Marja Sorvari is Professor of Russian Literature and Culture, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu Campus. She specializes in post-Soviet Russian literature from the perspectives of gender, cultural memory and multilingualism. Her Ph.D. dissertation examined Russian women’s autobiographical texts of the 1990s. Her current research focuses on multi- and translingual literature, displacement and (post)memory, and the reception of Russian literature in Finland. She has published two monographs, many peer-reviewed articles and co-edited several collections of articles.
Migration and Transnational Everyday Life in Finnish-Russian Border Area at Era of Austerity
This project is on-going ethnographic research of migrants in North Karelia. Since the beginning of the 2000s, I have been carrying on my research among Russian migrants from the everyday ethnographic perspective, in the border areas of North Karelia. The theoretical framework of the project lies in the intersection of welfare politics, transnational everyday life, rural border areas and everyday geopolitics (see e.g. Pöllänen & Davydova-Minguet 2017). Methodologically the study continues the border ethnography tradition (Davydova & Pöllänen 2010, 2011; Vila 2003). This project conducts research on migration and transnationalism in the contexts of border areas in the era of austerity policy and politics.
Minna Piipponen ([email protected])
I am a Human Geographer, DSocSci, My latest research interests focus on international migratory processes related to Russia. The earlier interests covered community and regional development related to restructuring processes of natural resource industries especially in North-West Russia and border regions. In addition, I do organizational tasks at the Karelian Institute including e.g. providing support for the Institute’s researchers and projects in their daily work, as well as communication and reporting tasks.
I work also as the Coordinator of the Borders, Mobilities and Cultural Encounters research community (BOMOCULT RC). This research community brings together research teams and scholars from the Karelian Institute, the Department of Social Sciences and the School of Historical and Geographical Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies, as well as from the School of Humanities and the School of Theology at the Philosophical Faculty.
Northern Dimensions of European Union Actorness
This research deals with the EU’s role as a global actor by focusing on one of the a highly sensitive area: relations with Russia. Despite the apparent frustration of EU neighbourhood policy ambitions due to Russian interventions, particularly in regard to Ukraine, lessons need to be learned from this experience. There will be little alternative to interest-based but mutually constructed regional cooperation and the EU still offers the most attractive alternative.
Olga Hannonen ([email protected])
Experienced researcher in lifestyle and trans-border tourism mobility, including digital nomads around the world, Russian trans-border second-home ownership in Finland, intra-European residential tourism on Gran Canaria, Spain, and residential mobility in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Recent research focus includes nature-based tourism with the focus on Russian recreational fishing in Finland and in Russia.
Pasi Fränti ([email protected])
Home page: http://cs.uef.fi/pages/franti/
Pasi Fränti received his MSc and PhD degrees from the University of Turku, 1991 and 1994 in Science. Since 2000, he has been a professor of Computer Science at the University of Eastern Finland (UEF). He has published 79 journals and 167 peer review conference papers, including 14 IEEE transaction papers. His main research interests are in machine learning, data mining, and pattern recognition including clustering algorithms and intelligent location-aware systems. Significant contributions have also been made in image compression, image analysis, vector quantization and speech technology.
Pasi Fränti is the head of the Machine Learning group at the school of computing at UEF. He has supervised 25 PhD students on the following topics: Clustering (9), Image and audio compression (5), Speech technology (4), Image processing, de-noising and HDR (3), Location-aware systems (3), and web mining (1). Six of the students originate from Russian including St. Petersburg (3), Uljanovsk (2) and Novosibirsk (1). All graduates work in research, teaching (postdoc, lecturer, associate professor), or in research & development in academia or in IT companies located in Finland, Shanghai, Singapore, Germany, Romania and Iran.
Pauliina Lukinmaa ([email protected])
I work as a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Humanities, University of Eastern Finland. In my postdoctoral project, funded by the Kone Foundation (2023–2026), I study the everyday practices, networks, and expressions of transnational solidarity among Russian-speaking LGBTIQ+ activists in the Baltic states and online, particularly following Russia’s full-scale war of aggression in Ukraine in 2022.
My ethnographic PhD research (2022) examined the development and forms of LGBTIQ+ activism in St. Petersburg during the late 2010s.
I work part-time on a project funded by the Research Council of Finland, titled Menopausing: Diversity, Awareness, and Activism (2024–2028). Drawing on queer and cultural studies, I investigate menopause activist communities and influencers in Finland who seek to advance gender and age equity. More in detail, I focus on communities and influencers engaged with menopause-related themes and promoting gender and age equality, with particular emphasis on the intersectons of activism and care.
I am the principal instructor for the course Gender Studies Perspectives at the University of Eastern Finland.
I supervise doctoral candidates in gender and cultural studies and serve on doctoral follow-up committees.
I am a board member of the Association for Gender Studies in Finland and a vice member at the executive team of the national HILMA Network for Gender Studies.
Pekka Suutari ([email protected])
I have studied ethnomusicology and folklore studies at the universities of Helsinki, Gothenburg, Joensuu and Petroszavodsk. Since 1990s I have studied the minority music and cultures as signifying practices and political and aesthetic activities. I have written about Finnish popular music among the Finns in Sweden and contemporary folk music in Petrozavodsk, Russian Karelia. I have conducted research within the contexts of identities, borders, field work, recent history, cultural policies and activities. Recently my studies have been connected with the Karelian language and music as well as Karelian cultural activism.