This article discusses the resistance practices of the social sciences and humanities researchers... more This article discusses the resistance practices of the social sciences and humanities researchers who are doing small-scale qualitative research in Finnish universities. The research material was generated in three online 'cafés' where 22 researchers from different academic career stages gathered to share and discuss their experiences and emotions related to both their everyday work and to the effects of current research strategies on their work. The social sciences and humanities researchers felt discomfort with current neoliberal science politics, but they must, to some extent, play by its rules. However, they have found different ways to resist them, too, and this study scrutinises what kinds of resistance practices were generated in the café encounters and, further, how affects became part of these practices. Through my analysis, anxiety, anger, pride and hope came into being as the most meaningful affects that circulated through the cafés, and which fostered the resistance practices. Furthermore, with these affects, academics move towards individual or collective, but sometimes ambiguously towards both of these ways of resisting. The individual way supports the neoliberal idea of competing individuals, whereas a more collective way can open a possibility for more substantial and rapid change.
Pohdimme tässä artikkelissa, miten kuvittelu ja luovuus ovat osa etnografiaa, ja kysymme, miten n... more Pohdimme tässä artikkelissa, miten kuvittelu ja luovuus ovat osa etnografiaa, ja kysymme, miten näitä voi oppia ja opettaa. Analysoimalla kahta opettamaamme kaupunkietnologiaan, aistietnografiaan ja visuaalisiin menetelmiin keskittynyttä kurssia osoitamme, miten opiskelijoita voi ohjata kohti luovia ratkaisuja niin kentällä kuin tulkinnoissakin. Opettamisessa tämä vaatii uskallusta käyttää tarpeeksi avoimia tehtävänantoja, mutta myös tasapainoilua opettajalähtöisen opettamisen ja opiskelijoiden kokemuksellisen ja yhteistoiminnallisuuteen perustuvan oppimisen välillä. Lisäksi tutkimuksemme osoittaa, että kulttuurien tutkimuksen opiskelijoilla on valmiuksia käyttää kuvittelua, luovuutta ja aistietnografian vaatimaa ruumiillisuutta oppimisessaan.
Anthropological Journal of European Cultures, 2023
In this article, I discuss the way that the body becomes the crucial socio-material element of ag... more In this article, I discuss the way that the body becomes the crucial socio-material element of ageing in a future city when it is imagined in participatory workshops involving seniors, city officials and researchers and when this joint learning process is analysed through the lens of affect theory. The analysis shows how the materiality of bodies that move between places and with other human and nonhuman bodies adds to the anthropological understanding of ageing as an experienced and cultural phenomenon, as well as the understanding of ageing as a human-nonhuman assemblage. Furthermore, analysing participatory design processes through the lens of affects generates knowledge on how emotions participate in the making of boundaries that are essential when designing not only to cater to senior city dwellers, but also to anyone.
In smart cities, technologies are designed to assist people in their everyday lives, including in... more In smart cities, technologies are designed to assist people in their everyday lives, including intelligent homes, public transportation and e-services. However , these technologies can lead to new kinds of marginalisation for people who do not fit into the mold of a 'smart citizen'. In this article, I explore how seniors experience everyday practices in the smart city of Oulu in northern Finland and how they perceive themselves as smart citizens. Through generating ethnographic composition of ICT-biographies, walk-along interviews, and a series of participatory workshops; and thinking this process as collaborative knowledge making, the configuration of ageing in a smart city has emerged. In this configuration, the city is understood as an assemblage with distinct temporal dynamics and interactions of structures, communities and individuals within a global power geometry. Seniors support the ideology of smart city as a regional strategy but they want to make a voluntary decision to become smart citizens. The current smart city is mainly made for and by technology savvy people, excluding other citizens. To become a truly smart community the city must include a variety of citizens in the making of the city, and many seniors are willing to take up this challenge.
