Events and Activities

Current and Forthcoming events

Previously

Events

Presentations

  • Decolonising Finnish-Namibian History seminar as part of Black History Month 2025 events in Helsinki 15-16 September, organised in collaboration with AfriStadi, Historians without Borders and the Finnish-Namibian Society, consisting of the following presentations:
    • Leila Koivunen: New Approaches to Intertwined Histories
    • Napandulwe Shiweda: Reclaiming Narratives: Ovawambo Material Culture and Knowledge Production
    • Maria Caley: Decolonising Knowledge: Kavango Children Play and Toymaking
    • Lovisa Tegelela Nampala: Outeku and Finnish Curriculum: The Impact of the Two Education Systems on Aawambo Communities
    • Ndapewoshali Ndahafa, Omukwaanime kepata, Omukwaniilya kootate: Decolonisation* of Academic Spaces
    • Jerkko Holmi: Finnish Missionary Remembrance on Namibian Independence Struggle
    • As part of the program Napandulwe Shiweda introduced the movie Measures of Men (2023)
  • Session “Decolonising Knowledge Production: Collaborative Global North-South Reappraisals of Finnish-Namibian relations” at the 8th European Congress on World and Global History (Växjö, Sweden 10.-12.9.2025), consisting of the following four presentations:
      • Napandulwe Shiweda: Reclaiming Narratives: Ovawambo material culture and knowledge production
      • Leila Koivunen: Two Perspectives on Eva Maria Nanguloshi’s (ca. 1863–1929) Life between Two Worlds
      • Jerkko Holmi: Finnish missionaries recalling Namibia’s struggle for independence 1966–1990
      • Lovisa Tegelela Nampala: The critical analysis of Aawambo care and health system in the late-nineteenth century
    • Additionally:
      • Jerkko Holmi took part in Roundtable/Book Discussion “Globalizing the Nordic Model. From Exceptionalism to Entanglement”
      • Raita Merivirta took part in “Plenary Session Nordic Colonialism”
  • Raita Merivirta attended the conference Englishes in a Multipolar World (the 20th Triennial Conference of the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies, ACLALS, 1.-5.7.2025, University of Nairobi) and presented her paper Transcultural and English in the Service of Nordic Settler Colonialism: Karen Blixen and Out of Africa.

Teaching

Media appearances

  • Yle Kulttuuriykkönen 18.8.2025, Olemmeko syyttömiä? Suomalaiset ja Afrikan kolonialismin varjo. Harri Englund & Leila Koivunen [In Finnish]
  • Turun Sanomat 11.4.2025, Alio Jerkko Holmi: Shell-boikotti 1980-luvulla – bensapumppuja valeltiin verellä, töhrittiin maalilla tai saatettiin epäkuntoon [In Finnish]
  • Press release: New book sheds light on the history of Finland–Namibia relations in colonial world 29.8.2024

Other

  • Call for Papers: Modern challenges in decolonial historical research between the Nordics and Southern Africa Proposal [deadline for proposals ended 30.9.2025]