Events and Activities

Current and Forthcoming events

  • Tegelela Nampala, Raita Merivirta and Leila Koivunen will attend to the Rosa Clay Day Symposium (organised by Southnorth, 25 October 2026 Oodi, Helsinki), present papers and take part in panel discussion.

Previously

Events

Presentations

  • Jerkko Holmi attended in the International Society for Regional History Conference, 22–24 September in Seinäjoki, Finland and presented his paper “Many Borders of the Finnish Missionaries in the Northern Namibia during the Cold War”.
  • Olli Löytty and Jerkko Holmi attended the symposium (De)colonial Solidarities: Whiteness, Colonialism, and the Politics of Allyship (27-28 August 2026, University of Turku) and presented their paper “Finnish Missionaries and the Limits of Decolonial Allyship in Namibia, 1966–1990”.
  • Raita Merivirta attended the conference 1800-luvun tutkimuksen päivät (University of Turku & Åbo Akademi University, 29-30 January 2026) and presented her paper Kap-kolonian aatelisen varakuvernöörin ja arabialais-damaralaisen kaunottaren tytär? Rosa Clayn sepitetty alkuperä ja digitaalisten tutkimusmenetelmien luomat mahdollisuudet [in Finnish, on Rosa Clay’s parents].
  • Leila Koivunen attended the conference 1800-luvun tutkimuksen päivät (University of Turku & Åbo Akademi University, 29-30 January 2026) and presented her paper Liikkuvat esineet ja muuntuvat kertomukset. Martti Rautasen vuonna 1891 Suomeen tuomat afrikkalaisesineet tiedon ja tarinoiden välittäjinä [in Finnish, on Martti Rautanen’s collecting activities in Owambo and the history of the collection in Finland].
  • Session “Dekolonisoivia näkökulmia kolonialistiseen menneisyyteen: Sukelluksia suomalaisten ja namibialaisten yhteiseen historiaan” at the 7th Finnish Conference of History Research (Jyväskylä, Finland 16.-18.10.2025). [In Finnish], consisting of the following presentations:
    • Leila Koivunen & Raita Merivirta: Kasvattilapsia Ambomaalla ja Suomessa 1800-luvun loppupuolella
    • Raita Merivirta & Leila Koivunen: ”Ambomaasta” Suomen siirtomaa?
    • Jerkko Holmi & Olli Löytty: Namibian itsenäisyystaistelun kokemukset suomalaisten lähetystyöntekijöiden muistikuvissa
  • 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
    • Additionally, 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

Other

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