I am a university lecturer, associate professor (docent) and researcher in church history at Åbo Akademi University. In my original research I have studied the history and legacy of the Christian mission and European colonialism in Africa; in particular, in Tanzania and Namibia. Lately, I have focused on issues relating to cultural memory and religious as well as political uses of the past. In this work, I have especially focused on Protestantism, pietism, and the Christian mission in Finland and Africa, as well as on the "re-building" of cultural memory sites in the former GDR. At present my main focus interest is the university church in Leipzig: a church that the GDR regime demolished and which was later rebuilt to be inaugurated in 2017. I study the rebuilding process through a lens of memory, heritage, and activism.