CALL FOR PAPERS
Understanding environmental change: Creating integrated knowledge of the Seas of Norden and Arctic
Editors: Savitri Jetoo, Silja Laine, Jaana Kouri and Anna Törnroos-Remes
The current global environmental crisis can be traced to the relationship of humans with the environment. Problems such as land use changes, overfishing and eutrophication are further compounded by the effects of climate change. The sea and coastal areas are especially vulnerable to these stressors, which can be characterized as wicked problems. These wicked problems facing the seas of Norden and the Arctic, that is the Norwegian, Barents, Greenland and Iceland Seas as well as the Baltic and North Seas togheter with the ocean areas connecting them, invite conflicting stakeholder values due to incomplete or seemingly contradictory knowledge. This makes it important, for example, to integrate local and experience based knowledge with scientific knowledge but the question remains how to do this. The problems facing these sea areas are multidimensional and as such, there is an urgent need for interdisciplinary study that pools knowledge sources. The wicked problems have ecological, social and cultural dimensions. For instance, human perceptions and interaction with the sea environment have affected and are behind the current marine crisis, which is a result of culture and cultural perceptions. This crisis is global, but we are looking especially at how it has taken shape along the coasts and seas of Norden and the Arctic region.
We are looking to gather an anthology, which has the objective to make room for cross- and interdisciplinary dialogues among researchers oriented to marine issues. The volume focuses on the production, interaction, and circulation of knowledge regarding open sea, archipelago and coastal areas. In this project we see research integration as the means of synthesizing different knowledge from various disciplinary and stakeholders’ viewpoints to examine the issues facing these seas in the Northern hemisphere. In addition to results or case studies produced through such dialogues, the ways disciplines have worked to integrate knowledge and methodologies are specifically of interest. How can integrated knowledge from different research perspectives contribute to greater understanding of the seas of Norden and the Arctic and their coastal and marine environments? We see that the interdisciplinary collaboration between different disciplines is necessary to answer for the present environmental catastrophe, like climate change and biodiversity loss.
The focus of the volume is to identify, produce and contribute to the recognition and dialogue of the different kinds of knowledge, methods and methodologies on scientific communities that are relevant in various situations and networks of actors during environmental changes. We are particularly interested in successful outcomes/ways/examples of conducting integrated knowledge, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research. The abstract may also be an offer to collaborate with other researchers on the subject matter of the author’s own research. We look forward to receiving contributions from all disciplines including natural, educational, environmental, humanistic, legal and social sciences.
We invite both empirical and conceptual papers on the following or other relevant thematic areas:
Experience based, local environmental knowledge and scientific knowledge
Heritage and change
Environment, biodiversity, and ecosystems
Resilience and sustainability
Ecosystem functioning and management
Relationships and connections
Risks and threats
Agency and networks/webs
Time and place
Scientific and vernacular language(s)
Theoretical constructs and concepts
If you are interested in contributing a chapter, please submit a 400-500 word abstract by the 11th of August, 2021 to email: seaherblog@gmail.com. Writing and interactions are supported by a workshop on September 2, 2021, to which the selected authors are invited. For any questions, please contact: sjetoo@abo.fi and/or anna.m.tornroos@abo.fi
We aim to publish this anthology with an established international publisher such as Routledge.
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The SeaHer project Collaborations: The Finnish Meteorological Institute
Members of the SeaHer team met with colleagues of the Finnish Meteorological Institute to discuss themes consistent with the goals of the SeaHer project. The initial meeting was held on Thursday May 27th, 2021, where team members Nina, Jaana, Otto, Silja, Kirsi and Tuomas met with three colleagues of the Finnish Meteorological Institute. One of the key themes to emerge from this meeting was a potential upcoming collaboration for the Baltic Sea Day, to be held on August 26th, 2021 
(more here_https://itameripaiva.fi/en/). The Finnish Meteorological Institute will possibly be hosting a citizen panel that there is potential for collaboration with the SeaHer project. Discussions on this will continue during the month of June, 2021.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Understanding environmental change: Creating integrated knowledge of the Seas of Norden and Arctic
Editors: Savitri Jetoo, Silja Laine, Jaana Kouri and Anna Törnroos-Remes
The current global environmental crisis can be traced to the relationship of humans with the environment. Problems such as land use changes, overfishing and eutrophication are further compounded by the effects of climate change. The sea and coastal areas are especially vulnerable to these stressors, which can be characterized as wicked problems. These wicked problems facing the seas of Norden and the Arctic, that is the Norwegian, Barents, Greenland and Iceland Seas as well as the Baltic and North Seas togheter with the ocean areas connecting them, invite conflicting stakeholder values due to incomplete or seemingly contradictory knowledge. This makes it important, for example, to integrate local and experience based knowledge with scientific knowledge but the question remains how to do this. The problems facing these sea areas are multidimensional and as such, there is an urgent need for interdisciplinary study that pools knowledge sources. The wicked problems have ecological, social and cultural dimensions. For instance, human perceptions and interaction with the sea environment have affected and are behind the current marine crisis, which is a result of culture and cultural perceptions. This crisis is global, but we are looking especially at how it has taken shape along the coasts and seas of Norden and the Arctic region.
