The main aim of my PhD is to research the handicraft tourist experience process from the vantage of ‘being a tourist’ – starting from the trip planning and arguing how temporary understandings are forming the reconnection with the actual experience. I am using autoethnography as my method of research. In my PhD, I will argue that researching tourist experience by being a handicraft tourist and enthusiast myself, the best way of creating knowledge is through myself and reflecting the knowledge creation with other participants. 

I am currently working in two different projects at Multidimensional Tourism Institute, University of Lapland. Other one, ARCTISEN, aims at enabling and improving culturally sensitive tourism in Arctic areas and the other, Handmade in Lapland is about handicraft tourism in Lapland. I am always carrying work-in-process knittings in by bag, so if you do not see me working you see me with knitting needles. Hence, handicrafts are part of me - as a researcher and as an individual person.