Olli Pyyhtinen (PI) | PhD, docent (sociology)
Olli Pyyhtinen (PI) is Professor of Sociology at Tampere University, Finland, and the founder of Relational Studies Hub. His research intersects social theory, philosophy, science and technology studies, economic sociology, and the study of art, and he is the author of for example More-than-Human Sociology (2015), The Gift and Its Paradoxes (2014), The Simmelian Legacy: A Science of Relations (2018) and Simmel and the Social (2010), and co-author of Disruptive Tourism and its Untidy Guests (2014) and Tervetuloa jäteyhteiskuntaan! (2019; ‘Welcome to the Society of Waste!’).
Email: olli.pyyhtinen@tuni.fi
Niina Uusitalo | PhD (Media and communication)
Niina is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at DECAY. Her background is in media and communication studies. In her recent post-doctoral project ‘Envisioning climate change’ (Kone Foundation) she has studied how media users visualise climate change in their social media posts. Her previous research has included studying media users’ lifeworlds, the governance of attention in online settings and the aesthetics of climate change. Niina’s theoretical interests lie in eco-philosophy, governance studies and the politics of aesthetics. Her work process is visual, as she creates photography and video projects in order to reinterpret and visualize her research data and results.
Email: niina.uusitalo@tuni.fi
Taru Lehtokunnas | PhD (Sociology)
Taru is the latest addition to the DECAY team, having defended her PhD thesis in sociology at Tampere University in Sept 2023. She works in the project as Postdoctoral Research Fellow. In her doctoral dissertation, Taru conducted a multi-sited ethnography to study the circular economy transition of the food system from the perspective of everyday practices related to food waste. Her theoretical interests include STS, practice theory and posthumanist theory. Taru’s research in DECAY explores how everyday practices, technologies and non-human animals collectively shape our understandings of the circular economy and our relationship with waste.
Email: taru.lehtokunnas@tuni.fi
Collaborators:
- Prof. Hervé Corvellec (Lund University, Sweden)
- Prof. Gay Hawkins (Western Sydney University, Australia)
- Prof. Tora Holmberg (Uppsala University, Sweden)
- Prof. Pekka Jokinen (Tampere University, Finland)
- Prof. Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen (Tampere University, Finland)
- Prof. Elina Närvänen (Tampere University, Finland)
- Prof. Sarah Pink (Monash University, Australia)
- Prof. Peeter Selg (Tallinn University, Estonia)
- Prof. Jarno Valkonen (University of Lapland, Finland)
- Prof. Steve Woolgar (Linköping University, Sweden)
