EXALT Podcast

This month we were delighted to be joined by our colleague Jenni Viitala. Jenni did her PhD at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Helsinki and is currently working on a post-doc at Aalto University. In this episode, Jenni tells us about the work she undertook during her doctorate. This monograph explored how and where planetary metal supply chains connect and disconnect. In partic...

This month we are delighted to be joined by our colleague from Global Development Studies at the University of Helsinki, María Soledad Paz. Her research looks at the interplay of water and avocado plantations in central Chile. Currently, water is being diverted from rivers to feed the avocados which has deleterious effects on the land and the community that is dependent on the land. Small holder f...

This month we were delighted to be joined by a colleague from Social and Cultural Anthropology at University of Helsinki. Stefan Millar is a Social Anthropologist who specializes in the state, migration, colonialism, and infrastructures. Stefan is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care. Our conversation focused most directly on Stefan’s PhD...

This month we were honored to sit down with Professor Ortwin Renn to talk about the concept of polycrisis. Ortwin works with the World Academy Info Hub, Existential Threats and Risks to All InfoHub (EXTRA), as the Director of Systemic Risk Research. This episode is the second produced in collaboration with the join EXTRA/EXALT webinar “Is Extractivism a Prime Cause of the Polycrisis?” (see link be...

This month we are delighted to be in conversation with Thomas Reuter, a Professor at the Asia Institute of The University of Melbourne. His research focuses on transformative social change, food systems, and transitions to sustainability in Asia and beyond. He is on the board of the World Academy (WAAS) and serves as the Chair of the Existential Threats and Risks to All InfoHub (EXTRA) . In this c...

This month we were delighted to have a conversation with Vivian Price, a visiting researcher at the University of Helsinki. Presently she is working with Janette Kotivirta, Doctoral researcher in World Politics at University of Helsinki, on a video dialogue project on just transitions. Vivian comes to Helsinki from California State University Dominguez Hills, where she is a Professor in Interdisci...

In this very special bonus episode of the TreesForDev podcast we are joined by Project PI Maria Ehrnström-Fuentes and Péronne. Aude describes herself as catalyzer and designer for positive systemic change in local communities worldwide, with a special expertise on ecosystem stewardship and community development and the coordination of the commons. We start the conversation with insight into Aude’s...

This month we were delighted to be joined by Tom Royer who is a Visiting Researcher at the Arctic Centre and a Doctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Law at University of Lapland. Tom’s work revolves around commercial space ports in the arctic from a more-than-human perspective. This work combines critical legal studies, multispecies justice, and extractivism. These space ports are hubs where comme...

This month we are delighted to have a conversation with Sabaheta Ramcilović-Suominen, who is an Associate Professor in International Forest Policy and Governance at the Natural Resources Institute, Finland (LUKE). Saba talks to us about her contributions to the recently published, open access book, Socioecological Transformations: Linking Ontologies with Structures, Personal with Collective Change...

This month we are honored to be joined by Georgia de Leeuw who is a post-doctoral researcher in Human Rights Studies at Lund University. Georgia’s research has focused on Swedish mining and steel transition, in which steel is produced with hydrogen instead of coal. We start the conversation talking about Swedish exceptionalism and what this means in relation to mining. This opens into a more gener...

(UPDATE: Open access book out now! Link below) This month we are delighted to be joined by Markus Kröger, professor of Global Development Studies at University of Helsinki. Markus has joined the show before as a founder of the EXALT Initiative and as a PI in the Trees for Development project. This time Markus is here to talk to us about his new book from University of Cambridge Press, Clearcut: Po...

This week we had the pleasure to be joined by Nikolai Siimes, who is a more than human geographer at Waipapa Taumata Rau/The University of Auckland. In addition to his academic research, he has worked for almost a decade in the wine sector in different capacities. He describes his PhD as an ethnography of wine, which uses wine as a case to follow microbes and human–microbe relations in agriculture...

