Right to a Healthy Environment & Relational Health and Well-being

My postdoctoral project brings me to a new topic that I haven’t addressed in my research so far. In July 2022, the UN General Assembly recognized the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment (Resolution 76/300). I am interested in examining what “healthy” actually implies and how well contemporary international environmental and human rights law incorporates ecocentric and Indigenous understandings of the relational nature of health and well-being.

This project is something very novel to me, so let’s see where it will take me!

The Komi people and the Komi Republic

I did my Master’s and Doctoral research about the experiences of the Komi people, one of the Finno-Ugric peoples residing in Russia. I myself was born in an Izhma Komi-Russian family, so my family and personal background aligned rather well with my research interests.   

In my Master’s thesis, I studied public organizations and local authorities’ responses to oil spills in the Izhemsky district in the northern part of the Komi Republic, Russia. In my Doctoral dissertation, I examined Komi experiences of urban living, being, and community-building, rural-urban mobilities, and language ideologies and attitudes.

Besides my academic research, I am interested in almost anything related to the Komi people and the Komi Republic: from history and folk traditions to the women’s movement and contemporary artistic initiatives.        

Urban anthropology and ethnography: Cities as the sites of loss and hope 

Cities are fascinating places for ethnographic and anthropological research. Long being considered inferior and less authentic than exotic and rural areas, with the growth of urbanization, they’ve become an inherent part of research in/about/on/with human communities.   

In my doctoral research, I was interested in how cities and constantly growing urban Indigenous populations challenge conventional understandings of what Indigeneity is. Urban living and community-building, mobilities, language sustainability and vitality, as well as relationships between cities and the natural environment, are some of the things that excite me the most. 

Biocultural heritage and non-linear time  

In 2023-2025, I was a member of the Kone Foundation-funded project Biocultural Heritage and Non-linear Time run by my colleagues from Indigenous studies at the University of Helsinki. Referring to four different geographical areas, we studied the relationship between biocultural heritage and non-mainstream understandings of time by Indigenous and local communities. To learn more about this project, please check our website.