Jakob Starlander

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Division of Agrarian History SLU, Uppsala. I received my PhD in 2023 with the thesis ‘Tar and Timber: Governing forest commons in seventeenth century Northern Finland’. Between 2023-2025 worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Bern University (Switzerland) within the project "Volcanic Eruptions, Climate and Society in History" (VICES) and my own project ‘Environmental Hazards and Impact on the Management of Commons During the Early Modern Period’. From 2025 to 2028 I will work as project leader in my project "Forest and Settlement fires in Early Modern Fennoscandia, 1600-1800", funded by the Swedish Research Council. During this time, I will be a visiting researcher at the Department of Historical and Classical Studies, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Norway, and at the Department of Philosophy, History, and Art, University of Helsinki in Finland.

My research is about forest and settlement fires in Fennoscandia (Sweden, Finland, Norway) during the period 1600-1800. Much of the research on fires in historical times has focused on urban environments, while rural areas have not received the same attention. By studying a variety of historical source materials (court records, tax records, parish meeting protocols, legislation, parliamentary records, academic texts, governmental correspondence) in combination with climatological reconstructions, I examine the relationship between temperature anomalies, drought and precipitation in relation to the occurrence of fires during the period. In addition, I examine the socio-economic consequences of fires, what safety nets existed for the rural population and how legislation changed in connection with this.

2021 & 2023:

Landskapets historia och växtkännedom (LK0294) & Landskaps- och trädgårdshistoria (LK0365), SLU, Uppsala.

2024:

From Vikings to Welfare States: Introduction to Nordic History (Von Wikingern zu Wohlfahrtsstaaten: Einführung in nordische Geschichte), Bern University, Schweiz.

I received the award “Anerkennung hervorragender Leistung in der Lehre” (Recognition of excellence in teaching) for the course “From Vikings to Welfare States: Introduction to Nordic History” at Bern University, Switzerland, in autumn 2024.

2024: Rural Inferno: Environmental and Socio-Economic Consequences of Wildfires in Seventeenth-century Western Finland, https://www.whp-journals.co.uk/CCH/article/view/1152

2023: Tar and timber: Governing forest commons in seventeenth century Northern Finland, https://publications.slu.se/?file=publ/show&id=120857

2021: Conflict and negotiation: management of forest commons in seventeenth-century Northern Finland, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03585522.2020.1789732