discussions on deceptive optimism during and after the panel, my own hopes about being back in Helsinki, where I had spent three wonderful years, were high. So, despite the tight schedule, I happily managed to rush through two exhibitions at the Ateneum and Kiasma museums, both very close to the conference venue.

A week later, I was on an early morning bus to Rovaniemi, where the Critical Arctic Studies symposium, Care for Life in the Arctic, took place. There, I listened to thought-provoking talks on care for water (vesihuolto) in maintenance work, (un)caring attitudes toward the Arctic in the space industry, and experimental care practices developed by farmers in Northern Norway.

By the end of the day, when it was my turn to speak about care for landscapes shaped by wind energy development, I almost felt an overdose of thoughts, ideas, and the caffeine from the first energy drink I’d had in years. I traveled back to Oulu the same evening, exhausted but excited. That’s probably what conferences are for.