Full program with abstracts (PDF)
Sunday, 23 NovemberPre-program |
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Time |
Program |
Place |
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18:00 – 19:00 19:00 – 20:30 Documentary 20:30 – 21:00 |
Documentary screening: 11 Underground by Chico Pereira Join us for a relaxed evening at a local pub before the colloquium kicks off. We will begin gathering at 18:00. The film screening will start at 19:00, followed by an online Q&A session with the director. About the film In 1984, the hard-fought protest of eleven Spanish mercury miners from Almadén (in southern Spain) made national headlines when they barricaded themselves hundreds of meters underground for eleven days and nights to demand fair pay and better working conditions. Thirty-five years later, the mine has closed for good. The world in Almadén has changed, but the problems have only deepened. Can the spirit of the miners’ strike rise again to bring hope and social justice to a community left behind? Bio Chico Pereira (Almadén, Spain, 1979) approaches documentary through intimate, understated narratives inhabited by the people of rural and post-industrial landscapes. His first feature, Pablo´s Winter (2012), offered a delicate portrait of mining life, earning awards at DOK-Leipzig, IDFA, and Full Frame, and inaugurating MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight in New York. With Donkeyote (2017), which premiered in Rotterdam and was celebrated internationally, he crafted a poetic journey of a man, his donkey, and an improbable dream. His latest work, 11 Underground (2025), weaves together documentary recreation, ethnofiction, and art as social practice to summon the memory of a miners’ strike. Pereira holds a PhD in Film, Digital Media, and Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and currently directs the Master’s Programme in Documentary Film at Aalto University, Finland. |
(Uusikatu 21-23, 90100 Oulu) |
Monday, 24 NovemberDay 1 |
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Time |
Program |
Place |
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9:00 – 10:00 |
Registration opens with coffee & tea |
Hilla Garden |
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10:00 – 12:00 |
Parallel sessions |
(see below) |
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1. Multiple knowledges of the 21st century – towards strong sustainability in environmental decision making |
Kumina |
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2. Exploring the critical sustainability praxis: working with (in)visible power (structures) |
Meirami |
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5. Transdisciplinary participation and co-production of knowledge in and for sustainability transformations |
Timjami |
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9. Ecosystem Restoration Storytelling Slam: Transdisciplinarity in Performance |
Tellus Stage |
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11. Paradigms of well-being and the challenge of sustainability transformation |
Rakuuna |
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17. Translating science into everyday language through playful approaches |
Tellus Backstage |
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12:00 – 13:30 |
Lunch (self-funded) |
University canteens |
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13:30 – 14:00 |
Opening words by Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen & organizing committee |
L4 |
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14:00 – 15:00 |
1st Keynote: Rebecca Lave Discussant: Lesley Green Critical integrative environmental research in practice If we accept the core premise of the Anthropocene – that the world around us is now shaped as much by human actions as by biophysical processes – it follows that any environmental research must bridge the social and biophysical sciences if it is to have explanatory power. Yet it is notoriously difficult to conduct truly integrative eco-social work. Many proposed interdisciplinary research projects have foundered on the rocks of epistemological, methodological, and normative conflict. In this talk, I lay out a set of practices for overcoming these conflicts in practice, and provide examples from one strong and growing body of integrative environmental research: critical physical geography. Rebecca Lave is Associate Dean for the Social & Historical Sciences at Indiana University and a past president of the American Association of Geographers. Her research takes a Critical Physical Geography approach, combining political economy, STS, and fluvial geomorphology to analyze stream restoration, the politics of environmental expertise, and non-structural approaches to flood attenuation. She has published in journals ranging from Science to Social Studies of Science, and is co-editor of the Critical Environments series at University of California Press. Her new book, The Field Guide to Mixing Social and Biophysical Methods in Environmental Research, came out (open access!) in February 2025. |
L4 |
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15:00 – 15:30 |
Q&A with 1st Keynote |
L4 |
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15:30 – 16:00 |
Coffee & tea break |
Hilla Garden |
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16:00 – 17:00 |
Roundtable discussion on transdisciplinary research Invited speakers: Markku Heikkilä (Arctic Centre, University of Lapland), Anna Krzywoszynska (University of Oulu), Michiru Nagatsu (HELSUS, University of Helsinki) Chaired by Rebecca Carlson (University of Oulu) In this roundtable discussion, panelists from interdisciplinary academic institutions, research institutes and programs will discuss the successes and challenges they have had in bringing together people from different faculties/disciplines to expand interdisciplinary research and education. Possible questions to be addressed in the discussion include:
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L4 |
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19:30 – |
Opening reception Free for Colloquium attendees |
City Hall (Kirkkokatu 2a, Oulu) |
Tuesday, 25 NovemberDay 2 |
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Time |
Program |