This article investigates participatory action research workshops from the perspective of feminis... more This article investigates participatory action research workshops from the perspective of feminist new materialism by asking, how we came to know ageing in the smart city of Oulu in northern Finland through collaborative workshops which aimed to include seniors into public service design. The most meaningful socio-material components in this knowledge-making are argued to be the shifts in social power relations, particular spatial and material practices, and the participant assemblage. These components intra-act transferring our understanding on ageing: ageing becomes a creative state where the seniors are included in the problem-solving instead of being citizens to be looked after, and thus being merely a socio-economic problem. The power dynamics are essential in participatory action research, therefore, the accountability of all agents should be carefully analysed to understand the impacts of epistemology both in design and social change.
This study focuses on the appropriation process of two public computing infrastructures in the Ci... more This study focuses on the appropriation process of two public computing infrastructures in the City of Oulu, Finland, a municipal WiFi network and large interactive displays. We analyze the adoption of these technologies in public urban places with a conceptual technology appropriation model involving three layers of factors contributing to the adoption or rejection of a technology. Quantitative data shows that while the use of the WiFi network has grown steadily, the use of the displays has been declining. Qualitative data obtained with ethnographic methods reveals that the adoption of the displays is hampered by their questionable utility and people's apprehension about interacting with the displays in a public social setting. Finally, we identify issues that designers should take into account when deploying these technologies in urban spaces in the future.
This article discusses the case of the Finnish city of Oulu which is designed and constructed as ... more This article discusses the case of the Finnish city of Oulu which is designed and constructed as a prototype of an intelligent city equipped with ubiquitous computing technology. By analysing ethnographic materials, the authors explore how the strategies, i.e. the conceptions and goals of urban development by the designers and decision-makers, meet the tactics (i.e. the everyday practices of the ageing and young adult city dwellers. By looking at this specific urban space as a meshwork, the authors argue that the design visions are based on the assumption that this high-tech city is full of competent and enthusiastic ubicomp users. The stories of the urbanites, however, show that though they utilise and appreciate the ubiquitous technology to a certain extent, they also resist the new enabled practices by refusing to attend to personal matters in public places. The study also unravels the notion that age as a singular category can explain people’s relations with information and communication technologies (ICTs).
Artikkelissa tarkastellaan ikääntyvien oululaisten suhdetta kaupunkiinsa ruumiillisen ja sosiomat... more Artikkelissa tarkastellaan ikääntyvien oululaisten suhdetta kaupunkiinsa ruumiillisen ja sosiomateriaalisen paikkasuhteen rakentumisen kautta. Kaupunkikeskustat ovat yhä tärkeämpiä elämisympäristöjä ikääntyville kaupunkilaisille, joten ikääntyvän väestörakenteemme vuoksi on syytä tarkastella, millaisena he itse nämä tilat kokevat. Tutkimukseni tavoitteena onkin vastata kysymykseen, miten ikä ja ikääntyminen vaikuttavat julkisessa tilassa liikkumiseen ja sen merkityksiin. Tutkimuskysymys liittyy kaupunkikävelyn ruumiillisuuden, sosiomateriaalisen tilan ja ajallisuuden ulottuvuuksiin, jotka yhdessä muodostavat paikantuneisuuden näkökulman. Tutkimuksen aineistona ovat yhdeksän 66–89-vuotiaan Oulun keskustassa asuvan kaupunkilaisen haastattelut, joiden aikana kävelimme heidän jokapäiväisiä reittejään. Kävelyhaastattelut osoittavat, miten hetkellisessä paikkakokemuksessa ovat läsnä niin ikääntyvän muuttunut ruumis, muut ihmiset kuin ei-inhimillisetkin toimijat, kuten rakennukset, kadut ja puistot. Tämä kokemus on osa paikkojen kudelmaa, jossa ovat läsnä myös muistot ja tulevaisuuden suunnitelmat. Refleksiivisen etnografian metodologiaa hyödyntämällä artikkelissa avautuu lisäksi se, miten tutkija tutkimuskysymyksillään, menetelmillään ja ruumiillisella mukana kävelyllään osallistuu haastateltaviensa paikkakokemuksen ja -suhteen muovaamiseen.
