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 in three categories: Research Papers, Reviews and Essays, and Reflections. Research Papers are original full-length articles that make a significant contribution to geographic and related research. Reviews and Essays introduce empirical, theoretical or methodological insights from ongoing research, including dialogical literature reviews. Reflections section includes commentaries, debates, discussion pieces, interventions, lectio praecursoria, and other argumentative short texts related to contemporary issues, including commentaries to our published articles stemming from open review process. With these three publication formats, Fennia seeks to take forward geographical research and discussion in a critical and responsible spirit. In addition to individual contributions, the journal welcomes proposals for special issues and sections. 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).
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
Antipodal paradoxes: reading power through the eye of the needle
A childhood observation from a rickshaw in Kolkata (where expensive cars traveled below crowded buses) revealed something troubling about how we understand spatial power. This paper introduces "antipodal paradoxes" to describe situations where power operates through spatial contradictions rather than confirmations of our hierarchical expectations. The piece has drawn on fieldwork in the Sundarbans to strengthen my argument that those positioned as marginal observers develop "inversional literacy", which is the ability to read power dynamics through their spatial contradictions. Development interventions meant to "elevate" communities often create systematic inversions where supposed beneficiaries become burden bearers. These insights help cultural geography to recognize that our vertical metaphors for authority may systematically obscure actual spatial operations of power, particularly dynamics visible from positions that dominant systems dismiss as peripheral.
Copyright (c) 2025 Patatri Baidya http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
From leisure retreat to working heaven: factors influencing remote work from second homes
This paper explores the evolving function of second homes, which are no longer used solely for leisure but are increasingly becoming sites for remote work practices. Drawing on data from a national sample of second homes users in Croatia, we investigate what situational factors contribute to the practice of working remotely via ICT from second home. Our analysis revealed that practice of working remotely from second home is becoming quite common. Furthermore, we found that besides being associated with some individual characteristics and characteristics of second homes, actual uptake of remote work from a second home still mostly depends on technical feasibility and task content of specific job and industry. Additionally, results from our study suggest that remote work is one of the key factors transforming the usage patterns of second homes, as it appears to be linked to more frequent use even of more distant second homes. These findings confirm a shift in the function of second homes, from spaces primarily used for leisure to hybrid environments that also accommodate paid work.
Copyright (c) 2025 Geran-Marko Miletić, Marica Marinović Golubić, Krešimir Peračković http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Towards zero-loss agriculture: addressing strawberry food loss in North Karelia, Finland
Food loss poses multifaceted challenges for environmental sustainability, food security, and economic efficiency across agri-food systems. This study explores the spatially interrelated dimensions of food loss in the Finnish strawberry value chain, highlighting the intricate interactions and dynamics among various stakeholders and processes. It examines how multiple actors are embedded in regional agro-economies and the socio-material tensions that influence their practices. While each entity holds a different position within the system, they collectively confront a common challenge: the complex, interdependent nature of the Finnish strawberry value chain, which shapes their roles and strategies for addressing food loss. The study employs a qualitative, multi-scalar case study design of the North-Karelian strawberry value chain, grounded on semi-structured interviews, document analysis and field observations. The paper provides a nuanced understanding of how various institutional, infrastructural, and temporal complexities influence food loss outcomes. It highlights how these factors can either hinder or facilitate the advancement towards zero-loss agriculture trajectories. By providing a spatially sensitive perspective on economic stakeholder engagements, it highlights bottlenecks and offers potential solutions to effectively reduce food loss. The case illustrates how active engagement with these complexities is required to create strategic opportunities to develop more sustainable strawberry value chains that align with EU policy goals.
Copyright (c) 2025 Oswald Sydd http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Powerful geography for Dutch schools: the perspectives of academic geographers
This paper presents the output of an initiative to have a group of 20 academic geographers, with different specialisations, reflect on what young people should learn in school geography in the near future. The ideas of these geographers are viewed from the lens of 'powerful knowledge', a key concept in (academic) curriculum debates. The geographers emphasise knowledge that gives young people a view of contemporary and future societal challenges, but also emphatically indicate how to actively work with this knowledge in the classroom. The typology of powerful geographical knowledge used is helpful for reflection and identification, but not so much for the selection of actual content.
