Keynotes

Åsa Larsson Blind is vice-president of the Saami Council. She has been a member since 2008 and elected President in the period 2017-2019. She was, as the first woman, elected chair of the Sámi national association in Sweden 2019-2021, where she also served as board member in 2007-2011. Åsa was in 2018 elected to the municipal council in Kiruna, representing a local Sámi party, Sámelistu. In 2022 she was re-elected and serves as member in the municipality council, municipality board and chair of the minority language committee. Åsa has a long experience from working with Sámi issues both nationally and internationally. In 2011-2015 she served as board member of the Arctic Council Indigenous Peoples Secretariat, IPS, and as the Head of Delegation for Saami Council at Arctic Council Senior Arctic Official meetings; 2007-2009 board member of the Sámi Educational Center in Jokkmokk, 2002-2007 board member of Sáminuorra, the Sámi Youth organization in Sweden. Åsa lives in Övre Soppero in the Swedish part of Sápmi, is part of a reindeer herding family and mother of three children. She holds an MSc in Human Resources Management and Development and works as project manager at the Saami Council.

Laura Junka-Aikio is a Professor of Northern Politics and Government at the University of Lapland.  Combining a background in the Arts, Cultural Studies and International Politics, her research is multidisciplinary and focused especially on the study of contemporary colonialism in its various forms. Her early research examined the changing politics of Israeli military occupation and Palestinian everyday resistance in the West Bank and Gaza. Since then, her focus has shifted on Sápmi and Nordic Colonialism and on the study of Arctic Indigenous and settler colonial politics more broadly, her current focus being on decolonial geopolitics and militarization in Sápmi. At the University of Lapland, one of her core tasks is to develop and coordinate a new international MA degree programme in Arctic World Politics. The programme is multidisciplinary, and centers Arctic and Northern Indigenous, environmental, more-than-human and critical approaches in the study of world politics at large.

Throughout her working life Hanne Wittorff Tanvig has been deeply involved in questions about development in rural areas and with a special eye for the local communities. Among major themes are local capacity-building, community entrepreneurship, and rural policy both studying 'state of the art' and taking part in local development projects as an action researcher.  Her portfolio includes a long range of studies and piloting projects, and consequently, she has often been used as a key informant and communicator regarding rural development issues both at central and local level. She has been associated with the university environment in Western Denmark and during the recent years with the University of Copenhagen, where she now is associated as emerita. Along the way, she also has been the initiator and head of research and development departments as well as a master’s program in rural development. A curiosity is that Hanne was involved in starting Nordic Ruralities in 2010.

Nils Björling is Senior Lecturer in Urban Design and Planning and research area leader for Local-Regional Transformations at Chalmers Architecture and Civil Engineering. Ongoing research focus on the development of theory and methods to increase the interaction between planning levels and to bridge the divide between planning and actual spatial transformation of the built environment. The aim is to provide support to planning and urban planning practice to deal with challenges caused by uneven geographical development and to include a wider field of resources, knowledge and actors in the planning process and spatial transformation.