NORDIA GEOGRAPHICAL PUBLICATIONS (NGP) is a non-profit, peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Geographical Society of Northern Finland and the Geography Research Unit at the University of Oulu.
The Geographical Society of Northern Finland and the Geography Research Unit
Tourism, Resilience, and Gender Relations: The Role of Tourism in Socio-Political Transformation in Iran
Tourism is widely recognized for its economic and developmental potential, but its capacity to facilitate socio-political transformation, particularly in authoritarian and theocratic contexts, remains relatively underexamined. This thesis focuses on the role of tourism in such transformation, analyzing how it interacts with state ideology that regulates bodily autonomy, mobility, gender roles, and public behavior. In these settings, tourism can create subtle spaces for negotiation, adaptation, and the quiet reordering of norms. This study examines how tourism contributes to socio-political, cultural, and gendered transformations through the frameworks of evolutionary economic geography and resilience thinking. The analysis is based on three months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted on Qeshm and Hormuz islands in Iran, utilizing participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Findings reveal that tourism can reconfigure both vertical (state–society) and horizontal (intra-community) power relations. Tourism helps women and youth to gain visibility, economic independence, and new forms of social legitimacy by creating gray zones where social norms can be contested without direct confrontation. Local inhabitants, particularly women, use the emergence of tourism as tool for direct income, reclaim public space, and challenge traditional gender power relations. The study demonstrates that resilience in these settings involves not only adaptation but also transformation, enabling communities to shape new socio-economic and cultural equilibria. The thesis offers several theoretical contributions. It aims to advance evolutionary economic geography by proposing path inclusivity as a critical dimension of regional development. By focusing on transformative resilience, this thesis seeks to reframe resilience as a political force capable of reshaping both ideological constraints and social hierarchies. The study also aims to expand cultural resilience discourse, and at the same time conceptualizes co-created authenticity to describe how cultural expressions emerge through dialogical interaction between locals and tourists. The research, therefore, positions tourism as a space of social transformation and contributes to broader debates on power, culture, and agency by showing how tourism-induced change, though incremental and uneven, can erode ideological controls and support gradual, culturally grounded shifts toward gender equality and social change.
Copyright (c) 2025 Adel Nikjoo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Racialised Geographies of the Far-Right: Climate Politics in Finland and Russia
As the climate crisis is worsening, we have witnessed a re-emergence of the authoritarian and racist far-right. The interdisciplinary scholarship on political ecologies of the far-right has shown that the far-right has found an array of different responses to the global ecological crisis. The far-right obstructs climate politics by disputing humans’ role in causing it and proposes border walls in the name of environmental protection of the ‘homeland’. Whilst studies have made a significant contribution to our understanding of the far-right’s role in the Anthropocene, the questions of race and racism have become the elephant in the room for a significant part of the scholarship. The role of race as an analytical focus is understudied and underconceptualised, and racism is either treated as ancillary to nationalism or as something that will happen in the fascist future. Building on theories on race and space and the racial Anthropocene, this doctoral dissertation advances research on the political ecologies of the far-right by investigating how the far-right reproduces and shapes racial ideologies and structures that underpin the climate crisis. In doing so, the dissertation analyses two far-right groups, the Finns Party in Finland and the Izborskii Club in Russia. Consisting of three independent research articles and a synopsis, this doctoral dissertation analyses how race is produced in their ecological and climate change-related politics by focusing on whiteness and fossil imperialism (Article I), racial ecologies (Article II), and climate obstruction and coloniality (Article III). By focusing on racism in the study of three examples of the far-right’s engagement with climate change and the environment, the doctoral thesis shows that through racist ecologies, such as environmental determinism and populationism, the far-right obstructs climate policies and reproduces the meaning of race by naturalising the uneven impacts of the climate crisis as an outcome of racial difference.
Copyright (c) 2025 Sonja Pietiläinen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Rethinking spaces of education: a multi-sited study of youth educational paths in northern Finland
This dissertation is situated at the intersection of geography, education and youth studies. It examines the transitional stage between lower and upper secondary education among 15–16-year-old young people in northern Finland. The decisions made during this stage are increasingly consequential in youth educational paths. In Finland, like elsewhere, youth education has become a central cog in the push to keep up with global competition and knowledge-based economization. However, concerns have been voiced over increasing spatial inequalities in and between different Finnish regions in terms of educational accessibility and educational attainment levels. To address the complexity of these spatial dynamics and tensions, this inquiry approaches youth educational paths as spaces of education. Drawing on relational theories of space and particularly the work of Doreen Massey, these spaces are considered as dynamically constituted across multiple sites and scales. The material used in the study comprises state education policy documents as well as materials generated during school visits in urban and rural northern Finland in 2019, including interviews with young people and ethnographic fieldnotes. The three sub-studies included in the dissertation explore how spaces are constituted at the intersection of policy, everyday life, and emotion. The study shows how the spaces of educational paths are constituted through state policies that dictate what kind of education is available and where. It brings to the fore how young people in northern and sparsely habited regions often face the expectation to be mobile when navigating their educational choices. The study also shows how these spatialities extend from policy spatialities to relations with and between different places at the site of young people’s everyday life. The study also highlights how spaces of youth educational paths entwine with emotions, discussing how the entwined emotional and spatial dimensions of youth educational paths entail a strong orientation toward futures – and how these futures pertain to imaginations about the state, northern regions as well as young people. This dissertation contributes to the rethinking of spaces of education via a multi-sited and multi-scalar approach that enables a nuanced understanding of the spatialities of youth educational paths. The study underlines that youth educational paths are not merely linear transitions from one educational stage to another but involve complex and dynamic spatialities at the nexus of policy, everyday life, and emotion. Such a spatially attuned reading highlights how spaces of youth educational paths and related inequalities are not fixed or uniform but are actively produced and thus open to change.