Copyright (c) 2025 Tine Beneker http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The double disadvantage of rural place-based policies
From the 1990s onward, there has been a notable change in regional policy particularly in Europe and the United States, towards place-based approaches, which reduced the state's redistributive role and increased regional responsibility. Place-based policies, emphasizing tailored development strategies for specific contexts, have since gained attention. Despite extensive scholarly attention on place-based policies, the literature predominantly focuses on urban and metropolitan areas, leaving a gap in understanding their applicability to rural regions. This study conducts a scoping literature review of research on rural place-based policy for innovation and economic development from 2008 to 2022. It explores how rural place-based policy is understood and assesses its relevance for rural contexts. The review identifies a double disadvantage for rural regions, stemming from a lack of agglomeration and institutional capabilities, which highlights the need for new policies to address these challenges. To better suit rural regions, place-based policies must move beyond the urban-centric smart specialisation (S3) model to embrace strategies that strengthen rural institutional contexts, recognize the limitations of agglomeration, and focus on sustainable, inclusive development tailored to the specific needs and potentials of rural areas. Such transformative policies should address future challenges by recognizing peripheral regions as valuable assets, emphasizing that development does not necessarily require growth. The study concludes with an agenda for future rural policy development, emphasizing the necessity of genuinely tailored place-based approaches for rural areas.
Copyright (c) 2025 Stine Lien, Ulla Higdem http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Lectio praecursoria: Gentrification in a welfare state: the case of Helsinki
In this lectio, presented on May 4th 2024 at the University of Helsinki, I describe my journey to writing a doctoral monograph, including the challenges in studying a complex phenomenon like gentrification. Finland’s robust welfare state includes subsidized housing and housing allowances available to lower-income residents, while local policies in Helsinki have long sought to mix tenures, and together these policies have helped prevent the residential displacement and inequality which characterize gentrification processes in many settings. In this sense, classic residential gentrification has been largely absent, and where these policies have been in effect, low-income populations have remained and even increased in central neighborhoods. Yet other aspects of gentrification have flourished in recent years, driven by local and international media and efforts from local planners and enabled by planners and politicians pursuing a ‘vibrant’ urban core and an internationally competitive food scene. My research reveals a paradox of welfare and planning in the context of Helsinki, in which some forms of gentrification are held at bay while others flourish. In Finland, where gentrification remains absent from public policy and planning discourses, the historical success at preventing classic gentrification has been unintentional, and is unlikely to remain as the strength of housing policy erodes while planning for international competitiveness prevails.
Copyright (c) 2025 Kevin Drain http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Living close to nature: how older adults in Sweden navigate relocation in later life
Spending time in nature has many benefits for older individuals’ health and well-being. When individuals age, their activity spaces typically become more geographically limited to the proximity of their homes. Having nature close by is therefore important for them to be able to maintain their habits of spending time in nature. In this study, we use a mixed-methods design, including a survey and interviews, to examine the level of importance older individuals living in Sweden place on closeness to nature in their moving decisions. The results show that closeness to nature is greatly appreciated by many respondents, especially those who currently have access to nature close to their homes, visit nature frequently and most often use an active form of travel to get there. The level of importance given to nature generally remains high even when constraints and challenges emerge, for instance health-related issues and widowhood. However, different constraints can limit the choice of housing and, consequently, the type of natural area close to one’s home can change. The results indicate that it is important to recognise older individuals as a heterogeneous group and to provide opportunities for them to live close to nature, regardless of whether they wish to age in place (in a rural or urban setting) or move to improve access to other amenities.
Copyright (c) 2025 Emma Landby, Kristin Godtman Kling http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Growth and diffusion of the planetary boundaries concept
Planetary boundaries is an Earth systems science concept that aims to comprehensively assess human-caused disturbances on the planet. First developed in 2009, the basic premise is that there are thresholds for a series of Earth systems—such as ocean acidification, freshwater depletion, and climate change—that, if crossed, will cause abrupt and potentially catastrophic environmental change. As such, planetary boundaries is useful to frame sustainability objectives and practices. This review investigates the scholarly diffusion of planetary boundaries. How did it take off and spread? Using academic databases, I trace the growth of the concept over time, by the geographic location of scholars, as well as their disciplinary affiliations. Using citation counts, the most influential papers that have diffused the concept are identified. Moreover, the temporal expansion of planetary boundaries is compared to older, well-established sustainability concepts. The results indicate that the planetary boundaries concept has penetrated a wide variety of different academic disciplines, although such research is predominantly European. Fewer studies currently involve planetary boundaries compared to the related sustainability concepts Anthropocene and ecological footprint; however, the growth rate of planetary boundaries research is comparable to trends when those concepts were new. Most research that addresses planetary boundaries uses it as a background idea to frame their research questions. Although quantitatively fewer, some research studies continuously assess and refine the planetary boundary concept itself.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ola Johansson http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Realm of freedom and realm of necessity in definitions of the ‘planetary’: Cold War, Great Acceleration and the impediments of human-Earth entanglements.
