Anna Niia Varfolomeeva

Category: Collaborations

  • A New Collaboration for the New Year

    2026 began with good funding news: our research-art initiative “Tar, Power, Cloud: Strengthening Resilience through Art & Citizen Science” has recently received support from the Frontiers of Arctic and Global Resilience (FRONT) profiling research programme at the University of Oulu.

    In this project, we aim to bridge ethnographic research, artistic practice, and citizen science to explore how industrial and technological development shapes human–landscape relations in the town of Muhos, just outside Oulu. I have long been interested in exploring the potential of research-art collaboration around questions of resource extraction in the Arctic. So, this feels like such an important opportunity – and hopefully (not too late for the New Year resolutions, right?), this is just the beginning.

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  • From Tar to Data: Resource Cycles of the Oulujoki River

    My first publication in Finnish came out in November. This article is one of the outcomes of my Forming Resourcescape project, which was supported by an expenditure grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation in 2024. The edited volume is titled, in English, Turns and Twists – Cultural Environmental Transformations in the North.

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  • Beyond Words, Loss, and Failure at the YHYS Colloquium

    Last week, Oulu hosted the annual Fall colloquium of the Finnish Society for Environmental Social Science (YHYS). This was my first experience with YHYS, and although I had only just recovered from a rather fierce virus and wasn’t at my best, I was quickly drawn in by the colloquium’s vibrant atmosphere. My main sources of inspiration, however, may sound unusual: nothingness, failure, and the absence of words.

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  • Notes from an Arctic retreat

    Last week, just as the grant submission emotions were finally settling down, I got to experience a bit of tourist Lapland. The project REBOUND, focusing on just green transition in the Finnish North, had a two-day workshop and retreat in a holiday village right at the Arctic Circle.

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  • 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).

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  • Interdisciplinarity beyond buzzwords

    I often call myself an interdisciplinary researcher, but how often do I actually think about what that means? Well, not as often as I’d like to! But last week, I had a chance to reflect on this deeply during three vibrant days as the University of Oulu hosted the 47th Association for Interdisciplinary Studies (AIS) conference.

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  • Reconnecting with Hungary

    As busy May comes to an end, it’s time to recap my recent two-week research visit to the Center for Contemporary Challenges at the University of Pécs in Hungary, hosted by Dr. Judit Farkas. This visit was generously supported by a mobility grant from the Frontiers of Arctic and Global Resilience (FRONT) research program at the University of Oulu.

    I had not been to Hungary since my PhD defense at Central European University, so I saw this visit as an opportunity to reconnect with the Hungarian research environment. The history of higher education in Pécs dates back to 1367, and, as you can see, the main university building looks quite a bit like Hogwarts (and feels like a labyrinth at times, too).

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  • Arctic just transition: project notes

    I just returned from Denmark after ten busy days spent at Skalling Laboratory in Southwestern Denmark and at Copenhagen Business School. It was quite surreal to land back in Oulu after the full bloom of spring in Copenhagen and to feel the touch of snowflakes. Yes, we are still in (Arctic) April!

    During the first week of the trip spent at Skalling Laboratory, we discussed the research outcomes of the project Towards a socially just transition in the Arctic: Exploring, theorizing and disseminating best practice in meaningful stakeholder engagement for communities (PI Karin Buhmann): an one-pager on meaningful stakeholder engagement and a collaborative scientific article. All of this with great views included.

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  • Productive Bodies, Care, and Destruction

    Back in 2021, I published an essay based on my article for the Nordic Journal of Science and Technology Studies in the No Niin student magazine. Here is the beginning of that text, accompanied by the amazing illustrations of Zacharias Holmberg.

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