Copyright (c) 2025 Marika Kettunen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Addressing global change in northern environments: insights from spatial data and analysis
Copyright (c) 2025 Eirini Makopoulou, Henriikka Salminen, Alun Hubbard https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The concept of geodiversity is gaining recognition in many scientific fields, as well as in practical applications such as conservation and tourism. Although the importance of geodiversity is now widely accepted, its precise definition, scope and broader applicability continue to be debated and discussed. In this paper, we explore the variety of viewpoints that relate to geodiversity and scrutinize the importance of geodiversity for different audiences. These viewpoints include definitions, assessment, research fields, terminology and its applications. To help explore and convey the different viewpoints and values commonly attributed to geodiversity, we invoke the Rokua UNESCO Global Geopark in Finland as a specific case study. Finally, we present potential future directions for geodiversity research, including key knowledge gaps, and highlight the vulnerability of geodiversity to increasing human pressures that threaten its integrity and long-term sustainability.
Copyright (c) 2025 Helena Tukiainen, Maija Toivanen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Residential environment, physical activity and depressive symptoms in adults
Depression is, at its worst, a fatal disease and a significant factor threatening work ability. Recent studies have suggested physical activity as an effective treatment for depression. Scientific evidence on the beneficial association between physical activity and depressive symptoms is strong. Recently, studies have also highlighted the residential environment’s importance for both mental health and physical activity. Due to accelerating urbanisation, it is increasingly important to understand how our living environment affects our physical movement behaviour and mental health. This study’s aims were to I) compare the prevalence of depression symptoms in different countries, II) investigate how characteristics of the residential environment and physical activity are associated with depressive symptoms, and III) study how 24-hour movement behaviours (physical activity, sedentary time and sleep) are associated with depressive symptoms in urban and rural residents. The main data for the study were collected from individuals born in Northern Finland in 1966 when they were 46 years old (n=5,860). In addition, the first substudy utilised previously published research articles to compare the prevalence of depressive symptoms between different countries. The characteristics of the residential environment, based on the participants’ home coordinates, were examined using geographic information system methods. Physical activity was measured using both a questionnaire and accelerometer-based activity monitors that the participants wore for 2 weeks. Depressive symptoms were assessed in all studies based on the second version of the Beck Depression Inventory. The results indicated that depressive symptoms vary between countries. Higher urbanicity and population density of the residential environment were associated with a higher odds of more severe depressive symptoms, while higher greenness was associated with a lower odds of severe depressive symptoms. More time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity or sleep at the expense of light activity or sedentary behaviour within a 24-hour day was associated with lower depressive symptoms in those living in rural areas. According to this study’s results, preserving and increasing green spaces in urban planning and taking into account all the movement behaviours of the 24-hour day, for example in health care and physical activity recommendations, could be ways to decrease depressive symptoms at the population level. It is also important to consider the differences in movement behaviours between those living in urban and rural areas. Future research in longitudinal settings is needed to confirm causal relationships, in particular, between residential environment and depressive symptoms.
Copyright (c) 2025 Marjo Seppänen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Palsa mires of the Northern Hemisphere: environmental characteristics, degradation, and morpho-ecological state
Palsas are unique permafrost landforms that are found in the peatlands of discontinuous and sporadic permafrost regions across the Northern Hemisphere. Palsa mounds create diverse microhabitats for both plant and animal species, making them important features that support the biodiversity of periglacial environments. In addition to their ecological importance, palsa mires also are linked to the global carbon cycle and greenhouse gas emissions through permafrost degradation. Future thawing of permafrost is projected to release large amounts of greenhouse gases from northern peatlands, which can further accelerate global climate warming. Therefore, the changing permafrost dynamics make palsa mires an interesting and critical research topic, one that can help us to better recognize and understand the ongoing and future changes in periglacial environments. The main objective of this thesis is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the environmental factors influencing the occurrence and morpho-ecological state of palsa mires, and to predict future changes in palsa distribution. To achieve this, the thesis employs a multi-scale approach, integrating remote sensing data and statistical modelling across spatial scales ranging from circumpolar to local. First, the environmental characteristics of palsa mires in different parts of the Northern Hemisphere are examined by regional comparisons. Second, circumpolar changes in the suitable environments for palsas are predicted under three different future trajectories of greenhouse gas concentrations. Finally, the morpho-ecological state and degradation of palsa mires at the local scale are investigated in northern Finland. The results show that palsa mires occur in narrow but regionally varying environmental settings, with climatic factors and soil moisture conditions playing a key role in defining suitable environments for the landforms. Without effective climate change mitigation, environments suitable for palsas are projected to almost completely disappear in the northern permafrost region by the end of the century. This projection is consistent with observations showing the overall poor morpho-ecological state of Finnish palsa mires and their significant degradation over the past 50 years. The results also highlight the scale-dependent influence of environmental factors for the occurrence and state of palsa mires. While climatic factors were consistently important across spatial scales, the influence of seasonal freeze-thaw dynamics and soil moisture varied between larger-scale and smaller-scale studies. This thesis highlights the urgent need to understand the impacts of climate change on permafrost landscapes. The predicted dramatic loss of suitable environments for palsa mires underscores their vulnerability and the potential ecological consequences of their degradation. By integrating spatial modelling across different spatial scales, this thesis provides novel insights into the complex interplay between climatic and environmental factors governing the distribution and state of palsas. The results improve our understanding of the ongoing changes in the northern permafrost regions and provide valuable information to support policymakers in planning conservation efforts and in making sustainable decisions regarding permafrost regions and peatlands.
