ArcHum Delegation Visits KTH for Collaborative Research Exchange

A delegation from UiT The Arctic University of Norway recently visited the KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory, Centre of Excellence for Anthropocene History and the KTH Future Humanities Initiative at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

The two-day meeting, held on the 8th and 9th of September, aimed to foster collaboration and dialogue on ongoing and emerging humanities-driven research and research politics. The event was a joint initiative between the UiT’s Centre for Arctic Humanities (ArcHum) and KTH’s Division for History of Science, Technology and Environment.

Arctic Pecha Kucha and Future Agora

The program featured presentations from both UiT and KTH, showcasing diverse research initiatives. The presentations were delivered in a dynamic Arctic Pecha Kucha format (7 slides in 7 minutes), allowing participants to quickly grasp the breadth of research being conducted at both institutions.

The meeting also featured a Future Scenario Workshop, facilitated by the UiT team, which focused on designing a future agora for interdisciplinary research through serious playfulness.

Richard Fraser, Nina Worms, Lize-Marie Hansen van der Watt and Øyvind Stokke designing a future agora with LEGO provided by the Division for History of Science, Technology and Environment at KTH. Foto: Lilli Mittner

An agora was the public square of ancient Greece, a space for assembly, debate, and collective decision-making – an ideal metaphor for imagining shared futures. Drawing on this concept, we split into groups and were tasked with envisioning an imagined future for both Stockholm and Tromsø. Using piles of LEGO bricks, animals, and humans, as well as satellite maps of our two cities, we built miniature worlds that reflected our ideas about sustainability, technology, and community life. Some groups designed floating modular pontoons on the water, featuring multispecies worlds where humans, animals, and plants could thrive together.

Futuristic reindeer migration

– We imagined futuristic reindeer migration corridors threading over and under human infrastructure, meaningful indigenous-led spaces, and tourist and mobile phone-free zones where human-human and human-nonhuman interconnection could be valorised, says Richard Fraser, Ea:rth.

In the end, the workshop itself became a lively, playful experiment – a true agora – where conversation and construction intertwined. In this sense, it embodied the spirit of the agora itself: a democratic, open-ended space where collective imagination can shape shared visions of the future, challenging us to think not only about reimagined cities but also about an alternate Arctic built on multispecies coexistence, creativity, and care.

Humanities in research funding

The meeting further included a Research Politics Workshop led by Lize-Marie Hansen van der Watt and Moa Ekbom. This session explored the role of humanities in shaping future knowledge centres.

– The humanities are essential for research to be meaningful in society. The humanities centres at KTH are an excellent example of how humanities research not only complements, but also is one of the driving forces behind the technological research that KTH specialises in. It is good to see that recognised at KTH, although of course there is still work to be done. There is much we can learn from them, particularly with a view to future planetary sustainability and cross-disciplinary degree programmes that do not fit traditional faculty boundaries says Kate Maxwell, Environmental Humanities.

Forest, Water, City and The Stockholm idea

Participants also enjoyed informal networking activities, including a forest walk, swimming in the sea, a joint dinner and an exploration of Stockholm’s intellectual heritage. In his talk about Stockholm’s intellectual cradle, Sverker Sörlin, underlined idealism, the need to “convince in other ways” and “infra-levels” of how change goes on.

Resonating moment from the meeting room. Blurred selfie without author. CC BY 4.0 (ArcHum) Foto: xxx

– The meeting at KTH brought together diverse research communities, providing a dynamic platform for connecting professionals across disciplines to explore shared goals and challenges in humanities-driven research and research politics. For me, as a researcher based at the Arctic University Museum of Norway, it was a particular pleasure to visit the exhibitions at the Nordiska Museet alongside colleagues. This experience offered a valuable opportunity to engage in discussions about how the exhibitions highlighted issues related to Indigenous cultures, traditional knowledge, and the pressing challenges facing today's Arctic, says Trude Fonneland, SAMFORSK.

The visit at KTH came about following the UiT campus tour with Sverker Sörlin in autumn 2024.

You can listen to a conversation with Sverker Sörlin in RESULT podcast studio here.

The journey underscored the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in addressing global challenges and advancing humanities-driven research.

– This visit marks a significant step in strengthening ties between UiT and KTH, paving the way for future joint initiatives and research endeavors, concludes Lilli Mittner, ArcHum coordinator.

UiT Participants

Richard Fraser | associate professor, Department of Social Sciences
Clare Heyward | professor, Institute of Philosophy
Sigrun Høgetveit Berg | professor, Department of Archaeology, History, Religious Studies and Theology
Andreas Klein | senior Academic Librarian, Department for Research and Education Support, University Library
Kate Maxwell | professor, Music Conservatory
Svein Anders Noer Lie | associate professor, Institute of Philosophy
Øyvind Stokke | associate professor, Institute of Philosophy
Trude Fonneland | professor, The Arctic University Museum of Norway

KTH participants

Sverker Sörlin, senior professor environmental history
Nina Wormbs, professor history of technology
Sabine Höhler, professor science and technology studies
Adam Wickberg, docent and researcher
Kati Lindström, docent and researcher
Lakin Andersson, research engineer
Anja Moun Rieser, research engineer
Robert Gioielli, associate professor environmental humanities
Per Högselius, professor history of technology
Lize-Marie Hansen van der Watt, researcher
Moa Ekbom, researcher and research administrator
Eric Paglia, researcher
Sebastiaan Lundsteen, visiting researcher
Sandra Swart, guest professor in Anthropocene History

Coordinators

Lize-Marie Hansen van der Watt | Division of History of Science, Technology and Environment, KTH

Lilli Mittner | Centre of Arctic Humanities, UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Kortnytt fra Fakultet for humaniora, samfunnsvitenskap og lærerutdanning, Norges arktiske universitetsmuseum og akademi for kunstfag, Universitetsbiblioteket

Mittner, Lilli lilli.mittner@uit.no Førsteamanuensis

Eidum, Espen Viklem espen.eidum@uit.no Seniorrådgiver kommunikasjon