Fennia - International Journal of Geography
Fennia is a non-profit peer-review journal published by the Geographical Society of Finland since 1889. It is an international scientific publication dedicated to all fields of geography with attentiveness to northern dimensions. In 2010, Fennia became an open access electronic journal with two yearly issues. It is devoted to a fast publication process, including the open access publication of forthcoming papers before inclusion in an issue. The journal has no submission or article processing charges, and authors retain all rights to their work throughout the publication process and after publication. We appreciate that authors clearly bring up that the text has been originally published in Fennia. We also offer the opportunity to publish short, popularized texts based on research articles through the Versus platform that aims to make research more visible, dialogical and effective in societies. FENNIA publishes papers of high scholarly merit capable of making theoretical and methodological contributions to geographical scholarship. We appreciate in depth empirical enquiry from different parts of the world but do not publish descriptive analyses with merely empirical relevance. While FENNIA welcomes manuscripts that engage in multidisciplinary discussions, they are expected to draw from and contribute to contemporary debates in geography. The journal seeks to take forward geographical research and discussion in a critical and responsible spirit. In addition to individual contributions, we welcome proposals for special sections and dialogical book reviews. Submissions are welcomed in three categories: research papers, reviews and essays, and reflections. Research papers are original full-length articles that make a significant contribution to geographical scholarship. Reviews and essays may introduce empirical, theoretical or methodological insights, and they are peer reviewed by request. We also selectively publish literature reviews and book review dialogues. Reflections section includes commentaries, debates, discussion pieces, interventions and other argumentative short texts related to contemporary issues, including commentaries to FENNIA articles stemming from open review processes. The fully open access Fennia publications are under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). The journal is member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and follows the peer review standards set by the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV). It is indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and the Thomson Reuters Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), and is part of the Free Journal Network and the Open Journals Colletive (OJC). The main language of the journal is English.
Authors who publish with Fennia agree to the following terms: Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. The license of the published metadata is Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0). Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a doctoral dissertation or book compilation), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
Lectio praecursoria: Fire, peat, and power: governing socio-environmental change in Indonesia’s oil palm frontier
<span class="NormalTextRun SCXW245923464 BCX0" data-ccp-parastyle="Kirjan nimi" data-ccp-parastyle-defn="{"ObjectId":"b240aaa5-cbc1-5008-83b3-75db2ea56f22|1","ClassId":1073872969,"Properties":[469777841,"Open Sans",469777842,"Arial",469777843,"Calibri",469777844,"Open Sans",469769226,"Open Sans,Times New Roman,Calibri",268442635,"34",335559705,"1035",335559731,"0",335559740,"276",201341983,"0",335559739,"200",201342446,"1",201342447,"5",201342448,"1",201342449,"1",201341986,"1",469775450,"Kirjan nimi",201340122,"2",134234082,"true",134233614,"true",469778129,"Kirjannimi",335572020,"1",335551500,"0",335551550,"6",335551620,"6",469777929,"Kirjan nimi Char",469778324,"Normal"]}" data-ccp-parastyle-linked-defn="{"ObjectId":"f1d96f61-b69d-5624-a9ac-c789f843461e|1","ClassId":1073872969,"Properties":[201342446,"1",201342447,"5",201342448,"1",201342449,"1",469777841,"Open Sans",469777842,"Arial",469777843,"Calibri",469777844,"Open Sans",201341986,"1",469769226,"Open Sans,Arial,Calibri",268442635,"34",469775450,"Kirjan nimi Char",201340122,"1",134233614,"true",469778129,"KirjannimiChar",335572020,"1",134231262,"true",335551500,"0",335559705,"1035",335551547,"1035",469777929,"Kirjan nimi",469778324,"Default Paragraph Font"]}">During my doctoral defence at Department of Geography and Historical Studies, University of Eastern Finland on 9th of December 2023, I introduced doctoral research with the present lectio praecursoria. This lectio examines how peatland governance unfolds in the context of recurrent fires and rapid agrarian transformation in Sumatra, Indonesia. Tropical peatlands are among the most significant global carbon stores, yet they have become highly vulnerable to fire, particularly in Indonesia where large-scale burning events in 2014, 2015, and 2019 affected millions of hectares. The study explores four interrelated dimensions: the transformation of peatlands into oil palm plantations and the changing configurations of property rights; the shifting responsibilities and relationships between advocacy and service Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (ENGOs); the capacities mobilised by multiple actors to generate collaborative governance; and the conditions under which conflicts over peatland water management may shift towards collaboration. Drawing on a qualitative case study approach in Riau Province, the research combines participant observations, interviews, document analysis, and spatial analysis to examine governance practices across scales. The findings reveal that peatland transformation is not only a material process but also a reconfiguration of property regimes, often moving from formal state control to de facto open access, with significant implications for fire use and land management. At the same time, the responsibilization of non-state actors has reshaped the roles of ENGOs, generating both cooperation and tensions rooted in unequal resources and constrained autonomy. The study further shows that collaborative governance emerges through everyday practices of coordination, knowledge sharing, and resource mobilisation, as illustrated by community-based fire management initiatives. Finally, it highlights how uncertainty, interdependence, and the role of convener can enable shifts from conflict to collaboration in peatland water governance.
