Abstracts 2004
Sosiologia Volume 41, Number 1, 2004:
Governance and Its Limits – Work Organization in a New Media Company
Arja Haapakorpi, Licentiate of social sciences, University of Helsinki
The article investigates the work organization in a new media company from the framework of governance which entails analysis and activity aimed at efficiency and economy. The assumption in the early stages of the research in 2000 was an exception to traditional work organization which was in line with the approaches in other research typical of that time period. Data analysis showed, however, that there was a strong orientation to division of labour, professional territories, standardised work methods, and control. The governance framework is not an organizational theory but a historically constructed way of analysing and acting which permeates the society and with which people aim at adapting to the world but also at actively channelling their activity towards the desired goals. Because the aim of efficiency and economy is in the background of the framework it is being used especially in work organizations. Financial management and streamlining were the collective methodological dimensions of governance in the company, but carrying these out was dependent on both the staff’s commitment to the same standard of analysis and activity and their application by individuals: self control. However, realising governance was incomplete and contradictory because the contingent reality did not easily bend to being controlled and because the employees have other ways of analysing and acting apart from governance.
Keywords: organisation studies, knowledge work, professional work, work research
From Peripheral Farmers to Political Agents: The Education of Local Councilmen as a Part of the Establishment of Local Public Health
Suvi Nieminen, Student of public health, University of Tampere; Lea Henriksson, Doctor of philosophy, University of Tampere; Sirpa Wrede, Doctor of social sciences, Åbo Academi University
The article deals with the construction of the health policy agency of municipal councilmen in the changing social and institutional context of the 1930s and 1940s. The construction project is looked at from the point of view of promoting public health in the work of an advocacy coalition for public health and its education for local councillors. This education aimed at getting the reluctant local councillors to actively enforce the statutory public health regulations. The investigation, which is based on rhetorical analysis, maps out the targets, strategies and differences influential in the process. The core data comes from the 1935—1946 annual volumes of Maalaiskunta magazine published by the Association of Finnish Municipalities. In the educational rhetoric of the advocacy coalition for public health two approaches can be found whose basic difference can be summed up as different conceptions of hierarchy and periphery. Clear chains of command and expertise were emphasised in the authoritarian educational strategy. The persuasive educational strategy was based on encouragement and an appreciative rhetoric in which the local councilmen were given a more active role. Health and population policy, as well as national economy and even military reasons, were given to argue for the organisation of the public health work. It was served to the councilmen as a responsibility on one hand and as an honorary task on the other. The expert powers of the Public Health Administration and the lay councilmen who relied on municipal autonomy battled over the powers of definition in the education for local councilmen. For a certain part of the male population in the countryside councilman-hood was constructed as a public male forum for action within the gendered social life.
Keywords: he formation of public health in the municipality, center–periphery relations, political agency at the local level
Embroidered Life. Tattoos as subjectivity problems of the embodying society
Atte Oksanen, Master of social sciences & philosophy, University of Tampere; Jussi Turtiainen, Master of social sciences, University of Tampere
The phenomenon of tattooing became a part of mainstream culture in the 1990s. In late modern society tattoos have become connected to the aesthetisation and visualization of the human body. The article analyses portraits that were published in the magazine Tattoo where the meanings of tattoos varied from self-adornment to a narrative structuring of life history, and subjectivity protection. We examine the portraits as tattoo-narratives to map out how tattoos act as material fasteners of the subjectivity and as a life history embroidered on flesh. As the social world becomes chaotic, the body becomes a central site in which the subjectivity is reworked. The result is not only that corporality becomes an external surface but also that the subjectivity becomes visualised. The examination of the tattoo-narratives shows how the tattoos form a shield inscribed in skin and offer an avenue for forging a stronger embodied subjectivity. The tattoo-narratives suspend the body as an externally visible site and a place in which subjective meanings are engraved.
