Critical Arctic Studies Symposium
25 – 26 August 2026 Kemi, Finland,
The event is organized in a hybrid mode.
Program CASS2026
Tuesday 25 August 2026
9.00-10.00 Opening session & Keynote 1
Ylimaunu, Juha
Bothnian Bay – aspects from history and human-nature relationship.
10.00-10.30 Coffee
10.30-11.45 Session 1 Troubled waters
Tuuli Parviainen, Infusing marine community knowledge into reimaging just and crisis resilient marine futures
Agneta Andersson, Before the bloom – consequences of changed nutrient availability
Julia Olsen, Marine litter: shared responsibility for the Arctic Ocean
11.45-12.45 Lunch
12.45-14.25 Session 2 Water lives
Hindertje Hoarau-Heemstra & Chaima Elhichou-Ahmed, Care-full coastal tourism: thinking with algae in more-than-human waterscapes
Danielle Wilde, Aesthetics, morals, and participation in Gulf of Bothnia water relation
Mo Loui Karnbach, Care-violence entanglements in multispecies waterscapes: Conceptual reflections on fishing practices in Northern Norway
Sunna Kokkonen, Pink salmon paradoxes: more-than-human sensemaking in removing unwanted salmon from Barents Sea rivers
14.25-14.55 Coffee
14.55-16.35 Session 3 Water ontologies
Joonas Vola, Fluvial cyborgs: Environmental personhood, nature restoration and anamorphic wholeness
Iuliia Gataulina, Fractal paradigm of water-as-motion: Indeterminate being, decentred voluminosity, and orderly chaos
Johan Cederqvist, When Salmon ceased to return: Ecological rupture and the erosion of riverine cultures in the Swedish North
Heidi Konttinen, Participating in the absent worlds of artisanal seal hide tanning
19.00 Dinner
Wednesday 26 August 2026
9.00-10.15 Session 4 Managed water
Hannah Strauss-Mazzullo, Water provision in Finnish Lapland’s small water cooperatives
Mari-Sohvi Miettinen & Riina Sirén, Near a stream, by a pond. Water practices on Finnish wilderness cabins as naturecultural care
Venla Isomäki & Mirjami Lantto Klein, Hydro-social politics of sustainability: Discursive constructs and material outcomes in Finnish water governance
10.15-10.45 Coffee
10.45-11.45 Keynote 2
Tennberg, Monica
Re-assembling the sea
11.45-12.45 Lunch
12.45-14.00 Session 5 Water as art
Mari Keskikorsu, More than a person river: Eco-socially engaged art practices towards more-than-human decision making
Lin Ni, Suturing disconnection: Artistic research, planetary water, and fragmented eco-cosmopolitanism
Lena Leimgruber Haraldsson, Archival waterscapes: Relationality and intimate localisation in Emmi Itäranta’s Memory of Water
14.00-14.30 Coffee
14.30-16.10 Session 6 Water-related technologies
Hannele Mäkelä, Sustainable shipping in the Arctic
Alexandra Middleton, Reconsidering the value of water in Arctic hydrogen production
Nicholas Parlato, Zia Madani, Heather Gordon, Brackish boundaries: Climate-Induced transformation of water governance in the Arctic cryosphere
Beata Mäihäniemi, Regulating digital water for climate resilience: Digital twins, utility data, and EU law
16.10-16.30 Final discussion