Copyright (c) 2025 Oona Leppiniemi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Transformative Transparency for Local Natural Resource Revenue Management
Extractive sector transparency has emerged as an important policy tool in addressing resource-related challenges. However, the implementation of extractive sector transparency initiatives has not often had transformative impacts on the ground. The initiatives often fall short in increasing public knowledge of the sector and revenue management, and fail in enhancing public’s capacity to discipline powerholders' behaviors. This thesis proposes that for a transparency initiative to be transformative, it needs to move beyond information disclosure and focus on the state-citizen interaction in natural resource revenue management. In this thesis, transformative transparency refers to a mechanism that simultaneously makes salient information available for the targeted citizen, promotes citizen action, and cultivates decision-maker sensitivity and responsiveness from the outset. The main objectives of this thesis are to identify and examine conditions that influence transparency transformative processes in natural resources revenue management and investigate how the design and implementation of localized transparency initiatives can be enhanced from the vantage points of citizens. To address these goals, this thesis answers the following overarching questions: 1) What elements are necessary for a transparency initiative to be transformative and how should they be integrated?; 2) What factors impact citizens’ involvement in the transparency processes?; 3) What are the key issues policymakers need to consider when designing a transparency initiative? This thesis answers these questions by assessing the transformative potentials of transparency initiatives and associated policies in places where (1) extraction activities take place, (2) transparency initiatives and associated policies are being implemented, and, importantly, (3) impacted citizens are living. Using a qualitative case study approach, the thesis focused on two oil-rich districts in Indonesia, Bojonegoro and Pelalawan Districts, that have designed and implemented localized transparency initiatives and related policies to improve their natural resource and their revenue management. It also assessed Indonesia’s Mineral and Mining Laws to investigate the rights and roles of citizens living in resource-rich areas as defined by the state throughout the development and governance of natural resources in Indonesia. Materials for this thesis were collected through 1) document analysis, 2) semi-structured and structured interviews, 3) informal discussions, and 4) non-participatory observations, all conducted in 2018–2022. This thesis shows that for a transparency initiative to be transformative it must simultaneously include three elements from the outset. These elements include information disclosure, citizen action, and accountability measures to ensure the state actively listens and responds to citizens’ concerns. This thesis develops Transparency Cube that integrates these elements as an analytical framework to design transformative transparency initiatives and assess the transformative potential of existing initiatives. Further, the thesis reveals that citizens’ involvement in transparency processes is influenced by their rights and roles stipulated in extractive sector legislation, the impact of extraction on their everyday lives, and the perceived political distance between citizens and their leaders. Moreover, this thesis highlights the importance of identifying the target audience and the contextual and spatial conditions of the place where targeted citizens live, and where the initiative will be implemented. All these are crucial considerations when designing a transparency initiative for a specific place. This thesis contributes to the academic and scientific discussions on transparency in extractive sector management in four ways. First, it adds to the discussions on what constitutes transformative transparency in the extractive sector and its revenue management. Second, the thesis proposes a Transparency Cube as an analytical framework to facilitate research on the effectiveness of transparency initiatives that work through state-citizen interaction. Third, it emphasizes the roles of place of extraction to influence citizens’ involvement within and throughout the transparency process. Fourth, it highlights the dissonance between the elite’s transparency narratives and citizens' interpretations of transparency in natural resources revenue management by focusing on the power dynamic between these groups. In conclusion, this thesis challenges the assumption that transparency can be universally applied across all locations and contexts, an assumption that often disregards the spatial and everyday realities of citizens affected by extractive industries. Instead, the thesis deals with the transformative process of transparency by investigating the design and implementation of localized transparency initiatives and related policies from the vantage points of citizens living close to extraction sites. It identifies the key elements necessary for transparency to promote transformative process and provides the proponents of extractive sector transparency and policymakers information about what they need to consider when designing, implementing, assessing, and promoting extractive sector transparency.
Copyright (c) 2025 Primi Suharmadhi Putri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The causes and consequences of 21st century global sea level rise on Morecambe Bay, U.K.
As 21st Century anthropogenic carbon emissions increasingly perturb Earth’s atmospheric composition, an accessible understanding of how greenhouse gas driven climate change manifests on natural and human systems becomes crucial to public awareness. Here, we investigate the contemporary causes and consequences of global sea level rise (SLR), focusing on the impacts of coastal flooding on Morecambe Bay, Northwest England. We review and summarize current literature regarding terrestrial ice loss and ocean thermal expansion, delving into the uncertainties and assumptions. We define three SLR scenarios through to 2100 AD: 1) the Green Road (GR: 0.44m SLR), 2) Business as Standard (BS: 0.77m SLR), and 3) Impending Doom (ID: 1.55m SLR). We adjust these SLR scenarios for regional isostatic and gravitational effects, and map them to local flood projections for Morecambe Bay. Even under the most optimistic – GR – scenario, we find permanent flooding is inevitable by 2100, necessitating adaptation strategies. Under BS and ID scenarios, significant inundation of industrial and residential areas is projected, with permanent displacement of up to 15,000 homes and moderate to severe disruption to national transport networks, including the UK’s West Coast rail-link. Moreover, national power and industrial infrastructure at Heysham Nuclear Power Station and BAE Systems, Barrow would be impacted under our worst-case scenario. Directed mitigation and informed decision-making are crucial for minimizing economic and social impacts, emphasizing a need for public awareness of the future impacts of environmental change and its local manifestation.
