Description of research and teaching

Dr. Karen Heikkilä has conducted research with Indigenous communities in Malaysia and Canada. She has engaged in cross-cultural research and teaching for most of her professional life. Her MA and PhD work, related to Indigenous oral history, has served as a springboard for looking more deeply into the evolution of the Semai Orang Asli land tenure system since the British colonial period. The ideas of conservation through resource use, trade-offs between agricultural and forest production and Indigenous heritage landscapes, centering on Indigenous sovereignty, are primary focus areas for her. Strands of Indigenous territorial and economic justice research that she is drawn to are:

1) Indigenous cooperatives and the marketing of NTFPs (non-timber forest products)

2) the formalization of Indigenous land laws

3) literacy and numeracy in oral-based Indigenous communities

4) documentation and protection of Indigenous tangible and intangible cultural heritage (including sustainable food agriculture systems in forests)

Regionally, she has worked in and maintains an active interest in: Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and the Circumpolar region. Linguistic communities of ongoing academic interest are those linked to the Austroasiatic, Austronesian and Athapaskan phyla. Karen is a Grant-Funded Researcher, affiliated with UHelsinki's Global Development Studies programme, and Coordinator of the Safeguarding Heritage Transnational Research Team ("TRT 4", under UNA Europa's Cultural Heritage Focus Area).