Roger Norum

I am an associate professor in the field of cultural anthropology. My research focuses on the comparative and praxeological dimensions of how mobility, infrastructure, and sociality mediate human relationships to the environment. I have carried out ethnographic fieldwork among transient communities across Nepal, Norway, Finland and Iceland. I am part of several research projects working on the topics of silence, mobility and multilingualism. In addition to my strong anthropological focus, my research interests span human geography, media studies and the environmental humanities.

At Oulu, I am the co-director of Environmental Humanities programme and deputy director of the research programme Biodiverse Anthropocenes (until 2026). I am currently PI of several projects and networks, including CONTOURS: Conservation, Tourism, Remoteness (2021-2023); ENVIROCEN: Environmental Practices from Center to Periphery (2021-2023); Extending Realities: Pioneering Immersive Technologies in Transdisciplinary Research (2019-2023); and Northern Ends: Critical ecological development of landscape and mobility futures in the Fennoscandian Arctic (2021-2026). I am also Chair of the upcoming World Congress of Environmental History (August, 2024). I am a member of the Oulu University Research Council (since 2021), the co-founder (with Prof Thora Herrmann) of FACTZ, the Finnish Association of Citizen Sciences, an elected member of the Kalevala Society and the Finnish Literature Society, and the founding editor of the Palgrave MacMillan book series Arctic Encounters. I have previously held research and teaching positions at Leeds and UCL, and hold a docentship in Mobility Studies from Oulu’s Faculty of Science (appointed 2020). I received my degrees from Cornell (BA, Arabic and Turkish) and Oxford (DPhil and MPhil, Social Anthropology), where I was Junior Dean of St Hugh’s College for three years.