This reflection takes a perspective on planetarity as not only a certain ethics of relations between humans and the environment but also as a historically determined mode of human-Earth entanglements that produces rather impediments than open-ended futures. In response to Pikner’s Resonances of planetarity and commons within evolving urbanisms, I found it useful to revisit Marx’s notions of ‘realm of freedom’ and ‘realm of necessity’ and to propose that there could be at least two approaches to define the planetary. In one definition, planetary condition (as care and sensibility-driven entangled interactions between humans and the Earth) belongs to and further expands the realm of freedom. In another definition, planetary condition (as accumulated human socio-political and military activities strategically entangled with Earth matter for humans’ competitive survival) constitutes the range of non-deliberated impediments and therefore belongs to the realm of necessity. In such a view, based on my own research experience, I propose to read the current interest in the ‘planetary’ as an attempt to start deliberating the underlying, initially non-deliberated, foundations of societies produced by the Great Acceleration and the infrastructural unleashing of human/Earth interactions starting from the 1940s−1950s.
Copyright (c) 2025 Siarhei Liubimau http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2024 Daniel Jones http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Digital twins – realistic digital representations of physical entities, connected by real-time data flow – have spread into varied sectors of society. One sector that deserves further attention is the digital twinning of urban areas. The quick deployment of digital twins of cities and their interactions with the material and social elements of the “smart city” have been enabled by discourses of technological optimism and the hope that smart cities can allow for solutions to “hard problems” like the climate emergency. However, the social and cultural values that underpin the creation and practice of these technologies are not yet well understood. In this essay, I tell the story of Joakim, a man who has created a digital twin of his small hometown. The direction he has taken with his digital twin, one which he believes takes his project beyond the limits of city-centric twins, is guided by his notions of community, democracy and sustainability. Attention to small-scale and grassroots digital twins can help us to reconsider the affordances of digital twins: the ways that they can create multiple representations of reality and can allow users to make actionable predictions. Given digital twins’ increasing importance in the governance of urban areas, a vital first step in becoming more literate in our interactions with the technology is to better understand their social construction.
Copyright (c) 2024 Kenneth Ravn http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Rethinking urban sustainability: consumption-based emissions through the lens of planetary urbanization
Urban areas, which are responsible for the majority of global greenhouse gas emissions, play an important role in climate change mitigation. Although many cities are setting ambitious targets, these typically focus on production-based emissions within municipal boundaries, leaving consumption-based emissions — those embedded in goods and services often produced elsewhere — largely unaddressed. Meanwhile, the theoretical concept of planetary urbanization highlights how urban processes extend well beyond traditional city limits, shaping global resource flows, infrastructure networks, and ecosystems. Cities are beginning to recognize the importance of tracking and managing consumption-based emissions, yet most use such metrics only as informational tools rather than formal targets. Various strategies — ranging from degrowth proposals that advocate reduced overall consumption to circular economy initiatives emphasizing reuse and recycling — offer pathways for lowering urban footprints. However, the efficacy and equity of these approaches require more research, and existing indicators often overlook complex transboundary impacts. Despite these challenges, cities are uniquely positioned to lead the shift toward more sustainable lifestyles, given their density-driven advantages in infrastructure provision and innovation. By leveraging these strengths, experimenting with policy interventions, and rigorously measuring outcomes, urban areas have the potential to catalyze transformative change. Ultimately, a deeper acknowledgment of planetary interconnectedness, combined with expanded data collection and inclusive decision-making, is essential for cities to fulfill their potential as engines of global sustainability.