Copyright (c) 2026 Rijal Ramdani http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Countermapping planetary urbanization(s): socio-spatial ontologies of hegemonic whiteness, sustainability narratives, and grassroots solidarity praxis in Malmö
<span class="NormalTextRun SCXW193243609 BCX0" data-ccp-parastyle="font-claude-response-body" data-ccp-parastyle-defn="{"ObjectId":"679f3b2c-153b-5071-bf1d-4b0991a9f682|1","ClassId":1073872969,"Properties":[469777841,"Times New Roman",469777842,"Times New Roman",469777843,"Times New Roman",469777844,"Times New Roman",469769226,"Times New Roman",335559740,"240",201341983,"0",335559739,"0",201342446,"1",201342447,"5",201342448,"1",201342449,"1",201341986,"1",268442635,"24",469775450,"font-claude-response-body",201340122,"2",134233614,"true",469778129,"font-claude-response-body",335572020,"1",134233118,"true",134233117,"true",469778324,"Normal"]}">Planetary urbanization theory has become a central framework for analyzing urban transformation within global capitalist systems. Yet de/anti/postcolonial and feminist critics have called for a more nuanced engagement with the social ontology of the urban. They insist on treating urbanization as open-ended and contingent, and on centering everyday resistance, the lived experience of racism and injustice, and alternative spatial imaginaries rooted in solidarity and radical relationality. Drawing on these critical debates, this article examines the social and spatial ontology of crisis narratives and ‘sustainable urban development’ imaginaries. It focuses on Malmö, Sweden’s third-largest city and a prominent migrant city, as a site where neoliberalization, post-industrial transformation, and the rise of far-right politics intersect. Three questions guide the analysis: first, how hegemonic planetary urbanization entangles with coloniality, whiteness, and dominant sustainability discourses in the Swedish context; second, what alternative forms of planetary urbanization might be imagined from grassroots solidarity urbanism grounded in anti-colonial, anti-racist, and caring practices; and third, what kinds of transformative sustainability and planning narratives might emerge from such imaginaries. The article engages critically with both hegemonic and counter-hegemonic forms of planetary urbanization. It maps how hegemonic whiteness, with its racial and colonial politics of space, environment, and housing, underlies dominant visions of sustainable urban development. It then turns to emerging grassroots, anti-racist, and anti-colonialist socio-spatial practices as expressions of an anti-hegemonic planetary urbanization. Building on this analysis, the article articulates a transformative imaginary for sustainable urban development and planning rooted in an urbanism of radically relational solidarity, one that reframes prevailing debates on socio-spatial and environmental ontology and opens space for more just and inclusive urban futures.
Copyright (c) 2026 Burcu Yigit Turan http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Finnish active reservists’ militarism and voluntary national defence participation
The Russian attack on Ukraine stirred the Finnish society and set off a wave of national defence volunteerism. While voluntary participation in national defence is not a new phenomenon in Finland, volunteers have received little academic attention outside the armed forces, but this trend is now turning. This article helps us to better understand the personal motives that influence national defence volunteering as well as how the relationship between citizens and the state is visible in the context of national defence. The results are tied to discussions about spatial belonging, militarism and citizenship and the article calls for a need to further refine the understanding of legitimation of violence within critical military studies. Using interview data, the article links motivation to issues such as the perceived threat from Russia and the transgenerational passage of values. Issues that frame the relationship between active reservists and the state includes, agency within state structures and the shared responsibility of national defence.
Copyright (c) 2026 Antti Ensio Tiilikainen http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The importance of spatial attachments among older adults — commentary to Landby and Godtman Kling
This commentary was inspired by the open peer review of Landby and Godtman Kling’s (2025) paper, ‘Living close to nature: how older adults in Sweden navigate relocation in later life’. Their study focuses on how nature influences older people's relocation decisions, a topic highly relevant in mature welfare societies. The results showed that older adults deeply value proximity to nature, particularly those with lifelong connections to it. This encourages older adults to move closer to nature; the closer they live to it, the more often they can enjoy it. However, as Landby and Godtman Kling point out, many factors, ranging from individual issues to social regulation, limit older people’s ability to move. More broadly, the study contributes to the ongoing debate about the extent to which the well-being of older people is the responsibility of society and, on the other hand, of the individuals themselves.