Copyright (c) 2025 Holly W. Watson, Alun Hubbard https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
2024 ice jams and spring flooding across Ostrobothnia: observations and prospects
Seasonal snow and ice play a key role in the hydrological regimes of Arctic and sub-Arctic river catchments that differentiate them from their lower latitude counterparts. Against a backdrop of assumed reduced spring flooding due to ongoing Arctic warming resulting in shorter winters with less snowfall, we examine the prevailing conditions that led to spring-melt flooding, its impact and mitigation management strategies across Northern Ostrobothnia in April 2024. We find that sustained freezing temperatures in early 2024, combined with thicker than average snowpack in March, preconditioned the region’s catchments to two episodes of flooding driven by abrupt warm events and widespread snowmelt in early March and April. Due to their predominantly shallow, east to west long-profiles, the region’s rivers received large fluxes of snowmelt runoff simultaneously along their entire courses, responding rapidly with rising levels and discharge. Thick river ice formed during the colder than average winter, causing ice jams at constricting pinch-points including bridges, dams and where rivers naturally shallowed or narrowed, leading to backup and flooding. Numerous effective civil interventions – including the release of discharge into managed agricultural areas – prevented extensive flood damage and major disruption to infrastructure other than temporary closure of some roads. We conclude that the event was pragmatically managed, precluding significant material damage and disruption. However, projected long-term climate scenarios indicating increased temperature fluctuations and extreme precipitation – including snowfall – events associated with intense warm air intrusions, coupled with potential meter-scale relative sea- and base-level rise could act in consort to increase the region’s winter and spring flood risk, rather than mitigate it.
Copyright (c) 2025 Marek Kasprzak, Alun Hubbard https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Geomorphic evidence of extreme events in the High Arctic (Wedel Jarlsberg Land, Svalbard)
Among the geomorphological processes determined by meteorological conditions, topography, and geological factors, floods and various mass movements have an extreme origin. In the High Arctic, which is the domain of cryogenic processes, extreme events can reach a scale and intensity never before observed, considering the exceptionally rapid environmental changes caused by global warming. It is widely believed that the frequency of extreme events will increase. However, knowledge about their past activity is limited due to the low population density in high-latitude areas and the deficit of adequate observations before the digital era. They are recorded in sediments and landforms, which require comparative analysis. This paper gives two examples of landforms resulting from extreme geomorphological events occurring in Wedel-Jarlsberg Land on the western coast of Svalbard (approx. 77°N). A basic description of an alluvial fan with an area of 0.067 km² was provided, resulting from mud-debris flows from the Steinvik Valley, likely due to water being pushed out of a shallow lake with an area of 0.022 km². The possibility of a landslide occurring in the postglacial period on the slopes of the Jens Erikfjellet massif was also indicated. The timing of the events is discussed based on the existing dating of raised marine terraces. The presented data come from preliminary studies, such as field observations, simple measurements, and GIS analysis of available digital materials. The outcomes can introduce a better understanding of the scale of extreme processes and the search for similar landforms. Such inventory has not yet been comprehensively conducted on Svalbard, even though extreme events commonly occur during the Holocene climate fluctuations in this area. Their frequency and scale remain unknown.
Copyright (c) 2025 Marek Kasprzak https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Freshwater plant macroecology needs to step forward from the shadows of the terrestrial domain
Freshwater plants, or macrophytes, make up only 1-2% of all plant species on Earth but play a crucial role in aquatic ecosystems. They are key to primary production, provide habitat and food for various organisms, and influence water quality. Despite their importance, freshwater plants face significant threats from global changes, which necessitates research at broader scales. Historically, freshwater plants have been less studied than terrestrial plants, partly due to a lack of global data and a focus on local scales by ecologists. Unlike terrestrial plants, freshwater plants do not always follow the same ecological patterns. In this text, we summarise current knowledge on three well-known macroecological patterns and how they differ between freshwater and terrestrial plants: latitude-species richness gradient, Rapoport’s rule and species replacement vs. species richness differences of beta diversity. For example, terrestrial plants follow the latitudinal diversity gradient hypothesis, whereas species richness peaks in the sub-tropics for freshwater plants. Although findings on Rapoport’s rule are less clear, research on terrestrial plants in North America shows that turnover (i.e., species replacing each other) is more significant in areas with high species richness and environmental stability, whereas nestedness (i.e., species composition at one site is a subset of a richer site) is more common in species-poor areas with high environmental variability. For freshwater plants, beta diversity patterns vary with latitude, but species replacement generally dominates over nestedness. Overall, freshwater plants exhibit unique macroecological patterns that differ from terrestrial plants, highlighting the need for more extensive research to understand their biodiversity and ecological roles. This can be achieved with more harmonized data sets and equal research efforts in both realms. Better knowledge of macroecological patterns and their drivers for freshwater plants is crucial for conservation efforts and policy-making aimed at preserving plant species diversity and sustaining ecosystem services in freshwater environments.
Copyright (c) 2025 Janne Alahuhta, Jorge García-Girón, Eugenio Molina-Navarro, Kevin Murphy https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Dwarf shrub expansion and loss of lichens distinctly dominate multi-decadal changes in northern boreal understory plant communities
Northern boreal forests and treelines are particularly sensitive to the current climate change that has already resulted in increased productivity, shrub expansion and up- and northward shifts of species. However, these changes are expected to be gradual or lagged due to slow process rates, and can be buffered to some extent by large herbivores. Multi-decadal observations of understory change in northern boreal forests remain scarce, particularly those involving bryophytes and lichens despite their importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Here, we analyse temporal changes in understory plant communities of northern boreal forests in Saariselkä, Finland (68.46° N, 27.37° E) that were originally sampled in 1981. We resurveyed plant communities (vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens) at 22 sites (including 88 vegetation plots) in 2014 and at 80 sites (320 plots) in 2022 in different forest site types. Reindeer grazing was moderate throughout the study period (1.5–2.0 reindeer/km²), while mean annual temperature rose over 1°C. We found clear temporal shifts in plant communities towards increasing dwarf shrub dominance and decreasing lichen cover and diversity, which were consistent across the study area and within different site types. However, the increase in dwarf shrubs was species-specific: the cover of bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus), crowberry (Empetrum nigrum) and lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) had increased over time, while the originally most dominant species, heather (Calluna vulgaris), had decreased and become subordinate to all the above. The observed changes reflect a shift into moister conditions and are likely linked to both succession and climate change. Long-term reindeer grazing is most likely the key driver reducing lichen cover, which may be further affected by the dwarf shrub expansion. The consistency of the observed changes in different site types is indicative of corresponding changes occurring elsewhere in northern boreal forests with comparable environmental conditions and grazing pressure. Importantly, our results raise concerns about the local disappearance of lichens if the declining trend continues.
