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A Lost Mitten and Other Stories

The project, Lost Mitten and Other Stories, examines a new sense of neighbour relations that transpires as a result of growing mobility. The project focuses on the ways in which these new neighbour relations or a sense of neighbourliness emerge from stories related to personal items of significance, and the way in which these stories are perceived. Lost Mitten and Other Stories is an interdisciplinary project that seeks collaboration between art and science. The project is carried out in eastern Finland.

The main concern of the project is to find out how the items of personal significance and the stories related to them help establish dialogue and, consequently, new kinds of mobile and cross-border neighbour relations and a sense of neighbourliness. Furthermore, the purpose is to explore how dialogic interaction helps promote, for example, the construction of cultural citizenship and create new, migrating, deterritorial cultural heritages. The items of personal significance as well as the stories relating to them are examined through a materialistic, cultural, linguistic, and narrative point of view and are, additionally, exhibited through artistic, interactive displays. The items of personal significance are understood as a poetic and political medium of various dialogues between past and present, between immigrants and natives, between different generations, between mobile and sedentary people.

The approach and the subject matter of the project are topical: immigration, different mobilities, the encounter of languages and cultures, and thereby, emerging new neighbour relations and a sense of neighbourliness. The multidisciplinary approach, combining different methods of science and art, enables new ways of examining the issue of neighbour relations and a sense of neighbourliness.

The project combines science and art innovatively and, therefore, generates new methods to investigate the current issues of different mobilities, language and cultural encounters, and challenges arising from new neighbour relations.

The project is funded by the Kone Foundation.

Albert Mills (albert.mills@uef.fi)

Albert’s research interests include gender discrimination at work; intersectionality and diversity management; management history; and existentialism and management theory. He is the author and editor of over 150 scholarly articles; 100 book chapters and 50 books. He is the co-developer of Critical Sensemaking and ANTi-History and played an important role in the development of the field of gender and organizational theory. Albert is currently the Co-Chair of the international Critical Management Studies organization and has previously served as President of the Atlantic Schools of Business; President of the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada; Divisional Co-Chair of the Critical Management Studies division of the Academy of Management; and board member of the International Federation of Scholarly Associations of Management and of the Standing Conference on Organizational Symbolism. He is the Co-editor of the international journal Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management and serves on the editorial board of several leading journals. He has supervised 30 plus doctoral students in Canada and Finland. Albert’s association with Finland began in 1996 when he co-taught an international course on gender, culture and management at Lappeenranta University; taught doctoral courses at Hanken University and at the UEF since 2011. He has also been involved in several Canadian and Finnish-funded research to the tune of CAN$12 million.

Alexandra Simon (alexandra.simon-lopez@uef.fi)

My primary fields of research are transculturality, imagology, German writers abroad, German film and television, the European Avant-Garde, and the Apocalypse in cultural productions. I teach all areas of German language and culture courses, including text workshops, oral communication, literature and culture courses, media and business German courses.

I am Docent in Multicultural Literature and Media Studies (University of Turku), and I hold a PhD in Comparative Literature (University of Eastern Finland). My professional career and multilingual and intercultural research projects are grounded in my enthusiasm and personal life, as I have lived and worked in several European countries over the past 20 years. I studied in Germany (Düsseldorf), Spain (Salamanca) and France (Nice), worked as a lecturer in France (Nantes) and the United Kingdom (Cambridge).

Alina Kuusisto (alina.kuusisto@uef.fi)

I work as a project researcher at the Karelian Institute, University of Eastern Finland. In gained my PhD in 2017 in Finnish history. I have studied higher education policy, history of education and agriculture, Finnish and European cross-border cooperation, as well as the local and regional history of North Karelia and Eastern Finland in 1800s and 1900s .