Copyright (c) 2026 Ella Mustakangas http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
From psychoanalysis to the psychoanalytical act: Review of Erik Hansson’s The Begging Question: Sweden’s Social Responses to the Roma Destitute
This review focuses on Erik Hansson’s The Begging Question. It is a magnificent book that is both beautifully written and develops a highly innovative, perceptive, and incisive analysis of the political, economic, and cultural processes shaping the issue of (Roma) begging in public spaces in Sweden over the past two decades. The book’s argument combines critical political economic analysis with psychoanalysis, resulting in an insightful and pioneering perspective that opens a vital area for considering progressive action and politics aimed at creating a more inclusive society in a world increasingly leaning towards the conservative Right. In this engagement paper, I want to explore some of the ways in which psychoanalytical thought is indispensable and insightful when considering the future of progressive politics more broadly speaking beyond the specific questions that the book explores.
Copyright (c) 2026 Erik Swyngedouw http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Explorations on a topological map of hegemony: Review of Erik Hansson’s The Begging Question: Sweden’s Social Responses to the Roma Destitute
In this review of Erik Hansson’s The Begging Question: Sweden’s Social Responses to the Roma Destitute, I explore the book’s critical excavation of the circular logics that produce begging as a social and moral problem in Sweden. Drawing on Lacanian and Marxist theory, Hansson traces how begging produces anxiety by challenging Sweden’s self-image as a welfare state. This review focusses on Hansson’s intriguing ‘topological map of hegemony’, which models the interrelations of ideology, social conditions, national mythology, racialization, and unconscious processes. In my critical reading, I probe the limits of Hansson’s sophisticated analysis by asking whether psychoanalytic insights might destabilize rather than reinforce Marxist frameworks. Bringing Hansson’s analysis into conversation with Graeber and Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything (2021), I contemplate whether alternative, nonhegemonic understandings of need and reciprocity may unsettle the very category of ‘begging.’ The review closes by reflecting on the affective dynamics of begging across contexts, from Sweden to the United States, and on the possibility of counter-histories in which asking and giving are normalized acts of shared humanity.
Copyright (c) 2026 Anna Secor http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Not taking ‘no’ for an answer: Review of Erik Hansson’s The Begging Question: Sweden’s Social Responses to the Roma Destitute
Erik Hansson’s book is first described in general terms. The commentary then focuses on three salient aspects: the relentlessly consistent performative character of the narrative; the challenging and innovative combination of historical-materialist, anti-racist and psychoanalytic theoretical frameworks; and finally, the larger symbolic significance both of the issue of begging in 21st century globalized capitalism and of mainstream Swedish political culture’s profoundly damning abdication of the kind of humane social policy for which it had previously been known.
Copyright (c) 2026 Matthew Hannah http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
“Two small people in a war against the whole state”: Feminist geolegal analysis of mixed-citizen couples’ accounts of deportability
In this article, I analyse how Finnish women and their non-citizen spouses are affected by deportations. I analyse their accounts of deportability from the perspective of feminist geolegality that integrates legal geography and feminist geopolitics, enabling the co-constitutional analysis of, on the one hand, law and space, and on the other hand, intimate and global spheres. Based on my 15 in-depth individual or pair interviews with eight Finnish women and their four non-citizen spouses, conducted in 2022–2023, I enquire how they experience the threat of deportation in their everyday lives and in administrative processes. The spouses have sought residence permits from Finland first based on asylum and then based on family ties. My analysis pays attention to these couples’ descriptions of their homes and of their bodies — the two spaces of particular importance in the studies of feminist geolegality. My analysis of these intimate spheres resonates with the investigation and reinterpretation of the concept of intimate war that enables us to focus on the issue of power in relation to law and space.
Copyright (c) 2026 Eveliina Lyytinen http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The pet transition: towards a new regime of anthropozoological relations
<span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166841911 BCX0" data-ccp-charstyle="author-a-z71zz79zz81zlfynfvnv9bkz85zz72z" data-ccp-charstyle-defn="{"ObjectId":"a68e522e-a439-5ac2-9537-c7b4a043c43c|1","ClassId":1073872969,"Properties":[201342446,"1",201342447,"5",201342448,"1",201342449,"1",469777841,"Calibri",469777842,"Arial",469777843,"Calibri",469777844,"Calibri",201341986,"1",469769226,"Calibri,Arial",268442635,"22",469775450,"author-a-z71zz79zz81zlfynfvnv9bkz85zz72z",201340122,"1",134234082,"true",134233614,"true",469778129,"author-a-z71zz79zz81zlfynfvnv9bkz85zz72z",335572020,"1",469778324,"Default Paragraph Font"]}">The aim of this article is to formalise a model that can account for a contrasting, but global, dynamic that is seeing a rise in the numbers and desirability of pets, and is now being extended to the Global South. Our proposed ‘pet transition’ model offers a relational and evolutionary analysis of the connections among three major categories of animals (pets, livestock and wildlife) over four periods. It is a heuristic and comparative tool that contributes to a geography of pets and to the broader conversation about evolving human-animal relations in the Anthropocene. The issue of what a pet is, the role of companionship, and the different perceptions of the owner-pet relationship as an axiological model of relations with animals cast light on the role of veterinarians, the agri-food industry, the press, and animal studies in the recomposition of anthropozoological relations. The paper discusses the boundaries between animal categories, the narratives around domestication, and the idea of a new animal regime centred on pets. It calls for further work to be done to document the diversity and contrasts in human-animal relations in regard to the proposed pet transition model.
