Antti Tarvainen

I am a post-doctoral researcher at the Political Geography at the Space and Political Agency Research Group (SPARG), in the faculty of Management and Business in Tampere University. I received my PhD (with distinction) from the University of Helsinki, discipline of Global Development Studies (2025). My PhD monograph examines the entangled political worlds of Silicon Valley and Palestine/Israel. Since late 2025, I have worked in Global Palestine: Frontier Geographies of a Region in Flux -project (Research Council of Finland, 2025-2029), led by Dr. Mikko Joronen. 

My research focuses on the relations of innovation economy and colonial modernity, with a specific focus on the imaginaries of innovation, politics of venture capital, and the colonial histories of techno-capitalism. My research aims at developing empirically grounded, global critique of innovation.

Tarvainen, A. (2025). Silicon Palestine: an Inquiry into the entanglements of innovation and Settler Colonialism. PhD Monograph, Dissertationes Universitatis Helsingiensis.

Tarvainen, A., & Challand, B. (2024). Innovation as erasure: Palestine and the new regional alliances of technology. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 49(2), e12663.

Tarvainen, A., & Challand, B. (2024). Les pays du Golfe et la «start-up nation» israélienne: un effacement de la Palestine par l’innovation technologique?. Revue internationale de politique comparée, 31(2), 217-252.

Tarvainen, A. (2022). The modern/colonial hell of innovation economy: Future as a return to colonial mythologies. Globalizations, 1-23.