Abstracts 2007
Sosiologia Volume 44, Number 4, 2007
The biological as model for the social. Choices in the field of the new Artificial Insemination Act
Helena Hirvonen, Master of Social Sciences, University of Jyväskylä
The article deals with the Finnish debates connected with the legal process concerning reproduction treatment, which resulted in the Artificial Insemination Act (1237/2006). The author focuses in her analysis on section 5 of the Act and on the grounds given for it in the legislative proposal HE 3/2006. According to that section, the doctor is to choose from among donors those who most resemble the parents receiving the treatment, the idea being that a child has the right to resemble her social parent. The author carries out a modality analysis of the statements in section 5 concerning the statuses of the child and the parents, using the semiotic square as a conceptual tool. By means of the square, she points out the modal gradation of the positions of the participants of the treatments, showing that in the dominating value orientation of the legal documents, the ideal norm of biological heterosexual parenthood occupies a central place. The semiotic analysis is then refined by means of Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of societal fields of struggle; in the field in question here, the normative ideals incorporated in the law are manifested as symbolic violence exerted on the participants of the treatments. The prereflexive appropriateness of the field, connected with the ideal of biological parenthood, effectively prevents us from perceiving the symbolical violence naturalised through the argument for the child’s best interest. In the field of reproduction treatments, this is manifested, among other things, as the advice to search for lookalikes (section 5 of the Act), which often results in the decision not to inform the child of his or her natural parents. In such cases, the child’s right to know of his or her origins (section 23 of the Act) is easily neglected.
Keywords: Artificial Insemination Act, child’s best interest, symbolic use of power
The individual subject’s corporeality in first pregnancy
Riikka Homanen, Master of Social Sciences, University of Tampere
This article deals with individual bodily subjectivity during pregnancy. It is motivated by the observation that there are contradictions to cultural notions and practices related to gender and, especially, pregnancy. Namely, the unborn child is granted certain social and personal rights at the expense of the mother’s options for bodily agency. The pregnant body, thus, comes to appear as something exceptional as compared with dominant definitions of the individual subject’s autonomous body. The aim of the article is to analyse the positions women are offered in different cultural notions of the relationship between the individual subject and her body. Methodologically, the article represents narrative research, and the materials drawn on consist of women’s narratives of first pregnancy as a bodily experience. The analysis shows that culturally dominant notions according to which the pregnant body ceases to function as a semiotic sign of the individual and in which bodily womanhood is equals societal motherhood, seem to prevail. They find their articulations in intertwined discourses concerning individual agency, femininity, and physical well-being. However, there are also some signs of the crumbling of norms in the materials. The author concludes that the notion of autonomous and atomistic individual body, typical of social theory, is partly inadequate for pregnancy.
Keywords: first pregnancy, body, corporeality, individual subject, gender
Skateboarding, corporeality, and collectivity
Kim Kullman, Master of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki
Deriving inspiration from Bruto Latour’s writings in the field of Science and Technology Studies, the article aims to show corporeality in a double light, both as the result of collective construction and as a central element in the construction of collectivity. On the basis of an ethnographic study carried out at a skateboarding rink, the author discusses the way in which the “skateboarding body” – and thereby agency and self-knowledge in the “skateboarding collective” – are formed in practices which include not only interpersonal intercourse, but also a number of artifacts such as wooden constructions, skateboarding gear, and visual technologies. Through an analysis of the collective’s negotiations around the skateboarding (male) body’s competences and outlook, the article describes corporeality and collectivity as intertwined socio-material processes which both give rise and set limits to each other in various ways. The author points out that that the body is primarily defined through spontaneous relationships with other human and non-human “bodies” in its immediate surroundings, and therefore has the kind of empirical specificity to it that cannot be understood without reference to collectivity.
Keywords: skateboarding, corporeality, collectivity, materiality
Sosiologia Volume 44, Number 3, 2007
Gender stereotypes in e-mail humour
Jari Aro, Doctor of Social Sciences, University of Tampere; Harri Sarpavaara, Doctor of Social Sciences, University of Tampere
In humour, which is a type of non-serious discourse, representations of manhood and womanhood are often constructed by means of strong stereotypes. The article clarifies the involvement of such stereotypes in e-mail humour. The writers aim at shedding light on the features, elements, and principles drawn on in the construction of the gender imagery drawn on in the genre. The materials consist of e-mail messages which were acquired through the staff of one university department and which were meant to be humorous. The materials turn out to rest on diverging assumptions concerning womanhood and manhood, which assumptions in turn are organized along certain themes and thematic dimensions. In the jokes, the two genders are anchored on opposite poles of the scale, either symmetrically or asymmetrically. The central thematic dimension, the writers argue, is the dichotomy simple vs. complex. The single theme that pops up most frequently is corporeality, which manifests itself above all in the representations of sexuality and outward appearance (which are often intertwined). The images of man and woman are constructed in the e-mail messages by means of the strategy of exclusion. In line with the logic of the traditional gender system, womanhood and manhood are represented as mutually opposite, but not necessarily complementary, properties.
