Maria Fedina

Maria Fedina is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She received her PhD in Indigenous Studies (UH) in 2025. In her dissertation, focusing on Komi experiences of urban living, she studied Komi mobility, people-place relationships, belonging, community-building, and Komi language sustainability. The dissertation brought together people’s biographies, places’ histories, language attitudes and ideologies, human-environment interactions, and local toponyms. Through her Master’s studies in Human Geography and Criminal Law, she also gained research experience in studying extractivism and Indigenous rights. Until her employment in CoE, she was a member of the Kone-funded project Biocultural Heritage and Non-linear Time, where she studied how temporality and human-environment interactions are expressed in Komi time-related vocabulary and material heritage. Currently, she continues to pursue some of her previous research interests, while simultaneously studying the narratives of planetary health and wellbeing in international law and Indigenous perspectives, as well as the influence of legal and ideological constructs on the legal and lived realities of Indigenous peoples. Fedina was born in a bicultural Komi-Russian family in Syktyvkar, Komi Republic; her maternal family and ancestors are Izhma Komi.