Copyright (c) 2026 Jean Estebanez, Alice Franck, Jean Gardin, Sophie Moreau http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Mobile ideas of economic science: the coming of Keynes’s general theory to Finland
<span class="NormalTextRun SCXW188680908 BCX0" data-ccp-parastyle="Abstract" data-ccp-parastyle-defn="{"ObjectId":"fe0017e7-5150-5d7c-ac64-5f509ec11579|1","ClassId":1073872969,"Properties":[268442635,"22",335559740,"360",201341983,"0",469777841,"Times New Roman",469777842,"Times New Roman",469777843,"Times New Roman",469777844,"Times New Roman",469769226,"Times New Roman",469775450,"Abstract",201340122,"2",134234082,"true",134233614,"true",469778129,"Abstract",335572020,"1",335559685,"720",335559737,"567",335559739,"300",335559738,"360",469775498,"Keywords",469778324,"Normal"]}">This article examines the geographical dimensions of the arrival and reception of Keynes’s economic ideas in Finland from the late 1930s onwards. Specifically, the study focuses on how Keynes’s 1936 book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money found its way to Finland, how was it received and interpreted. Although the reception of Keynes’s ideas has been studied in various national contexts, Finland has received comparatively little attention. This article addresses that gap while also developing a theoretical framework for analysing the mobility of scientific ideas geographically. It brings the historical geography of science into conversation with policy mobility literature and adapts three concepts: scientific site, translation and assemblage. Furthermore, the article presents spatially informed narrative explanation and comparative content analysis as methods to meet the demands of the presented theoretical framework. Empirically, it examines the sites of economic science in Finland, focusing on their institutional settings, key actors, and knowledge practices. It also situates these sites within broader regional contexts, demonstrating how interpretations of Keynes’s theory were shaped by specific intellectual traditions, institutional structures, and historically contingent conditions thus producing a unique assemblage through a specific translation process. By comparing interpretations of Keynes’s book in Finland to those in the United Kingdom (Cambridge Keynesian) and Sweden (Stockholm School of Economics), the study highlights the specificities of the Finnish engagement with Keynes’s economic ideas.
Copyright (c) 2026 Jussi Anton Johannes Ahokas http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Lectio praecursoria: Pathways to pro‑environmental education
This lectio, presented on 10 October 2025 at the University of Eastern Finland, introduces the topic of my doctoral dissertation, the motivations behind it, the methodological approach, and the main findings. Climate change and other environmental problems challenge our education system. Changes in human behavior are needed, but changing personal behavior is challenging. Providing students with environmental knowledge is not enough. It rarely translates into pro-environmental behavior and may even lead to feelings of despair. Instead, environmental education must also foster students’ action competence. My doctoral dissertation seeks to uncover practices that can promote pro-environmental behavior among adolescents in the school context. The dissertation provides a holistic picture of pro-environmental education, drawing on three empirically and methodologically distinct articles. The first sub‑study examines qualitative findings from primary studies on the enablers and barriers to adolescents’ pro‑environmental behavior. The second sub‑study presents environmental education expert teachers’ perceptions of environmental education and their students’ environmental literacy. The third sub‑study focuses on students’ perceptions of the eco‑club and its influence on its members and other students. The school context of environmental education is formed by various actors. Based on my results, carrying out pro-environmental education in the school context is often challenging. The actors experience internal pressure from the upper levels of the actor chain, while having limited opportunities to communicate with and influence the upper levels from below. The results of this dissertation show that, despite the challenging state of environmental education, there is cause for optimism. Pro‑environmental education requires a holistic approach in which all actors within the school context are committed to a shared goal, support one another, and communicate their needs and achievements as they work toward this goal.
Copyright (c) 2026 Anssi Huoponen http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Landscape, Law and Justice: the significance for legal scholarship: Review of Michael Jones, Amy Strecker, Gunhild Setten & Don Mitchell’s (eds.) Landscape, Law and Justice—20 Years
Landscape, Law and Justice—20 Years is an edited collection that will no doubt be viewed as a seminal text in landscape studies. It is based on the papers presented at a symposium to mark the 20th anniversary of the publication of the conference of proceedings of the Landscape, Law and Justice research group at the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo in 2002–2003. This review is not a traditional critique of the book but provides some reflections from the perspective of a law academic with a particular focus on regulatory and governance approaches to environmental protection in Wales. In doing so, the aim is to consider how the book can contribute to wider scholarship in law and efforts to address the climate and nature crises.
