My main areas of research include comparative Indigenous politics and IR, Indigenous feminism, Indigenous self-determination and governance, and Nordic settler colonialism.

I am the Principal Investigator of the new project, “Sámi democratic engagement in the energy transition: advancing justice, legitimacy and participatory governance” (2024-28), funded by NordForsk from its Green Transition program. The project examines the democratic participation of the Sámi people in the ongoing energy transition in the Nordic countries and the legitimacy of the transition from the perspective of the Sámi people. The main goal of the project is to understand what “just transition” means from the perspective of the Sámi people and to find out strategies and “best practices” that promote the democratic participation of the Sámi people. The research collaborators are Dr. Kaisa Raitio (Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet) and Dr. Andrei Marin (Norges miljø- og biovitenskapelige universitet).

As the lead of the Siida School, a community driven initiative to renew the Sámi Siida governance system, I am wrapping up four years (2019-2023) of gatherings as well as creative and scholarly work and collaboration of the Siida School members. We had a successful launch of three Siida School publications (edited volume, special issue of scholarly journal, and children’s book) in February 2024 in Guovdageaidnu. Funded by the Kone Foundation, the project by Sámi scholars, artists and activists has sought to reconstruct and simulate how and which Siida practices could operate as part of Sámi governance structures today. Drawing on archival material, written sources and interviews with traditional knowledge holders, core values and central practices of the siida system have been broadly discussed and lived in collaboration of community members and across generations. The objective has been to generate novel interdisciplinary, artistic, political and cultural knowledge about the traditional Sámi governance structures, practices and values and the ways in which they can be practiced in contemporary settings. The project is called a Siida School in recognition of the fact that due to the ongoing colonization, our individual knowledge of the siida system is limited; hence there is a need to gather the threads of knowledge together and teach and learn from one another. The final gathering of the Siida School will be a book and publication launch and seminar in February 2024 in Diehtosiida, Guovdageaidnu, where two books and special issue of Sámi dieđalaš áigečála produced in the project will be launched and discussed.

As a Fulbright Arctic Initiative 3 Fellow for 2021-2023, I extended my comparative research on self-determination and gender to Alaska, where I visited the University of Alaska Fairbanks Center for Arctic Policy Studies in March-April 2022.

In 2019 I finished my comparative SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada) funded research project titled “Gendering Self-Determination: Comparing Indigenous Women in Canada, Greenland and the Nordic Countries” (2011-2015).  The project examined Indigenous self-determination and the gendered processes of self-government through discourse analysis and extensive field work in the three regions. It also considered how violence against Indigenous women is a self-determination and governance issue. My book based on this research, titled Restructuring Relations: Indigenous Self-Determination, Governance and Gender was published by Oxford University Press in 2019.

My other previous research includes “Gender relations and gender-based analysis at the resource development/traditional economy interface,” in which I was a co-investigator. The project was funded by the SSHRC’s Resources and Sustainable Development in the Arctic sub-grant. Under the principal investigator Dr. Emily Cameron (Carleton University), the purpose of this project was to a) determine how existing institutions and policies with involvement in northern resource extraction are gendered; b) understand how changing employment patterns influence gender relations, particularly as understood by northern Indigenous women; and c) help develop relevant gender-based analysis materials and tools for use in northern communities. Some of the results have been published in the Northern Review journal in 2018 (see Articles).

My current research collaborations include:

“Maximizing Indigenous Self-Determination: Theories and Practices of Indigenous Sovereignties in Settler States and the International System.” Principal Investigators: Dr. David MacDonald, University of Guelph (Ontario) and Dr. Sheryl Lightfoot, University of British Columbia. Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

“Arctic Pressures.” PI: Dr. Elana Wilson Rowe, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. Funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“Indigenous Constitutionalism and Plurinational Federalism in the Territories.” PI: Dr. Joshua Nichols, McGill University. Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

“Decolonizing Settler States: Unravelling Systemic Blockages to Indigenous Rights in State Institutions and Civil Society.” Principal Investigator: Dr. Sheryl Lightfoot, University of British Columbia. Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.