Veera Kinnunen, Post-doc researcher
Veera Kinnunen (Ph.D.) University of Lapland, Bachelor of Design, Kuopio Academy of Design) is a sociologist and a cultural historian working on a threshold of more-than-human sociology, environmental humanities, and feminist ethics. Her research interests cover material culture of everyday life, dwelling, and living well with unwanted stuff such as waste, weeds and microbes. Her ongoing post-doc project is an ethnographic inquiry into experimental waste practices. She asks, how to live well with waste. This project has grown into a multi-species ethnography of sharing our lives with microbes. Throughout her research projects, she has been developing and experimenting with embodied forms of ethnographic methodology.
She currently works as a postdoctoral researcher in a transdisciplinary research program Biodiverse Anthropocenes (ANTS) at the University of Oulu. Her ongoing research project is an ethnographic study of urban composting, and an exploration of how bokashi making affects the way practitioners relate with their environment, including waste, soil, and microbes. She has published academic articles and book chapters about changing relations with waste and microbes and co-edited books on, e.g. more-than-human infrastructures. In addition, she has also published a Finnish non-fiction book about bokashi composting (Bokashi. Vallankumous ämpärissä. Avain kustannus 2023).
In her spare time, Kinnunen experiments with her microbial companions; Bokashi composts and Kombucha jars, and dreams of a garden of her own.
Veera is a member of ILA-research group, and has worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Envisioning Proximity tourism with New Materialism project during academic year 2021-2022. She also holds a position of a university lecturer of sociology at the University of Lapland, Finland.
Contact: veera.kinnunen(at)oulu.fi; veera.kinnunen(at)ulapland.fi
Keywords: sociology of waste, microbes and infrastructures; environmental humanities; corporeal ethics; feminist environmental studies;
Selected publications
Articles:
Kinnunen, V., Martz, F. & Rantala, O. 2024: Slowing down with stinging nettle. In Rantala, O., Kinnunen, V. & Höckert, E. (Eds.) Researching with Proximity. Relational methodologies for the Anthropocene. Palgrave Macmillan, 131-146.
Rantala, O., Kinnunen, V., Höckert, E., Grimwood, B., Hurst, C., Jóhannesson, G. T. et al. 2024: Staying Proximate. In Rantala, O., Kinnunen, V. & Höckert, E. (Eds.) Researching with Proximity. Relational methodologies for the Anthropocene. Palgrave Macmillan, 1-19.
Höckert, E., Kinnunen, V. & Rantala, O. 2024: Suggestions for Future Wanders. Researching with Proximity. Relational methodologies for the Anthropocene. Palgrave Macmillan, 205-210
Kinnunen, V. & Duque, M. 2022: From waste management to waste care. In Valkonen, J., Kinnunen, V., Huilaja, H. & Loikkanen, T. (Eds.) Infrastructural being. Rethinking dwelling in a naturecultural world. Palgrave Macmillan.
Kinnunen, V. & Valkonen, J. 2022: Approaching infrastructural being. In Valkonen, J., Kinnunen, V., Huilaja, H. & Loikkanen, T. (Eds.) Infrastructural being. Rethinking dwelling in a naturecultural world. Palgrave Macmillan.
Kinnunen, V., Valkonen, J., Huilaja, H. & Loikkanen, T. 2022: Introduction. In Valkonen, J., Kinnunen, V., Huilaja, H. & Loikkanen, T. (Eds.) Infrastructural being. Rethinking dwelling in a naturecultural world. Palgrave Macmillan.
Rantala, P. & Kinnunen, V. 2022: Menneisyyden kudokset. In Ahonen, M, Räsänen, M., Mähkä, R. & Ollitervo, S (eds.) Kulttuurihistorian tutkimus. Lähteistä menetelmiin ja tulkintaan. Kulttuurihistoria – Cultural History.
Kinnunen, V. 2022: Corporeal Ethics in a more-than-human World (Rosalyn Diprose). In Hunter, C., & Kivinen, N. (Eds.). Affect in Organization and Management. Routledge.
Atkinson, S., Brives, C., Biederman, S., Cañada, J., Chartier, D., Davidson, AC, Evans, J., Kinnunen. V. et. al. 2021: Introducing with Microbes: From Witnessing to Withnessing. In Brives, S., Rest, M., Sariola, S. (Eds.) With Microbes. Mattering Press. https://doi.org/10.28938/9781912729180
Kinnunen, V. 2021: Knowing, being, and living with bokashi. In Brives, S., Rest, M., Sariola, S. (Eds.) With Microbes. Mattering Press. https://doi.org/10.28938/9781912729180
Kinnunen, V., Wallenius-Korkalo, S. & Rantala, P. 2021: Transformative events: Feminist experiments in writing differently. Gender, Work and Organization. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12606
Kinnunen, V., Huilaja, H., Saariniemi, J. & Valkonen, J. 2020: Environmental concern in waste economy – A case study of waste policy in Finnish Lapland. In Ek, R. & Johansson, N. (Eds.) Opening the Bin: Perspectives on Waste from the Social Sciences and the Humanities. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Valkonen, J, Kinnunen, V., Huilaja, H., Saariniemi, J. et. al. 2017: Jätehallinta ja ympäristönsuojelu [Waste Governance and Environmentalism] Sosiologia 54:1, 23–42.
Books:
Kinnunen, V. 2023: Bokashi. Vallankumous ämpärissä. Avain kustannus.
Valkonen, J., Pyyhtinen, O., Lehtonen, T-K., Kinnunen, V., Huilaja, H. 2019: Tervetuloa Jäteyhteiskuntaan! Aineellisen ylijäämän kanssa eläminen. [Welcome to Waste Society. Living with material surplus] Tampere: Vastapaino.
Kinnunen, V. 2017: Tavarat tiellä: Sosiologinen tutkimus esinesuhteista [Things in and on the way. A sociological study on the relationship between people and things]. Doctoral Dissertation. University of Lapland Press, Rovaniemi.
Edited publications:
Rantala, O., Kinnunen, V. & Höckert, E. 2022: Researching with Proximity. Relational methodologies for the Anthropocene. Palgrave MacMillan.
Valkonen, J., Kinnunen, V., Huilaja, H. & Loikkanen, T. 2022 (eds): Infrastructural being. Rethinking dwelling in a naturecultural world. Palgrave Macmillan.
Kinnunen, V. & Valtonen, A. 2017(eds.): Living Ethics in a more than human world. Rovaniemi: Lapin yliopisto.