Research Focus Areas

Short Biography

Currently, Ria-Maria Adams works as a researcher for the ERC funded project: https://infranorth.eu, focusing on the role of transport infrastructures in the Fennoscandian Arctic. In February 2024, she defended her PhD thesis at the University of Vienna on the topic of youth wellbeing in northern Finland.

Previously, Ria-Maria has contributed as a researcher to the Finnish case study of the LISH project at Aalto University addressing liveability in shrinking towns in Finland and Germany. She has also worked at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland in the project: Live, Work or Leave? Youth – wellbeing and the viability of (post) extractive Arctic industrial cities in Finland and Russia.

Selected Publications

• Gansauer G., Lilius, J. & Adams, R. (2025) Affective politics and neoliberal subjectivities in ‘left behind’ places: Counter-narrating regional decline within/from Finland’s ‘Capital of Pessimism’. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 0 (0). https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544251317099
• Sandmann, L., Gunko, M., Shirobokova, I., Adams R.-M., Lilius, J. & Grossmann, K. (2024) Local initiatives in shrinking cities: On normative framings and hidden aspirations in scholarly work. IJURR, 1-10.
  https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.13252
• Adams, R.-M. (2024) The Quest for a Good Life: Young People’s Wellbeing in Northern Finland. PhD  Thesis, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology. Vienna: University of Vienna. https://doi.org/10.25365/thesis.75293
• Großmann K., Adams R.-M., Bolotova A., Gunko M., Lilius J., Messerschmidt S. & Sandmann L. (2024) Self-responsibilization, the Municipality, and the State: Peripheralization Shaping Local Initiatives in Shrinking Small Towns. Cities, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2024.105067
• Adams, R.-M., Meyer, A. & Bennett, M. (2023) For Whom Do the Sleigh Bells Toll? Unwrapping Santa’s Arctic Infrastructures. InfraNorth. https://infranorth.eu/blog/for-whom-do-the-sleigh-bells-toll-unwrapping-santas-arctic-infrastructures/
• Klinger J.M., Bennett M.M, Adams R.-M. & Armstrong E. S. (2023) The Crowded and Empty Arctic: Examining spatial imaginaries and infrastructures in Kiruna, Sweden. In: Priebe and Wormbs (2023) Thematic Issue: Arctic Dreams. Lychnos. Annual of the Swedish History of Science Society, 57-72. https://tidskriftenlychnos.se/article/view/25085/22738
• Adams, R.-M. (2023). Hunting a ‘Good Life’: Young Lifestyle Migrants in Finnish Lapland. Polar Geography, 46 (2-3) 139-156. https://doi.org/10.1080/1088937X.2023.2182383
• Adams, R.-M., Bolotova, A., & Alasalmi, V. (2022). Liveability under Shrinkage: Initiatives in the ‘Capital of Pessimism’ in Finland. European Planning Studies, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2022.2126721
• Adams, R.-M. & Bennett M. (2022) Moving Mountains to Ship Iron: Transport Hierarchies in the Scandinavian Arctic – InfraNorth. https://infranorth.eu/blog/moving-mountains-to-ship-iron/
• Stammler, F., Adams, R.-M., & Ivanova, A. (2022). Rewiring Remote Urban Futures? Youth. Well-being in Northern Industry Towns. Journal of Youth Studies, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2022.2081493
• Adams, R.-M., & Komu, T. (2022). Radically Ordinary Lives: Young Rural Stayers and the Ingredients of the Good Life in Finnish Lapland. YOUNG, 30(4), 361–376. https://doi.org/10.1177/11033088211064685
• Komu, T., & Adams, R.-M. (2021). Not Wanting to be “Stuck”. Exploring the Role of Mobility for Young People’s Wellbeing in Northern Finland. In F. Stammler & R. Toivanen (Eds.), Young People, Wellbeing and Placemaking in the Arctic, 32–52. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003110019-4

Current Affiliations

• Guest Researcher at Arctic Centre/University of Lapland in the Arctic Anthropology Team lead by Prof. Florian Stammler
  https://www.arcticcentre.org/EN/About/Contacts/anthropology-staff