Walkers
Steering group
Camilla Brudin Borg
Senior Lecturer in Literature, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
She carries out research on ’Narratives on the trail’, which focuses on walking with a combined set of interdisciplinary methods of studying walking narratives in the field (mainly at the pilgrim way to Santiago de Compostela) such as new materialist theories, literary text analyses, digital humanities methods and empirical data from trails.
Roger Norum
Docent and University Lecturer, University of Oulu, Finland
Roger is an anthropologist with interest in media studies and the environmental humanities. His interests these days seem to consider: the role technology plays in mediating our relationship to each other, to the environment and to mobility; the role of silences and sounds in Arctic spaces; and the links between infrastructure and development. He enjoys how creative methodologies and working with people well outside his own discipline are able to keep him out of his boxes.
Suzanne Österlund-Pötzsch
Docent in Nordic folklore at Åbo Academy, Finland
She is based in Helsinki and works as an archivist specialising in tradition material and is delighted when this can be combined with an interest in various aspects of mobility. Research interests include everyday walking, documentation and methodology, rhythms and the body/environment relationship.
John Martin
Head of Research Support and Development, University of Plymouth, UK
His research focuses specifically on interdisciplinary approaches to landscape/seascape assessment and monitoring. This includes the mapping and valuation of culture and ecosystem services. He uses various mapping techniques ranging from ubiquitous technology tools to participatory workshops and remote sensing methods.
Hanna E. Åberg
Lecturer at Uppsala University
​With a background in landscape architecture and heritage studies, Hanna is interested in landscape values, perception and how we further conserve our surroundings through policy and legislations . She is a part of a research group in the Department of Architecture in Bologna working with tourism, cultural landscapes and heritage conservation in rural areas across Europe.
Members
Alessandro Rippa
“Freigeist” Fellow and Project Director at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU Munich, Germany.
​
Alessandro is an anthropologist working on infrastructure development, borderlands, conservation and environmental change in China, Southeast Asia, and the Alps. He is the author of “Borderland Infrastructures: Trade, Development and Control in Western China” (Amsterdam University Press, 2020).
​
Alejandro Reig
Research Affiliate at University of Oxford, England
Alejandro is a researcher, consultant, teacher and writer on socio-environmental issues and anthropology. He has a focused research expertise on Amazonian landscapes and the Yanomami indigenous people of the Venezuela-Brazil rainforest. He has been walking his way, in and out of beaten disciplinary paths, across different countries, professions and occupations, developing cultural engineering and scientific dissemination projects in various formats, as museum exhibitions, documentary video and publications. In recent times, he has started to investigate strategies of landscape valorisation and environmental communication in nature parks of Mallorca, Spain, where he lives.
Ami Skånberg
Head of the Master’s programme in Dance Education at Stockholm University of the Arts & Academy of Music and Drama at University of Gothenburg, Swe​den
​
Ami is a performer, choreographer, filmmaker and teacher. Ami has co-chaired the Nordic Summer University Study Circle of Artistic Research with Dr Lucy Lyons. She is a member of the Peer Review board of Journal of Artistic Research. Ami often creates stage work based on her embodied life story. Her 90 min solo performance A particular act of survival received a performing arts award at Scenkonstgalan in Sweden in 2015. Her new screendance piece Ancestor premiered at Dansfilmfestivalen in Feb 2022. Ami makes dance films and documentaries about dance. Her debut film won an honorary mention at VidéoDanseGrandPrix in Paris 1995. She walks slowly as a ceremonial, subversive act thanks to her studies with Nishikawa Senrei and work with Japanese dance in Kyoto since 2000.
Dani Schrire
Lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
With a joint appointment in two graduate programs: Folklore and Folk-Culture studies and Cultural Studies, he often teaches walking and walking texts. Previously, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for KAEE Goettingen and the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His research engages Jewish folkloristics, International folkloristics, folklore and avant-garde, the development of folklore taxonomies globally, as well as collecting practices, particularly the collection of postcards and critical heritage studies. Recently he started developing a new kind of walk.
Daniele Valisena
Ph.D. in history of science, technology and the environment at the University of Liège, Belgium
​
Daniele works as a post-doctoral researcher in environmental history and as a part-time lecturer in environmental history of migration at NYU Florence. His background is in modern history, but his scholarly work touches upon history of science and technology, oral history, environmental humanities, political ecology, walking methodologies, and mapping. Daniele's ongoing research explores the links between zootechnics, more-than-human ecologies, Italian colonialism, and Fascist politics of science and nature. He is part of the political ecology collective Ecologie Politiche del Presente, based in Naples, Italy.
