This month we are really excited to have a conversation with Rubén Vezzoni, who is one of our University of Helsinki colleagues from the Doctoral Programme in Political, Soci­etal and Regional Change. His work looks at different aspects of the political economy of the EU’s green transition, with case studies on solar panels, hydrogen, and post-growth agri-food systems. In our conversation we focused in on “green” hydrogen and whether in practice it can live up to the grand narratives that are...

This month on the EXALT podcast we are super excited to be joined by Xander Dunlap for a precedent-breaking third conversation. Xander is a research fellow at the Institute for Global Sustainability at Boston University and a visiting research fellow at Global Develop Studies at University of Helsinki. Xander talks to us about his new book from Pluto Press, “This System is Killing Us: Land Grabbing, the Green Economy and Ecological Conflict.” This book looks at the last 10 years of work...

In this episode we are joined by Ossi Ollinaho and Máriam Abbas. Ossi is a project researcher from the TreesForDev project leading the work package that is looking at Mozambique. Máriam is a researcher from Observatório do Meio Rural (OMR), in Mozambique, who is coordinating the research line “Environment and Rural Areas”, which explores, among other topics, the impacts of climate change on agriculture, the causes of deforestation and mainstreaming biodiversity in the agricultural...

Welcome to the debut episode of the limited series TreesForDev project podcast. In this episode we are honored to be joined by the project principal investigators, Maria Ehrnström-Fuentes and Markus Kröger, from Hanken School of Economics and University of Helsinki respectively. In this conversation, they introduce us to who they are and what types of questions are being investigated in the TreesForDev project. This project examines the dynamics of ecological restoration involving tree...

This month we are overjoyed to be joined by fellow University of Helsinki Global Development Studies doctoral researcher, Martta Kaskien. Martta is currently working with the project Citizenship Utopias in the Global South: The Pursuit of Transformative Alternatives in Times of Civic Disillusionment. Her research is centred on feminist activist narratives in Kenya using ethnographic methods. She gives us insight into her research trajectory and how she got to this topic in this context, and...

This month we have a deeply interesting conversation with social anthropologist, Dr. Avi KBH, who is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the project Animal Crosslocations, which is resourced through the Resilient and Just Systems (RESET) Network at University of Helsinki. We talked about his new project, “Mosquito Crosslocations and Participatory Evaluations of Mosquito Interventions,” and the trajectory that led him to be interested in these topics. In this conversation we think through the complex...

This month we were absolutely delighted to be joined by Joonatan Ala-Könni, for a super interesting conversation that connects natural sciences and extractivisms. Joonatan Ala-Könni is a doctoral researcher in Atmospheric Science at the Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR) at the University of Helsinki. Joonatan’s work is all about climate change and using insights gained from the processes of carbon binding in aquatic environments. The work looks at the physical world –...

To round out 2023, we wanted to release a brief episode to celebrate (over) four years of the EXALT Podcast and give a sneak peak at some exciting new happenings in 2024! We apologize for not being able to get a full anniversary special to you this year. We have had a lot on our plates with our respective research, as well as some major (positive) life changes. However, we are excited to announce some upcoming projects which will be crossing over with the EXALT Podcast feed! Don’t worry! We...

This month we are ecstatic to bring you the second part of our conversation with the creators of From the Cubby. We are once again joined by the same wonderful trio of  guests, Joe Spence, Nick Chamberlain, and Avi Betz-Heinemann. From the Cubby, is a three-part documentary film series,  which draws on six years of ethnographic fieldwork in Canterbury, England. The first film follows Martin, a man who was sleeping rough on the streets of Canterbury as a tuberculosis outbreak was about to...

This month we were delighted to be joined by three amazing guests, Joe Spence, Nick Chamberlain, and Avi Betz-Heinemann (whose name you might recognize from last month’s episode). All three of our guests have been involved with the documentary film series From the Cubby, which draws on six years of ethnographic fieldwork in Canterbury, England. The film series draws its name from a makeshift encampment that was a geographical epicenter implicated in an outbreak of tuberculosis. This was a...

This month we were delighted to be joined by Niti Bhan, who is a part-time doctoral researcher focusing on trans-disciplinary innovation at Aalto University in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Niti came to research after almost 30 years of situated practice. Niti specializes in human-centered design/innovation planning. This field asks question like, how can we understand people in their own lives, the way they live and operate as a starting point for design and innovation. In...

