Climate and Environmental History Seminar: Juha Haavisto (KTH/University of Turku)
"Futures of Expected Growth: Economic Utility and Environmentalism in the Nordic Forest Thought in the Long Twentieth Century".
Log-driving at Ljusnan 1917-1919. Photo: Unknown, CC-PDM 1.0. Stiftelsen Jamtlis Samlingar.
Abstract
The lecture focuses on the environmental intellectual history of forests and the economic utility of their extraction and environmentalism.
The presentation begins with a historiographical statement that instead of e.g. economic, social or legislative histories of forests we need histories for forests. This will be achieved via an analysis focusing on the concept of futures, to explain how ideas around exploiting, conserving and protecting natural resources were developed, defended, adapted and challenged in Finland and Sweden in the long twentieth century.
By looking into various Nordic authors, we can distinguish and analyses different intentions for these historical forest actors and investigate their ideas from a new, overgenerational point of view.
Bio
Juha Haavisto, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher based in University of Turku, and currently guest researcher at KTH. He is specializing in ideas in environmental history. He holds a PhD (2022) from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.
Juha Haavisto. Photo: private.
About the seminar
Conveners: Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, Martin Skoglund, and Iva Lučić.
Zoom link: https://stockholmuniversity.zoom.us/j/62903570715
For information about the seminar, e-mail: fredrik.c.l@historia.su.se
Last updated: 2026-01-08
Source: Department of History