Place |
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9:00 – 10:30 |
Parallel sessions |
(see below) |
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1. Multiple knowledges of the 21st century – towards strong sustainability in environmental decision making |
Timjami |
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2. Exploring the critical sustainability praxis: working with (in)visible power (structures) |
Kumina |
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5. Transdisciplinary participation and co-production of knowledge in and for sustainability transformations |
Tellus Stage |
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7. Renewable energy and its acceptability in a changing landscape |
Backstage |
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11. Paradigms of well-being and the challenge of sustainability transformation |
Meirami |
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10:30 – 11:00 |
Coffee & tea break |
Hilla Garden & Tellus |
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11:00 – 12:00 |
2nd Keynote: Patrick Devine-Wright Discussant: Lasse Peltonen Boundary crossings, environmental social science and the impact agenda - reflections on ACCESS ACCESS (Advancing Capacity in Environment and Climate Social Science) is a 5 year UK initiative that aims to champion social science contributions to tackling a range of environmental problems from biodiversity loss to climate mitigation and adaptation. Against a background of environment and climate emergency, over the past few years, we have developed a distinctive approach that centres three Guiding Principles (Knowledge Co-Production, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, and Environmental Sustainability) in crossing boundaries between academic disciplines and between academic and policy communities. In this lecture I will discuss the ideas that underpin ACCESS, the ways that social science is viewed by UK policy and practice communities and how ACCESS has sought to intervene in knowledge-policy ecosystems. Specifically, I will reflect on four boundary crossing mechanisms that we have employed to create enabling conditions for impact (a Policy and Practice working group, Annual Assemblies, a Leadership College and Task Forces) and discuss the opportunities and challenges involved with respect to each mechanism in enabling and in evaluating social science impact. Patrick Devine-Wright is Professor of Geography at the University of Exeter. Active across local, national and international contexts, he conducts theoretically-driven research on low carbon energy transitions, and his research was ranked in the world's top 1% of social science according to citation of publications in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. He is Director of the £6.25m ACCESS (Advancing Capacity in Climate and Environment Social Science) leadership team for environmental social science funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. ACCESS works to increase the visibility, impact and use of social science research through co-production with stakeholders across the UK and internationally. |
L4 |
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12:00 – 12:30 |
Q&A with 2nd Keynote |
L4 |
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12:30 – 14:00 |
Lunch (self-funded) |
University canteens |
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14:00 – 16:00 |
Parallel sessions |
(see below) |
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4. Political ecology in and from the global north: relational positionings of academics and activists |
Kumina |
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5. Transdisciplinary participation and co-production of knowledge in and for sustainability transformations |
Tellus Stage |
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6. Navigating Hope: Affective Perspectives on Sustainability Transitions |
Meirami |
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7. Renewable energy and its acceptability in a changing landscape |
Timjami |
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14. The silent voices in the forest-based sector |
Tellus Backstage |
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16:00 – 16:30 |
Coffee & tea break |
Hilla Garden |
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16:30 – 18:00 |
YHYS Annual Meeting / Open discussion: Rethinking Failure in Academia: A Kinder Lens Organized by Monica Vasile (University of Oulu) Invited speakers: Anna Krzywoszynska (University of Oulu), Pauliina Rautio (University of Oulu) This session invites an open conversation about a constant in academic life: failure. What if we stopped treating it as a private flaw and instead as part of how scholarship actually works? We all know what this means: the rejected paper, the job that never came, the book that stayed half-written. Within today’s academia’s culture of achievement and constant output, these are framed as weaknesses, as proof of not doing enough. Yet failure does not need to be seen as negative. Our session asks how we might reimagine failure as generative rather than shameful; something to examine, share, and perhaps even value. Together, we will explore how current narratives of success are structurally constructed, and what other ways of working might emerge when those ideals are challenged. How can we build a more compassionate academia? The workshop combines short talks, where invited speakers reflect honestly on their experiences of failure, with open discussion and small-group conversations for informal exchange and support. Participants from all career stages are encouraged to share experiences and ideas on how failure feels, what it reveals, and what we might build from it. |
YHYS Annual Meeting: Timjami Open discussion: Backstage |
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18:00 – 22:30 |
Colloquium dinner Please note that the Colloquium dinner requires pre-registration. Doors open at 18:00 for art, beverages, appetizers, and socializing. Dinner seating at 19:00. |
Theodorinpuisto (Lossikuja 6, 90500 Oulu) |
Wednesday, 26 NovemberDay 3 |
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Time |
Program |
Place |
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9:00 –10:30 |