Copyright (c) 2025 Tuija Maliniemi, Joonatan Lohi, Janne Alahuhta, Karoliina Huusko, Risto Virtanen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Social innovations for inclusive development in tourism – insights from Kemi, Finland
Tourism is known to bring various benefits, especially in areas where services, employment, and vitality are needed. Yet, local people can be excluded in tourism development processes and as users of tourism services. Such exclusive development can reduce community resilience by focusing on the economic needs and innovations of the industry rather than widely addressing local wishes. As an alternative, inclusive development in tourism emphasizes acknowledging local perspectives and making tourism more beneficial for both locals and tourists. Acknowledging diverse community perspectives, leaving no one behind in development, and maximizing positive tourism impacts are central for enabling more sustainable tourism development, alongside the overarching need for environmentally sustainable tourism. However, research on different community perspectives towards inclusive development in tourism has remained limited. In addition, studies on the means for changing the exclusive development paths are highly needed. This thesis suggests that the diverse perspectives towards tourism development and the means for change can be studied through social innovations. Social innovations can be transformative, multi-sectoral, cooperative processes and outcomes that create social value. They provide alternative options for business-focused innovations and development processes in tourism. Social innovations and tourism are studied in Kemi, Finland, where tourism has been strongly developed in recent decades. Through an ethnographic approach, local views on tourism are examined via three perspectives: the public sector actors not usually included in tourism development; the actors working directly in tourism; and local young people who are traditionally very little heard in tourism development. It is elaborated what kinds of needs for change the three community groups identify in relation to tourism and what kinds of initiatives have been or are hoped to be carried out for realizing the change. Three actualized social innovations and three social innovation propositions are introduced and their contribution to inclusive development and community resilience-building, in relation to tourism, is examined. The aim of the thesis is to examine tourism through social innovations as part of inclusive development and community resilience-building and to further evaluate the potential of social innovations to enhance sustainability. Thus, it is studied how social innovations contribute to inclusive development and community resilience-building in relation to tourism and, in this context, to sustainability; how different local community members (public sector actors, actors working directly in tourism, and young people) perceive tourism development and tourism in Kemi; and how social innovations contribute to inclusive development and community resilience-building in relation to tourism and, further, to sustainability in Kemi. The findings indicate that locals identify needs for more inclusive development in tourism in terms of services and co-operation in development. Local social innovations (a cooking club and a youth service centre) not directly linked with tourism can provide insights of how tourism could benefit wide needs in communities. Social innovations in tourism (a locally embedded tourism development project renewing an old industrial island into a recreation area) and social innovation propositions in tourism (a platform for enhancing the flow of information regarding tourism; and a movie theatre or a petrol station for finding a space for hanging out) can diversify available services for addressing local needs. Thus, the results show that social innovations can help with shedding light on the entangled nature of tourism and communities and bring understanding of the context of tourism development by noticing the local challenges and needs as well as novel possibilities and ideas for change. In particular, social innovations can challenge the status quo of tourism by bringing out non-traditional perspectives in development and by redirecting the focus of tourism towards local needs, beyond the usual business-centred perspectives. Furthermore, social innovations can bring value that is first and foremost social, yet also potentially economically and environmentally relevant. In addition, they can provide a methodological tool for tourism development. In these ways, social innovations enhance inclusive development in tourism and build community resilience, as well as contribute to enhancing sustainability. Particularly, social innovations can help in narrowing down the wide sustainability goals into practical processes. Yet, it is also important to remember that the value social innovations create can be perspective dependent. Thus, the thesis argues that 1) social innovations can challenge the state of tourism development by emphasizing socially embedded development over business-focused processes and initiatives, 2) social innovations can enhance inclusive development and build community resilience by directing tourism towards local needs and by identifying non-traditional perspectives in planning and development, and 3) social innovations can contribute to enhancing sustainability, yet the contribution requires critical evaluation as well because social innovations do not necessarily holistically address the sustainability issues of tourism. Conclusively, inclusive development and community resilience-building informed by social innovations can, eventually, contribute to enhancing sustainability and its core idea of leaving no one behind in development, as well as to the need to minimize the negative impacts of tourism and maximize the positive. However, their contribution to comprehensive sustainability requires also critical evaluation and further research, especially by acknowledging the interlinked needs for sustaining socio-environmental systems at multiple scales.
