Nordia Geographical Publications
type: channel
description: 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.
publisher: The Geographical Society of Northern Finland and the Geography Research Unit
language: en
publication name: Nordia Geographical Publications
issn: 1238-2086
items: Tourism, Resilience, and Gender Relations: The Role of Tourism in Socio-Political Transformation in Iran
items: The Racialised Geographies of the Far-Right: Climate Politics in Finland and Russia
items: Rethinking spaces of education: a multi-sited study of youth educational paths in northern Finland
items: Addressing global change in northern environments: insights from spatial data and analysis
items: What on Earth is geodiversity?
items: Residential environment, physical activity and depressive symptoms in adults
items: Palsa mires of the Northern Hemisphere: environmental characteristics, degradation, and morpho-ecological state
items: Transformative Transparency for Local Natural Resource Revenue Management
items: The causes and consequences of 21st century global sea level rise on Morecambe Bay, U.K.
items: 2024 ice jams and spring flooding across Ostrobothnia: observations and prospects
items: Geomorphic evidence of extreme events in the High Arctic (Wedel Jarlsberg Land, Svalbard)
items: Freshwater plant macroecology needs to step forward from the shadows of the terrestrial domain
items: Dwarf shrub expansion and loss of lichens distinctly dominate multi-decadal changes in northern boreal understory plant communities
items: Social innovations for inclusive development in tourism – insights from Kemi, Finland
items: Oikeudenmukaisuuden maantiede: individuaatio, transformaatio ja perustuslaillinen lakimaisema
items: Quantitative geodiversity assessment in biodiversity investigations
items: Science–tourism intersections onboard Arctic expedition cruise ships: Reflective insights from a fieldwork at the geographic North Pole
items: The nightless nights of the ‘Nazi camp’: The Finnish far-right’s anti-climate politics in urban space
items: Political Geographies of the Far-Right: The Environment, Space and Ideology in a Warming World
items: Far-right localism as an environmental strategy in France
items: Hindutva Civilizationism in India: Unravelling the Human-Ecological Conditions
items: Shifting notions of the rural: Protests over traffic infrastructure and far-right normalization
items: The spatial politics of depoliticization: Visionary planning, bioeconomy, and forest capital
items: Green Großraum: Carl Schmitt’s political ecology of space
items: Looking beyond climate contrarianism: nationalism and the reterritorialization of climate discourse in Spain’s Vox party
items: Governing “decadent cities”: The far-right as agents of climate counterinsurgency
items: Imagining Finland: negotiating the sense of self through return imaginaries
items: Seeking common ground: On possible dialogues between Marxisms and Political Ontology
items: Editorial to Re-worlding: Pluriversal Politics in the Anthropocene
items: The Insurgent Universal: Between Eurocentric Universalism and the Pluriverse

Tourism, Resilience, and Gender Relations: The Role of Tourism in Socio-Political Transformation in Iran
type: item
description: 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 t…
subject: Doctoral thesis
  topic: section
creator: Adel Nikjoo
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Adel Nikjoo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-11-07
publication date: 2025-11-07
starting page: 1
ending page: 68
doi: 10.30671/nordia.176946

The Racialised Geographies of the Far-Right: Climate Politics in Finland and Russia
type: item
description: 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…
subject: Doctoral thesis
  topic: section
creator: Sonja Pietiläinen
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Sonja Pietiläinen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-09-26
publication date: 2025-09-26
starting page: 1
ending page: 58
doi: 10.30671/nordia.173286

Rethinking spaces of education: a multi-sited study of youth educational paths in northern Finland
type: item
description: 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 educat…
subject: Doctoral thesis
  topic: section
creator: Marika Kettunen
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Marika Kettunen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-08-07
publication date: 2025-08-07
starting page: 1
ending page: 56
doi: 10.30671/nordia.163587

Addressing global change in northern environments: insights from spatial data and analysis
type: item
subject: Editorial
  topic: section
creator: Eirini Makopoulou
creator: Henriikka Salminen
creator: Alun Hubbard
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Eirini Makopoulou, Henriikka Salminen, Alun Hubbard https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-07-25
publication date: 2025-07-25
starting page: 5
ending page: 8
doi: 10.30671/nordia.163413

What on Earth is geodiversity?
type: item
description: 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.
subject: Discussions and interventions
  topic: section
creator: Helena Tukiainen
creator: Maija Toivanen
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Helena Tukiainen, Maija Toivanen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-07-25
publication date: 2025-07-25
starting page: 79
ending page: 93
doi: 10.30671/nordia.163412