Copyright (c) 2026 Victoria Jenkins http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Editors’ response to four reviews of Landscape, Law and Justice—20 Years
The four editors of the anthology Landscape, Law and Justice—20 Years have written a joint response to four reviews of the book as part of a Fennia book review forum. Besides giving a short account of the background to the Landscape, Law and Justice project, the response discusses several issues brought up by the reviewers. One issue concerns the degree and character of Nordic-ness in the Landscape, Law and Justice approach. The editors note that the approach, although to a large extent derived from Nordic empirical examples, interacts with international conceptual literature. Further, the approach is not exclusively Nordic but also has relevance for post-colonial situations in the Global South. Other issues discussed in the response include the complexity of terms such as ‘landscape’ and ‘community’, the significance of different types of law ranging from customary law to international law, the relationship between environmental law and legal geography, the need for increased awareness of the entanglements between different concepts of landscape and of law, and the concern with what constitutes landscape justice. The response concludes with a discussion of different ways in which the Landscape, Law and Justice approach is relevant for understanding and finding solutions to present-day and future challenges.
Copyright (c) 2026 Michael Jones, Don Mitchell, Gunhild Setten, Amy Strecker http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Looking back at "Landscape, Law and Justice". Validating a paradigm or reminiscing a project?: Review of Michael Jones, Amy Strecker, Gunhild Setten & Don Mitchell (eds.) Landscape, Law and Justice—20 Years
The review examines the main arguments brought to the fore in Landscape, Law and Justice—20 Years, an edited volume reflecting on two decades of scholarship emerging from the Landscape, Law and Justice research project. The volume can be said to collectively challenge the representational emphasis of late twentieth-century cultural geography by redefining landscape as a materially grounded and normatively structured arena shaped by law, custom, morality, and social struggle. Across the contributions, landscape is approached not merely as a way of seeing but as a political and legal formation produced through historical practices, property relations, participation, and contestation. A central tension is identified within the volume between approaches emphasising long-term continuities of customary landscapes and those foregrounding conflict, inequality, and the continuous reproduction of injustice through social relations. The review further analyses how the contributors connect landscape studies with diverse questions such as commons, extractivism, planning, participation, affect, and more-than-human relations, thereby also extending debates on landscape justice beyond traditional human-centred frameworks. While the volume does not portray “Landscape, Law and Justice” as a unified paradigm or theoretical school, the review argues that its lasting contribution lies in establishing an enduring interdisciplinary dialogue linking human geography, landscape history, legal studies, and critical social theory through shared concerns with materiality, morality, and justice.
Copyright (c) 2026 Maunu Häyrynen http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Framing planetary geographies: a geographical reading of Sagan's Pale Blue Dot
This reflection piece explores what can be learned from Sagan’s book Pale Blue Dot (1994) when viewed through a geographer’s lens. From this perspective, three themes are identified: (1) the view of nature, (2) urban and rural dimensions, and (3) environmental change. These themes are examined in relation to contemporary Nordic examples, highlighting societal challenges linked to changing natural environments due to climate change. Sagan urges us to understand events in specific places and how they interrelate with other places - whether locally, globally, or on a planetary scale. Building on this, I propose to revisit the question: Why like this, right here? As a starting point for capturing Earthly multitudes.
Copyright (c) 2026 Per Göransson http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Nordic landscape traditions: Review of Michael Jones, Amy Strecker, Gunhild Setten & Don Mitchell’s (eds.) Landscape, Law and Justice—20 Years
This book review of the edited volume Landscape, Law and Justice gives a general sense of the collection and highlights authors’ contributions to the Nordic tradition of landscape study. The volume came from a 2022 symposium and is reviewed as representing the developments in a Nordic landscape canon specifically grounded in the idea of landscape-as-polity even as it also is an important contribution to international landscape study more broadly.
Copyright (c) 2026 RIch Schein http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
‘A beggar’s banquet of unsavoury things’: Review of Erik Hansson’s The Begging Question: Sweden’s Social Response to the Roma Destitute
A book review essay is provided, centring on Erik Hansson’s 2023 book The Begging Question: Sweden’s Social Response to the Roma Destitute. Noting precedents of geographers critiquing the ‘Swedish model’ of an equality-based, anti-racist ‘welfare state’, the review encapsulates – and in places queries – key moves taken across the two main parts of the book. Special attention is paid to the psychoanalytic perspectives adopted in part one to dovetail with the political-economic critique offered in part two, acknowledging the gains and challenges in splicing together theories of ‘abjection’ with theories of ‘the Other’. Hansson’s final proposals for a new stance on ‘equality’, different from the fantasy of Sweden’s originary ‘exceptional equality’, are also inspected.
Copyright (c) 2026 Chris Philo http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Geography educators and conservation practitioners should partner for solutions-oriented training of emerging conservationists
Biodiversity conservation in regions like the Amazon requires a new generation of leaders equipped with both environmental awareness and applied geographic skills. Geography education is uniquely positioned to build this capacity. I argue for deeper collaboration between educators and conservation practitioners to create dynamic, data-driven curricula grounded in real-world socioecological challenges. Such partnerships can empower students to contribute meaningful spatial analyses and communication products while fostering global citizenship and 21st-century stewardship. Strengthening the bridge between geography education and applied conservation is essential for preparing emerging leaders to navigate the complex, interconnected drivers of biodiversity loss.