Copyright (c) 2024 Mari Partanen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Oikeudenmukaisuuden maantiede: individuaatio, transformaatio ja perustuslaillinen lakimaisema
The doctoral dissertation is located in the field of geography of justice and is also the first Finnish dissertation research related to the geography of justice. The dissertation research creates new theoretical and empirical openings for the discussion on spatial justices and geographies of justices, in which the research participates in the form of three sub-publications and a summary section that synthetically connects them. The research builds one perspective on the geography of justice by combining the geographical research approach with the philosophical, jurisprudential, and historical research approaches. The main results of the dissertation have been substantiated with the help of three articles. Article I discusses the development of knowledge describing spatial justice in the context of the philosophical-scientific struggle. The key results of the first publication emphasise the importance of interaction between different research traditions and the importance of critical evaluation between presuppositions for the development of new knowledge. The theoretical framework of Article I provides a theoretical basis for Articles II and III, which empirically examine the evaluation procedures and their justifications in municipalities and welfare regions. The findings emphasise how a predictive awareness of the evaluation procedures related to conceptions of spatial justice guides the operation of municipalities and welfare areas. In the dissertation, the perspective of the geography of justice is examined in the context of the Finnish state and municipalities. The dissertation research emphasises the importance of individuation, transformation, and the constitutional legal landscape in the development of the relationship between the Finnish state and justice. Spatial individuation means that the Finnish state space involves historically constituted benefits and burdens striving to be transformed, that is, reconstituted. The study emphasises the importance of the constitutional legal landscape as a particular characteristic of the Finnish state. The democratic processes produced by the legal landscape are seen as the most important state force producing spatial justice. The dissertation strives to challenge the understanding of spatial justice or injustice universally, underlining how spatial justice, as an ontological-epistemic phenomenon, cannot be understood through the presuppositions created by one theoretical tradition alone. In addition to the conceptual contribution related to the geography of justice, the dissertation provides new knowledge of the background and context of the state-led assessment procedures targeting municipalities and welfare areas, their implementation processes, and consequences from the viewpoint of municipalities. Moreover, it offers an interdisciplinary spatial justice perspective and a discussion of the foundation of the Finnish state, the development of the municipal and regional structure after the civil war, and the relations between Finland and the European Union. By highlighting the understanding of relativity related to the object of justice and spatial conceptions of justice, the dissertation increases awareness of the space for togetherness created by fundamental rights, and hence builds a bridge for cooperation in both scientific and societal life.
Copyright (c) 2024 Jukka Keski-Filppula https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Quantitative geodiversity assessment in biodiversity investigations
Despite the growing recognition of geodiversity in recent years, it remains overshadowed by its biotic counterpart, biodiversity. The objective of this thesis is to narrow this gap by advancing the quantitative assessment of geodiversity within the context of biodiversity. The main objective is to provide a theoretical and methodological framework for the study of landscape-scale geodiversity in biodiversity investigations, with some insights for nature conservation. To achieve this goal, I will I) review the theory of the geodiversity–biodiversity relationship, II) empirically test the relationship in Finnish freshwater ecosystems, and III) provide data and methods for Europe-wide geodiversity and biodiversity studies. By employing quantitative geographical research methods inspired by ecological research traditions, I investigate the relationship between geodiversity and biodiversity across aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Empirical investigations revealed positive correlations between geodiversity and vascular plant species richness in distinct studies conducted in Finland and Switzerland, across both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. This aligns with the theoretical assumption that geodiversity fosters greater biodiversity. Moreover, the Europe-wide geodiversity data produced within the thesis provides ready-to-use variables for future biodiversity investigations across the continent and contributes to large-scale geodiversity assessment in general. In conclusion, I recommend further development of geodiversity assessment methods and the establishment of systematic frameworks for various research contexts. Such actions would facilitate the implementation of standardized and reproducible research practices, thereby helping to unlock geodiversity’s potential in biodiversity and conservation research and in practice. Integrating geodiversity systematically into conservation and policy making is essential to fully acknowledge its crucial role in shaping sustainable future. By broadening perspectives on natural diversity beyond biodiversity alone, this thesis seeks to enhance general understanding and appreciation of geodiversity.
Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Science–tourism intersections onboard Arctic expedition cruise ships: Reflective insights from a fieldwork at the geographic North Pole
In August 2023, we both embarked on an icebreaker cruise ship in order to conduct fieldwork with and among cruise passengers and together with four other scientists. Departing from Longyearbyen, Svalbard, this two-week ship-time fieldwork took us to the geographic North Pole, across the Arctic Ocean sea ice, and to several locations in northern Svalbard. While cruise vessels operating as platforms of opportunity for researchers are not new, cruise tourism in the polar regions has raised ethical and sustainable concerns in times of increasing awareness regarding climate change. In addition, cruises bringing together tourists and scientists are currently objects of vivid discussions both in academia and the media. Drawing from our ship-time fieldwork experience, we aim to contribute to these recent debates. Building on the work of Lamers et al. (2024), we argue that misunderstanding on the concept of platform of opportunity can lead to potentially poor data collection, scientists’ disappointment, and detrimental reputation for both science and tourism actors. We argue that carefully selecting research projects that align with the specificities of expedition cruise tourism, and facilitating nighttime research are effective strategies to avoid these misunderstandings. This may also enhance the credibility of cruise companies that may often be accused of science- and greenwashing.
Copyright (c) 2025 Alix Varnajot, Élise Lépy https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The nightless nights of the ‘Nazi camp’: The Finnish far-right’s anti-climate politics in urban space
The globally growing climate justice movement has drawn attention to the accelerating climate change and the structural changes that climate mitigation would require. At the same time, there has been a surge and normalization of radical and extreme right-wing groups and parties. Their central element is not only ethno-nationalism and authoritarianism but also anti-climate politics, as they seek to obstruct climate politics, mobilize anti-scientific fictions and discredit scientists and activists. The far right’s intimidation of climate justice activists has been studied by examining its textual and visual discourses in online spaces, but less attention has been paid to far-right anti-climate practices in urban spaces. Drawing on social movement geographies, I aim to contribute to the discussions on far-right anti-climate politics by analysing the spatial strategies of the Finnish far-right’s counterprotests (the so-called ‘Nazi camp’) during Extinction Rebellion Finland’s ‘Summer Rebellion’ in June 2021 in Helsinki. By doing so, I show that far-right anti-climate politics (in the form of climate scepticism and intimidation of climate activists) are not limited to online spaces but emerge through different strategies in urban spaces by which the far-right competes for control over space and visibility and shapes public narratives of climate change and politics.
