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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 .

Azmeary Ferdoush (azmeary.ferdoush@uef.fi)

I am an Academy of Finland (AOF) postdoctoral researcher based at the Karelian Institute. My AOF project explores whether, why, and how the state creates a situation where refugees and asylum seekers are kept indeterminately waiting. It is geographically focused on the Rohingya refugees in the camps of Bangladesh and the asylum seekers residing in different reception centers in Finland.

At the Institute, my works engage with the university strategic program that focuses specifically on the profiling area of  “cultural encounters, mobilities and borders.” Broadly, I am interested in exploring the way man-made ideas of borders and bounded spaces affect human mobility and vice versa. As such, I specialize in the study of state, territory, borders, sovereignty, (non)citizenship, and migration. At the same time, I often remain critical regarding “importing” ready-made ideas from the Global North to the Global South in terms of both theory and methods. My scholarship thus sits at the intersection of political geography, critical geopolitics, decolonial praxis, and qualitative research methods.

You can find more about my research here.

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”.

Developing competitiveness of the regional bioeconomy companies

This project will:
Find out what is known in research about structure elements of a regional business environment and an attractiveness.
Make questionnaire to all bioeconomy enterprises that operate in North Karelian. Furthermore, results of the questionnaire research will be complemented with interviews to at least 10 growth-oriented bioeconomy enterprises.
Find out current situation in forest bioeconomy business and the most important change forces in North Karelia.
Arrange a seminar about forest bioeconomy’s regional attractiveness elements.
Arrange a bench marking trip to Värmland to explore their Paper Province Alliance.
Arrange a public seminar in order to present results of the survey.
Publish a survey report.

Elina Hytönen-Ng (elina.hytonen-ng@uef.fi)

Hytönen-Ng is an ethnomusicologist and a cultural researcher, who specializes in the ethnographic study of people’s musical experiences. Her research topic include popular music research (especially jazz), peak experiences related to music, work environment of musicians, musicians’ mobility, sonic environment of reception center, soundscape studies, schools soundscape, the role of sound in shamanic rituals and the meaning of sound in the creation of relationship with the environment.
In her latest research she studies the lamenting tradition and how it lives in the contemporary world, as well as what kind of meanings are give to it and how it is experiences in the body.

The funding for the research comes from KKES, foundation for the promoting Karelian culture, and Kone Foundation.