I am doing a PhD in Environmental Policy at the University of Eastern Finland. I hold an MSc in Environment and Development from the University of Reading, UK. Research interests include the role of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) in averting food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa. Currently studying online from Malawi but hope to be in Finland along the way once funding is secured.

I have been recently working on a critique of mainstream ( neoclassical and neoliberal) Economics and its relation to producing Climate Change and Ecological crises. I am a member of EXALT ( Global Extractivisms and Alternatives Initiative--- www.exalt.fi) I have been working on the conceptualisation of "global extractivism" ( see our forthcoming Special Forum on Extractivsm in the Journal of Peasant Studies). With Hamed Hosseini I have ben developing the concept of "Transversal cosmopolitanism" as a dialogic form of co-construction of knowledge for transformative praxes.

Projects

Exploring food choices and linking nutrition to landscape - understanding drivers of food and nutrition insecurity of a Sub-Saharan African Indigenous group

Access to water and sanitation services remains low for most sub-Saharan African countries, and the progress towards achievement of this access for all by 2030, as per the SDG targets is stunted. The state of low access to water and sanitation has dire socioeconomic repercussions that scientific research can contribute to untangling. My research aims at providing recommendations for enhanced citizen participation in water and sanitation services as a remedy to accelerate water and sanitation services development, the case of Kenya.

Ph.D. student of Technical Sciences at the University of Vaasa - Finland. Master of Science in Engineering, Environmental and Energy Engineering, the University of Sheffield - UK. Industrial Engineer, Universidad Santiago de Cali - Colombia. Currently working as a project researcher at VEBIC@University of Vaasa. Work experience in several electricity companies in Colombia.

Siiri Sandberg is a Ph.D. student in the Doctoral Programme in Social Sciences (SOC) at the University of Helsinki. Siiri holds master’s degrees in Social and Cultural Anthropology and Urban Studies and Planning. The Ph.D. research draws on political ecology to study youth participation in forest conservation in Taita Hills, Kenya. 

My PhD research focuses on the political ecology and interplay between conservation and artisanal and small-scale mining in Madagascar. I am particularly interested in the power dynamics and formal and informal practices and discourses which the actors use to claim land and natural resources. Furthermore, my research aims at providing a venue for local communities to voice their perceptions and aspirations in the land-use question, and to facilitate communication between all stakeholders and development of more inclusive conservation and mining policies.