Anna Niia Varfolomeeva

Tag: more-than-human

  • Summer gratitude

    So many things have happened in the past few weeks.

    We had a wonderful two-day retreat with our AniMate more-than-human research team: talking about small wins, sharing dreams, eating good food, and listening to the sounds of nature.

    I also met many inspiring researchers during the SAFIRE Thematic Semester event Bridging Ways of Knowing, where I talked about the interconnected industrial histories of Leppiniemi and Muhos, two small settlements near Oulu.

    Later in June, together with my student assistant Julia, I visited Muhos. We chose the venue for our upcoming community workshop and visited the local museum run by volunteers.

    There, next to the boat that once carried tar along the Oulujoki river, I learned that I had been awarded a four-year Academy Research Fellowship from the Finnish Research Council.

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  • Conversations at the edge of the world

    A conference where you are slightly afraid to leave the guesthouse because of the strong wind bending low-growing trees down. A conference set amongst stunning landscapes, where fish and chips are sold next to woolen sweaters, and coinciding with a traditional Faroese whale hunt. Yes, the UArctic Congress 2026 at the Faroe Islands (sometimes referred to as The Edge of the World) was a very unique conference experience.

    My participation was seemingly straightforward: I presented my research on the impact of energy transition on more-than-human landscapes in the panel on meaningful stakeholder engagement co-organized with my colleagues from UArctic Thematic Network on Arctic Sustainable Resources. However, large academic events represent much more than a presentation slot.

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  • Discussing sustainability from the margins

    The long-awaited edited volume “Decolonizing Sustainable Development Goals” has been published open access. I am extremely grateful to the editors for all their efforts in making this book available beyond library access and institutional affiliations.

    This book analyzes the well-known SDGs from a very important but rarely addressed angle: Indigenous and local perspectives. It shows why the goals cannot be taken for granted, but need to be critically discussed to limit conflicts and tensions during their implementation.

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  • Other worlds than these

    “Go then, there are other worlds than these.” The line from The Dark Tower came back to me when I encountered an inspiring quote by Elizabeth Povinelli that also resonates with my research:

    “But no world is actual one world. The feeling that one lives in the best condition of the world unveils the intuition that there is always more than one world in the world at any one time“ (Povinelli 2011, original emphasis).

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  • Time to pause and attend

    In just a couple of days, this Saturday, Finland will close down for Juhannus (Midsummer): the towns will be practically empty, and here in Oulu, even bus transportation will stop for a day. After almost five years, I’ve come to appreciate how the two main Finnish holidays, Joulu (Christmas) and Juhannus, reflect the yearly rhythms so well, highlighting the darkest and the lightest days of the year. Both of these focal points of the planetary cycle are met with quietness and apprehension.

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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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