Keywords: tattooing, tattoo-narrative, embodiment, subjectivity, visualization
Sosiologia Volume 41, Number 2, 2004:
On Conceptualising Social Change
Heikki Kerkelä, Doctor of social sciences, University of Oulu
When social changes are analysed such analysis frameworks are often used where changes are interpreted as changes from an older society to the new society. The article investigates the characteristics of such transformation models between societies and maps out alternative starting points for conceptualising change. The most significant aspects of the transformation model are 1) the presupposition of clear-cut stages of social development, 2) a comparison between the stages and 3) polar oppositions of concepts with which the differences between the developmental stages are presented. However, these elements are only a part of the overall analysis of transformation. The reason for the predominance of the transformation model can be seen in its ability to synthesise the necessary thought processes into a simplified picture of the birth of a new world. Simplification has its price: transformation models reduce historical comparisons into formulaic juxtapositions of the new and old societies, they bypass the different layers of change and exaggerate the significance of the new phenomena in the researcher's own time. The alternative perspective emphasises the different layers of change. One should analyse changes which take place in different time spans and attempt to define their interrelatedness.
Keywords: social change, comparative method, modernisation, information society
Extended Youth and Family Formation. Tracing the Individualistic Life Orientation
Kaisa Ketokivi, Master of social sciences, University of Helsinki
This article aims to understand why youth is extended and family formation does not usually occur before the age of 30. This appears to be the case at least among the highly educated. Two kinds of empirical data are used. First, the typical life orientation is mapped out and analysed by using data from group interviews (n=16). Second, experts' and citizens' opinions regarding the topic, published in Helsingin Sanomat in spring 2002 (n=37), is analyzed. The theoretical discussion focuses on the sociological debates on indivualisation and risk. David Riesman's analysis of the "other-oriented" social character is used in analysis of individualistic life orientation. The results show that freedom is a principle that defines youth as a distinct phase in life, but it has also become a norm that contributes to the extension of youth. Starting a family is postponed, because it is considered a personal risk for two reasons. First, the family tie threatens one's own individuality, and second, there is a fear of a failure in parental responsibility. Surprisingly, youth is also extended for familistic reasons that turn starting a family into a moral decision.
Keywords: youth, family formation, parenthood, individuality, familism, freedom, responsibility, risk
Consumption Patterns of Low Income Groups and Differences in Consumption among Different Population Groups
Mikko Niemelä, Master of social sciences, University of New South Wales, Australia
The article investigates consumption in low income groups and the differences in consumption among different population groups. The consumption and consumption patterns of low income groups are compared to especially those with medium incomes. The task is to find out if the patterns of consumption differ among those with low incomes from those in other income groups and whether those in lower income groups have more similar consumption patterns than those in medium income groups, or whether factors related to different life situations and one's place in the life cycle are more pronounced in the case of lower incomes compared to medium incomes. The data comes from Statistics Finland's consumption study in 2001 (n=5495). The examination is carried out with fractal analysis in such a way that the lowest income group is formed of the households in the lowest income quintile. Cross tabulation, principal component analysis and multiple classification analysis are use as research methods. The results show that the consumption patterns in low income groups differ from those in other income groups. However, small incomes do not seem to restrict consumption only to bound consumption because regardless of income levels consumption is also oriented to such items that indicate social and cultural activities. In addition different consumption patterns can be discerned among those with low incomes, which are more or less similar than those in medium income groups. The observed consumption patterns are also connected to different life cycles and life situations whose significance is more pronounced in the low income groups.
Keywords: poverty, low income, consumption patterns
Sosiologia Volume 41, Number 3, 2004:
Bonds of Local Community and Their Disappearance in the Working Class Suburbs of Helsinki
Erkko Anttila, Master of social sciences, University of Helsinki
The article investigates bonds of local community and their disappearance on the basis of the community theory developed by Norbert Elias (1974). In Elias's theory mutual interdependencies are regarded as the universal basis of social relations. This theory is seen as an alternative to the classical approach represented by Ferdinand Tönnies and Émile Durkheim where there is a fundamental difference between communal and social relations. The study probes into the working class suburbs that developed in the Helsinki area in the early 20th century. The data comes from publications that deal with the everyday life in the suburbs and with social development in the 20th century. By analyzing local everyday life, collective actions and the local public sphere in the working class suburbs, the article maps out the development in which the working class suburbs transformed from village-like areas into modern residential areas that have little local community feeling. In the early 20th century, bonds of local community were based on the fact that the inhabitants depended on local social networks and on different kinds of local arrangements. The disappearance of the community bonds towards the end of the century was caused by the fact that the working class was becoming wealthier and modern service structures and technologies were rapidly developing. This development decreased the need for local social interaction and co-operation as well as the inhabitants' interest in the closed local settings.
