Showing papers by "University of Lapland published in 2022"

Walking the concepts: elaborating on the non-representational sensitivities of tourism experience

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to experience and reflect on the methodological and epistemological implications of a walking tour as a mode of presenting and disseminating marketing knowledge. We invite you to join us on a walking tour built around food, and shaped by the spatiotemporal dynamics of a Nordic city. By moving through the streets and green areas of the city, we show you how the walking tour opens up possibilities to elaborate and leverage the concept of experience through the non-representational sensitivities. During the tour, you will realise that despite the stories told, it is through embodiment, and entanglements with the materialities encountered in spaces that the tour narratives continuously evolve, co-creating knowledge and understanding of the city and the notion of experience. Finally, we will draw your attention to the walking tour as a way of presentation in relation to current academic epistemic cultures.

Sustainability as an Aspect of Societal Quality

Abstract: Sustainability and quality have many connections and commonalities. Conceptually, they are ambiguous and subject to interpretations. They multi-disciplinarily relate to many application areas. Quality relates to products, organizations, people, and societies, whereas sustainability to societies or the entire planet. The development of sustainability and the quality of society take place through the actions and diffusion of people and organizations. Organizations apply sustainability in their business by social responsibility. Problems in sustainability are born from its conceptual ambiguity and broad economic and political interest. The article examines sustainability as a subset within a societal quality, and society as a scale-free network.

Association Between Family History of Surgically Treated Low Back Pain and Adolescent Low Back Pain

Abstract: Cross-sectional.To study the associations between a family history of surgically treated low back pain (LBP) and adolescent LBP.A family history of LBP is related to adolescent LBP, but whether a family history of back surgery is relevant to adolescent LBP is not known.A subpopulation of the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986 was contacted when they were aged between 18 and 19years. The postal questionnaire asked the participants to report their LBP and a relative's (mother, father, sibling) LBP and back surgery, and to provide data on potential covariates. The association between a family history of LBP ("no family history of LBP," "family history of LBP but no surgery," and "family history of LBP and surgery") and adolescent LBP (no LBP, occasional LBP, and frequent LBP) were evaluated using logistic regression analysis with odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), adjusted for sex, smoking, and psychological distress.Of the 1374 adolescents in the study, 33% reported occasional LBP and 9% frequent LBP. Both the "family history of LBP but no surgery" and "family history of LBP and surgery" categories were associated with frequent LBP (adjusted OR [aOR] 2.09, 95% CI 1.38-3.16; aOR 2.23, 95% CI 1.02-4.90, respectively). Occasional LBP was associated with the "family history of LBP and surgery" category. A subgroup analysis of adolescents with a family history of LBP found no statistically significant associations between family history of back surgery and adolescent LBP.Our findings suggest that adolescents who report a family history of LBP have higher odds of frequent LBP irrespectively of a family history of back surgery.Level of evidence: 4.

Husky Kennels as Animal Welfare Activists

Abstract: Abstract This chapter looks at corporate activism on animal welfare within the context of dog sledding tourism businesses in northern Finland. Using institutional theory and care ethics, the chapter explores and illustrates how a group of husky kennels engage in political action to induce change to improve the living and working conditions of sled dogs. In the chapter, special attention is given to the motivation of these small business owners as well as the barriers to, and strategies for, their political struggle. Finally, the theoretical framework used in the chapter makes a contribution to animal welfare activism in terms of an ethical position that is driven not only by justice, but also by care, compassion, and other feelings experienced through multispecies relationships.

Indigenous peoples environmental human rights - from objects of protection towards stewardship: assessment of current international standards

Abstract: Indigenous peoples' legal subjectivity within environmental protection has become more recognized within human rights frameworks. This chapter presents three reasons why Indigenous peoples should be empowered as legal subjects in environmental protection. First, Indigenous peoples should be recognized as rights holders with particular environmental guarantees, both substantive and procedural. Second, the strengthening of Indigenous peoples' environmental agency is needed because measures to protect the environment can violate their rights. In particular, the protection of cultural heritage sites may be carried out without consultation or consideration of its impacts on Indigenous peoples. Measures aimed at the reduction of emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) have also led to violations of the rights of Indigenous peoples. Third, Indigenous peoples' knowledge of the environment is based on longstanding sustainable practices on their traditional lands.

The Teaching-Research Nexus of the Academic Profession in Finland, Estonia and Sweden

Abstract: In this chapter, we discuss the teaching-research nexus in the higher education sectors in Estonia, Finland and Sweden. We analyse the extent to which the teaching-research nexus has changed in Finnish dual higher education system and, based on APIKS 2018 data, compare findings to the notions of the relationships of teaching-research nexus in Estonia and Sweden. We first look at how Finnish research and the teaching have changed between the CAP and APIKS surveys of 2008 and 2018, respectively. Second, we consider how the teaching-research nexus can be compared between these three countries. Estonia and Finland have binary higher education systems, and the Swedish university system has research universities and university colleges with an emphasis on teaching. Further, we outline the reasons why scholars moved into research. This phenomenon makes research- and teaching-focused higher education institutions convergent, and the chapter explores the change in teaching and research roles over time. The institutional and public expectations about the work in the academy are less focused on research as scholars’ use of their time suggests. Although the roles of the higher education sectors are different, in higher education sectors respondents considered that research activities reinforce teaching.