Political Geographies of the Far-Right: The Environment, Space and Ideology in a Warming World
Far-right localism as an environmental strategy in France
This paper discusses the promotion of localism as an environmental strategy by actors on the French far right. Far-right localism constitutes an example of mutating far-right ecological discourses on the denialism-ecofascism spectrum that further promotes far-right ideology under a ‘green’ banner. In this commentary I use empirical examples from the far right in France to show how this localism, which advocates a nativist rootedness in an exclusionary local, is upheld as a prerequisite for effective environmentalism. Such a strategy mobilises a reactionary conceptualisation of place that defends an exclusionary attachment to the local environment. Far-right localism feeds and revolves around an identitarian, naturalist and organicist conception of ecology typical of far-right ecologies, as well as the wish to supplant the left/right divide with a global/local one. This paper brings into conversation the fields of human geography and the political ecologies of the far right to contribute to a better understanding of constructed meanings of place by far-right actors in the context of climate change and ecological degradation. It furthermore encourages scholars across fields to keep investigating and disentangling complex affinities between ideologies of nature, identity (re-)production, belonging and resistance in conceptualisations and meanings of place.
Copyright (c) 2022 Lise Benoist https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Hindutva Civilizationism in India: Unravelling the Human-Ecological Conditions
India’s Hindutva movement, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, has risen to power in the world’s largest democracy and second-most populous country. Various scholars have examined how Hindu nationalism is rooted in civilizational themes; others have examined how ancient Hindu elements are employed in BJP environmental politics. Yet a comprehensive and interdisciplinary conceptualization of civilizationism that places it, firstly, at the heart of Hindutva and, secondly, confronts it as not solely a discursive or thematic tool but as the manifesting of physical control over citizens’ relationships to their material environment is lacking. This means approaching ‘civilization’ in the far right as a human-ecological structure and not only a historical bedrock of ethno-territorial and theocratic power. In order to conceptualize Hindutva civilizationism, I re-examine two well-known cases of Sangh Parivar environmental politics: (1) Hindutva geography and spatial violence; and (2) anti-meat and cow vigilante politics. Beyond serving as a discourse that ignites violence and far-right extremism, I showcase how the sounding board of ‘civilization’ encapsulates the relationship between sociopolitical and environmental far-right objectives, highlighting the ways that far-right civilizationism seeks to define human relationships with natural and built environments. Conceptualizing civilizationism in this way strengthens understandings of how the racial, ethno-national, and religious features of far-right politics are rooted in ecological doctrine that is often based on the social-material features of past ‘civilization’. This supports the primordial significance of civilizationism in far-right ideology beyond only the white supremacist far-right and ‘Western Civilization’.
Copyright (c) 2022 Alexandra McFadden https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Shifting notions of the rural: Protests over traffic infrastructure and far-right normalization
Current far-right attitudes to the climate crisis are highly ambivalent, oscillating between the glorification of nature and ideological fragments of “fossil fascism”. Invocations of “the rural” serve as semantic mediations, enabling populist radical right parties (PRRPs) to apply seemingly frictionless and multi-scalar narratives of far-right ecology to rural protests. Applying relational and scale-sensitive approaches can help to disentangle how far-right discursive and political effort ties into and transforms spatial imaginaries. This paper discusses the role of rurality for populist scalar re-articulations and the impact of the latter on local communities. Drawing on findings from a qualitative longitudinal study in small towns in Brandenburg, Germany, the paper shows how local PRRP chapters create a specific notion of ‘rural rationality’ that helps to normalize far-right politics and politicians at the local scale, contrasting a proclaimed albeit abstract cordon sanitaire.
Copyright (c) 2022 Valentin Domann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The spatial politics of depoliticization: Visionary planning, bioeconomy, and forest capital
Depoliticization is a pivotal political strategy that defines the contemporary governance of core capitalist democracies. This thesis asks how depoliticization manifests itself as a political strategy in the spatial restructuring of the Finnish state space. The spatial politics of depoliticization are examined by the three thesis articles, which focus on visionary planning in urban politics, the legitimation of the forest bioeconomy in the public sphere, and Finnish forest capital’s attempt to influence the state’s strategic direction. These perspectives provide a holistic view of the various depoliticizing and politicizing tendencies, as well as the political and economic contradictions affecting spatial change in Finland. The thesis examines the societal base of depoliticization by focusing on how capitalist social relations and the capitalist mode of production condition the constitution and differentiation of societal spheres. The differentiation of the economic and the political sphere and the resulting ecological dominance of “the economy” under capitalism provides a unique setting for depoliticization to appear in the form of economization. Acts of demarcation between the political and the economic spheres are based on ontological abstraction, which then faces humanity as a real and concrete product of social activity. The thesis applies strategic-relational state theory and the theories of uneven development to examine depoliticization. Depoliticization emerges in the context of competing growth models that have a diverging conception of the spatial division of labor in Finland. Amidst urbanization, the urban growth-focused city-regionalist model posits a “winner takes all” spatial structure in which a few select urban areas compete against their global counterparts to attract capital and investment. In contrast, the bioeconomy model seeks to halt the rural decline by transforming the resource-dependent regional economies into ostensibly more sustainable production models, thereby reinvigorating a dispersed spatial structure. Article I analyzes the depoliticization of visionary planning in the case of the Oulu City Center Vision 2040 project by observing and engaging with policy documentation, research reports, planning events, and the vision itself. Article II examines the depoliticization of the bioeconomy in the context of the 2019 parliamentary elections in Finland through a collection of newspaper articles and items between July 2018 and January 2020. Article III investigates the forest conglomerate UPM’s attempt to politicize the Kaipola paper mill shutdown in August 2020 by using statistical data, the public strategies of UPM, and the online and news media around the Kaipola debate. The cultural political economy (CPE) approach developed prominently by Jessop and Sum forms the overarching methodological framework of the thesis and focuses on the dialectics of materiality and discursivity in political-economic imaginaries. The thesis applies CPE-inspired critical discourse analysis to examine the spatial politics of depoliticization. The overall contribution of the thesis reveals how the material interdependence of the political sphere with other societal spheres and the social totality of capitalist society produces a specific place for politics that conditions its operational autonomy. The spatial politics of depoliticization are unfolded through the divergent political-economic imaginaries of state spatial development to which different capital fractions, political parties, and regional and class interests are attached. Conceptual stretching and expansive uses of depoliticization are recognized as key and very vexatious problems in the literature. To retain the analytical clarity of depoliticization, the thesis argues that depoliticization should be better grounded in the material developments of each context, evading pan-politicism with more exclusive notions of politics, and even radically decentering politics and the political in the analyses of depoliticization. The normative critique of depoliticization should move from the level of critiquing politics to a critique of the social totality which produces a specific place for politics.
