Maantieteen päivät

2023 ”Geographies in times of crises”Itä-Suomen yliopisto / University of Eastern Finland

Climate extremes and their often-devastating impacts all over the world; the last Finnish parliamentary election results; a multitude of growing geopolitical tensions and armed conflicts including wars in Europe and Africa; the contested Finnish health and social services reform, the rapid degradation of global biodiversity, Sanna Marin’s dancing moves, the COVID-19 pandemic or last winter’s electricity bills and ChatGPT in higher education… This eclectic list of ‘crises’ highlights some starting points to embark on the theme “geographies in times of crises” for the Finnish Geography Days 2023 in Joensuu. It raises not only the multiplicity of crises currently materialising or perceived as such, but hints at their delineation, scope and effect, reaching from the everyday to planetary realms, including biophysical and social components, individual and communal identities, as well as scalar and temporal shifts. The emergence of crises themselves, livelihoods in times of crises or processes to prevent/halt/normalise crises are an interrelation of complex socio-spatial processes and henceforth at the core of geographical analysis.

We therefore would like to invite you to the Finnish Geography Days 2023 under the theme “Geographies in times of crises” to discuss naturally the big questions that highlight the implications of planetary crises, such as climate, biodiversity, urbanism or geopolitics, but also that engage with the varying small crises (or related problematisations) arising in every field of societal conduct, as well as on the geographical methods and approaches to assess the socio-spatial processes at play.