Carina Keskitalo

E. Carina H. Keskitalo is a Swedish political scientist specializing in Arctic regional development, environmental policy, and climate change adaptation. She is Professor of Political Science at the Department of Geography at Umeå University.

Keskitalo earned a PhD in International Relations from the University of Lapland in Finland, completing her studies between 1998 and 2002.^[1] During her doctoral work, she held visiting fellowships at Dartmouth College in the United States, the International Women’s University at Hamburg University in Germany, and the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom between 2000 and 2001.

From 2003 to 2005, she conducted postdoctoral research in International Relations at the University of Lapland. In 2005, she joined Umeå University in Sweden as a Senior Lecturer in Political Science and was appointed Associate Professor (Docent) in 2006. Since 2011, she has served as Professor of Political Science at Umeå University's Department of Geography.^[2] She is also a guest professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Umeå.

She has taken on several leadership roles in research and policy advisory work. She served as research coordinator for Sweden’s Mistra Arctic Sustainable Development Programme, the country’s first Arctic-focused social sciences and humanities initiative.^[3] She also coordinated the interdisciplinary PLURAL programme, which examines changes in forest ownership and management.^[4]

From 2015 to 2021, Keskitalo was vice chair of Sweden’s Expert Committee on Climate Change Adaptation.^[5] Between 2017 and 2021, she was appointed as a member of the European Commission’s Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM) Group of Chief Scientific Advisors.^[6]

In 2022, she served as a panel member for the European Commission’s interim evaluation of the Joint Research Centre under Horizon Europe and Euratom 2021–2025.^[7]

• Nils Klim Award (2007), awarded by the Holberg Prize for contributions to Nordic humanities and social sciences.^[8]

• Elected member of Academia Europaea in 2021^[9]

• Keskitalo, E. C. H. (forthcoming). Qualitative Social Sciences and Humanities under Open Science. Under review with Bristol University Press.
• Keskitalo, E. C. H. (in preparation). Narratives of Capitalism: Conceptions and Consequences. Under contract with Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Keskitalo, E. C. H. (ed., in press). Understanding Human–Nature Practices for Environmental Management: Examples from Northern Europe. Routledge.
• Keskitalo, E. C. H. (2024). Frontier Thinking and Human–Nature Relations: We Were Never Western. Routledge.
• Allard, A., Keskitalo, E. C. H., & Brown, A. (eds.) (2023). Monitoring Biodiversity: Combining Environmental and Social Data. Routledge.
• Keskitalo, E. C. H. (2023). Rethinking Nature Relations: Beyond Binaries. Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Keskitalo, E. C. H. (2022). The Social Aspects of Environmental and Climate Change: Institutional Dynamics beyond the Linear Model. Routledge.
• Keskitalo, E. C. H., & Preston, B. L. (eds.) (2019). Research Handbook on Climate Change Adaptation Policy. Edward Elgar Publishing.^[10]
• Keskitalo, E. C. H. (ed.) (2019). The Politics of Arctic Resources: Change and Continuity in the "Old North" of Northern Europe. Routledge.
• Keskitalo, E. C. H. (ed.) (2017). Globalisation and Change in Forest Ownership and Forest Use: Natural Resource Management in Transition. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Mårald, E., Sandström, C., Nordin, A., Beland Lindahl, K., Rist, L., Sténs, A., Carlsson-Kanyama, A., Johansson, J., Keskitalo, C., et al. (2017). Reflexive Forestry: Forest Governance and Management in a Transtemporal Perspective. Routledge.
• Keskitalo, E. C. H. (ed.) (2013). Climate Change and Flood Risk Management: Adaptation and Extreme Events at Local Level. Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Keskitalo, E. C. H. (ed.) (2010). Developing Adaptation Policy and Practice in Europe: Multi-level Governance of Climate Change. Springer.
• Koivurova, T., Keskitalo, E. C. H., & Bankes, N. (eds.) (2009). Climate Governance in the Arctic. Springer.
• Keskitalo, E. C. H. (2008). Climate Change and Globalization in the Arctic: An Integrated Approach to Vulnerability Assessment. Earthscan.^[11]
• Keskitalo, E. C. H. (2004). Negotiating the Arctic: The Construction of an International Region. Routledge.^[12]
• Keskitalo, E. C. H. (2002). Constructing ‘the Arctic’: Discourses of International Region-Building. Doctoral dissertation, University of Lapland.