Daniel Svensson
Associate Senior Lecturer, Department of Sport Sciences, Malmö University, Sweden
​
Daniel conducts research mainly within the fields of sport history and environmental history, with focus on environmental issues in sport and outdoor recreation. Svensson has studied the scientization of training methods in endurance sport and meetings between scientific and experiential knowledge in sport. He has also studied the potential of paths and trails as heritage.​
Dima Arzyuto
Assistant Professor at the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, The Ohio State university, USA
​
Dima is an environmental anthropologist and historian working in the Arctic and Siberia. His research interests comprise the transnational history of Arctic social and natural sciences, theories of archive, agricultural experiments in the high North, intersections of Indigenous and academic ways of knowing, visual and sonic anthropology. His current research projects are focused on histories and ethnographies of circumpolar seed and gene banks and digital repatriation of wax cylinders and tape reels from the Pushkin House in Saint Petersburg, the largest audio archive of Indigenous voices from Siberia.
Dominica Williamson
Freelance artist working in the field of multidisciplinary design and sustainability who draws inspiration from landscape, England
Dominica’s work deals with the political and technical nature of open data, in particular the gathering and mapping of perceptual data with communities and scientists. She co-develops projects with a focus on new materialism and uses fine art and scientific monitoring walking methodologies, and drawing and digital design processes. Dominica has academic and illustrative work published in her field and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Eden Project Florilegium Society.
Elva Björg Einarsdóttir
Doctoral student, University of Iceland
​
Elva is a doctoral student in tourism studies at the University of Iceland. In her studies she emphasis the method of walking when researching place making and mobility in the Westfjords of Iceland. In 2016 Elva Björg published a book, map, and a webpage (www.bardsatrandarhreppur.net) about walking in her childhood landscapes, Barðaströnd, Iceland. This guided her steps to become a doctoral student in tourism since there were still some thoughts to be thought through, thoughts about lines, layers, rhythms and geosociality.
Emily Höckert
Postdoctoral researcher, University of Lapland, Finland
​
Emily's research examines and cultivates relational ways of being, imagining, knowing, and acting in tourism settings. She approaches the questions of hospitality and sensitivity at the crossroads of hermeneutic phenomenology, postcolonial philosophy, and feminist new materialism, asking, for instance, how human and non-human actors welcome and take care of each other. Emily’s current research is driven by a curiosity of how tourism can simultaneously mitigate the environmental crisis and adapt to the unpredictable changes ahead. She feels excited about the possibilities of scientific and speculative storytelling that can help us to live our ecological knowledge and to reflect on symbiotic wellbeing of multispecies communities.
Hanna Musoil
Professor of Literature and a member of Environmental Humanities at NTNU, Norway
Hanna publishes on transmedia aesthetics and justice, with emphasis on human rights, migration, and political ecology. She knows that she is an academic because some women generously walked for her a century ago. She keeps this in mind when she organizes public humanities interventions, and when she walks and works with other storytellers and border crossers claiming rights yet to come.
Jannicke Høyem
Associate Professor in Outdoors Studies, Department of Teacher Education and Outdoor Studies, Norwegian School of Sports Sciences, Norway
In her research Jannicke focuses on pedagogy, practical knowledge and human-nature relations, emphasizing place connectedness, place-based learning, didactics for the outdoors, health and well-being, and sustainability. She has broad experience with being and teaching in the Norwegian winter mountains and how this can be understood and conveyed, and key elements of safety in the winter.
Joane Serrano
Professor and current dean of the Faculty of Management and Development Studies, University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU), Philippines
​
Joane teaches Environmental Advocacy, Communication of Scientific and Technical Information, and Socio-Cultural Perspectives on the Environment. She has a wide array of research interests including sustainability, socio-cultural perspectives on the environment, development and environmental communication, health promotion, gender and indigenous knowledge, and open and distance eLearning (ODeL). She is currently the editor in chief of the UPOU-managed Journal of Management and Development Studies. She has published more than 30 publications, presented in 90 conferences, and more than 60 public service engagements.