This month we are happy to welcome Ossi Ollinaho, a lecturer in Global Development Studies at University of Helsinki, on the podcast. In the conversation, we talk with Ossi about his journey from studying math and physics, to a Doctorate in Industrial Engineering and Management, to the experiences and questions which brought him to work in Global Development Studies. We also dive into how transitions to agroforestry techniques can turn out good, bad, and ugly, as well as how the systemic...

This month we are thrilled to be joined by Eija Ranta, University Lecturer at University of Helsinki in Global Development Studies. Eija leads two Academy of Finland research projects, 'Social Justice and Raciality in Latin America’ (2021-2026) and 'Citizenship Utopias in the Global South: The Pursuit of Transformative Alternatives in Times of Disillusionment' (2019-2023). Eija’s current focus is on societal activism and particularly how people can live a good and decent life in the face of...

This month we were honored to be joined by Toni Ruuska, who is a University Researcher and Adjunct Professor of Sustainable Economy at the University of Helsinki. His research focuses generally on alternatives to capitalism, agrarian political economy, and the skills of self-provisioning. In this captivating conversation, Toni lays out some of the issues with the perpetual growth model that is part and parcel of capitalist systems. Endless growth and accumulation are a nightmare; however,...

This month we go back to Zambia for an enlightening conversation with Kumbutso Phiri, a development specialist. Kumbutso works with a wide range of topics, but in this conversation, we explore the topic of street kids who live on the streets of Lusaka, Zambia’s capital city. Kumbutso gives us insight into the demographics and societal infrastructure of the street kid population. While the exact number of street kids is difficult to estimate due to a lack of effective ways to definitively...

This month on the podcast we are really excited to try something new…by revisiting something old! Christopher and I open the podcast with a short chat and some life updates. Then we turn our attention to one of the first EXALT podcasts, “Exploring the Pluriverse” featuring Maria Ehrnstrom-Fuentes, an associate professor at Hanken School of Business. In this amazing conversation she explores themes of decoloniality, degrowth, and reflections on what researchers do and raises questions about...

This month we are delighted to be joined by Patience Mususa from The Nordic Africa Institute. She is an anthropologist with a background in architecture working on mining and urbanization in Southern Africa. She is particularly interested in place and the ways in which people interact in the face of the large scale mining industry and the influence and ramifications of economic downturn and socio-economic transformation. In particular, she is interested in how space is produced, for example...

This month we are thrilled to be joined by University of Helsinki doctoral researcher Mariam Khawar. Mariam is in the Doctoral Programme in Political, Soci­etal and Regional Change, which is part of the Faculty of Social Sciences and is affiliated with Helsinki Centre for Global Political Economy. Mariam’s work focuses on Islamic economic philosophy, specifically through a Marxist lens. Her work is highly interdisciplinary drawing on feminist political economy, economics, and feminism in...

This month we are delighted to be joined by Barış Can Sever who is Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Sociology at Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. He is currently doing a 9-month research period at Global Development Studies at the University of Helsinki. Barış gives us an exciting insight into the agricultural geography in Turkey, including pressure from changing socio/ecological systems and the increasing dependency on imports. There have been dramatic changes in the...

This month on the pod we are delighted to be joined by Mariko Frame, who is Assistant Professor of Economics at Merrimack College in Massachusetts. Dr. Frame is a political economist who focuses on ecological imperialism, which occurs when one country subjugates another country by controlling the resources, politics, labour, military, and the very ideology or ways of worlding. This dynamic is often found between countries in the global North and global South due to the history of colonialism...

This month we are super excited to be joined again by friend of the podcast Alexander Dunlap, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo. This conversation is a high energy journey through Alexander’s own trajectory into academic spaces, and the realities on the ground he has encountered in the course of his work. We talk about the violence that accompanies extractivism and reflect on direct impacts to those living at extractive...

Ksenija Hanaček is a researcher at the Autonomous University of Barcelona’s Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA, UAB), Spain. Ksenija works for the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJAtlas). Recently, she has collaborated with Markus Kröger at the University of Helsinki, looking at extractive projects and resistance to extractive projects in the Arctic. We talked about extractive economies in the Arctic, particularly investments that are coming from outside the...

This bonus episode of extractivism in pop culture is in honour of the three-year anniversary of the EXALT podcast. We are very excited to be joined again by Jesse Barber from the University of Helsinki Folklore Studies. In this bonus episode we explore J. R. R. Tolkien’s series, Lord of the Rings (LoTR) and how it relates to themes like modernity, industrialism, capitalism, war, and of course extractivism. We talk across the various iterations of LoTRs, including the books, Peter Jackson’s...