All PhD students, supervisors, scientific advisers and other members of ARKTIS and its collaborators are welcome to participate in the seminar.

The theme of this year’s research seminar is local knowledge and participatory research in the Arctic. There are many uncertainties, risks and conflicts that characterize the modern societies. Researchers meet these challenges often from the view point of their ongoing and partial research paradigm. Local and indigenous communities, on the other hand, are often marginalized from the governance and management discourses in the societies where they live. However, it is clear that research can no longer ignore the local knowledge holders and their knowledge traditions and innovations. Today it is widely accepted that science is just one partner of knowledge systems and production of solutions in a society. There is a need for broadening of a scientific and stakeholder base through the acknowledgement of local knowledge and policy articulations. Local involvement may also improve the quality of research.

As a response to these and other issues at stake, participatory research is needed. Yet lots of questions arise: What kind of a process is participatory research? What is important in participatory research? What kind of stumbling stones there are regarding participatory research activities? How do we relate local and indigenous knowledge and participatory research to the wider contexts of knowing and decision-making? What are the measures for the inclusion of local knowledge in research, and what are the frameworks for the expanded dialogue between research and society? Is it necessary to transform the relations of power in academy and in social and political systems in order to recognize different knowledge bases? How will it succeed?

The seminar will include keynote lectures by international speakers addressing knowledge systems, local and stakeholder knowledge and participatory research from both theoretical and practical perspectives, and including examples from research dealing with human and ecosystem aspects of climate change, northern livelihoods and management of natural resources among other things. The key part of the seminar will be student contributions, including oral seminar presentations about their PhD thesis research and interdisciplinary discussions.

Speakers:
Dr. Iulie Aslaksen , Statistics Norway, Oslo, Norway
Dr. Elina Helander-Renvall, Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Finland
Professor Janne Hukkinen, University of Helsinki, Finland
Professor Hannu Rintamäki, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Oulu and University of Oulu; Department of Physiology, Finland
Dr. Jan Åge Riseth, Northern Research Institute, Tromso, Norway

Important dates:
Deadline for registrations: 28 February
Deadline for abstracts: 28 February
Deadline for full-length working papers: 26 March
Powerpoints: 31 March
For more information and registrations, please see :
http://www.arcticcentre.org/InEnglish/EDUCATION/Arctic_Doctoral_Programme_-_ARKTIS/Studies/Annual_research_seminar/Seminar_2011.iw3

Warmly welcome!

Päivi Soppela and Elina Helander-Renvall