Copyright (c) 2026 Brian Griffiths http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Pursuing just landscapes: Review of Michael Jones, Amy Strecker, Gunhild Setten & Don Mitchell’s (eds.) Landscape, Law and Justice—20 Years
The volume, Landscape, Law and Justice—20 Years, revisits two decades of scholarship examining landscapes as socially constructed, relational sites shaped by law and justice. The collection, derived from a 2022 symposium, foregrounds the continuity of relational landscape analysis while reflecting on its evolving insights and contributions. Twelve chapters, authored by both original conveners of the Landscape, Law and Justice (LLJ) group, as well as newer scholars, address the influence of the LLJ perspective, its current status, and its potential relevance to pressing societal challenges. While many chapters emphasize reflection on past scholarship, there are compelling arguments advanced throughout the volume affirming landscape analysis as a critical heuristic for law, justice, and cultural understanding.
Copyright (c) 2026 Stephen Przybylinski http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Beforemaths: an agenda for research on wars to come
This editorial calls for a reorientation of scholarly approaches to war by proposing the concept of “beforemaths”. While existing research has documented the effects of war and developed conceptualisations of military violence, the authors identify three shortcomings in current scholarship: the limited impact of documenting transgressions in a climate of impunity; the gradual uptake of conceptual interventions; and a tendency to study war retrospectively, beginning from its sites of violence. In response, the editorial proposes shifting attention from where military violence goes to where it is made. The notion of beforemaths refers to communities and places implicated at war's illusory beginnings and to the complex supply chains involved in preparing for war, including extraction, procurement, engineering, testing, and logistics. This perspective highlights how contemporary warfare is rooted in geological processes, particularly the extraction and use of critical minerals and fossil fuels, and how these processes already involve ecological degradation and public health effects. Focusing on beforemaths also enables an understanding of the war industry as ubiquitously local yet globally interconnected. Extensive networks of suppliers, contractors, and production sites link diverse communities to military production prior to combat. This orientation opens methodological possibilities, including the use of accessible data such as disclosure requirements and Freedom of Information requests, as well as engagement with civil society actions that trace and disrupt military supply chains. By foregrounding the anticipatory dimensions of war, the concept of beforemaths provides a way to connect extractive origins, industrial processes, and eventual military violence, and to orient research toward accountability and the conditions that enable war.
Copyright (c) 2026 Mark Griffiths, Kali Rubaii, Kirsi Pauliina Kallio, James Riding http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Locality and environmental differences in cycling: symbolic struggle between small-town transport subcultures in Finland
Infrastructure efficiency and ‘urban access’ are emphasized in social and geographical studies on cycling, revealing important information about the social aspects of cycling. The cultural transition that has occurred with the spread of urban cycling, not only as a practical mode of transportation but as an identity structure, has gained attention recently. This article discusses the spatial dynamics of the sustainable transport transition by exploring how an urban cycling culture is adopted in a remote provincial town in Finland. To do so, it focuses on the local conditions influencing cycling identity as a transport subculture in a city with an emerging cycling culture. The approach requires separation of ‘sustainability’ into two dimensions: the technical or rationally calculated concept and the culturally constructed symbol. This enables an analytical distinction between the rational and emotional aspects of environmental concerns. The bicycle is considered an important symbol of the green transition and low carbon regimes. The theoretical framework employed is based on the tension between the different rationales of transport subcultures and how that tension is shaped by the centre/periphery relation that links the subject with a larger discussion on a spatially just green transition. Through 15 in-depth interviews with cyclists and analysis of SMS texts on cycling published in a local newspaper, the article uncovers how the dynamics of different transport subcultures are affected by the specific local cultural context. The site-specific thematic analysis shows a spatially changing analytical frontier that highlights local competition for hegemony over the environmental agenda. It clearly shows that while the general conflict between transport subcultures sustains the scalar transition, its participants also exploit this traditional centre/periphery setting either by complaining about the slowness of development or by criticising definitions of good transportation which come from outside.
Copyright (c) 2026 Simo Häyrynen http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The limits to psychoanalysis: a response to Hannah, Philo, Secor, and Swyngedouw
Engaging four reviewers of The Begging Question, this article reflects on what psychoanalysis can and cannot do for social-geographical inquiry. The author concedes that Lacanian theory, while illuminating the unconscious structures of antipathy toward EU déclassés in Sweden, struggles to account for historical change — a gap that only historical materialism can adequately fill. Rather than abandoning either framework, the article defends their uneasy combination as methodologically honest and empirically necessary. Social antipathy, it argues, functions like racism or patriarchy: a structural force expressed differently across contexts, irreducible to a quantifiable sum of intersecting variables. The article also clarifies why begging carries an objective potentiality for discomfort rooted in the asymmetric demand-structure of any gift relation under property relations. It closes by questioning whether spontaneous political rupture can realistically deliver post-capitalist transformation, and turns instead to Dean’s concept of comradeship as a more tractable, if unglamorous, path — one that must nonetheless reckon seriously with geographical envy and the destruction of place attachments that any genuine transition entails.