Keywords: bonds of local community, the working class, suburbs, social change
Comparing Status Sequences: Optimal Matching Analysis of the Labour Market Histories of People with Masters’ Degree in Nine European Countries
Matti Lindberg, Master of social sciences, University of Turku
The article shows with an example from empirical research how one method in sequence analysis, optimal matching analysis (OMA), functions. The article begins with a short introduction to the most commonly used methods of labour market history analysis in sociology. This is followed by a presentation of the functional principles of OMA. The empirical data illustrating the method concerns the labour market histories of people with Masters' degrees in nine European countries. The countries included in the comparison are Italy, Spain, France, Austria, Germany, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Finland and Norway. In the article, sequence analysis based on OMA is done in two ways. First, the three-stage sequences of applying to university, studying and graduating and applying for jobs after graduation are analysed. Second, the first stages of professional careers after graduation are analysed with the help of sequences consisting of seven possible labour market statuses. The comparison based on sequence analysis shows such clear differences between the countries in the transition from higher education to work that would have been hard to detect if other methods had been used. Compared to other methods used in analysing longitudinal data OMA can be regarded a holistic method which enables the formation of detailed typologies of multi-stage event histories.
Keywords: sequence analysis, optional matching analysis (OMA), transition from school to work, higher education, career, international comparison
Prize Juries as Gatekeepers. Scientifi c Book Prize as the Constructor of Literary Value
Maaria Linko, Doctor of social sciences, University of Helsinki
The article examines the most important literary prize for scientific books in Finland, Tieto- Finlandia Prize, as a process where the value of literature is actively being produced by bringing some books into the limelight and leaving some others in obscurity. The prize juries and, in the last few years, the people who have made the final choice are in a key position in this process. The article begins by reflecting on the debates over literary prizes in different European countries and on the special characteristics of scientific literature in the middle ground between science and literature. The empirical part of the article deals with the working methods of the prize juries, their decisions and the ways in which the juries have justified their decisions. The data comes from semi-structured interviews conducted with jury members and other experts and from different kinds of documentary data from 1989 to early 2004. The central finding of the research is that scientific literature is evaluated in terms of scientific merits rather than other criteria, such as accessibility or public interest. The biggest controversy in the history of the Prize also concerned the scientific standard of one of the books on the shortlist. However, in recent years and in accordance with international trends, the influence of the media seems to have increased. Another important conclusion concerns the strong nationalist emphasis of the books considered worthy of the Finlandia Prize which is interpreted in light of our national history. Even the name of the prize can here work as a certain kind of burden.
Keywords: literature prizes, scientific literature, prize juries, field theory, popularising science
The Politics of Conceptualizing Nature in Finnish Lapland
Jarno Valkonen, Doctor of social sciences, University of Lapland
The article deals with the politics of conceptualizing nature in Finnish Lapland with the help of the public debate in newspapers about the use of nature in Lapland after the Second World War. The aim is to make visible the politics of the conceptualizations of nature in their regional contexts and to analyse the construction of these conceptualizations. Theoretically the article develops a research approach in environmental sociology which is cognizant of the social and political contents of conceptions of nature. From the point of view of politics of nature it is expedient to examine the debates and disputes about the use of nature as symbolic battles over society and its development which are being conveyed through nature. The analysis illustrates how the definitions of nature have had significant impact on the formation of the conceptions of Lapland in the post-war period. At different times the ideals of nature have gotten their concrete manifestations in Lapland and the possibilities and impossibilities of nature in the Finnish society have been gauged in the use of the region's nature. My conclusion is that the bases of definitions of nature arise from the cultural but in such a way that to a certain extent the conceptions of nature are materialistically motivated. The structure of the natural environment sets the boundaries for conceptualizing nature.
