The Anthropology Research Team in Rovaniemi, Finland, organises series of occasional lectures and events related to the study of human social and cultural diversity and similarity in the Arctic, and social anthropological research.
Below you find pdfs and / or announcements of our lecture and event series. Most of the events are also posted separately in the ‘announcement’ category of this blog.
new Finnish Sámi research ethics: a reading circle & discussion 19 Sep 2024
Within Finland the new ethical guidelines for research involving the Sámi people in Finland have been widely announced, starting with their launch in June 2024. The guidelines also state that they can be applied across all areas where Sámi reside, i.e. all of Sápmi. Starting at noon Finnish time on the 19th september, at the Arctic Centre in Rovaniemi we invite to a reading circle discussion on the implications of these new ethical guidelines for anthropological research. If someone has time to join on short notice in the Thule meeting room in Arktikum, Rovaniemi, you are very welcome. You can also join online here . We shall contextualise in our discussion the increased importance of formal research ethics, the right of people to self-determine what kind of research is done with, on, about or involving them – with the increased bureaucratisation of research ethics and the problems stemming from there for the flexibility of anthropological fieldwork, as outlined recently by Herzfeld . The guidelines in english are just four pages, so it won’t take long to read them before hand for anyone interested in joining our discussion. Looking forward to an inspiring discussion.
The impact of moving people and food in the Arctic, Thursday 5 – Friday 6 September 2024, Rovaniemi. Japanese-Finnish researcher exchange seminar, Thule Room, Arctic Centre. Programme with abstracts behind the link
Anthropology for pressing issues: climate change and inequality, Tuesday 20 June 2023, 14:00 Rovaniemi. Prof John Ziker from Boise State University, Idaho, USA, talks about his past research in Taimyr, Siberia, on food sharing and hunting, and many other topics, as well as his upcoming research in a joint NSF project with Florian Stammler on the coupled effects of climate change and industry on reindeer herding livelihoods.
Programme and keynote speeches by Piers Vitebsky, Marilyn Strathern and Tim Ingold at Relations and beyond: the 2023 Rovaniemi conference of the Finnish Anthropological Society, 21-23 March. The conference was probably the biggest ever that the society held, with 336 participants from all over the globe, with about 300 speeches. Including from countries as far as India, China, Brasil, Australia:). Here is the programme. If you are interested in a link to the keynote speeches, please get in touch with one of the organisers Florian Stammler or Nuccio Mazzullo.
Before screening his most recent film, Markku joins us for an exclusive discussion with a small circle of enthusiastic Arctic ethnographers, see blog entry link.
In this Wednesday Afternoon Coffee Chat (WACC) Florian Stammler will have a dialogue session with Aytalina Ivanova from Yakutsk reflecting on Arctic research agendas. What was supposed to be the first trip in a new multi-party consortium on scenarios of a changing Arctic became an example of how research agendas can – and should – change in response to the concerns of those people with whom we work in the field. During the first research trip, it turned out that rather than the project topic – people in the field were concerned about other things that are more immediately related to their future as a community. You are welcome to join and find out what worries people even more than the changing Arctic Climate. This WACC will feature impressive photos and videos from a very extreme environment on the shore of the Arctic Ocean, with nomads who unite tradition and innovation in very original ways.
Anthropology contra ethnography? 29 May 2019, 13-14:30, Rovaniemi
Sometimes in our field there are situations where we avoid calling ourselves anthropologists, for the sake of not being confused with those people who measure skulls. Instead we may say that we are ethnographers, especially in the post-Soviet Arctic. But is anthropology and ethnography the same? Many of us would say no. This is the topic of the next article that we are going to discuss in our next reading circle. Everybody is welcome! Also interested people from elsewhere, and you don’t have to be an anthropologist. All you need is to read the article and have an interest in the topic.
Place: Rovaniemi, 96100, Arktikum building, Florian Stammler’s office
Date: 29 May 2019, 13-14:30
Article data: Ingold, Tim 2017. Anthropology contra ethnography. Hau Journal of Ethnographic Theory, vol 7, no 1. Open access at https://www.haujournal.org/index.php/hau/article/view/hau7.1.005
Looking forward to an inspiring discussion.
Does anthropology need to engage with well-being as a concept? 23 April 2019, 13-14.30
This is the topic of our next reading circle discussion, to which you are all welcome. We first meet in Florian’s office on the top floor or Arktikum, Rovaniemi, and if we are more people than fit there, we go to a bigger room. The reading for the discussion is
Thin2009_Colby2009_well-being_anthro
Thin, Neil 2009. Why anthropology can ill afford to ignore well-being. Chapter 1 in Pursuits of Happiness: Well-Being in Anthropological Perspective, ed by Gordon Mathews, Carolina Izquierdo. Oxford, New York: Berghahn books, pp. 23-44.
