Post-anthropocentric water relations in the Bothnian Bay

The separation between humans and nature is the root cause of the global ecological crisis. This approach can be found in the Arctic water-society relations. Research is dominated by a particular "hydro-hegemony" of anthropocentricity, state-centricity and human intentionality.

The project develops an alternative post-anthropocentric approach to investigate water-society relations as complex entanglements of human/non-human relations. In the project, multidisciplinary, qualitative case-based research will be conducted, and multisite, ethnographic data will be collected and analyzed with the Grounded theory-based Situational analysis. The research will focus on both the past and current relations to the sea, rivers and islands; diverse cross-border interactions; multiple meanings of water and ice; multi-level governance and transformations in the environment in the Bothnian Bay.