We are looking to gather an anthology, which has the objective to make room for cross- and interdisciplinary dialogues among researchers oriented to marine issues. The volume focuses on the production, interaction, and circulation of knowledge regarding open sea, archipelago and coastal areas. In this project we see research integration as the means of synthesizing different knowledge from various disciplinary and stakeholders’ viewpoints to examine the issues facing these seas in the Northern hemisphere. In addition to results or case studies produced through such dialogues, the ways disciplines have worked to integrate knowledge and methodologies are specifically of interest. How can integrated knowledge from different research perspectives contribute to greater understanding of the seas of Norden and the Arctic and their coastal and marine environments? We see that the interdisciplinary collaboration between different disciplines is necessary to answer for the present environmental catastrophe, like climate change and biodiversity loss.
The focus of the volume is to identify, produce and contribute to the recognition and dialogue of the different kinds of knowledge, methods and methodologies on scientific communities that are relevant in various situations and networks of actors during environmental changes. We are particularly interested in successful outcomes/ways/examples of conducting integrated knowledge, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research. The abstract may also be an offer to collaborate with other researchers on the subject matter of the author’s own research. We look forward to receiving contributions from all disciplines including natural, educational, environmental, humanistic, legal and social sciences.
We invite both empirical and conceptual papers on the following or other relevant thematic areas:
Experience based, local environmental knowledge and scientific knowledge
Heritage and change
Environment, biodiversity, and ecosystems
Resilience and sustainability
Ecosystem functioning and management
Relationships and connections
Risks and threats
Agency and networks/webs
Time and place
Scientific and vernacular language(s)
Theoretical constructs and concepts
If you are interested in contributing a chapter, please submit a 400-500 word abstract by the 21st of June, 2021 to email: seaherblog@gmail.com. Writing and interactions are supported by an online workshop, to which the selected authors are invited. For any questions, please contact: silja.laine@abo.fi and/or anna.m.tornroos@abo.fi
We aim to publish this anthology with an established international publisher such as Routledge.
——————————————————————————————-
SeaHer team presentations at NESS2019 Conference.
Luleå, Sweden 10-12th June 2019.
The 14th Nordic Environmental Social Science (NESS) Conference was hosted by the Division of Social Sciences at Luleå University of Technology 10-12 June 2019. It was the perfect place to discuss and disseminate findings of the SeaHer project. Project Researchers Jaana Kouri, Silja Laine, Otto Latva, Kirsi Sonck-Rautio & Tuomas Räsänen presented in the workshop, ‘Making Sense of Multiple Understandings’. Their joint presentation was titled ‘Environmental Heritage and Climate Change studies’. Team Leader Nina Tynkkynen also presented in the workshop ‘Imagining sustainable futures for marine environments’. Her joint paper was titled ‘Climate change, a disruptor to the Baltic Sea time machine?’. Both presentations generated lively discussion and great feedback from the audience.
The public defense of Otto Latva’s dissertation
March 2, 2019 in Osmo Järvi lecture hall, Medisiina C, University of Turku
Project Researcher Otto Latva defended his fascinating dissertation on the history of the giant squid and the making of animal monsters. Latva’s PhD thesis of Cultural History is entitled The Giant Squid: Imagining and Encountering the Unknown from the 1760s to the 1890s.
Project team meeting and seminar on ‘Digital Humanities’
February 14, 2019 in Wilmer, ASA B Building, Åbo Akademi University
Project researcher Otto Latva introduced the project team and guests (from Marine Biology at ÅA) to the concept of digital humanities. Through his presentation, Latva illustrated digital humanities in action, by demonstrating the application of computer software and other tools to aid historical research. For example, the audience was treated to a display of the application of ‘Mallet’, a Java based package for natural language processing, topic modeling, clustering and other information extraction from text.
Methodological Workshop
The first project workshop was held in December 2018. Project team members met and discussed progress with project aims. However, the focus of the meeting was on the presentation and use of interdisciplinary research methods. Research methods presented included future analysis, ethnography, anthropolocial methods and discourse analysis.