Copyright (c) 2023 Ville Kellokumpu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Green Großraum: Carl Schmitt’s political ecology of space
How scholars conceptualize the driving forces of planetary crisis is intimately connected to how they conceptualize solutions to it. Recent scholarship has drawn on the work of Carl Schmitt, Nazi jurist and political philosopher, to articulate concepts in political ecology. These works of political ecology, however, do not engage with the problematic political history of the work and concepts developed by Schmitt. This article asks: what kinds of assumptions do we adopt when deploying Schmitt’s geographical, political, and ecological conceptual apparati? First, the article draws on the work of Minca and Rowan (2015, 2016) and Giaccaria and Minca (2016) to argue that Schmitt’s thought is geographical, that Nazi geographical thought was intimately tied to geographies of conquest on the part of the Nazis. It argues that Schmitt’s concept of Großraum or “greater space/ sphere of influence” is bound up with Schmitt’s and the Nazi’s politics of an ethnically/ racially motivated politics of “Friend versus Enemy.” The article then evaluates Schmitt’s concept of the political and considers its implications in relation to the environmental crisis of contemporary conjuncture, arguing that Schmitt’s amorphous conceptualization of the political allows the distinction between friend and enemy to be left open to interpretation, making it possible for both intellectuals and green political parties to articulate xenophobic and reactionary political positions in environmental terms.
Copyright (c) 2022 John Peter Antonacci https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Looking beyond climate contrarianism: nationalism and the reterritorialization of climate discourse in Spain’s Vox party
Among European populist radical right (PRR) parties, the call for environmental protection has historically been embedded in ethnic nationalist ideas of the interrelation of land, nation, and culture. Despite a large body of literature on PRR environmentalism, however, the PRR’s climate politics remain understudied. This qualitative study investigates the climate politics of the PRR by analyzing climate discourse from Spain’s Vox party. A discourse analysis of party manifestos, press releases, and public statements from 2017–2022 investigates Vox’s discursive constructions of climate change and its potential solutions. The study finds that, although the party acknowledges climate change, it does so inconsistently, and its proposed climate policies do not fundamentally shift its nativist and populist political imagination. Instead, its discourse portrays multilateral climate action as a threat to the nation and locates climate solutions in the preservation of ruralism, traditional livelihoods, and national identity. The article argues that Vox constructs a nationalist climate discourse that reterritorializes climate change on the national level, asserts national innocence in the face of claims of global climate justice, and frames mainstream climate action as part of a broader globalist imposition that threatens the purity of national culture. The article concludes with reflections on what nationalist climate discourse may mean for attempts to mitigate the climate crisis.
Copyright (c) 2022 Johanna Hanson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Governing “decadent cities”: The far-right as agents of climate counterinsurgency
Ecological crisis has given rise to a range of discussions over “climate fascism,” “green nationalism,” “fossil fascism,” and “eco-fascism.” Several authors have advanced the thesis that climate adaptation will be shaped by an increase in authoritarian politics or an uptick in organized violence (e.g. at the borders of nation-states) as states deploy counterinsurgency tactics against climate refugees and environmental activists. My article inverts this proposition by arguing that far right politics emerges as a contingent possibility in the mode of counterinsurgency governance. I propose the framework of “relations of counterinsurgency” as a means of understanding how counterinsurgency manages crises of urban governability by remaking the spaces of uneven urbanization. I then argue that to theorize contemporary far right climate politics, we should ask what the term eco-fascism does rather than what it is. My argument is that, as climate change makes increasing claims upon political institutions, relations of counterinsurgency allow far right actors to constitute their agency and subjectivity.
Copyright (c) 2022 Diren Valayden https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Imagining Finland: negotiating the sense of self through return imaginaries
When embarking on a migration journey, migrants cultivate personal ideas of themselves ‘here’ and ‘there’. This includes one’s reflections about a possible return – the return imaginaries. They emerge from the time-, place- and person-specific ideas, attitudes, feelings and possibilities before, and after, relocation. Through a digital ethnographic study, this paper seeks to expand the research done on how the so-called ‘middling’ migrants negotiate the sense of self through return imaginaries. I discuss one such group, Finns, in the UK and ask ‘what is the role of return imaginaries in negotiating the sense of self in Finns’ translocal place-making in the UK?’. The results show that Finns’ return imaginaries function as a framework for positioning and reaffirming the self in relation to the UK and Finland during one’s migration trajectory. In relation to their idea of return, Finns negotiate the questions ‘who am I?’ and ‘who do I want to be?’. Through reflecting on the everydayness in the UK and Finland, and their ideas about return visits, Finns produce a ‘translocal sense of self’.
Copyright (c) 2022 Evi-Carita Riikonen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Seeking common ground: On possible dialogues between Marxisms and Political Ontology
Copyright (c) 2022 Carlos Tornel https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Editorial to Re-worlding: Pluriversal Politics in the Anthropocene
Copyright (c) 2022 Carlos Tornel, Aapo Lunden https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Insurgent Universal: Between Eurocentric Universalism and the Pluriverse
Copyright (c) 2021 Japhy Wilson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0