Geographies of Militarism and Security (GEMS)
GEMS research group examines the geographies of security, militarism, and geopolitics through critical, feminist, and decolonial perspectives. Our research is situated amid the growing geopolitical tensions, which have given rise to militarisation and securitisation across different regions. We are interested in how militarism and (in)security are produced, negotiated and experienced across different yet interconnected sites, spaces, and scales.
Research group information
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Research group leader
- Academy Research Fellow
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Researchers
Research group description
GEMS researchers draw from a range of critical scholarship, such as feminist geopolitics and geographical approaches to youth studies as well as theories of postcolonialism, settler colonialism, and decoloniality. We explore the often state-led processes of militarisation and (in)securitisation through different yet interconnected scales ranging from global geopolitical dynamics to local and community relations and to scale of everyday and the intimate.
Current key themes within the group include:
- Indigenous lands and communities. With a focus on in Sápmi and Okinawa, we investigate the effects of state-led militarisation as it connects with the ongoing formations of (settler) colonialism and emerging forms of resistance and new codes of conduct in Indigenous contexts.
- Young people. Attending to gradual turn toward the idea of comprehensive security in Finland, we investigate how youth in Finland are made a security concern in ways that shape the everyday lives of young people in a myriad of ways.
- Youth in the Security Agenda: Rethinking (in)security through young people (2026-2030), funded by Kone Foundation.
- Militarised Indigenous Borderscapes: Reconfiguring geographies of wars and borders (2023-2028), funded by the Research Council of Finland.