Jesse D. Peterson
Lecturer with theRadical Humanities Laboratory and School the Human Environment @ the Department of geography, University College Cork , Ireland.
​
Jesse's research interests include more-than-human relations, environmental change, and science and technology, with a specific focus on biodiversity loss and oceanic degradation. He researches human relationships to each other and the environment, so that people can better resolve environmental challenges and achieve more just and mutually beneficial societies. His work cuts across the disciplines of geography, science and technology studies, cultural studies, creative writing, and related fields.
Karen V. Lykke
Professor in Cultural history, Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo, Norway
Ksren's research interests pivot around the histories and ideologies of nature, focusing on environmental discourse and practice; agrarian and arboreal landscape studies; and social and cultural aspects of food. She has held various positions of trust within the Norwegian trekking association (DNT) over the years.
Laura Siragusa
Docent in Linguistic Anthropology, University of Oulu, Finland
​
Laura is an anthropologist, whose work lies at the intersections between linguistic and environmental anthropology often among indigenous groups in the Circumpolar North. She asks how language and communication are manifested in relation to the broader ecology and environment, human and non-human agencies, and what this tells us about the different ways people dwell in and with the world.
Maria Papadomanolakis
Transmission artist and composer based in Chania, Crete, Greece
​
Maria has studied linguistics and literature at the Aristoteleion University of Thessaloniki before moving on to sound art and sound studies, having completed a PhD on the topic ‘Sonic Perceptual Ecologies’ at CRISAP, LCC, UAL. Her work and research focus on the role of sound and walking in the way we perceive, create memories, and make place within our habitual environments. Maria has conducted site specific and creative research in a variety of contexts and locations ranging from busy urban junctions and nature reserves to remote ancient sites and mountain trails.
Noel B. Salazar
Professor in Social and Cultural Anthropology at KU Leuven, Belgium
​
Noel has a long-standing interest in mobilities (including travel and tourism), heritage, and environmental issues, with a special focus on relationality (including processes of embodiment and emplacement), imaginaries, and local-to-global relations. He is the author of Momentous Mobilities (2018) and Envisioning Eden (2010), and the founder of both CuMoRe (Culture Mobilities Research) and the AnthroMob (Anthropology and Mobility) network. Noel conducts research on long-distance walking and is himself an avid hiker.
Outi Rantala
Professor, Responsible Arctic Tourism, University of Lapland and Adjunct professor, Environmental Humanities, University of Turku, Finland.
​
Outi’s research activities have focused on creating critical, reflective and alternative narratives on northern tourism. What she enjoys most in the academia, is the collaboration with inspiring researchers and students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. Her ongoing research project Envisioning proximity tourism with new materialism (www.ilarctic.com) involves collaboration of tourism researchers, anthropologists, sociologists, economists and ecologists. Together the group has been developing more-than-human methodologies. Outi has also been actively involved in developing graduate level education through the the University of Arctic’s Thematic Network on Northern Tourism and the Arctic Five Chair in Tourism and Climate Change.
Paul Readman
Professor in Modern British History at King's College London, England
​
Paul is interested in the relationship between landscape and national identities, a subject I explored in my book Storied Ground (2018). His new project investigates how the embodied experience of landscape—often on foot—has shaped the understanding of history across the modern period. An article trailing some of the themes of this project, ‘Walking, and Knowing the Past’, appeared in the journal History in 2022. He has also worked on the politics of the English ‘land question’ and on the lived experience of borderland landscapes.
Si Poole
Associate Professor of Cultural Education at the University of Chester, England and Programme Leader for the MA Creative Practices in Education and Senior Lead in Cultural Education and Research at Storyhouse; Trustee of the Mythstories museum; Co-Director and Researcher at the Centre for Research into Education, Creativity and Arts through Practice (RECAP); and the Institute of Culture and Society.
​
Si work currently focuses on cultural education; creative pedagogy; walking methodologies; horticulture and wellbeing; intercultural use of music; informal songwriting; and arts, and crafts, based initiatives. He is the Managing Director of Soil Records; Singer and songwriter with 'the loose kites' and is a published poet
Tina Paphitis
Associate Professor in Cultural Studies at the University of Bergen, Norway
​
Tina is a folklorist, archaeologist and critical heritage researcher specialising in legends and landscapes of Britain and the Nordic region spanning the medieval period to the present. Her interests include environmental and ecocritical folklore, experiential approaches to landscape, haunted and supernatural landscapes, and folklore and archaeology in literature.
