EXALT Podcast

This month we are delighted to be joined by Mario Blaser. Mario is a cultural anthropologist and an Associate Professor of Geography and Archaeology at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. Mario has engaged in ethnographic work with communities in many different parts of the world, including in Paraguay and Canada. His fascination with how people lived in other places is rooted in his early ex...

In this episode we are joined by Marketta Vuola and Matthieu Pierre. Marketta is a project researcher from the TreesForDev project leading the work package on Madagascar. Matthieu Pierre is starting his PhD at the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar, focusing on protected areas and restoration in Madagascar. In this conversation we talk about the general context of Madagascar, including its h...

This month we are delighted to be joined by Andrea Brock, who is a political ecologist at University of Sussex. Andrea works with forest defenders and environmental movements looking at the responses from state and corporate actors to ecological dissent. Andrea shares with us the trajectory of her research career which was influenced by being brought up in the German Rhineland in proximity to the...

In this episode we are joined by Professor Steffen Böhm from University of Exeter School of Business and project PI and Associate Professor Maria Ehrnström-Fuentes from Hanken School of Economics. In this conversation we explore carbon markets and how they work (or do not work) and what their connection is to so-called green development. We talk about compliance markets and voluntary markets. In t...

In this episode we are joined by Forrest Fleischman from the University of Minnesota and the project principal investigator,  Maria Ehrnstöm-Fuentes from Hanken School of Economics.  Forrest gives us insight into the work he has done in the Indian context in relation to tree planting and the long-term outcomes of tree planting schemes. India has had a long history of tree planting programs, but ar...

This month we are delighted to welcome Maija Lassila back to the EXALT podcast for our second conversation. Maija is post-doctoral researcher at Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS) and recently received her doctorate from Global Development Studies at University of Helsinki. Maija takes to the North and gives us an overview of the work she did during her doctorate. We talk about...

In this month’s episode we are delighted to be joined by Brazilian agroecologist, Karen Nobre Krull, who has worked on projects in federal environmental and research institutions in Brazil, such as EMBRAPA and ICMBio, and in the last year with the NGO Imaflora. Her work focuses on developing strategies and implementing actions with rural communities for the agroecological transition of productive...

In this episode we are joined by Linda Annala Tesfaye and Bikila Warkineh. Linda is a project researcher from the TreesForDev project leading the work package that is looking at Ethiopia. Bikila is the Head of Plant Biology and Biodiversity Management at Addis Ababa University and works as Associate Professor of Ecology. His research centers on the broad area of the ecological sciences and ecosyst...

We are joined by Marketta Vuola from University of Helsinki’s Global Development Studies. In this conversation Marketta gives us insight into the work that she is doing in her doctoral research. She started her academic career interested in conservation and national parks, but during her field work she kept running into gold mining and its role in the rural areas of Madagascar. Marketta gives insi...

In this episode we are joined by Ossi Ollinaho and Natacha Bruna. Ossi is a project researcher from the TreesForDev project leading the work package that is looking at Mozambique. Natacha is scholar activist and researcher who is doing a post-doctoral project at Cornell University in the Global Development Department, previously she worked at our project partner at Observatório do Meio Rural (OMR)...

In this episode we are joined by Marketta Vuola and Zo Randriamaro. Marketta is a project researcher from the TreesForDev project leading the work package on Madagascar. Zo works for the Research and Support Center for Development Alternatives-Indian Ocean (RSCDA-IO) / Centre de Recherches et d’Appui pour les Alternatives de Développement-Océan Indien (CRAAD-OI). The RSCDA-IO / CRAAD-OI, which is...

This month we are really excited to have a conversation with Rubén Vezzoni, who is one of our University of Helsinki colleagues from the Doctoral Programme in Political, Soci­etal and Regional Change. His work looks at different aspects of the political economy of the EU’s green transition, with case studies on solar panels, hydrogen, and post-growth agri-food systems. In our conversation we focus...

This month on the EXALT podcast we are super excited to be joined by Xander Dunlap for a precedent-breaking third conversation. Xander is a research fellow at the Institute for Global Sustainability at Boston University and a visiting research fellow at Global Develop Studies at University of Helsinki. Xander talks to us about his new book from Pluto Press, “This System is Killing Us: Land Grabbin...

