I am an anthropologist and Senior Lecturer at the University of Jyväskylä. My research combines environmental, political, and digital anthropology, focusing on how social, technological, and environmental transformations unfold in everyday life, social relations, and practices. My current research examines sustainability transitions in the Finnish forest sector and the intersections of climate change, digital technologies, and the environment.
I have conducted extensive long-term ethnographic research in India. My latest monograph is A Village Goes Mobile: Telephony, Mediation and Social Change in Rural India (Oxford University Press, 2018).
My research explores how social, technological, and environmental transformations take shape through everyday practices, social relations, and power dynamics.
My current research focuses on sustainability transitions in the Finnish forest sector, particularly forest owners' practices, conflicts over forest use, and the conditions that enable more sustainable forest management. My research interests also include the social and political dimensions of climate change and how digital technologies and environmental data shape social relations, human–environment interactions, and power.
My earlier research has focused primarily on social and political transformations in India. Through long-term ethnographic fieldwork in rural India, I have examined mobile phone adoption and its implications for social relations, political participation, and social change. I have also studied the politics of climate change in South Asia, women's political participation and agency, the symbolic construction of power, and transformations in gift-giving and market relations. My doctoral dissertation examined women's wage labour and agency in urban India.
I have published articles in internationally recognised peer-reviewed journals, including The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Ethnos, Modern Asian Studies, and Contemporary South Asia. My monograph A Village Goes Mobile: Telephony, Mediation and Social Change in Rural India (Oxford University Press, 2018) provides an ethnographic analysis of the relationships between digital technology and social change. My books, co-authored with Minna Säävälä, An Introduction to India: Culture, Politics and Development and Muuttuva Intia (Changing India), offer broader perspectives on Indian society and its transformations.
I have held visiting research positions at Brown University in the United States and the University of Western Ontario in Canada.
