About the project

JustInTime examines how traditional Sámi knowledge and science can be combined in a respectful synthesis to ensure a “green transition” that is both just and sustainable. Using the concept of epistemic justice, the project explores how power is exercised in decision-making processes concerning land use and natural resource governance.

JustInTime presents a novel approach to bridging Indigenous Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Western science to ensure sustainable and equitable outcomes in natural resource governance. As northern Sweden experiences massive investments in fossil-free steel, battery-, and energy production, Indigenous Sámi reindeer herding communities (RHC) face increasing pressures on their lands. The extraction of metals, biomass, and energy, crucial for the “Green transition”, threaten Indigenous ways of life. Failure to properly involve Indigenous knowledge holders risks dismissing valuable knowledge and leading to increasing land use conflicts.

Using the concept epistemic justice, JustInTime explores the exercise of power over processes of knowing, and how TK and science can support each other in a respectful synthesis. The aim is to explore how governance for (epistemic) justice can support sustainable and just transition. Integrating natural- and social sciences and humanities in collaboration with Indigenous knowledge holders, the project focuses on reindeer herding and mineral extraction in two Swedish Sámi RHCs. JustInTime will develop collaborative methods, institutional pathways, and Round Tables that promote long-term partnerships, mutual respect, and innovative combinations of expertise. The inclusion of TK, and the practices of epistemic justice, can bring potential to go beyond conflict and to promote sustainability and justice in a time of rapid change.

The aim of JustInTime is to explore how governance for epistemic justice in natural resource management can support sustainable and just transition. We identify how different knowledge systems and competing understandings of sustainability can be navigated - while upholding democratic values, including the values of justice. 

JustInTime integrates natural sciences, social sciences and humanities in collaboration with Indigenous Sámi knowledge holders. An integrated research team explores Sámi reindeer herders’ perceptions of landscape and sustainability and how Sámi TK informs actions of the TK holders. Our focus is on how Sámi TK is used and included/excluded in natural resource governance, i.e. mining permitting, which generate outcomes that can be assessed in relation to (epistemic) justice and contributions to sustainability. The theoretical framework guiding JustInTime combines theory on: Socio-ecological production landscapes, Traditional Knowledge, Epistemic justice, and Institutions. These perspectives guide the exploration of the following research questions:

1. What are the ways in which TK is employed in Sámi land use, reindeer herding and pathways to sustainability?

2. How and in what ways is TK included or excluded in specific mining permitting processes, and how does Indigenous Sámi TK intersect with Western science in such processes?

3. How can epistemic justice contribute to bridging Indigenous TK and Western science in mining permitting, and how can just bridging and collaboration be institutionalized and promoted in practice?