Copyright (c) 2024 Sanna Ala-Mantila http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Reviewing research on regional development in the AI era: new there(s), new actors, and an old call “from cluster to process”
The aim of this review is to present the current state and suggest next steps for research on AI-related regional development. Based on thematic content analysis of 37 articles in key journals of regional development and economic geography, I answer where, by whom, and how AI-related regional development takes place. The results reveal a strong narrative of increasing concentration and regional polarization, and a less considered narrative of the potential of dispersion that also enables the development of remote regions. I suggest advancing research through identifying ‘new there(s)’ as virtual and augmented realities, AI as a new actor, and a methodological step from ‘cluster to process’ to investigate the everyday spatial processes of creating knowledge and being creative with AI that catalyze regional development.
Copyright (c) 2024 Johanna Hautala http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Resonances of planetarity and commons within evolving urbanisms
This essay explores urbanism in relation to earthly and planetary concerns as relational processes in which the roles of humans and the sustaining of life forms are negotiated and transformed. The guiding question is: how do urbanites resonate with significant environmental matters while intersecting diverse disturbances, commons, and anticipated futures? The resonances of the planetary within urban change are examined through three vignettes about coastal assemblages involving waste, birds, and energy. These vignettes, related to the Baltic Sea and its diverse publics, illustrate how urbanisation interacts with voluminous spaces and emergent commons. The essay highlights urban-environmental entanglements in which contested ideologies of nature and entangled care reshape understandings of environmental problems and solutions alongside significant changes in urbanism. Some zones of ignorance are extensively exploited in future transformations, yet these zones could also be transformed into spaces of nature-culture care and commons, pointing toward conviviality.
Copyright (c) 2024 Tarmo Pikner http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Dwelling with limits: the work of love in participatory research
<span class="NormalTextRun SCXW43617029 BCX0" data-ccp-parastyle="Body A" data-ccp-parastyle-defn="{"ObjectId":"4994c84d-0481-42e9-bc4a-8871ecacd768|24","ClassId":1073872969,"Properties":[469775450,"Body A",201340122,"2",134233614,"true",469778129,"BodyA",335572020,"1",469777841,"Calibri",469777842,"Arial Unicode MS",469777843,"Arial Unicode MS",469777844,"Calibri",469769226,"Calibri,Arial Unicode MS",335551500,"0",469789810,"nil",335572083,"0",335572084,"0",335572085,"0",469789802,"nil",335572075,"0",335572076,"0",335572077,"0",469789798,"nil",335572071,"0",335572072,"0",335572073,"0",469789806,"nil",335572079,"0",335572080,"0",335572081,"0",469789814,"nil",335572087,"0",335572088,"0",335572089,"0",469789818,"nil",335572091,"0",335572092,"0",335572093,"0",201342446,"1",201342447,"5",201342448,"1",201342449,"1",201341986,"1",268442635,"22"]}">In this article, we examine some of the theoretical and methodological challenges facing Participatory Action Research (PAR), including the continued challenge of the silence of the subaltern, the re-subjugating power relations in many traditional epistemologies of research production, and the problems of representation. We attempt to address these considerations by looking beyond the relational, outlining the originary call to ethics at the heart of PAR in terms of a commitment to a sustained engagement with that which outstrips relationality, namely the radical alterity of the other. Proposing a rigorous articulation of the concept of translation as a means of meaningfully and ethically thinking with the subaltern, disenfranchised, and at-risk — including young people — in PAR, we unpack Spivak’s articulation of a hesitant love in translation that is marked by a surrendering to the call of the other, and to the work of putting oneself into a position not to ‘speak for’ but to ‘hear from’ the unknowable, and un-preemptable other. Understanding love as a doing that affects, we outline the need to consider ‘action’ in PAR in terms of practice beyond happenings, representations, and method, to acknowledge the movements and shifts in the research encounter that refuse representational knowing. We add to this by outlining the researcher’s ontological indebtedness to this alterity by re-considering our notion of translation in terms of Heidegger’s trans-position, highlighting the ‘rhizovocality’ of the research encounter as fundamentally beyond any notion of authentic voice or settled subjectivities. In highlighting the ontological dependency inherent in the research encounter, we revisit the commitment of PAR as a work of being vulnerable — of putting ourselves into play by dwelling with the foreignness of the other, and in doing so, trans-posing ourselves unto new understanding.<span class="EOP SCXW43617029 BCX0" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335551550":6,"335551620":6,"335559739":0,"335559740":360,"335572071":0,"335572072":0,"335572073":0,"335572075":0,"335572076":0,"335572077":0,"335572079":0,"335572080":0,"335572081":0,"335572083":0,"335572084":0,"335572085":0,"335572087":0,"335572088":0,"335572089":0,"469789798":"nil","469789802":"nil","469789806":"nil","469789810":"nil","469789814":"nil"}">
Copyright (c) 2024 Raine Aiava, Noora Pyyry http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The burden of mobility: multi-local living and its effects on infrastructure, services, and housing markets in rural areas
Multi-locality has become increasingly common over the past decade in many countries, and it has increased the temporal population, especially in rural areas. Despite the growing popularity of this lifestyle, an overall picture of the effects of mobility is missing. A lack of official data is one of the main reasons why little attention has been paid to this phenomenon in rural areas. The results of this study illustrate the need to ensure that the burden caused by this lifestyle, especially for telecommunications connections, is better considered in planning. Special attention is needed because this lifestyle is directed towards rural municipalities, which are vulnerable to the increase in population and the resulting spatial injustice.