We are delighted to welcome Alexander Dunlap back to the EXALT podcast for a conversation about his latest work. Xander has been looking at rare earth element mining, lithium mining, and solar panel lifecycles in the United States. Right now, he is writing up the research on the disposal and decommissioning of solar panels, which is where our conversation kicks off. Xander found that even in highl...

This month we are joined by Taru Salmenkari who does research on Chinese NGOs. Taru has a long career studying China, NGOs, and the role of civil society. We are super lucky to catch Taru right as her new book comes out, Global Ideas, Local Adaptations: Chinese Activism and the Will to Make Civil Society . By “exploring the boundaries, fringes, and inner workings of civil society” this book “inves...

This month we are very excited to be trying out a different format as we are joined by two former guests, Manuela Picq and Markus Kröger. Manuela and Markus both have work related to resistance efforts and we thought that their respective work would come together into a quite interesting discussion. First each gives insight into their respective experiences and then we talk collectively about thei...

This month we had a compelling conversation with Manuela Picq, who is a Senior Lecturer in the Departments of Political Science and Sexuality, Women’s and Gender Studies at Amherst College (USA). However, this academic work is just part of Manuela’s life as she lives between Massachusetts and Ecuador where she is an activist defending the water and Indigenous livelihoods. Manuela blends academics,...

This month we are honoured to be joined by one of our colleagues from Global Development Studies at the University of Helsinki. Tiina Seppälä came to Global Development Studies by way of International Relations. Her work has looked at global inequalities, poverty, war, and social justice issues among many others. Activism is also an area of interest and Tiina has worked with peace activists in the...

In this bonus episode of the TreesForDev podcast we are delighted to be joined by Project PI, Maria Ehrnström-Fuentes and Maria Holmberg who works for FIDA in Tanzania. Maria H. moved to Tanzania with her parents when she was 1 year old, grew up there, and has been working with different development projects in Tanzania since 1984. Currently, Maria H. is working with tree planting and environmenta...

We are delighted to present a really interesting conversation on a yet unexplored facet of extractivism. This month we talked with Saana Hokkanen who is a doctoral researcher in Global Development Studies at University of Helsinki. Saana’s main interest is in the concept of soil extractivism, which is “is a form of capital accumulation based on systemic erasure of soils multispecies life.” Saana g...

This month we are honored to be joined by Evan Sullivan who is an assistant professor at SUNY Adirondack in Upstate New York. Evan is a historian whose research interests examine the intersections of disability, war and gender in the modern era, especially in the World War One era. Evan’s interest in this era stems from his master’s studies and from some of the archival collections that he found r...

This month we talked to Sergio Fernández Bravo, who is a fellow doctoral researcher from Global Development Studies at University of Helsinki. Sergio is interested in the relationship between natural sciences and politics, specifically in the Global South. His current research focuses on synthetic pesticides and how they are used as devices of power and influence the epistemic arrangements within...

This month we were honoured to be joined by Rauna Kuokkanen, a Research Professor of Arctic Indigenous Politics at the University of Lapland (Finland) and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto. Over the course of her career, Rauna’s work has focused on comparative Indigenous politics and various forms of violence, from structural settler-colonial to interpersonal gend...

This month we are delighted to be joined by Prof. Bruno Ramamonjisoa from the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar. Bruno is the Director of the PhD School on Natural Resources Management and Development and coordinator of the Applied Research Laboratory at the School of Agronomy. Bruno is one of our key collaborators in Madagascar and an expert on sustainable management of natural resources....

This month we are happy to be joined by Markus Kröger and Peter Dewees. Markus is a professor of Global Development Studies at University of Helsinki and one of the co-PIs of the TreesForDev Project. Peter is retired from a 30 plus year career with the World Bank. During his time with the World Bank Peter worked on many different projects, with a focus on why rural people cultivate and plant trees...

This month we are honored to be joined by Jojo Mehta from Stop Ecocide International, which is an international advocacy organization with the goal of making ecocide a crime. Jojo gives us insight into the continuous thread throughout her life that led her to this work. Her “outrage” moment was when she learned about fracking. Her work in the anti-fracking community introduced her to the late Poll...