Avainsanat: Etnografia, ikääntyminen, julkinen kaupunkitila, kudelma, kävelyhaastattelu, paikkasuhde.
Walking as a place-making practice:
The city centre of Oulu as a socio-material environment of senior citizens
The article discusses the relationship between senior citizens of Oulu and the city as their home environment through the perspective of place-making, understood as embodied and socio-material practice. A growing number of seniors prefer to live in city centres, and since Finnish society is demographically ageing, it is important to investigate how they experience these places. Consequently, my aim is to scrutinize how ageing matters in moving around public urban places and the meanings attached to this movement. These questions are tightly entwined with embodiment, socio-materiality and temporal dimensions of space, which together form the notion of emplacement. In order to answer these questions, I have walked in the city with nine city dwellers aged between 66 and 89. These walk-alongs happened on their everyday routes and they illustrate the complexity of spatial experience. For the seniors, being in a “present” place is inseparably entangled with experiencing the ageing of one’s body, with other city occupants, past and present, as well as with non-human agents, such as buildings, streets and parks. The momentary spatial experience is part of the meshwork of places in which both memories and plans for the future are present. By using reflexive ethnographic methodology I also consider how the researcher, through her or his research questions and methods, but also through embodied walking with people, participates in constituting their relationship to a place.
Keywords: Ageing, public urban place, walk-along, reflexive ethnography, emplacement, meshwork.
Ikääntyvistä puhutaan toistuvasti tietoyhteiskunnan taloudellisena ja sosiaalisena kuormana, ”kri... more Ikääntyvistä puhutaan toistuvasti tietoyhteiskunnan taloudellisena ja sosiaalisena kuormana, ”kriisinä”, jonka vain teknologian kiihtyvä kehitys voi ratkaista. Samaan aikaan moni ikääntyvä panostaa tietotekniikan opetteluun tuntien itsensä kuitenkin käyttäjänä kömpelöksi ja siten vajavaiseksi tietoyhteiskunnan kansalaiseksi. Tässä artikkelissa pohditaan, mistä nämä kokemukset johtuvat keskittymällä ihmisten ja teknologian välisiin sekä ihmisten keskinäisiin rajanvetoihin, joita ikääntyvät tieto- ja viestintäteknologiaelämäkerroissaan tekevät.
“The world changes and you just have to hang in there.” Experiencing ageing through ICT
The experiences ageing adults have on using information and communication technologies are formed both in long-term processes and in momentary socio-material encounters with technology. By combining these two perspectives, this article discusses how the experiences of using ICT affect the ways the elderly interviewees experience their own ageing. Especially the indeterminate object/subject position of computing disclosed in human–non-human intra-actions; and the social encounters with other ICT users, strengthen their feelings of getting old. The notions of ageing as both individually lived and constructed in socio-cultural discourses are engaged in continuous dialogue in the interviews. Though the capabilities and ways of using ICT differ between the interviewees, they all express the feelings of incompetency, and thus reflect the discourse of the aged as burdensome citizens of information society. The article shows the complexity of individuals’ relationships with technology and the power of ICT in the lives of the ageing adults.
