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China and the “Wider” Eastern Europe conference

On 11th-12th of October the conference “China and the “Wider” Eastern Europe” at the Centre for East Asian Studies (CEAS) at the University of Turku. Before the conference a Doctoral workshop was organised on 10th of October, and our Doctoral Researcher Karoliina Hurri presented there her research plan “The Construction of China’s Role in Climate Negotiation Forums: A case of BASIC countries, BRICS group and the Arctic Council”.

Apart from Karoliina, Postdoctoral Researcher Sanna Kopra is taking part in the conference, and on Friday, 12th of October she is giving a talk “The Rise of China and Normative Transformation in the Arctic: A Research Plan” at the ““Wider” Eastern Europe and China” panel.

More information on the conference is available online here.

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Sanna Kopra’s interview in Keskipohjanmaa

Finnish newspaper Keskipohjanmaa published an article “Kasvojaan hiilestä pesevä Kiina mielii ilmastojohtajaksi – ilmansaasteet vauhdittavat muutosta” (Washing its hands of coal China wants to be a climate leader – air pollution speeds up the change) with Sanna Kopra’s interview in it.

By reducing its own air pollution China could significantly reduce climate change in the Arctic, Kopra says.

In Chinese big cities such as Beijing, air quality is sometimes extremely bad.

Kopra estimates that China could combine through black carbon two interests: cutting black carbon emissions can not only improve the air quality domestically, but also affect the Arctic. In recent years, China has been increasingly interested in the region.

Over 60% of the black carbon emissions worldwide over half, about 60%, originate from Asia, especially from China and India. Even though soot is generated far from the polar ice, it can stay in the atmosphere from a few days to weeks and end up thousands of miles away.

This and other thought-provoking insights can be read in Finnish here. Additionally, the interview was also published in Turun Sanomat and Lapin Kansa.

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Making Home in the Industrialized Russian Arctic

A new special issue “To be at Home. House, Work, and Self in the Modern World” with a contribution from our postdoctoral researcher Alla Bolotova has been published this September. The issue is part of “Work in Global and Historical Perspective” book series published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg.

Alla wrote a chapter for the volume titled “Making Home in the Industrialized Russian Arctic”:

Before the Soviet period, the Russian Arctic was scarcely populated, with very few cities. Today, the Russia Arctic is the most industrialized and urbanized polar territory in the world. Numerous industrial towns were built in the Russian Arctic during Soviet industrialization. Their populations comprised voluntarily and forced migrants and their descendants. In this essay, I present the family histories of two women who settled as children in newly established towns in the north. They grew up in very different historical periods. My aim is to look at the history of the towns of Kirovsk and Apatity through the life stories of women from different generations. I explore how these women and their families adapted to new places in different historical and social contexts, paying special attention to the beginnings of their life in the north.

This essay is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Kirovsk-Apatity urban agglomeration in Murmansk Oblast. Kirovsk and Apatity, fifteen kilometres apart, were founded at different stages of Soviet industrialization. Kirovsk started to grow in the 1930s, at the foothills of the Khibiny mountains. Apatity was established in the 1950s in close proximity to Kirovsk. In 2016, there were 26,971 people living in Kirovsk, and 56,730 in Apatity.

Full text of the article can be accessed here.

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“Arctic Energy and Social Sustainability” – New Book by Hanna Lempinen

Our postdoctoral researcher is publishing her new book “Arctic Energy and Social Sustainability”:

In recent years the Arctic has become the focus of political, popular and scholarly debates around the future of our world’s Energy. Increasing consumption, dwindling reserves, climate warming and developing technologies are expected to push energy-related activities ever further into the previously inaccessible north. Within this framework, energy in the Arctic is predominantly understood as synonymous with oil and gas production for international exports; meanwhile, any social sustainability concerns associated with energy-related developments remain largely neglected or reduced to regional socioeconomic concerns.
Lempinen adopts an alternative approach, exploring how energy and its societal aspects are defined and debated in the context of the circumpolar north. Combining an in-depth conceptual discussion on energy and the social dimension of sustainability with an empirical focus on the scientific and political “truths” produced about energy and society in the Arctic energyscape, this book is an enlightening read for students, scholars and professionals interested in issues related to energy and society in the Arctic or beyond.

The book is published by Palgrave Pivot and can be ordered from here.

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New article “Finland’s Dependence on Russian Energy—Mutually Beneficial Trade Relations or an Energy Security Threat?”

New article “Finland’s Dependence on Russian Energy—Mutually Beneficial Trade Relations or an Energy Security Threat?” written by Jaakko J. Jääskeläinen, Sakari Höysniemi, Sanna Syri and Veli-Pekka Tynkkynen has been published today at Sustainability. The article is a part of the Winland‘s special issue “Enhancing Security, Sustainability and Resilience in Energy, Food and Water”.

