Symposium

Caring for Life in the Arctic

This autumn, the annual CAS symposium will gather under the theme Caring for Life in the Arctic. If you would like to participate either online via Teams or in person, please register by 15 September by emailing Monica Tennberg (monica.tennberg@ulapland.fi). The Teams link will be shared with registered participants by Monday, 6 October.

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Preliminary program:

Tuesday, 7 October

11-12 Keynote speech 1
Valtonen: Caring as an ethico-political concept and practice
12-13 Lunch
13.00-14.30 Session 1 Care for snow and ice
Pihkala & Heikkinen: Mapping response-able relationality with the Arctic Ice
Kangasluoma: Caring for ice / caring for life
Markuksela: Building What melts: Tracing more-than-Human care in temporary snow-based MTB trails
14.30-15.00 Coffee
15.00-17.00 Session 2 Care for animals
Koskinen: Protecting human health or caring for life of an animal in a rabies risk situation: the case of the Russian dog in Lapland
Karila: Conservation of the Arctic fox – hope-driven care in the mountains of Fennoscandia
Suman: Arctic char in Canadian blue economy – An ecological, commercial and cultural nexus
Kokkonen: Caring curiosity and more-than-human translation: Making decisions with Njauddâm salmon
19.00 Dinner at Kauppayhtiö (Valtakatu 24)

Wedneday, 8 October

9.00-10.30 Session 3 Care for human well-being
Miettunen: Vulnerable men in vulnerable worlds: Masculinities and the Arctic in the era of the Anthropocene
Anshukova: Student perspectives on sexuality in Arctic universities
Brode-Roger: Speculative caring in a time of transiency
10.30-11.00 Coffee
11.00-12.00 Keynote speech 2
Hemmersam: Designing Arctic cities with care
12.00-13.00 Lunch
13.00-15.00 Session 4 Care for places
Zuzeviciute: Held together differently: Everyday care and structural tensions in the Arctic (online)
Wehrman et al: Governing sustainable urban development in the European Arctic
Varfolomeeva: Care for multispecies landscapes in wind power debates in Finland
Larsen: Tinkering are practices in historic grasslands and grazing pastures
15.00-15.30 Coffee
15.30-17.00 Session 5 Care for infrastructure
Strauss-Mazzullo: “Water care” – vesihuolto – in small water cooperatives in Finnish Lapland
Bohn & Braun: Caring for Arctic infrastructures through green investments: prospects and limits
Royer: Caring for the Arctic while launching rockets from It: Rethinking environmental responsibility across the Earth-Space continuum

Thursday, 9 October

9.00-10.30 Session 6 Care for livelihoods
Lassila & Melamies & Ukkola: Challenges to care and intergenerational wellbeing in the “buffer zone” of the green transition: Inequalities faced by reindeer herders in Sodankylä
Lunden: Aesthetic governance of Arctic tourism: Care, singularity and symbolic capital
Tikkanen: Tourism degrowth and more-than-human care
10.30-11.00 Coffee
11.00-12.30 Session 7 Politics and law of care
Körner: Litigation as Care. Strategic climate litigation and the protection of cultures in the Arctic (online)
Vola: Caring colonially? Incompetence, guardianship, and the land that owns itself
Payva: More-than-human relations in the Arctic: Insights from Rights of Nature and Multispecies Justice
12.30-13.00 Final session (incl. Special issue info)

Organizing team: research professor Monica Tennberg, university researcher Marjo Lindroth, post-doc researcher Dorothee Bohn, and doctoral candidate Tom Royer, Critical Arctic Studies research team, Arctic Centre, University of Lapland

The event is part of activities of the UArctic CAS thematic network (more information: criticalarcticstudies.com). The aim of the organizer, UArctic thematic network on Critical Arctic Studies, is to challenge mainstream, simplified, and stereotypical understandings of the Arctic; question the basis of the current depictions of the region and its development; engage more standpoints and voices for diverse reflective assessments of policy; and elevate the importance of the area and its future on the global scale.

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