University of Oulu
Dmitry (Dima) Arzyutov
He is an environmental anthropologist and historian working in the Arctic and Siberia. His research interests comprise the transnational history of Arctic social and natural sciences, theories of archive, agricultural experiments in the high North, intersections of Indigenous and academic ways of knowing, visual and sonic anthropology. His current research projects are focused on histories and ethnographies of circumpolar seed and gene banks and digital repatriation of wax cylinders and tape reels from the Pushkin House in Saint Petersburg, the largest audio archive of Indigenous voices from Siberia. At the moment, He is finalising his first book tentatively entitled “The Northern Book of Origin: Histories, Politics, and Ethnographies of the Siberian Indigenous Ethnogenesis Project” (under contract with the University of Nebraska Press).
Doctoral student in tourism studies at the University of Iceland, Iceland
Elva Björg Einarsdóttir
Elva Björg Einarsdóttir is a doctoral student in tourism studies at the University of Iceland. In her studies she emphasis the method of walking when researching place making and mobility in the Westfjords of Iceland. In 2016 Elva Björg published a book, map, and a webpage (www.bardsatrandarhreppur.net) about walking in her childhood landscapes, Barðaströnd, Iceland. This guided her steps to become a doctoral student in tourism since there were still some thoughts to be thought through, thoughts about lines, layers, rhythms and geosociality.
Professor at Cultural history, Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo
Karen V. Lykke
Professor Karen V. Lykke (Professor in Cultural history, Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo). Her research interests pivot around the histories and ideologies of nature, focusing on environmental discourse and practice; agrarian and arboreal landscape studies; and social and cultural aspects of food. She has held various positions of trust within the Norwegian trekking association (DNT) over the years.
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
Associate Professor in Cultural Education at the University of Chester, UK
Si Poole
Programme Leader for the MA Creative Practices in Education and Senior Lead in Cultural Education and Research at Storyhouse; Trustee of the Mythstories museum; Co-Director and Researcher at the Centre for Research into Education, Creativity and Arts through Practice (RECAP); and the Institute of Culture and Society. His work currently focuses on cultural education; creative pedagogy; walking methodologies; horticulture and wellbeing; intercultural use of music; informal songwriting; and arts, and crafts, based initiatives. He is the Managing Director of Soil Records; Singer and songwriter with 'the loose kites' and is a published poet.
Associate Professor in Cultural Education at the University of Chester, UK
Si Poole
Programme Leader for the MA Creative Practices in Education and Senior Lead in Cultural Education and Research at Storyhouse; Trustee of the Mythstories museum; Co-Director and Researcher at the Centre for Research into Education, Creativity and Arts through Practice (RECAP); and the Institute of Culture and Society. His work currently focuses on cultural education; creative pedagogy; walking methodologies; horticulture and wellbeing; intercultural use of music; informal songwriting; and arts, and crafts, based initiatives. He is the Managing Director of Soil Records; Singer and songwriter with 'the loose kites' and is a published poet.
Associate Professor in Cultural Education at the University of Chester, UK
Si Poole
Programme Leader for the MA Creative Practices in Education and Senior Lead in Cultural Education and Research at Storyhouse; Trustee of the Mythstories museum; Co-Director and Researcher at the Centre for Research into Education, Creativity and Arts through Practice (RECAP); and the Institute of Culture and Society. His work currently focuses on cultural education; creative pedagogy; walking methodologies; horticulture and wellbeing; intercultural use of music; informal songwriting; and arts, and crafts, based initiatives. He is the Managing Director of Soil Records; Singer and songwriter with 'the loose kites' and is a published poet.
Associate Professor in Cultural Education at the University of Chester, UK
Si Poole
Programme Leader for the MA Creative Practices in Education and Senior Lead in Cultural Education and Research at Storyhouse; Trustee of the Mythstories museum; Co-Director and Researcher at the Centre for Research into Education, Creativity and Arts through Practice (RECAP); and the Institute of Culture and Society. His work currently focuses on cultural education; creative pedagogy; walking methodologies; horticulture and wellbeing; intercultural use of music; informal songwriting; and arts, and crafts, based initiatives. He is the Managing Director of Soil Records; Singer and songwriter with 'the loose kites' and is a published poet.