Studies on energy security in the context of relations between European Union (EU) and Russia tend to focus on cases, with an open conflict related to supply, such as “hard” energy weapons, or on only one fuel, often natural gas. However, there is a need to understand the long-term impacts that energy relations have politically, economically and physically, and their linkages between resilience, sustainability and security. We analyse the Finnish-Russian energy relations as a case study, as they are characterised by a non-conflictual relationship. To assess this complex relationship, we apply the interdependence framework to analyse both the energy systems and energy strategies of Finland and Russia, and the energy security issues related to the notable import dependence on one supplier. Moreover, we analyse the plausible development of the energy trade between the countries in three different energy policy scenarios until 2040. The findings of the article shed light on how the trends in energy markets, climate change mitigation and broader societal and political trends could influence Russia’s energy trade relations with countries, such as Finland. Our analysis shows that Finland’s dependence on primary energy imports does not pose an acute energy security threat in terms of sheer supply, and the dependence is unlikely to worsen in the future. However, due to the difficulty in anticipating societal, political, and economic trends, there are possible developments that could affect Finland.

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Two new doctoral students in our research group

This year our team has expended significantly – in addition to the new postdocs Alla and Dima, we also welcomed two doctoral students this summer, Karoliina Hurri and Sohvi Kangasluoma. Karollina is researching China’s geopolitical identity and climate change discourse in the global climate governance, and Sohvi is working in the AUCAM project. Let us introduce these two promising researchers to you.

Karoliina Hurri
Sohvi Kangasluoma

 

 

 

Interview with Karoliina and Sohvi

Continue reading “Two new doctoral students in our research group”

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Professor Tynkkynen’s visit to the US

These days professor Veli-Pekka Tynkkynen is visiting the United States to attend the Arctic PIRE meeting at the George Washington University. Additionally, Professor Tynkkynen gave two lectures at the GWU – “Russia’s Hydrocarbon Culture in the Making” and “Arctic energy and the environment”.

Russia’s high economic and political dependence on oil and gas pushes the Putin regime to build a “hydrocarbon culture” to legitimize this very dependence. This construct seeks to convince Russians that, via hydrocarbons, Russia will be able to modernize domestically and expand its influence internationally, and therefore Russians should venerate energy and accept hydrocarbons as part of Russian identity. The lecture also discusses how this hydrocarbon culture links to the Arctic, Energy-Superpower discourse, energy as leverage in the domestic context, as well as Russia’s climate discourse.

 

Also Veli-Pekka Tynkkynen met with diplomats at the Finnish Embassy and gave a talk on EU-Russia energy relations at the US Department of State. According to Tynkkynen, there was a very interesting discussion, very responsive to his views: we need a common voice in EU’s energy policy to enhance energy security and promote responsibilities in energy trade and production.

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Venäjän mysteeri Tiedekulmassa

Yesterday the researchers of the Aleksanteri Institute and the University of Helsinki organised an event “Venäjän mysteeri” (The Mystery of Russia). The event took place at Tiedekulma and was a part of Crazy World event series. The programme and information on the speakers can be found here.

The news on Russia are dominated by issues of security, sanctions and power politics,
but what happens in the everyday life of ordinary Russians? What is to live and go to school in Russia? What is the role of religion and how does the consumer culture shape values? Can people still protest in Russia or do they even want to do so?
The basis of Putin’s confusing popularity has been woven into the structures of Russian everyday life. Three short discussions open up a mystery from different actions.

Dmitry Yagodin from our team took part in the “Protest” discussion. Dmitry brought in his journalist’s perspective and spoke about the role of media in highlighting protests in Russia. He talked, for example, about Pussy Riot’s unexpected performance during the FIFA World Cup Final this July and how it was presented in the media. The researcher also stressed that for ordinary people in Russia it is difficult to understand what is actually happening in Russian society. The media are flooding with different and bogus information, which prevents a proper dialogue from starting.

 

Tiedekulma’s space was full of people interested to find out more about enigmatic Russia.When asked in the end if there is a Russian mystery that needs to be solved, Yagodin quipped, that there is, apparently. Russian people, still, like to be seen as a bit mysterious, even though Russia is in reality not a “special case” and there are many similarities between Finland and Russia.

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Talk at Hiilitieto

Today Veli-Pekka Tynkkynen participated at the seminar, organised by Hiilitieto (Finnish Coal Info). Professor Tynkkynen gave a talk on the topic “Energy and Russia”.

Picture: Pekka Tiusanen

According to Tynkkynen, Russia’s energy is at the heart of doublespeak in Russia. The Russians are told how energy comes from the Mother Russia’s soil, the outside world is told that energy is a purely economic matter.

The presentation can be downloaded here.