Copyright (c) 2026 Erik Hansson http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This collective editorial calls for a deeper engagement with translation in geography, arguing that translation is not a peripheral concern or a practical textual question, but a constitutive element of geographical knowledge production. Geographical scholarship is inherently relational, shaped by movements across languages, places, and infrastructures — where, by whom and on which languages research is carried out makes a difference especially in human geography. Yet, translation practices and work often remain invisible, overshadowed by the dominance of English and the infrastructures that sustain linguistic asymmetries. We contend that translation operates in at least three interconnected senses: as a practice of moving between languages, as an embodied and ethical act of interpretation, and as a process embedded in uneven power relations that can both reproduce and challenge these hierarchies. Current publishing systems and citation practices reinforce Anglophone hegemony, marginalizing multilingual scholarship and local knowledges. However, many recent initiatives within and beyond the academy, as well as studies focusing explicitly on these systems and practices, reveal the potential for more inclusive scholarly communication. By foregrounding translation, geographers can reconfigure disciplinary practices, infrastructures, and ethics to foster epistemic justice and pluralism. This involves making visible the translational labor underpinning research, advocating for multilingual publishing, and rethinking citation politics. Building on this, we outline steps for developing further multilingual practices within Fennia, as part of our ‘open practices’ initiative. These include expanding the use of multiple languages in titles, abstracts, and keywords, and exploring technical solutions for publishing full articles under a single Digital Object Identifier (DOI) in multiple languages. These efforts aim to challenge monolingual norms and create infrastructures that support scholarly diversity and acknowledge knowledge production in different national and local contexts, thereby enabling transformative connections across linguistic and geographical boundaries.
Copyright (c) 2025 Timur Hammond, Myriam Houssay-Holzschuch, Sara Koopman, Claire Placial, Yimin Zhao, Henrik Dorf Nielsen, Kirsi Pauliina Kallio, James Riding http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Oil product tanker geography with emphasis on the Handysize segment
Novel movement data are used to chart worldwide mineral oil product shipments by Handysize (15,000–59,999 dwt) and larger (60,000+ dwt) tankers. The data are from 2004 which allows comparisons with earlier studies about crude oil shipments. Theory about ship movements and attached freight rates (RP Rule) gets indirect support. Non-existence of global data below the Handysize enforces the use of fragmentary data from a refinery company and a world-class port. Both data sets are believed to be representative for the purposes used. Export shipments of the refinery company reveal a linear non-logarithmic distance function for vessel classes in the 2,000–67,000 dwt range. The function is practically identical with oil product exports from the said port. The thinking is then extended to larger vessel sizes and crude oil cargoes, the principle of fungibility.
Copyright (c) 2014 Fennia - International Journal of Geography
Humboldt, Granö and Geo-poetics of the Altai
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:HyphenationZone>21</w:HyphenationZone> <w:PunctuationKerning /> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas /> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables /> <w:SnapToGridInCell /> <w:WrapTextWithPunct /> <w:UseAsianBreakRules /> <w:DontGrowAutofit /> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> The Altai region of Siberia has held magnetic appeal for explorers and scientists down the centuries. Two of these explorers, Alexander von Humboldt (1769−1859) and Johannes Gabriel Granö (1882−1956), were especially gifted in yielding both geo-scientific and geo-poetic accounts of their surveys, Granö especially evoking a “geo-poetics” of the Altai, possibly inspired by Humboldt’s American journeys. Though their career trajectories spanned very different periods and circumstances, these two scholars have bequeathed legacies of enduring value − conceptually and substantively − in bridging the worlds of science and humanities and revealing innovative insight into interactions of society and environment. As Humboldt eventually based the principles of his Cosmos on travels made earlier in life, so too Granö would later build on the experiences in Altai to develop his major theoretical work, Reine Geographie (1929). This paper describes the journeys through Altai of Humboldt and Granö, and some discursive strategies used by both writers in yielding dynamic pictures of mountain landscapes and ways of life.
Comparison of forest stand characteristics and species diversity indices under different human impacts along an altitudinal gradient
Various disturbances and ecological successional processes shape the structure of forests and affect biodiversity. We examined the forests over a 7400 km2 area in the Upper Min River watershed in Sichuan under different levels of human disturbance. This mountainous watershed represents a transitional landscape between the Qinghai-Tibet plateau and the Sichuan basin, with elevations ranging from 900 m to 5700 m. The watershed is degraded due to deforestation and soil degradation caused by natural and anthropogenic disturbances. According to different levels of human impact, the sample sites were divided into four classes: 1) near-natural forests, 2) selectively logged forests, 3) natural regeneration forests (after clear-cut), and 4) plantations. At different elevations, following quantitative characteristics were analysed: stand volume, basal area, weighted diameter, weighted height, and 7 biodiversity indices of tree species. The results showed that the structure of forest stands was characterized by a large number of seedlings and saplings. The near-natural forest had a significantly higher stand volume and basal area than the other managed stands. The four levels of human impact resulted in different abundance, evenness and richness of tree species along the altitudinal gradient. Explanatory variables, such as volume and weighted diameter, significantly contributed to the models for discrimination of stands under different human impacts. The result implies that near-natural forests, with their large stand volumes and biodiversity, can be used as references when developing strategies for forest restoration.