Copyright (c) 2024 Olli Lehtonen, Olli Voutilainen, Venla Heiskanen http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
How eco-clubs foster pro-environmental behavior in a school context: a case from Finland
Promoting pro-environmental behavior with environmental education (EE) has been proven to be challenging due to various school and student-related barriers. Eco-clubs are a widely used pathway in EE, which may help to overcome these barriers. Despite the popularity of eco-clubs, few studies have been conducted on the topic. This study approaches this problem with a case study to examine students’ perceptions of an eco-club in a Finnish general upper secondary school. In the study, 14 of the schools’ eco-club students participated in group interviews, which focused on their perceptions of the eco-club and its activities. Additionally, 100 non-eco-club students participated in a qualitative survey about their perceptions of the eco-club. This study found that eco-club students consider the club important in supporting their environmental actions in the school. They also find the club’s atmosphere and community to be a crucial part of supporting these actions. The members also find that the participation of peers and practical things enable the eco-club activities, while external influences, lack of time, and the reluctance of peers act as a barrier. The results indicate that there is a contradiction between the members’ and non-members’ perceptions of the eco-clubs’ effect on students and the school. While members find the eco-club important in supporting the environmental actions of the students and the school and spreading their influence outside of the school, the lack of knowledge dominates non-members’ perceptions, and some of them find the eco-club unimportant. Based on this research, eco-clubs seem to be a promising pathway in promoting members’ pro-environmental behavior while the club’s influence outside of the club remains small.
Copyright (c) 2024 Anssi Huoponen http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Disability, rurality and spatial competence: on the importance of embodied knowledge and supportive contexts
In this article, I investigate the interaction between the rural environment and disability to explore how place can be a resource in processes of participation and belonging. The aim is to explain how individuals experiencing disability make use of, give meaning to, evaluate, and negotiate their surroundings. The embodied experiences of individuals living in rural places are at the centre of the study that this work is based on. The empirical material includes in-depth interviews with 15 men and women experiencing either a physical or a neuropsychiatric impairment. The analysis focuses upon the environmental-social interface. The article argues that the concept of spatial competence offers a relatively open entrance for studying enabling spaces and identifying factors contributing to the well-being of individuals and places. Spatial competence is understood as a process that emphasises agency and the ability to navigate social and material environments. Departing from the participants’ elaborations and reflexivity with regard to their local places, I argue that the physical environment, social networks and local welfare structures constitute pillars in the development of spatial competence. Welfare structures are explicitly addressed, for example regarding social support in everyday life or material support in the case of remodelling a home. These structures are also implicitly present in narratives on excursions, outdoor activities or social contexts initiated or supported by the public sector or civil society. A conclusion is that the development of spatial competence intersects with a functioning welfare society.
Copyright (c) 2024 Susanne Stenbacka http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Objects of affection and competing images of the Swedish North: movements for and against ‘green’ investments and reindustrialization
We are witnessing the mobilization of geographical and social peripheries as sites for change in the current industrialization and ‘green’ development of the sparsely populated Swedish North (Norrland). In this article, we aim to explore how objects of affection and images of the Swedish North are framed in movements both for and against the establishment of a new so-called green industry in the northern Swedish countryside. This prospect has been hotly debated in the local community, which has seen both struggles for it (because of job opportunities) and against it (because of the destruction of nature and livelihood opportunities). Combining selective digital archiving with Sara Ahmed’s concept of affective economies and its application to images of place and belonging, we analyze how the region’s re-industrialization both draws upon and contests traditional images of the northern countryside. Our analysis shows that the resistance to and mobilization of such ideas of renewal and escape are rooted both in nostalgia for a pre-industrial past and a desire for the prosperity brought by industrial investments. It also shows how different development goals are invoking different ideas of what is best for the local community, making visible the rural as a conflicted space.