Anna Salonen (anna.salonen@uef.fi)

I am a Doctor of Theology with a title of docent in Church and Social studies, a multidisciplinary and internationally networked researcher and a curious observer of human social life. My research interests include  faith-based charitable food aid, social inequality and charity economy; affluence, moderation and everyday food consumption; therapeutic culture; and lived (non)religion. Right now my research focuses on lived utopias in food aid as well as (non-)religiosity and relationships with nature in community gardens.

Binod Kafle (binod.kafle@uef.fi)

Binod Kafle holds an M.Sc. in Wood Materials Science from the University of Eastern Finland (2021-2023) and an M.Sc. in Agriculture Extension (2005-2007) from the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science (IAAS), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal. With a diverse professional background, Binod has worked as a Project Coordinator, Agricultural Scientist, Social Development Specialist, and in Customer Service in various organizations in Nepal, Denmark, and Finland during 2006 to 2023. His research focuses on agriculture and wood materials, including studies on the adoption and diffusion of organic vegetables, improved maize varieties, improved potato varieties, the development of agro-technologies for livelihood enhancement, and the growth of fungi on wood biochar. He has authored several publications on topics such as socio-economic assessments of improved maize varieties, the adoption of improved potato varieties, the diffusion of early rice varieties, and organic vegetable farming.

Dawid Bunikowski (dawid.bunikowski@uef.fi)

I am a legal philosopher of Polish descent, residing in Eastern Finland (North Karelia, Joensuu). I did my PhD in Poland in 2009 (on law and morality: abortion, euthanasia, human fertilisation, cloning, pornography, prostitution, same-sex couples, etc.). I did different postgraduate studies in: 1) human resources management, 2) economics, 3) MBA-sustainable and inclusive leadership, 4) Jews in Poland. I carried out my postdoctoral research at the University of Eastern Finland (UEF, School of Law), in 2013-2015 (on the recent global financial crisis as an axiological crisis: the crisis of law and the crisis of morality; business ethics/corporate governance). My Docent title was granted by the University of Lapland in 2022 (in the field of philosophy of law in the Arctic). I have been a Visiting Researcher at the UEF School of Theology since 2020. Additionally, I am a University Professor at the State University of Applied Sciences in Wloclawek (Department of Administration) in Poland. I am a Lecturer at the University of Guyana (Department of Law) in Guyana. I am a former Visiting Professor at Carleton University (Department of Law and Legal Studies) in Ottawa, Canada. I am a law and religion scholar. I work on state church relations, religious freedom, Catholicism and Judaism, but also on relations between law, morality and religion. My main research interests concern as well: law and morality, law and politics, law and society, law and anthropology, law and language, etc. Much of my research has covered indigenous cultures in the Arctic like customary laws, recognition of indigenous rights or protection of sacred sites. I am also to ethical foundations of economy. Moreover, I do “all things Polish”. While in the School, I teach:

I also taught here (2022/2023):

  • “Jews and Judaism in Poland, Russia, the Baltic countries and East Central Europe”,
  • “Ukrainian-Polish relations: history, politics, culture, law, religion”.

Moreover, while in social sciences (2023/2024), I am the coordinator of the YUFE course “Global Migration and European Identity” and have taught “Populism in East Central Europe”.

Denis Dobrynin (denis.dobrynin@uef.fi)

I am coordinating the activities implemented by the University of Eastern Finland within the framework of the EDUCase platform. Supported by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, the EDUCase platform is focused on strengthening partnerships in education, sustainable development and global responsibility. In 2022, we organize courses on environmental collaboration and conflict resolution in Finland and in Tanzania. These courses address conflicts related to natural resources management, including the examination of theoretical frameworks and conflict cases, hands-on exercises and the development of collaboration, mediation and consensus-building skills. The courses are both academic and practice-driven. As a researcher, I am interested in environmental and forest policy and governance, sustainability, and bioeconomy. In my research, I am focused on the role of globalization and privatization of forest governance and sustainable forest management, including the market-driven forest certification, NGOs and private companies. My research was supported by the Kone Foundation and the Department of Geographical and Historical Studies.