In this episode we are joined by Ossi Ollinaho and Máriam Abbas. Ossi is a project researcher from the TreesForDev project leading the work package that is looking at Mozambique. Máriam is a researcher from Observatório do Meio Rural (OMR), in Mozambique, who is coordinating the research line “Environment and Rural Areas”, which explores, among other topics, the impacts of climate change on agricu...

Welcome to the debut episode of the limited series TreesForDev project podcast. In this episode we are honored to be joined by the project principal investigators, Maria Ehrnström-Fuentes and Markus Kröger, from Hanken School of Economics and University of Helsinki respectively. In this conversation, they introduce us to who they are and what types of questions are being investigated in the TreesF...

This month we are overjoyed to be joined by fellow University of Helsinki Global Development Studies doctoral researcher, Martta Kaskien. Martta is currently working with the project Citizenship Utopias in the Global South: The Pursuit of Transformative Alternatives in Times of Civic Disillusionment. Her research is centred on feminist activist narratives in Kenya using ethnographic methods. She g...

This month we have a deeply interesting conversation with social anthropologist, Dr. Avi KBH, who is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the project Animal Crosslocations, which is resourced through the Resilient and Just Systems (RESET) Network at University of Helsinki. We talked about his new project, “Mosquito Crosslocations and Participatory Evaluations of Mosquito Interventions,” and the trajectory...

This month we were absolutely delighted to be joined by Joonatan Ala-Könni, for a super interesting conversation that connects natural sciences and extractivisms. Joonatan Ala-Könni is a doctoral researcher in Atmospheric Science at the Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR) at the University of Helsinki. Joonatan’s work is all about climate change and using insights gained fro...

To round out 2023, we wanted to release a brief episode to celebrate (over) four years of the EXALT Podcast and give a sneak peak at some exciting new happenings in 2024! We apologize for not being able to get a full anniversary special to you this year. We have had a lot on our plates with our respective research, as well as some major (positive) life changes. However, we are excited to announce...

This month we are ecstatic to bring you the second part of our conversation with the creators of From the Cubby. We are once again joined by the same wonderful trio of  guests, Joe Spence, Nick Chamberlain, and Avi Betz-Heinemann. From the Cubby , is a three-part documentary film series,  which draws on six years of ethnographic fieldwork in Canterbury, England. The first film follows Martin, a ma...

This month we were delighted to be joined by three amazing guests, Joe Spence, Nick Chamberlain, and Avi Betz-Heinemann (whose name you might recognize from last month’s episode). All three of our guests have been involved with the documentary film series From the Cubby , which draws on six years of ethnographic fieldwork in Canterbury, England. The film series draws its name from a makeshift enca...

This month we were delighted to be joined by Niti Bhan, who is a part-time doctoral researcher focusing on trans-disciplinary innovation at Aalto University in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Niti came to research after almost 30 years of situated practice. Niti specializes in human-centered design/innovation planning. This field asks question like, how can we understand people in their...

This month we are happy to welcome Ossi Ollinaho, a lecturer in Global Development Studies at University of Helsinki, on the podcast. In the conversation, we talk with Ossi about his journey from studying math and physics, to a Doctorate in Industrial Engineering and Management, to the experiences and questions which brought him to work in Global Development Studies. We also dive into how transiti...

This month we are thrilled to be joined by Eija Ranta, University Lecturer at University of Helsinki in Global Development Studies. Eija leads two Academy of Finland research projects, 'Social Justice and Raciality in Latin America’ (2021-2026) and 'Citizenship Utopias in the Global South: The Pursuit of Transformative Alternatives in Times of Disillusionment' (2019-2023). Eija’s curre...

This month we were honored to be joined by Toni Ruuska , who is a University Researcher and Adjunct Professor of Sustainable Economy at the University of Helsinki. His research focuses generally on alternatives to capitalism, agrarian political economy, and the skills of self-provisioning. In this captivating conversation, Toni lays out some of the issues with the perpetual growth model that is pa...