Residential environment, physical activity and depressive symptoms in adults
type: item
description: 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 mode…
subject: Doctoral thesis
  topic: section
creator: Marjo Seppänen
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Marjo Seppänen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-06-13
publication date: 2025-06-13
starting page: 1
ending page: 80
doi: 10.30671/nordia.162601

Palsa mires of the Northern Hemisphere: environmental characteristics, degradation, and morpho-ecological state
type: item
description: 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 proj…
subject: Doctoral thesis
  topic: section
creator: Oona Leppiniemi
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Oona Leppiniemi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-05-12
publication date: 2025-05-12
starting page: 1
ending page: 63
doi: 10.30671/nordia.161627

Transformative Transparency for Local Natural Resource Revenue Management
type: item
description: 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 Pelal…
subject: Doctoral thesis
  topic: section
creator: Primi Suharmadhi Putri
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Primi Suharmadhi Putri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-03-18
publication date: 2025-03-18
starting page: 1
ending page: 90
doi: 10.30671/nordia.159825

The causes and consequences of 21st century global sea level rise on Morecambe Bay, U.K.
type: item
description: 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.
subject: Research Articles
  topic: section
creator: Holly W. Watson
creator: Alun Hubbard
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Holly W. Watson, Alun Hubbard https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-07-25
publication date: 2025-07-25
starting page: 37
ending page: 57
doi: 10.30671/nordia.157096

2024 ice jams and spring flooding across Ostrobothnia: observations and prospects
type: item
description: 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.
subject: Discussions and interventions
  topic: section
creator: Marek Kasprzak
creator: Alun Hubbard
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Marek Kasprzak, Alun Hubbard https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-07-25
publication date: 2025-07-25
starting page: 95
ending page: 106
doi: 10.30671/nordia.156579

Geomorphic evidence of extreme events in the High Arctic (Wedel Jarlsberg Land, Svalbard)
type: item
description: 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.
subject: Research Articles
  topic: section
creator: Marek Kasprzak
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Marek Kasprzak https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-07-25
publication date: 2025-07-25
starting page: 21
ending page: 35
doi: 10.30671/nordia.147657

Freshwater plant macroecology needs to step forward from the shadows of the terrestrial domain
type: item
description: 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 …
subject: Discussions and interventions
  topic: section
creator: Janne Alahuhta
creator: Jorge García-Girón
creator: Eugenio Molina-Navarro
creator: Kevin Murphy
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Janne Alahuhta, Jorge García-Girón, Eugenio Molina-Navarro, Kevin Murphy https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-07-25
publication date: 2025-07-25
starting page: 69
ending page: 77
doi: 10.30671/nordia.149042

Dwarf shrub expansion and loss of lichens distinctly dominate multi-decadal changes in northern boreal understory plant communities
type: item
description: 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 fores…
subject: Research Articles
  topic: section
creator: Tuija Maliniemi
creator: Joonatan Lohi
creator: Janne Alahuhta
creator: Karoliina Huusko
creator: Risto Virtanen
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Tuija Maliniemi, Joonatan Lohi, Janne Alahuhta, Karoliina Huusko, Risto Virtanen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-07-25
publication date: 2025-07-25
starting page: 9
ending page: 19
doi: 10.30671/nordia.145998

Social innovations for inclusive development in tourism – insights from Kemi, Finland
type: item
description: 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…
subject: Doctoral thesis
  topic: section
creator: Mari Partanen
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Mari Partanen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-09-10
publication date: 2024-09-10
starting page: 1
ending page: 69
doi: 10.30671/nordia.147795

Oikeudenmukaisuuden maantiede: individuaatio, transformaatio ja perustuslaillinen lakimaisema
type: item
description: 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 t…
subject: Doctoral thesis
  topic: section
creator: Jukka Keski-Filppula
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Jukka Keski-Filppula https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-08-30
publication date: 2024-08-30
starting page: 1
ending page: 78
doi: 10.30671/nordia.147514

Quantitative geodiversity assessment in biodiversity investigations
type: item
description: 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 sustain…
subject: Doctoral thesis
  topic: section
creator: Maija Toivanen
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-08-23
publication date: 2024-08-23
starting page: 1
ending page: 70
doi: 10.30671/nordia.147478