Keywords: e-mail humour, stereotypes, gender, corporeality, sexuality
Motherhood’s changing status in the definitions of welfare state citizenship
Janne Autto, Master of Social Sciences, University of Lapland
Definitions of membership and citizenship taking place in different cultural contexts have been attracting increasing attention in the field of social studies from the late 1990s onwards. This article looks at the construction of the citizenship of mothers in the editorials of the Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat discussing children’s day-care in the years 1972–2006. It turns out that there are four discursive changes that have made it possible for paid labour to take over the hegemonic position earlier occupied by housewifery, which used to be the dominant definition of mothers’ citizenship. These changes are: the loosening of the special biological relationship between mother and child, the professionalisation of childcare, the increasing importance of paid labour as the strongest defence of a mother’s personal interests and as the object of her desire, and the increasing importance of the father’s share in childcare. At the end of the article, the writer ponders on the goals and premises that the definitions of mothers’ citizenship have been based on. First, a mother’s citizenship is conceptualized with reference to the fulfilment of duties having to do with interpersonal relationships. Second, a mother’s role is also legitimised with reference to productive efficiency. Third, the definition involves the perspective of the market for support and services, so that mother’s status is conceptualized as consumptive citizenship free from collective duties. All these changes have contributed to the availability of the different discursive strategies for mothers in the struggle over definitions of social rights.
Keywords: cultural citizenship, welfare state, motherhood
Al-Qaida and the success story of global terrorism
Aini Linjakumpu, Doctor of Social Sciences, University of Lapland
The article discusses the nature and formation of the collective activities of the al-Qaida terrorist group. The goal of the article is to clarify the reasons why al-Qaida has been so successful. The writer approaches al-Qaida’s terrorist activities from a societal-political and social movement angles instead of those of war, crime, or cultural conflict. She argues that the main reason for al-Qaida’s success has to do with a new kind of global agency in which both individual and collective agency and local and global action are closely intertwined. The article describes the evolution of al-Qaida into a global organization. The theoretical framework of the article consists of the notion of a global political opportunity structure and the notion of diffusion. On this basis, the writer interprets al-Qaida from the perspectives of network structure, brand, and global ideology. In addition, she discusses the mechanisms of individual global agency in the case of al-Qaida. At the end of the article, the writer ponders on whether there is also an end in sight to al-Qaida’s undeniable success story.
Keywords: al-Qaida, Islamic terrorism, collective action
Sosiologia Volume 44, Number 2, 2007
The concept of social structure in Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism
Tuukka Kaidesoja, Master of Social Sciences, University of Jyväskylä
In the article, the writer analyses and evaluates the concept of social structure as developed by Roy Bhaskar, who is known as the central fi gure of critical realism. Margaret Archer’s critique against the concept, as well as her suggestions for remedies are also discussed. Bhaskar’s concept, the writer of this article argues, turns out to be problematic above all for the fact that it does not account satisfactorily for the relationship between structures and social reality. This problem is illustrated with reference to Karl Marx’s theory of capitalism, which Bhaskar and many other critical realists (e.g. Andrew Collier and Andrew Sayer) also draw on. Further, the writer argues that due to the problems connected with Bhaskar’s concept, those versions of critical realism that are based on his thinking, have failed to formulate such empirical methods that could produce knowledge of the social structures situated on the transcendental deep structure of reality. The article also sketches an alternative way of conceiving the notion of social structure, which, according to the writer, both evades the problems of Bhaskar’s concept, and provides us with a stronger foundation for empirical research based on the assumptions of scientifi c realism.
Keywords: Bhaskar, critical realism, social structure
From societal metaphysics to the study of social life – sketch for the evolutionary-pragmaticist actor’s perspective
Osmo Kivinen, Doctor of Social Sciences, University of Turku; Tero Piiroinen, Master of Social Sciences, University of Turku
The article presents a comparative analysis of the realist and pragmaticist ways of conceiving of the evolutionary approach in the social sciences. While the realists fi nd Darwinism to provide the social sciences with their necessary ontological foundation, the pragmaticists with a focus on the actor’s perspective draw on Darwin methodologically. The writers fi nd the notions of mind and society with causal explanatory power and a sui generis character to come close to the pragmaticist analysis of social action with Deweyan origins. When we understand that the social sciences do not differ from each other on the basis of the ontological differences of their targets but only due to their differing problem formation, social research can largely be carried out by means of a shared methodology. The specifi c nature of social scientifi c study is due to the specifi c questions they pose. These involve research problems connected to time, place, and perspective, and are therefore best solved by means of carefully delimited case studies.