Parallel sessions |
(see below) |
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3. Epistemic justice to Indigenous Peoples – how to promote it through research? |
Timjami |
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8. Open discussion: Is there space to consider planetary boundaries in academia? |
Kumina |
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12. Religions, worldviews and lifestyles as reactions to environmental changes |
Meirami |
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13. Walking together to learn on environmental researchers' advocacy |
Tellus Backstage |
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16. Resilience research at the University of Oulu |
Tellus Stage |
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10:30 – 11:00 |
Coffee & tea break |
Hilla Garden and Tellus Stage |
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11:00 – 13:00 |
Tactical Spores: a workshop on art & transdisciplinary research Margherita Pevere The workshop 'Tactical Spores' aims to foster the cross-pollination of practices and ways of knowing about the complexities in society, the environment, and research. It draws on transdisciplinary art to generate knowledge that combines the sensorial and the analytical, aesthetics and materials, individual perception and shared experiences. Art is viewed as an agent of change that can catalyse knowledge and experiences surrounding complex topics. The workshop is inspired by two concepts from biology and strategy to develop transformative approaches in art and research. The spore, the reproductive unit of various organisms adapted for dispersal and survival, often thrives even in unfavorable conditions, suggesting a mix of randomness and resilience. Conversely, tactics pertains to strategy, planning, and scenario evaluation in military or gaming contexts and thus implies analytical skills and foresight. How can the seemingly contrasting terms tactical spores serve as guiding principles in research? Both in research and the arts, openness and serendipity, along with analysis and strategy, adaptation and training, are fundamental. Their combination is often unpredictable yet frequently fertile. In this workshop, art and the metaphor of tactical spores will guide participants to reflect on creating research that has impact and vision beyond the boundaries of a single discipline. The workshop includes participatory sessions, discussions, drawing, storytelling, and creative collaboration. It welcomes diversity and practitioners from all disciplines. Bio Known for her otherworldly work with living matter, ecology and biotechnology, Dr Margherita Pevere is an artist and researcher addressing taboos like death, sex and vulnerability. Her work extends beyond the arts in high profile collaborations across science, society and academia such as the JRC Soil Unit; Experimental Immunology Department / Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research; and the Jeschke Lab / Ecological Novelty, FU Berlin. Her works have been exhibited at SOLU Bioart Society, FI; Kiasma Theatre, FI; Ars Electronica, AT; Wiener Festwochen, AT; Rostock Kunsthalle, DE; iMAL, BE; Article Biennial, NO among others. She holds a doctorate from Aalto University. Note: This workshop requires pre-registration. |
Tellus Backstage |
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13:00 – 14:00 |
Lunch (self-funded) |
University canteens |
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14:00 – 15:00 |
Talk by special speaker Lesley Green: Social Science of Soil Seventy five years ago, agronomist and anticolonial leader Amilcar Cabral, of Cabo Verde off the West African coast, reframed soil science as a relational and human science: “If pedology doesn't want to ignore a part of reality, it has to take into account the action of people in the development of the soil. It cannot focus its attention ... on the study of virgin soils. To consider people as a factor in soil development is to recognize the integration in the reality of the phenomenon, of an element whose importance increases with the achievements of soil science. It is the pedologist's job to study the soil as it is and, just as he does for a hundred other factors, to interpret and predict the consequences of human activity on its development.” Better late than never, we who work at the interstices of soil sciences and social sciences can and must respond. The staggering losses of soil per hectare globally in the post-Cold War era, very often on the advice of Green Revolution experts from the seed and chemicals industry, make this unavoidable. How did Cabral frame this “soil social science”, and what does his anticolonial intellectual leadership bring to the environmental humanities? This talk introduces the first English translation of Cabral’s soil science, to be published under the title “To Defend the Earth is to Defend the Human” (ed. Matusse, Lopes, Green HSRC Press, 2026). Lesley Green is a Professor of Earth Politics and Director of Environmental Humanities South at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, as well as Principal Investigator for the Critical Zones Africa project funded by the Science for Africa Foundation, in partnership with the Universities of Addis Ababa, Dar es Salaam, Zimbabwe, Lilongwe Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR) and the Human Sciences Research Council. She is a former Fulbright Scholar at the Science and Justice Research Center at the University of California at Santa Cruz; Mandela Fellow at Havard University; Rockerfeller Humanities Fellow at the Smithsonian, and Cheney Fellow at the University of Leeds' Global Food and Environment Institute, her research focusses on justice-based environmental governance sciences in Southern Africa. |
Tellus Backstage |
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15:00 – 15:30 |
Coffee & tea break |
Tellus Stage |
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15:30 – 18:00 |
Post-Conference Event for Doctoral Researchers |
Tellus Backstage |
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19:30 |
Networking Sauna Event (Oulu Riverside) Note: Only for PhD School participants |
Koivurannan saunalautta (Kasarmintie 31, 90230 Oulu) |