Creative Perspectives on Sustainable Nature-Culture Relationships Beyond the Anthropocene

1 Creative Perspectives on Sustainable Nature–Culture Relationships: Setting the Context

Ullrich Kockel, Mairead Nic Craith, Katriina Siivonen, and Riina Haanpaa

2 Cultural Sustainability Transformation: The Transformative Role of Heritage Futures

Katriina Siivonen and Ullrich Kockel

3 Ecosophy, Geopoetics, and the Desire to Know

Mary Modeen

4 Mire Art, Environmental Concern, and the Changing Cultural Heritage

Pauliina Latvala‑Harvilahti and Kirsi Lauren

5 A Cultural Ecology of Contemporary Encounters with Prehistoric Sites through Art

Patrick Dillon and Priscilla Trenchard

6 Heritage, Cultural Polylingualism, and the Ecosophical Potential of Creative Conversation in Rural Wales

Iain Biggs

7 Mining Traditional Cosmology: Dúchas as an Alternative Nature–Culture Future

Mairead Nic Craith

8 Rural Entrepreneurship, Locality, and Future‑Sustainable Environment

Maarit Grahn

9 The River Eurajoki: A Source of Local Natural and Cultural Heritage

Riina Haanpaa, Laura Puolamaki, and Eeva Raike

10 Sensing Place(s) in the Humilocene: Explorations in Ecological Storytelling

Ullrich Kockel

Biography

Ullrich Kockel is Professor of Creative Ethnology at the Institute for Northern Studies, University of the Highlands and Islands, Scotland, and a Visiting Professor at Vytautas Magnus University Kaunas, Lithuania, and the Latvian Academy of Culture. A member of the Royal Irish Academy, the Steering Group of Learning for Sustainability Scotland, a United Nations University‑recognised Regional Centre of Expertise, and the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics, he works on issues of place, cosmology, cultural ecology, and sustainability.

Riina Haanpää is university lecturer and Associate Professor in Cultural Heritage Studies at the University of Turku, Finland. Her research focuses on oral history and memory as well as local and traditional ecological knowledge. Haanpaa has worked on several local oral history projects in the Satakunta region and developed community‑based oral history research.

Mairéad Nic Craith is Professor of Public Folklore at the Institute for Northern Studies, University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland. A member of the Royal Irish Academy, her research seeks to integrate critical heritage studies, cultural history, literature, and folklore into a creative ethnology. Author of seven monographs and sole or joint editor of eleven collections, her most recent monograph is The Vanishing World of The Islandman: Narrative and Nostalgia (2020). Her current research focuses on environmental aspects of Irish‑Gaelic mythology and folklore.

Katriina Siivonen is Associate Professor of Cultural Heritage Studies and senior university lecturer in Futures Studies at the University of Turku, Finland. She combines futures research, cultural heritage research, and sustainability science into a transdisciplinary entity in her work. Through more than 25 years of research, she has developed the study of cultural sustainability transformation and heritage futures into a thematic research area integrated into society. She is a member of the Expert Panel for Sustainable Development in Finland, and has been chairing the Advisory Board of the implementation of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the ICH in Finland.