Copyright (c) 2024 Katarina Giritli Nygren, Sara Nyhlén http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Receipts for a healthy nature: Exploring municipal officials’ framings of biodiversity and human-environmental relationships in Sweden
Cities and their governance structures face myriad environmental and sustainability challenges and are often important sites for environmental action. This is the case for biodiversity protection, which is increasingly an urban policy focus. Concomitant to this are conceptualisations of human-environmental relationships. Exploring and problematising such relationships is an increasingly prominent concern within sustainability science, not least around urban planning. In this article, I explore how public officials at four Swedish municipalities frame biodiversity protection within urban planning. The article contributes by increasing knowledge of how the concept of biodiversity is applied at the level of local government. I apply Pálsson’s typology of human-environmental relationships. Analysis of these data reveals a predominance of paternalistic views of human-environmental relations. Biodiversity is considered a measurable indicator for wider nature; a feature of place; a source of value and something that can be engineered. Uniting these framings is the paternalistic view of ‘nature’ as a separate entity to ‘society’, and that biodiversity is framed as a largely technical issue. The implications of these framings are that alternative views of human-environmental relations and the diversity of society are currently occluded. This is relevant as the public officials participating in this study, including ‘ecologists’ and ‘landscape architects’, were equivocal about the prospect of combining biodiversity protection and urban development.
Copyright (c) 2024 Benedict Singleton http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Geographies of AI: urgent need for educational strategies
With the advent of ChatGPT in October 2022, artificial intelligence (AI) has entered the public consciousness, forcing engagement with its inevitable impact on various aspects of life, including academic work. This editorial up some environmental, social, and economic sustainability concerns associated with AI, particularly within the realm of critical pedagogy-oriented environmental education. Energy and water consumption, environmental degradation from resource extraction, and geographic disparities in labor markets are identified as pressing issues. The need to integrate these and other AI-related sustainability concerns into educational programs is highlighted, to prepare people and societies for a future where AI is ubiquitous. Similarly, greater integration of educational considerations into geographic research on AI is needed, including importantly critical geography.
Copyright (c) 2024 Kirsi Pauliina Kallio; James Riding http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
What can we learn from locally led experiences in Sudan?
While it is easy to say that partnership is a two-way process, this is not so easy to implement in practice. Norwegian Peoples Aid (NPA) wish to respect partners’ agency and recognise the inherent power imbalances that exist in a partnership relationship. Having worked in self-implementing international non-governmental organisations, we’ve seen firsthand how traditional aid models can sometimes sideline local knowledge and reinforce Western-dominated narratives. That’s why we value the model that NPA champions. We are actively challenging those imbalances by prioritising local leadership, amplifying community voices and shifting from a model of imposition to one of genuine collaboration. It’s not just a different approach; it’s a necessary correction in a sector that has struggled to adhere to the values of anti-colonialism, independence and participation.
Copyright (c) 2025 Kari Eliassen-Viejo, Sian Olwen Rowbotham http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Filling the gap or taking the lead? Refugee led organisations in Uganda
Authored by refugee leaders in Uganda for Fennia’s special issue on humanitarian localisation and accountability, this reflection asserts that our voices must be heard wherever displacement is analysed and policy is set. Nothing about us without us. Refugee-Led Organisations are not only first responders. We are educators, health promoters, peacebuilders and advocates. Our initiatives reach communities sooner, cost less and carries trust that international programmes rarely match. In this piece we argue that what we lack is not another training manual but the resources and authority that match with the responsibilities we already shoulder. This is needed if the humanitarian localisation agenda is to be anything more than a slogan.