Science–tourism intersections onboard Arctic expedition cruise ships: Reflective insights from a fieldwork at the geographic North Pole
type: item
description: 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.
subject: Discussions and interventions
  topic: section
creator: Alix Varnajot
creator: Élise Lépy
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Alix Varnajot, Élise Lépy https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-07-25
publication date: 2025-07-25
starting page: 59
ending page: 67
doi: 10.30671/nordia.146646

The nightless nights of the ‘Nazi camp’: The Finnish far-right’s anti-climate politics in urban space
type: item
description: 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.
subject: Discussions and interventions
  topic: section
creator: Sonja Pietiläinen
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-02-12
publication date: 2024-02-12
starting page: 123
ending page: 135
doi: 10.30671/nordia.143231

Political Geographies of the Far-Right: The Environment, Space and Ideology in a Warming World
type: item
subject: Editorial
  topic: section
creator: Sonja Pietiläinen
creator: Ville Kellokumpu
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-02-12
publication date: 2024-02-12
starting page: 5
ending page: 12
doi: 10.30671/nordia.143230

Far-right localism as an environmental strategy in France
type: item
description: 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.
subject: Discussions and interventions
  topic: section
creator: Lise Benoist
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Lise Benoist https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-02-12
publication date: 2024-02-12
starting page: 111
ending page: 121
doi: 10.30671/nordia.140962

Hindutva Civilizationism in India: Unravelling the Human-Ecological Conditions
type: item
description: 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’.
subject: Academic Essays
  topic: section
creator: Alexandra McFadden
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Alexandra McFadden https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-02-12
publication date: 2024-02-12
starting page: 83
ending page: 96
doi: 10.30671/nordia.121459

Shifting notions of the rural: Protests over traffic infrastructure and far-right normalization
type: item
description: 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.
subject: Research Articles
  topic: section
creator: Valentin Domann
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Valentin Domann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-02-12
publication date: 2024-02-12
starting page: 13
ending page: 38
doi: 10.30671/nordia.122137

The spatial politics of depoliticization: Visionary planning, bioeconomy, and forest capital
type: item
description: 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 pro…
subject: Doctoral thesis
  topic: section
creator: Ville Kellokumpu
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Ville Kellokumpu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-05-05
publication date: 2023-05-05
starting page: 1
ending page: 77
doi: 10.30671/nordia.129114

Green Großraum: Carl Schmitt’s political ecology of space
type: item
description: 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.
subject: Research Articles
  topic: section
creator: John Peter Antonacci
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 John Peter Antonacci https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-02-12
publication date: 2024-02-12
starting page: 63
ending page: 81
doi: 10.30671/nordia.121455

Looking beyond climate contrarianism: nationalism and the reterritorialization of climate discourse in Spain’s Vox party
type: item
description: 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.
subject: Research Articles
  topic: section
creator: Johanna Hanson
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Johanna Hanson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-02-12
publication date: 2024-02-12
starting page: 39
ending page: 61
doi: 10.30671/nordia.121511

Governing “decadent cities”: The far-right as agents of climate counterinsurgency
type: item
description: 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.
subject: Academic Essays
  topic: section
creator: Diren Valayden
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Diren Valayden https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-02-12
publication date: 2024-02-12
starting page: 97
ending page: 110
doi: 10.30671/nordia.121505

Imagining Finland: negotiating the sense of self through return imaginaries
type: item
description: 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’.
subject: Research Articles (Outside Theme)
  topic: section
creator: Evi-Carita Riikonen
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Evi-Carita Riikonen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-02-12
publication date: 2024-02-12
starting page: 137
ending page: 159
doi: 10.30671/nordia.113329

Seeking common ground: On possible dialogues between Marxisms and Political Ontology
type: item
subject: Discussions and interventions
  topic: section
creator: Carlos Tornel
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Carlos Tornel https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2022-05-06
publication date: 2022-05-06
starting page: 163
ending page: 174
doi: 10.30671/nordia.116928

Editorial to Re-worlding: Pluriversal Politics in the Anthropocene
type: item
subject: Editorial
  topic: section
creator: Carlos Tornel
creator: Aapo Lunden
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Carlos Tornel, Aapo Lunden https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2022-05-06
publication date: 2022-05-06
starting page: 1
ending page: 9
doi: 10.30671/nordia.116927

The Insurgent Universal: Between Eurocentric Universalism and the Pluriverse
type: item
subject: Discussions and interventions
  topic: section
creator: Japhy Wilson
rights: Copyright (c) 2021 Japhy Wilson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2022-05-06
publication date: 2022-05-06
starting page: 153
ending page: 162
doi: 10.30671/nordia.116150