Authors:Eeva-Kaisa Prokkola Pages: 3 - 16 Abstract: In the autumn of 2015 more than 32 000 asylum-seekers arrived in Finland, most of them traveling through the Tornio border crossing point from Haparanda, Sweden. The situation was exceptional and as a response, the Finnish government relocated hundreds of security authorities and servicemen to register the asylumseekers and to control the border crossing. In the research literature such a border securitization, an approach where migrants and asylums are approached from the viewpoint of security instead of human rights, is considered problematic. This paper examines the local authorities and civic actors’ stories of border securitization and asylum reception in Tornio by employing everyday geopolitics as a theoretical and methodological framework. Everyday geopolitics approach is sensitive to the practices and experiences of border securitization at local and intimate scales. The main research finding is that local actors are aware of the wider geopolitical and societal discourses of threat. However, their stories of local and everyday practices emphasize feelings of safety, trust and cooperation at both national and supranational scales. Instead of focusing the feelings of safety merely on the discursive production of threat and danger, it is important to unfold the more contextual, local and mundane interpretations of border securitization. PubDate: 2018-06-25 DOI: 10.30663/ay.73006 Issue No:Vol. 47, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Karoliina Ojanen Pages: 17 - 30 Abstract: In this article I examine how the inhabitants of the city with an immigrant background experience the public space in a suburb of Helsinki: how Finnish diversity is produced as lived everyday practices. The data analyzed in the article consists of interviews of 26 inhabitants who have an immigrant background. The starting point is to analyze the shape of interethnic encounters and how they are formed in relation to public spaces. The article rests on the idea of urban space as constantly produced and altered through social practices and cultural meanings combined with intersectionality. I analyze the interviews applying the concepts cosmopolitan canopy and conviviality. These concepts refer to the idea that a semi-public urban space encourages people to adopt a positive attitude towards one another in a way that reflects civility and tolerance. In these kinds of spaces ethnicity and race can be and often are visible but unpronounced factors, which give potential to cross the possible ethnic boundaries. On the one hand, my analysis supports these ideas: people experience their city as a positive multicultural space. However, on the other hand, racism is a very common experience among the interviewees. The differences in the experiences are related to intersectionality and how one is positioned in regard to different social hierarchical categories and the social resources s/he has access to. All in all, the experiences are framed by Finnish immigration policy and discussions regarding the issue. These both affect the everyday life of the inhabitants of the city. PubDate: 2018-06-26 DOI: 10.30663/ay.73015 Issue No:Vol. 47, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Veera Kinnunen Pages: 31 - 49 Abstract: The reconstruction of Lapland after World War II did not mean merely restoring the pre-war infrastructure and buildings; Lapland was both reconstructed and built afresh at the same time. Reconstruction was viewed by planners and architects as an inspiring challenge to modernise the devastated areas. Lapland region was considered a real-life laboratory for arranging novel ways for “living, moving and working”. Almost all the rapids of Finland´s longest river, the Kemijoki, were harnessed during the 1950s and 1960s. The construction of hydropower plants changed both the mental and physical landscape of Northern Finland in ways that were not anticipated in the planning stage of the projects. One of the rapids harnessed on the Kemijoki River was Pirttikoski. During the construction years (1955-1959) the population of Pirttikoski grew from zero to almost 4000. In this article I will discuss the kinds of modernising influences that the construction of the power plants introduced into the culture and everyday lives of the people living in the region, asking what was the ethos of regional planning articulated in the planning of both the community and the region. I will further explore what was the anticipated future society that the designers of Lapland regional plan in the 1950s were pursuing. In this article the village of Pirttikoski serves as a model community in two ways. Firstly, Pirttikoski was originally designed as an experimental model community for creating solutions for future power plant construction site communities. Secondly, it is a model village of my study, a micro case from which I will examine the process of designing a regional plan for Lapland in the 1950s. PubDate: 2018-06-26 DOI: 10.30663/ay.65038 Issue No:Vol. 47, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Kari-Matti Vuori, Kristiina Korjonen-Kuusipuro Pages: 50 - 61 Abstract: Finland is officially marketed as a land of a thousand clean lakes, but people’s concerns on negative trends is common. We used questionnaires and interviews to gather information on people’s experiences on how lakes have been changed, and compared the experiences with limnological research results and administrative lake classifications. Both human observations and limnological evidence detected negative changes in lake ecosystem quality during the past 30-50 years, whereas the administrative lake classification considered lakes to be mainly in good/excellent quality. In addition, small lakes with severe ecosystem changes reported by people, were seldom covered by classification. People’s observations and limnological measurements revealed independent and identical information on the trends in water quality, whereas much of the official lake classification is based on inadequate data and lack of observations on lake littoral areas. Thus, we suggest that people’s everyday experiences should be collected and analyzed more systematically in lake quality assessment processes. PubDate: 2018-06-26 DOI: 10.30663/ay.65784 Issue No:Vol. 47, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Esa Konttinen, Miikka Salo, Sakari Möttönen Pages: 62 - 78 Abstract: Following the 1970s oil crisis the search for alternative energy sources intensified in Finland. As a result, peat harvesting from peat bogs was launched programmatically. This included peat bogs around the Saarijärvi waterway in central Finland, consisting today about 50 peat harvesting sites. As in a number of cases, these peat harvesting operations are opposed by the local residents, who insist that peat harvesting is spoiling the waters, and thus damaging recreational activities like fishing, swimming, and the enjoyment of nature. The aim of our study was to investigate the situation in greater detail by eliciting local residents’ experiences. In the fall of 2015 a questionnaire was sent to the residents of four municipalities in the area, producing 478 responses, a response rate of 23.9 per cent, which represents the local population fairly well. Peat harvesting was reportedly the most harmful source of water pollution. The results were analyzed using the concept of social license to operate. A generalization can be made that peat production in the district has largely lost local residents’ approval. PubDate: 2018-06-26 DOI: 10.30663/ay.60607 Issue No:Vol. 47, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Veera Kangaspunta Pages: 79 - 103 Abstract: The aim of this article is to approach one specific environmental topic and the public debate around this topic from a user-oriented perspective – through online news comments. The article analyses online news and comments sections from three Finnish online newspapers concerning the mining accident of Talvivaara company in November 2012. Discourse and discursive legitimation strategies are used as analytical tools with the focus of critical discourse analysis. The study aims to solve what kind of discourses the public debate contains and how these discourses are connected to certain legitimation strategies. In addition, the article also continues the conceptual deliberation about the concept of the public as a group of people participating in public discussion. The study shows that Talvivaara news and news comments consist four main strategies, authorization, rationalization, moral evaluations and mythopoiesis, used for legitimation, relegitimation and delegitimation. However, the parties differ in the way they utilize these strategies and different discourses. Consequently, online news commenting appears as a unique part of the public debate about the topic, rather than remaining marginal flaming. The users tend to absorb the role of the public as a part of the public showdown about the shared issue. PubDate: 2018-06-26 DOI: 10.30663/ay.65574 Issue No:Vol. 47, No. 1 (2018)
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