Echoes of Living Knowledge : Environmental Peacebuilding and Justice Through Research Collaboration - The Evenki Atlas

Abstract

This thesis explores the potential of grassroots transnational research collaboration to advance Indigenous environmental justice (IEJ) and environmental peacebuilding (EP). It does so through a case study approach to the Evenki Cultural Atlas: An online platform developed collaboratively by the Evenki of Iyengra and the Finnish NGO Snowchange Cooperative. The thesis situates the Atlas within the intersecting fields of IEJ and EP, analysing how it mediates between different types of knowledge, presents Evenki knowledge as related to environmental stewardship, and functions as a platform for advocacy. Drawing from a unique annotation-based thematic analysis of the Atlas, the study demonstrates how the co-production of knowledge between Indigenous and non-Indigenous actors can challenge extractive research paradigms and create space for Indigenous epistemologies in global climate and peacebuilding discourse.

The findings highlight how the Evenki Atlas not only preserves cultural knowledge but also functions as a living instrument of resistance, environmental monitoring, and intercultural dialogue. By foregrounding Evenki ontologies and relational worldviews, the Atlas advances epistemological justice. The role of the Atlas in the public and academic debate on Indigenous and environmental issues in the Arctic has become even more important in the current age of complex geopolitical barriers that hinder direct engagement with Russian Indigenous communities. In this context, products like that Atlas can become one of the only ways through which these Indigenous voices are represented, highlighting the importance of community agency and transparency in the research processes that lead to the creation of products like the Atlas.

This thesis argues that meaningful peacebuilding and justice efforts in the Arctic must move beyond technocratic models and embrace co-constructed, respectful, and locally grounded approaches to knowledge. The study thus contributes to the growing call for decolonizing environmental governance by centring Indigenous agency, voice, and ownership in collaborative research. Particularly within the field of environmental peacebuilding there is a need for a more genuine engagement with Indigenous knowledge. Research projects like the Evenki Atlas can form a platform through which Indigenous knowledge and scientific knowledge interact, leading to new insights without placing one form of knowledge above the other.