Multidisciplinary social scientist working on global political economy, development theory, development policy, political philosophy, economic alternatives, development ethics, social movements.

Projects

The Politics of Corporate Resource Exploitation: Social Movement Influence on Paper- and Metal Industry Investments in Brazil and India

Saila-Maria Saaristo is a doctoral researcher and lecturer in Global Development Studies at the University of Helsinki, and a member of Urbaria (Helsinki Institute of Urban and Regional Studies). Her current research project focuses on studying inequalities and discriminations, which are approached through the case of inequalities in access to housing, with a particular focus on homelessness and forced evictions. The study investigates especially gendered, classed and racialised housing exclusions. In addition to the academic career, Saaristo has worked extensively as a consultor, manager and coordinator of different kinds of international cooperation projects financed by the European Union and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, in the areas of urban development and housing, civil society, good governance and democracy, human rights, and gender. She has worked and lived in many countries, including Cape Verde, Tanzania, Mozambique, Brazil, Bolivia and Portugal.

Projects

Transformative Actions? Occupations and Evictions in Lisbon Metropolitan Area, Portugal

Dr. Tiina Seppälä is a senior researcher in International Relations at the University of Lapland and adjunct professor of International Development Studies at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She has engaged with women’s rights and slum activists in Nepal and Bangladesh, anti-eviction movements in India, asylum seekers in Finland and anti-war activists in the UK. She is interested in development, displacement, social movements, post/decolonial and feminist theory, ethnographic research and arts-based methods.

Projects

Governance, Resistance and Neoliberal Development: Struggles against Development-Induced Displacement and Forced Evictions in South Asia

Happy Tirivangasi holds a Master of Arts degree in sociology from the University of Limpopo in South Africa. He graduated with distinction, Master of Science in Governance and Development from the Institute of Development Policy (IOB) at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. He has six years of research experience in southern Africa. Happy has published more than 60 research articles, which consist of nine (9) book chapters (published by Springer, Palgrave Macmillan, and Rowman & Littlefield), forty-nine (49) journal articles (published in peer-reviewed journals accredited by the South African Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) list), and three (3) conference proceedings. In 2022, Happy served as a member of two scientific committees for two international conferences, namely, the 14th Southern African-Nordic Centre international conference (December 4–6, 2022) and the 1st Southern African Mountain Conference (March 14–17, 2022). Mr. Tirivangasi is currently a research associate at the University of Limpopo (Department of Research Administration and Development) and a Ph.D. researcher at the University of Jyväskylä. His research interest lies in political and environmental sociology.

Formerly a Postdoc Researcher at the University of Luxembourg and the University of Helsinki (UH) and University Lecturer at UH, Gutu Olana Wayessa is a researcher. His current research is also affiliated with UH. He received BSc from Haramaya University, Ethiopia; an MSc from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway; and a Ph.D. in Social Sciences, majoring in Development Studies, from UH, Finland. From 1 February to 31 July 2019, he held a Visiting Research Scholar at the American University, Washington DC, USA. His research interests include displacements and resettlements, climate change, large-scale investments, land governance, environmental and social justice, state-society relations, social movements, and rural livelihoods. His theoretical and methodological interests encompass political ecology, political economy, philosophy of science, and mixed-methods research.

Projects

Large-scale land deals and local livelihoods in Ethiopia: A political ecology of a contested scheme