Temporary geographies of the city: the experienced spaces of asylum seekers in the City of Turku, Finland
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning /> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas /> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables /> <w:SnapToGridInCell /> <w:WrapTextWithPunct /> <w:UseAsianBreakRules /> <w:DontGrowAutofit /> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]> <![endif]--> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; mso-hyphenate:none; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language:AR-SA;} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <![endif]--> Temporarity has a significant role in today’s urban spaces and peoples’ experiences of them. The city is often understood through stable material structures, while less attention is paid to such aspects of urban space that are there only for limited time. Such are markets, events, manifestations and construction sites, for instance. Experiences of momentarity may be related to these kinds of elements of the city, but equally to personal feelings of not belonging to the city. In this paper we discuss, firstly, temporary geographies and their importance in today’s urban studies. Debates on relational spaces and moving geographies have directed attention towards the temporary aspects of urban spaces. Temporarity itself has mostly been discussed in relation to urban planning while less attention has been paid to other aspects of everyday life. Secondly, the theoretical aspects of temporary geographies will in this paper be illustrated with the empirical material that was collected among young asylum seekers in the City of Turku in Finland in 2008–2009. The asylum seekers were interviewed and they kept photo diaries about their urban experiences. The material tells about the feelings of momentarity in urban space as the asylum seekers’ uses of the city were coloured by uncertainty while they were waiting for the decision about a permission to stay in the country.
The benefits and constraints of participation in forest management. The case of Taita Hills, Kenya
Although they accommodate a wide variety of endemic flora and fauna, the indigenous mountain rain forests of East Africa are being depleted. Some patches remain in Taita Hills of Kenya and benefit from their management as forest reserves, with limited access to local communities, by the Kenyan government. Recently, through the Forest Act 2005, the government began to grant user rights to forest adjacent dwellers through participatory forest management initiatives. We conducted this study in February 2007 among groups engaged in forest-related activities and living near the Ngangao, Mbololo, Mwambirwa and Chawia forest reserves in order to offer insights into local people’s perceptions about benefits and constraints of participation in forest management during the transformation of the forest policy. Our respondents considered efforts to conserve forests for ecological services, namely water catchment and biodiversity maintenance important. Sustainable future use of forest products, especially firewood and medicinal plants were emphasized. However, shortcomings, such as inadequate access to updated information about management practices and legal rights, hampered participation. The respondents viewed this as working without proper tools, which, they stated, may gradually lead to unsuccessful conservation efforts, and felt that the government still prohibits full community participation.
Lessons from Fray Bentos: forest industry, overseas investments and discursive regulation
Globalisation in the forest industry has its own particular characteristics which are due to a high degree of capital intensity and limits in raw material supply. Investments in new capacities are expensive and the rate of forest regeneration is slow in the traditional resource areas in the conifer dominated forests of the global North. The supply problem has lead forest companies to establish tree plantations and pulp mills in the temperate and tropical zones. This has largely modified global forest-industrial relations. I examine here how and why the establishment of the Fray Bentos pulp mill in Uruguay by a Finnish company, Metsä-Botnia, turned into an international conflict. I also show how the political reactions to the mill planning in fact relied on and further developed the international mechanisms of forest-industrial regulation. The partners of the mill project were forced to prove that the fears expressed by critical parties would not come true. The article ends with some suggestions to improve social sensitivity of forest-industrial projects by studying more systematically the dependencies between the forest industry and the environing society.
Spatial characteristics of the transports in the paper mill’s supply chain
This paper examines the impacts of transportation costs to the supply chain management of the Nordic paper industry from a transport geographic view point. The discussion is illustrated by complete cost management accounting data from one paper mill. The main research questions are: What are the transportation costs and how have they developed during the study period concerning the exports to the market? How have the supply chain costs developed? Do order size and transportation costs have any causality in cost per unit of paper? So far, the transportation costs concerning Finnish paper mills have been examined rather scantly. We perceive that transportation costs together with sales costs have crucial effects on the mill profits. The costs rise due to the spatial heterogeneity of the European market. In paper industry, the freight transportation costs have not decreased as in many other industries. The transaction of a small customer order can cost more than twice as much as a large one to the same export markets. In addition, the productivity of aged paper machines has not improved as expected, while the paper sales prices have decreased due to the continuous oversupply. In some geographical ranges, the location planning of paper industry may transform towards local production units near the market.