I am an associate professor of the history of science, technology and environment, with specialisation in environmental humanities and uses of history, at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, but I’m also affiliated to the Estonian Center for Environmental History (KAJAK) at Tallinn University. I have a background in semiotics, anthropology, environmental history and geography and was trained at the University of Kyoto (Japan) and University of Tartu (Estonia). In my work I have explored why some places and things are protected, and why others are not; that is, how value is attributed to landscapes and objects. I ask, how cultural stereotypes and personal identities influence decisions that should be guided by science and expertise, be it a ban on mineral exploitation in Antarctica or protecting the remains of Cold War military infrastructures in Estonia. As a historian, I work at the crossroads of environmental history and entangled history, constantly looking at the impact of the material and personal realities to ideological and political decisions and vice versa.
I have examined the mechanisms of (de)protection, meaning generation and identity building with the help of landscapes on individual, community and national level, employing oral history, anthropological field work, literary texts and historical sources. Most of my work has been so far carried out in Japan, Antarctica and Estonia. In my work on Antarctic environmental history and heritage, I work actively to incorporate the perspectives of Japan and Latin-American countries into the English-dominated narratives.
I am a member of the Polar research Committee of the Estonian Academy of Sciences and serve as the Estonian Contact Point in the Antarctic Treaty System. I am member of the Standing Committee on Humanities and Social Sciences of the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR) and an expert member of the ICOMOS International Polar Heritage Committee. Currently, I am serving my third term as a board member for the European Society of Environmental History (ESEH); I am also ESEH’s regional representative in the Baltic Countries since 2017 and the head of the Council of Regional Representatives. I am a founding member of the Estonian Centre for Environmental History (KAJAK) and coordinate the the very loosely knitted and informal network of Baltic Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences.
All photos on this site are mine, if not indicated otherwise. Contact me if you want to use them.