Dr Maija Lassila is a visiting postdoctoral fellow at the Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland. Her research examines the socio-ecological impacts of mining, industrial land use, and energy transitions, with a particular focus on knowledge disparities, uncertainty, vulnerabilities, and overlapping historical resource extraction trajectories. Trained in social anthropology and global development studies at the University of Helsinki, her expertise lies in Arctic extractivisms, which she has studied through ethnographically oriented research on mining and mineral exploration, industrial development, and their impacts on reindeer herders’ traditional territories.
At the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining (CSRM), she is developing a dialogical research project between Finland and Australia that examines Indigenous and local sustainabilities, perceptions of socio-ecological impacts, and well-being in renewable energy transitions in Arctic Finland and Queensland. Her broader research interest lies in tracing meaning-making, questions of justice, and burdens and benefits, within transformative global politics of energy transition.