Keywords: Lapland, nature, culture, politics of nature, environmental sociology, environmental politics
Sosiologia Volume 41, Number 4, 2004:
”One must get to nature, freedom and sun!” Vacation Propaganda for the Working Class in Short Films in the 1940s
Anu-Hanna Anttila, Master of philosophy, University of Turku
The purpose of the vacation propaganda short films produced in Finland at the end of the 1940s was to disseminate the ideology of ‘proper’ use of vacation time which was promoted by different rhetoric and audiovisual means. I analyse vacation propaganda with the help of four short films, Onni yksillä – kesä kaikilla (1947) (Some are lucky - summer belongs to all), Kesäistä iloa (1948) (Summer pleasures), Huoleton loma (1948) (Carefree holidays) and Palkkapäivä (1948) (Payday). The method of analysis is socio-semiotic close reading which I use to identify 1) what kind of ways of spending the holidays were regarded as ‘proper’ and worth aspiring to (the dimension of utterance) and 2) how the imagined audience is defined and to whom and in what ways is the vacation propaganda aimed at (the dimension of enunciation). The analysis shows that the vacation propaganda appeals to both the collective sentiments of the nation and to the subjective hopes of the individuals. After the Second World War, hopes for better things to come remained in dreams of a better future for the working class, dreams for which it was nevertheless worthwhile to strive. This was encouraged by means of integration propaganda, for example by raising only minor dissatisfactions
Keywords: vacation, ways of spending the holidays, short fi lms, propaganda, sociosemiotic close reading, education
Lived and Told Narrative
Matti Hyvärinen, Doctor of social sciences, University of Helsinki
One of the new ideas brought on by the narrative turn has been the idea of living out narrative. According to this thought, narrative is not only a true or fictitious representation of some events but an integral aspect of perception, feeling and action. This article is a critical review of the development of the idea of the lived out narrative. In particular, the thinking of Alasdair MacIntyre, David Carr, Paul Ricoeur and Hayden White is discussed. Returning to this debate is important because many of the ideas discussed then are now widely circulated, in spite of the fact that many of them were were perceived problematic in the first place. The article seeks to answer how and to what extent it is reasonable to talk about living out the narrative. The idea of living out narratives justifies the research of empirical narratives from a new perspective and emphasises the importance of researching storylines and models of storylines.
Keywords: narrative, story, lived out narrative, experience, action, history, inner story
Sociology of Human–Animal Relations – Examining Social Meanings of Animals from Sociological Perspective
Saara Kupsala, Master of Arts, University of Helsinki; Salla Tuomivaara, Master of social sciences, University of Tampere
Sociological research on animal issues has increased rapidly in recent years. In this article, we map out this new research field in sociology - the sociology of human-animal-relations: what are its key questions and theoretical approaches, and what kinds of opportunities and challenges does it offer to sociology. A central theme in the research field is the ambivalent status of animals as objects of care and of instrumental exploitation. The question of ambivalence has been unfolded by deconstructing the concepts of 'animal' and 'human', as well as the meanings of 'humanity' and 'animality'. Animals are significant others to humans: both alike and unlike humans, they have an important role as a tool of human self-definition. However, the difference in kind between humans and animals has remained strong in many cultural traditions. This human-animal boundary building includes three key themes: defining the sphere of moral responsibilities, legitimating animal exploitation, and social control. As regards to transformations in human-animal relations, the social meanings of animals have become increasingly ambiguous during modernisation. The justification of animal use for the modern progress and the social creation of moral invisibility of animals have functioned as solutions to this modern dilemma. However, these resolutions are breaking down in the new conditions of risks and reflexivity in late modern societies, making animal issues more controversial and politicized than before.
Keywords: sociology of human-animal relations, ambivalent meanings of animals, human-animal boundaries, modern and late modern human-animal relations
The Restaurant, Sociability and the Making of Cultural Differences
Jukka Törrönen, Doctor of social sciences, National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (Stakes); Antti Maunu, Master of social sciences, National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (Stakes)
Restaurants are focal stages of sociability. This article investigates the identifi cations and distinctions between us and them, made by people talking about their own behaviour in restaurants, and the restaurants they like and dislike. The data consists of 117 interviews with 23-35 year-old young adults who work in business or administration. The method applies classification analysis and is influenced by the structuralist, semiotic, and rhetoric traditions. The analysis shows that the interviewees’ classifications are dominated by distance taken from superficial restaurants. The interviewees distinguish themselves from superficial places by classifying their interaction as false and stiff, and contrary to genuine and relaxed sociability. With these distinctions the interviewees do not aim to distinguish themselves upwards. Instead, they define themselves ’downwards’ as ordinary people by separating themselves from people who fake, pretend and are too faddish. This opposition to superficiality and emphasis on authenticity is a reminiscent of Rousseau’s criticism of artificial needs. The interviewees seem to defi ne sociability in restaurants in a way that valorises the virtues of ordinariness and modesty. The results of the study speak for the persistence of the norm of equality, inherited from the peasant culture, rather than for the strength of the middle class culture which emphasises taste hierarchies.
Keywords: restaurant, sociability, us and them distinction, semiotic sociology, analysis of distinctions, equality