Copyright (c) 2025 Keluel Agook , Kuol Arou, Siham Ahmed , Joyeux Mugisho , Simon Marot Touloung, Hilde Refstie http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Reimagining humanitarianism: relational accountability in locally-led responses
In debates on humanitarianism in the last decade or so, ‘localisation’ has been a central concern, broadly referring to the transfer of decision-making power, resources, and responsibility to local and national actors. While the inclusion of certain actors such as local and national non-governmental organisations (NGOs) is relatively straightforward, incorporating others — like affected communities themselves or local less formal civil society — is often more complex. The special issue on reimagining humanitarianism examines the transformative potential of centering communitarian practices, including mutual assistance networks, relational support systems, and local accountability frameworks, in order to rethink humanitarian action from the ground up. In this editorial, we focus on core themes in the individual articles in connection with research on local understandings and practices of accountability. ‘Local’ refers not only to actors in geographic proximity to the affected populations, but also to the embeddedness in social, cultural and accountability systems of the crisis-affected contexts. We argue that formal accountability mechanisms — systems that hold donors, NGOs, and implementing agencies responsible for their actions, decisions, and resource use — are valuable but can create an illusion of control in crisis settings. Humanitarian response is enacted by human beings, and it is ultimately human beings who hold each other to account. If accountability is truly understood as an opportunity to learn, grow, improve, in ways that include different stakeholders’ perspectives, it should be possible to achieve more reciprocal and genuine forms of accountability. This requires a perspective that centres and redefines understandings of power from a relational perspective.
Copyright (c) 2025 Cindy Horst, Cathrine Brun, Hilde Refstie http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Discussions on locally-led humanitarian assistance amongst European INGOs and donors — shifting practices or challenging mental models?
This reflection piece explores the mental models underlying the formalized humanitarian system and the localization debates within it. The authors argue that these mental models draw on neoliberal and Eurocentric development logic that have been challenged in post-capitalist, post-development and post-postcolonial theory. A demand for more radical transformation of the system would entail acknowledging other mental models that de-center the global north while at the same time creating space for conversations about power that recognize historically grounded, structural power inequalities. These alternative perspectives are grounded in a relational ethics that emphasizes interconnectedness and interdependence, is rooted in reciprocity, solidarity, and care, and values long-term relationships shaped by shared histories and collective futures. While at present, discussions on locally-led approaches often separate the realm of mental models and practical operationalisations, we argue that there are elements that connect the two — with mental models impacting ideas about technical solutions and vice versa.
Copyright (c) 2025 Sever Dzigurski, Cindy Horst http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Relational accountability dynamics in refugee-led education systems
Mainstream aid discourse often emphasises perceived deficiencies of refugee-led initiatives regarding their capacity to deliver quality services and meet donor requirements, including accountability standards. Despite misrepresentations, emerging evidence shows that refugee-led initiatives in some contexts outperform traditional aid organisations in quality and effective service delivery. A possible explanation for their success is that their governance system is effective, including accountability processes. There is much literature on the accountability of conventional aid organisations. Yet, little attention has been paid to understanding the accountability of refugee-led systems, especially formal ones with legal status and accountability obligations to the host state. This study fills this knowledge gap. It explores principles and mechanisms that govern accountability in the refugee-led education system using ethnographic data from nationally accredited refugee-led schools in the Dadaab camp complex. Established in 1991 in the arid north-eastern region of Kenya, it has been a home to refugees from Eastern and Central Africa, the majority of whom are Somalis. Dadaab comprises three camps: Hagadera, Ifo, and Dagahaley. The study underscores that accountability relations between refugees and refugee-led schools operate as a living process shaped by everyday direct interactions, shared educational goals, collaborative efforts, reciprocal oversight, and answerability among stakeholders. I argue that technical reporting methods that characterise conventional aid are counterproductive without input from recipients. While refugees cannot hold conventional aid organisations to account due to power imbalances, geographical distance from decision-makers and complex bureaucratic procedures, they are the founders and funders of refugee-led schools in Dadaab. Proximity and direct access between those who benefit from education and those who provide it create everyday interpersonal interactions that enable relational accountability.
Copyright (c) 2025 Hassan Aden http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Vegetation der Hochgebirge zwischen Kittilä und Muonio
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Copyright (c) 1903 A. K Cajander http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Some Biological Reasons for the Present Distribution of Freshwater-Fish in Finland
Copyright (c) 1903 O. Nordqvist http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Äldre och nyare sjöfällningar och sjöfällningsförsök i Finland
Copyright (c) 1903 E. G. Palmén http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0