Special Guest event with Dr. Pasi Karppinen: "Hello… Can You Hear Me? Experiences of Digital Connectivity along Finland’s Northern Border with Russia"

Welcome to join Special Guest lecture with Dr Pasi Karppinen, who is visiting University of Oulu through the Resilience Oulu Academy Mobility (ROAM) programme funded by the FRONT Profi7 research programme.

Special Guest event: Hello… Can You Hear Me? Experiences of Digital Connectivity along Finland’s Northern Border with Russia

Please register here by January 10th.

Abstract

Digital connectivity has become a critical lifeline shaping safety, livelihoods, and social ties. Along Finland’s northern border with Russia, mobile and broadband connections are expected to support public services, everyday life, and tourism in landscapes where distances are long and populations sparse. Yet coverage is patchy and unreliable, and for some, changing security concerns make connectivity feel fragile and uncertain. This talk examines how people living and working in this border region experience digital connectivity in their daily lives.

The presentation draws on ongoing qualitative fieldwork that started in the village of Nellim in Eastern Lapland and extends south along the Finnish–Russian border to Kuusamo. The material consists of semi-structured interviews with e.g., tourism entrepreneurs, active village community members, municipal employees, project managers, and emergency medical personnel.

Preliminary insights show that some villages have brought fibre connections to their communities through publicly supported projects, but only with highly committed project leaders and strong local engagement. In many places, however, everyday connectivity still relies on wireless networks. In Nellim, a village of roughly 200 permanent residents, infrastructure is dimensioned for the local population; when a hotel fills up with another 200 visitors, mobile networks often slow down or fail. In Lapland, nature is close and many people spend long periods in the wilderness, where some people carry two phones with different SIM cards. In some areas coverage can disappear entirely and satellite phones are the only reliable option. Connectivity is seen as both a basic precondition for business, safety, and public services, and for too many also a continuous source of frustration.

The findings contribute to debates on digital inclusion, critical communications infrastructure, and the socio-technical vulnerabilities of northern and border regions, and open up discussion on regional development, crisis preparedness, and future collaborative research on everyday connectivity in sparsely populated areas.

Program

13:00 Coffee & snacks

13.15 Opening: Associate prof. Tapio Nykänen, Giellagas institute, Faculty of Humanities

13.25 Presentation by Dr Pasi Karppinen: "Hello… Can You Hear Me? Experiences of Digital Connectivity along Finland’s Northern Border with Russia"

13.45 Discussion

14.30 Closing

Please register here by January 10th.