The Research Council of Finland’s Scientific Council for Social Sciences and Humanities has awarded Academy Research Fellowship funding to Vesa Väätänen from the Arctic Centre.

Topic of the research is Rethinking the territory of
geopolitics: the spatialities, temporalities and materialities of Arctic
geopolitics.

Väätänen examines what insights to academic and
public discussion could be gained if territories were no longer seen as bounded
spaces controlled by humans, but as the constellations of the relations of
interdependence on which the existence of both humans and other entities rely? How
about if geopolitics was not conceived anymore as the aspiration of states to gain
control over territories, but as a part of the assembling of relations of
interdependence? 

The objective of this research,
conducted at the Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland, is to answer these
questions in the context of Arctic geopolitics through two empirical cases: the
Canadian High Arctic Research Station, and the Arctic Ocean railway project between
Finland and Norway. By analyzing interview, document and media materials and
fieldnotes, the research discloses the relations that enable the existence of the
research station, as well the relations that failed to be established leading into
the abandonment of the railway project.

Academy
Research Fellowship funding is 366 626 euros and the funding period is
1.9.2024–31.8.2028.

More information:
Vesa
Väätänen, vesa.vaatanen(at)ulapland.fi, phone. +358 40 154 8896