Jenni Mölkänen

I am a postdoctoral researcher in Climate crisis and religious change in sub-Saharan Africa funded by Kone Foundation. My ethnographic research focus is in northeastern Madagascar where conserved tropical forest area with exceptional biodiversity diminishes. Rural rice and vanilla farmers, who live in the tropical forest area, do not get as good harvests as they have gotten before because of a too intensive cultivation cycle or too little rain. In this context Christian churches have promoted projects restraining climate change. In my sub-project I research what are rural farmers interpretations about, and actions related to changing weather, and how do they perceive environmental and development projects of the churches that can conflict for example with relations and practices reproducing the farmers’ social organisation.

My PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology (University of Helsinki) focused on large scale environmental conservation efforts in rural northeastern Madagascar and engaged with discussions of environmental anthropology and political ecology focusing on places, land, funerals, kinship and relations between different species as well as debts.

In a multi-disciplinary research project ALL-YOUTH based at the Institute of Sustainability Science at the University of Helsinki (HELSUS), I researched volunteer work as well as Finnish youth well-being and becoming independent through life course interviews.

My Master’s thesis focused on state formation in the 18th century Malay archipelago.

I am affiliated with interdisciplinary Indian Ocean World Center at McGill University in Montreal, Canada (https://indianoceanworldcentre.com/members/) and I belong to an interdisciplinary research group Religion, Ecology and Diversity (https://blogs.helsinki.fi/religion-ecology-diversity/team/).