RURALEX — Knowledge in Crisis: The Dynamics of Environmental Expertise amidst Rural Change

RURALEX addresses the cumulative crisis of environmental expertise across rural Europe and investigates how this relates to broader processes of societal disenfranchisement. In recent years, many rural parts of Europe have struggled with the local effects of large demographic and associate ecological changes, including human out-migration and the abandonment of traditional forms of agriculture and other nature-based livelihoods. These shifts have led to significant losses in what we refer to as “environmental expertise”: loss of knowledge of the land, loss of important traditional practices, loss of tacit expertise about local environments, loss of cultural knowhow. This crisis is at once intangible and deeply impactful. RURALEX will innovate new methods to surface the loss of socio-ecological knowledges and practices, which are held by both scientific "experts" and lay persons, through long-term engagement via deep mapping. The project will determine what is being lost and its impact, how these changes take place, and what processes might be put in motion to ensure that local knowledge is adequately valued at the policy-making level. We will accomplish this via deep mapping using a suite of innovative, multispecies research methods derived from anthropology, history, literary, cultural and sound studies, and the environmental humanities. Seventeen researchers will carry out fieldwork in key parts of rural Europe, including the Pyrenees, the Alps, former East Germany; the Baltic states, Romania and Bulgaria; and the UK. The project will advance inter-disciplinary debates on rural change and ecological justice and will generate comparative data for engendering positive change. In so doing, RURALEX will demonstrate the importance of critical humanities approaches for addressing urgent socio-ecological crises that impact the future of remote communities across Europe.

As RURALEX’s primary objective is to investigate how the crisis of expertise relates to broader processes of land use change, socio-environmental dynamics, and societal disenfranchisement across Europe, the project is made up of a diverse consortium of engaged academic and societal partners. The consortium has been designed so as to ensure disciplinary and geographical breadth, while ensuring representation from multiple, diverse scales within Europe, including across EU membership (widening countries, outermost regions, recently joined, recently exited), community type (peri-urban, archipelago, riverine, mountain valley, tundral) and biogeographical region (Boreal, Alpine, Atlantic, Mediterranean, Carpathian).

Academic Beneficiaries
University of Oulu (Finland)
University of Oslo (Norway)
University of Barcelona (Spain)
University of Sussex (UK)
Tallinn University (Estonia)
The Institute for Southeast European Studies (Romania)

Associated Partners
Estonian Folk Art and Craft Union (Estonia)
Kiiminki River Association (Finland)
The French National Committee of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN (France)
Haus am See Information Center for Environment and Nature Conservation (Germany)
The Halle-Wittenberg Botanical Garden (Germany)
Vallarsa Ethnographic Museum (Italy)
Museum Francisco Lacerda (Azores, Portugal)
Grigore Antipa Natural History Museum (Romania)
Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia (Spain)
Ecomuseu de les Valls d'Aneu (Spain)
Rewilding Britain (UK)

The three-year project will begin in April 2025, and will consist of fieldwork, podcasts, methods trainings, policy workshops, a travelling artistic exhibition, and an active TikTok presence to communicate the value and importance of rural knowledge to younger generations. If you are interested in being involved in the project, please contact the Project Leader Roger Norum at roger dot norum [a t ] oulu [d o t] fi.