Outi Rantala, Leader of the project, Professor
Outi Rantala, PhD, Professor, Responsible Arctic Tourism, at University of Lapland, Finland and Adjunct professor, Environmental Humanities, at University of Turku, Finland, has focused in her research activities on creating critical, reflective and alternative narratives on northern tourism. What she enjoys most in the academia, is the collaboration with inspiring researchers and students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds.
Rantala has acted as the principal investigator and leader for several of the ILA-research group’s research projects (see projects page). Currently she leads a research profiling project on Multispecies hospitality (Profi7 MESH, funded by the Academy of Finland) and holds a position as Arctic Five Chair on Tourism and Climate Emergency. She also acts as the principal investigator for the Contested nature of Allemannsretten: Renegotiating local customs and small-scale farming in periphery landscapes (LOCUS) project at the University of Lapland (funded by the Norwegian Research Council and led by associate professor Brynhild Granås at the UiT – Arctic University of Norway). She led the previous main research project of the ILA group: Envisioning Proximity tourism with New Materialism (funded by Academy of Finland for 1.9.2019-31.8.2023).
Rantala is an active member of several research networks, such as the OnebyWalking Network, Adventure Tourism Research Association, Sustainable Change Research Network, and University of Arctic’s Thematic Network on Northern Tourism. She has participated in steering the University of Arctic’s Thematic Network on Northern Tourism since its establishment in 2010. The Thematic Network runs a joint 30 credits UArctic Masters Focus on Northern Tourism and Rantala coordinates a Master’s Degree Programme on Northern Tourism at the University of Lapland, which is based on this joint focus.
Rantala acts as an Associate Editor for the leading journals in tourism research, Annals of Tourism Research and acted as an Editor-in-Chief for the Finnish Journal of Tourism Research during 2017–2021. She enjoyed being able to promote open science by developing the Finnish Journal of Tourism Research into an open access journal, free of charge for all authors and readers.