Keywords: evolutionary, methodology, ontology, operationalizability, pragmaticism, realism
Gendered agency: the problem of essence, role, and habituation
Kirsti Lempiäinen, Doctor of Social Sciences,University of Tampere
During the past few years in Finland, sociology has been analysed from the inside from the perspective of the topic of power especially. One of the central issues connected with this topic is the relationship between agency and gender. Shifts in the problematisation of gender within sociology are accompanied by shifts in the space given to the genderedness of agency in sociological theories. In the feminist approach, a gendered position is always a power position as well; in other words, gender both delimits and gives rise to agency. In the article, gendered agency is conceptualised by means of three pivotal theoretical axioms: namely, gender is looked at as essence, role, and habit. The materials drawn on consist of writings by Edvard Westermarck, Talcott Parsons, and Pierre Bourdieu. The fi ndings are evaluated against the background of the sociology of gender by looking for connections between these three modes of conceptualising gender and the contemporary debates over agency within feminist research. Towards the end, the writer summarises the connections to be found between these modes which are very varied and date from different periods of time.
Keywords: gender, agency, role, essence, habitus
Sosiologia Volume 44, Number 1, 2007
Finnish voluntary associations and trust at the turn of the millennium
Kaj Ilmonen, Doctor of Social Sciences, University of Jyväskylä
Voluntary associations have frequently been thought of as "schools for democracy and civic action". They appear as central social mechanisms to be drawn on in efforts to enhance social capital, understood as trust in previously unknown individuals and societal institutions. It is therefore of vital interest to study whether voluntary associations actually function in this manner - in this case in Finland, where dramatic changes took place in the character and status of voluntary associations in the 1990s. A multitude of new kinds of associations emerged while the established politico-ideological associations were on the decline. The focus of the article is on how the members of these new kinds of associations regard previously unknown people and societal institutions as compared with the members of old-style political and ideological associations. The writer's findings indicate that the new associations produce generalised trust more effectively than old ones. In this sense social capital is not under any threat in Finland. The writer concludes with a discussion of whether the new associations, notwithstanding this, really can make Finnish economy and politics function better.
Keywords: trust, social capital, voluntary associations
Employment project as an actor network
Päivi Kivelä, Master of Social Sciences, University of Jyväskylä; Jani Kolehmainen, Master of Social Sciences, University of Jyväskylä; Martti Siisiäinen, Doctor of Social Sciences, University of Jyväskylä
The article expands the scope of the actor-network theory, applying it to study the employment projects funded by the European Social Fund (ESF). The writers conceptualise an employment project as a series of translations, and as a narrative account of that series, in the course of which the different actors involved commit themselves or are made to commit themselves to join forces in a network with certain shared goals. The analysis sheds light on the kind of elements and inter-actor bonds the project activities consist of. The writers show that the actor-network approach, which has previously been used mainly in the study of technological innovations, is useful in the study of social innovations as well. This is done by looking at the activities of one project, which took place in the years 2002-2005, at the local level. The materials used include materials produced by the employment project itself, surveys and interviews carried out with the unemployed persons involved in the project, as well as information gathered by means of questionnaires from authorities, enterprises, and voluntary associations in the municipality in question.According to the principles of actor-network theory, the study aims at an empirically strong account, free of prior assumptions, of the activities studied, taking into account the different perspectives of all the actors involved.
Keywords: development, sociology of translation, actor-network theory, employment
Eating disorders on an internet discussion forum - interpretations of the sacred and the profane
Tiina Valkendorff, Master of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki
The article deals with the discussions between people with eating disorder on an Internet discussion forum in the early 2000s. The perspective adopted in the article is that of the theory of religion: eating disorders are conceptualised in terms of interpretations of the sacred and the profane. Eating disorders involve meanings and practices which for other people may appear as alien and hard to understand. The aim of the article is to clarify the way of life aspects of eating disorders by means of a religious interpretation: that is, by looking at the sacred vs. profane elements of eating disorders. The research materials drawn on consist of the discussions on a Finnish Internet discussion forum in the years 2004 and 2005. They are analysed by means of qualitative theory-grounded text analysis. According to the study, the everyday reality of an eating disorder patient shows characteristics that enable us to approach it as a religion-like phenomenon. According to the religious interpretation, slimness represents such a degree of perfection for the patients that it can be regarded as sacred for them. Even though the target of the persons in question is slimness, the study shows that what is most important for them is not slimness itself but the very process of losing weight. Exclusive focus on slimming and on one's body provides the disorder patient with the kind of meaning that comes close to religious experience.
Keywords: eating disorders, religion, sacredness, profanity, the body, web discussion