Implementing the AfCFTA Agreement: A Case for the Harmonization of Data Protection Law in Africa

Abstract: Abstract The Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AEAfCFTA) is a revolutionary treaty of the African Union (AU) which creates an African single market to guarantee the free movement of persons, capital, goods and services. The AEAfCFTA is geared towards enabling seamless trade among African countries. The single market relies heavily on the processing of the personal data of persons resident within and outside the AU, thereby necessitating an effective data protection regime. However, the data protection regime across Africa is fragmented, with each country either having a distinct data protection framework or none at all. This lack of a uniform continental framework threatens to clog the wheels of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), because by demanding compliance with the various data protection laws across Africa, free trade will be inhibited, the very problem the AEAfCFTA seeks to remediate. These concerns are considered and applicable solutions are proposed to ensure the successful implementation of the AfCFTA.

Multilingualism in a Decolonial Way

Abstract: This chapter is based on a long-term fieldwork held in parts of Ryukyuan islands in Japan. Linguists have traditionally claimed the Ryukyus is linguistically diverse, having five to six “endangered” indigenous Ryukyuan languages. The discourse of saving these Ryukyuan languages, as shown in many other Indigenous language communities also exists in the Ryukyuan linguistics, including the Yeayaman language community. This chapter challenges the assumption that “the South is diverse or that languages are endangered” (Pennycook & Makoni 2020: 17), by showing an example of one community from the Ryukyus. I use my long-term field experiences in language revitalization activities both in Yaeyaman and Okinawan community in the Ryukyus. By using ethnographic interviews, I show the assumption of promoting linguistic diversity, multilingualism or mother tongue education based on the gaze from the North could be painful for the Ryukyuan language communities. People in the Ryukyus are not conscious in what the Northern scholars call “multilingualism.” Multilingualism in the Ryukyus seems to be labelled from a Northern gaze, which affected how I viewed the Ryukyus after gaining higher education from European universities. By defining these local uses of languages by the Northern terminologies, there is a danger of creating another layer of colonialism. Finally, I attempt to question the concepts including “language endangerment” and “language revitalization.” In conclusion, I discuss a need for a decolonial solution based on local indigenous epistemologies.

The Áltá and Deatnu Conflicts and the Articulations of Nature

Abstract: This chapter introduces two major conflicts over the use of Sámi lands and natural resources. These are the Áltá dam controversy from 1979 through 1982 and the Deatnu fishing dispute that started in 2016 and is still ongoing. The chapter illuminates the complexity of the relationship between Sámi political action and environmentalism. Moreover, the chapter shows how the nature and human-nature relationship was articulated during the conflicts. According to the chapter, during the conflict of Áltá, the nature and Sámi human-nature relationship was most clearly articulated in light of local practical dimensions, i.e. the possibility to use the land on the terms of the Sámi people. At Deatnu, the message was in some ways similar: The protesters claimed self-determination and defended the Sámi livelihoods. However, concurrently, they explicitly emphasized the significance of the holistic and spiritual human-nature relationship.

Issues of Sámi Representation in Finnish Tourism

Abstract: Over the course of centuries, literature and travel accounts of the northern people have framed representations of the Sámi people according to either the pejorative image of primitive inhabitants or the romantic image of children of the forest. Nowadays, these exaggerations are not as prominent, and yet they continue to influence representations – for instance, in tourist brochures about Lapland. This chapter shall explore these representations by juxtaposing them with the notions of Sámi identity held by the Sámi themselves. In the context of increasing involvement of Sámi people in the tourism business in Sápmi, the chapter describes the struggle of reappropriating the means of self-definition, such as media channels. The aim of this reappropriation is to finally give an authentic and realistic representation of the Sámi people and their culture to visitors, without resorting to stereotypes and definitions that are generated outside the Sámi community.

The European Union's responses to the COVID-19 crisis: How to fight a pandemic with the internal market

Abstract: In a liberalized market economy, states tend to purchase supplies required for producing publicly funded services, such as healthcare, from the markets instead of producing them themselves. The availability of critical supplies thus becomes a question of supply-side availability and supply chain management, and therefore their availability is conceptualized in terms of security of supply. The European Union's security of supply policy has focused on energy and security and defence. Security has primarily been sought from the markets, while the purpose of EU law has been to establish these markets and to guarantee their functioning. During the COVID-19 pandemic the European Union has sought to secure the availability of medical supplies by relying on a variety of internal market measures: free movement law, State aid law, competition law and public procurement law have all been used in this effort. Collectively these measures have aimed at securing the functioning of the markets and thus the availability of necessary supplies. Following the crisis, the European Union is now adopting a broader policy perspective to security of supply. However, this is still carried out mainly through internal market competences and by relying on the markets as the source of security.

English summaries

Abstract: Article summaries in English

How Secret Should Spiritual Knowledge Be? Human-spirit relations in the Nenets tundra

Abstract: This contribution takes a longue durée perspective of 20 years to the transformation of spiritual ways of knowing the land. The ways in which Nenets people in the Russian Arctic display or hide their relations with the spirits from incomers have changed over time, due to a number of outside influences, but also to relations of trust between the author and the practitioners in the field.