Cookies and tea will be served:)
Ice-Law meeting: ’Climate, fish and fisheries sector: Local and indigenous perspectives’. Rovaniemi, Arctic Centre
Organised by Anna Stammler-Gossmann,
April 16, Thule room, please see here the Ice_law_meeting_201904_agenda
Saami rights and obligations lecture, Rovaniemi
Our colleague Klemetti Näkkäläjärvi will give a lecture this Friday at 13.15 at the University of Lapland main building LS19 (= Eelin sali), with a title that would sound in english something like “rights and obligations of the Saami community”. Klemetti served as the speaker of the Finnish Saami parliament and has a PhD in anthropology. The lecture is going to be in Finnish (I see that this limits the listeners in this forum). Fore Finnish speakers outside of Rovaniemi, it will be possible to listen at https://connect.eoppimispalvelut.fi/saam0103/
If someone would go and comment on this here it would be great
Linnaeus_in_Sápmi: Generating Knowledge in Transit
The Anthropology Research Team is very happy to welcome you all at the Arctic Centre for a joint presentation by Professor Elena Isayev and Professor Staffan Müller-Wille, both from the University of Exeter, UK, on the 28th of May at 14:00 in the Thule seminar room. Elena Isayev is Professor of Ancient History and Place and Staffan Müller-Wille is Associate professor at the Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology.
“Care, assimilation and revitalization in Deanuleahki, Sápmi”
23/11/2017, 14:00, Thule Room, Arctic Centre Rovaniemi.
Annikki Herranen-Tabibi, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University. Research on kin-based forms of care, and the ecological and political context thereof, in Deanoleahki, Sápmi. She is going to talk about her anthropological fieldwork plan, as well as answering any possible questions someone might have about Harvard.
The talk will be at 23 November, 14:00 in Rovaniemi, Finland in the Arktikum house, in the meeting room “THULE”. Coffee and cookies will be served.
New Forms of Law and Governance for and from the Arctic, August, 17th -18th, 2016
The University of Lapland’s Arctic Centre, Rovaniemi, Finland, is pleased to announce confirmation of a 2 day International Shamanism Seminar which will be held on 27th – 28th of November 2014. The key speaker is Mihaly Hoppal from Hungary who is the President of the International Institute for Shamanistic Research. A list of the speaker’s and titles of their presentations as well as registration details can be found on the seminar website. On behalf of The Staff at Arctic Centre, we welcome you to Lapland – Best wishes – Francis Joy.
Extractive Industries, mobility and work in rural Russia, lecture by Elisabeth Öfner from Vienna about a village that sends fly in – fly out workers to the Russian Arctic for oil and gas extraction. Tuesday, April 8, Rovaniemi, Arctic Centre, Borealis Room, 13.15
Oil, reindeer herders and flexible laws on Kolguev. Join us with Rémy Rouillard from the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, sharing research on Arctic Extractive Industries from Russia’s northernmost onshore oil fields. April 3, 14.30 in the Borealis Room, Arctic Centre.
BARENTS STORIES exhibition by Anna Stammler-Gossmann. Join us on Thursday, February 20th, 2014, at 16:15 for the opening reception in the Arctic Centre library, Rovaniemi.
Sami_Jona_Aleftina_131114 Sami people of Jona: pride and prejudice. Thursday, November 14, 2013, Borealis room, 15:00. Workshop (in Russian) with a Sami activist and writer Aleftina Sergina from Jona village (Kola Peninsula, approx. 30 km from the Finnish border, around 100 inhabitants).
Discussion circle: FIELD POSITION AND ACCEPTANCE OF ANTHROPOLOGISTS BY SOCIETIES IN THE FIELD. We all have something to say on this and our own position, e.g. for some of us the field site is also home, some struggle with being accepted too deeply in, or on the contrary rejected by the society we live in during our field work. We use the occasion of a three week visit by Cambridge PhD student Evelyn Landerer to talk about this topic on Wednesday, 13 November in the top floor of the Arctic Centre, in the BOREALIS room at 12 o clock.
ORHELIA_workshop_Sep13_prog Programme and schedule of our data management and fieldwork reporting workshop, oral history, Sep 23 and 24
Kultajoki_screenannounce_130418 People and Gold in Lapland, film screening, April 18
Cruikshank_lecture & workshop 2013 Apr 06
Joel Robbins_lecture 2013 Jan 17
All lectures take place in the Arktikum building in Rovaniemi, Finland, unless individually announced otherwise. Participation is open and free for everybody. Please contact one of our team, for example fstammle(at)ulapland.fi, astammle(at)ulapland.fi, or nuccio.mazzullo(at)ulapland.fi for further enquiries or put your questions and comments here on the blog.
Looking forward to seeing you in Rovaniemi!
Arctic Anthropology 
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I would like to join the mailing list and receive notice of conferences and collaboration. I write and research about Sami film that responses to extraction and mining and other environmental and social justice issues. Thanks. Cheryl J. Fish, PH.D, Professor, English, City University of New York, and Docent, Dept. of World Cultures, University of Helsinki. Thanks for this great material