Technological Forecasting & Social Change: Special Issue on STS and Later Life (Online First; In print)
This article discusses how the elderly experience their ICT usage as the ageing citizens of the F... more This article discusses how the elderly experience their ICT usage as the ageing citizens of the Finnish information society. Through reflexive ethnographic analysis the human-(non-)human boundary-making and temporalities are analyzed from the “ICT biographies” of sixteen interviewees. The perspectives of ageing as lived experience and as socio-cultural phenomenon; and the socio-materiality entangled with temporal layers; are combined to understand the intra-action between the ageing ICT users and technology. The social relations are discussed as essential part of this intra-action: the interviewees perceive themselves as slow and clumsy ICT users in relation to younger “generations”, for example. In the human-machine boundary making the interviewees’ previous experiences on communication technologies are significant. As an addition to previous studies on ICT and ageing, this article further discusses the benefits of ethnographic study on existing ICT practices for urban computing design. What could be learnt from these practices in relation to, for example, technology usage in private and public places, negative and positive experiences, motivations and needs of ageing citizens? Or how could design benefit from understanding ageing as lived experience which however reflects the social discourses about ageing and technology, as well as the socio-cultural environment ageing adults live in.
This article discusses the case of the Finnish city of Oulu which is designed and constructed as ... more This article discusses the case of the Finnish city of Oulu which is designed and constructed as a prototype of an intelligent city equipped with ubiquitous computing technology. By analyzing ethnographic materials, we explore how the strategies (de Certeau, 1980), i.e. the goals and perceptions of the designers and decision-makers meet the tactics (ibid.), i.e. the everyday practices of the ageing and young adult citizens. By looking at this urban space as a meshwork (Ingold, 2011) we argue that the design visions are based on the assumption that this high-tech city is full of competent and enthusiastic ubicomp users. The stories of the citizens, however, show that though they somewhat utilize and appreciate the ubiquitous technology, they also resist the new enabled practices by refusing to attend to personal matters in public places. We also unravel the notion that age as a singular category could explain people’s ICT relations.
International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology, Vol 4, No 2 (2012), 2012
The living lab methodology in technology design emphasizes user involvement throughout the innova... more The living lab methodology in technology design emphasizes user involvement throughout the innovation process. This article discusses the execution of this methodology in building a future ubiquitous city in northern Finland. We analyse how the sociomaterial practices of ICT design are constructed in thematic interviews with the designers. Three practices determining the realisation of the ubiquitous city were identified: Funding resources framing user involvement; keeping up the high-tech image of the city; and pursuit of scientific innovation. Then, following feminist technology studies, we discuss how power relations are negotiated, and how the user of new technology is constructed in the design process. In this particular living lab, users were configured as unidentified testers and consumers of the implemented technology rather than innovative co-creators. By reflecting on our position as female anthropologists we also illuminate the situatedness of scientific knowledge.
This article discusses the resistance practices of the social sciences and humanities researchers... more This article discusses the resistance practices of the social sciences and humanities researchers who are doing small-scale qualitative research in Finnish universities. The research material was generated in three online 'cafés' where 22 researchers from different academic career stages gathered to share and discuss their experiences and emotions related to both their everyday work and to the effects of current research strategies on their work. The social sciences and humanities researchers felt discomfort with current neoliberal science politics, but they must, to some extent, play by its rules. However, they have found different ways to resist them, too, and this study scrutinises what kinds of resistance practices were generated in the café encounters and, further, how affects became part of these practices. Through my analysis, anxiety, anger, pride and hope came into being as the most meaningful affects that circulated through the cafés, and which fostered the resistance practices. Furthermore, with these affects, academics move towards individual or collective, but sometimes ambiguously towards both of these ways of resisting. The individual way supports the neoliberal idea of competing individuals, whereas a more collective way can open a possibility for more substantial and rapid change.
Pohdimme tässä artikkelissa, miten kuvittelu ja luovuus ovat osa etnografiaa, ja kysymme, miten n... more Pohdimme tässä artikkelissa, miten kuvittelu ja luovuus ovat osa etnografiaa, ja kysymme, miten näitä voi oppia ja opettaa. Analysoimalla kahta opettamaamme kaupunkietnologiaan, aistietnografiaan ja visuaalisiin menetelmiin keskittynyttä kurssia osoitamme, miten opiskelijoita voi ohjata kohti luovia ratkaisuja niin kentällä kuin tulkinnoissakin. Opettamisessa tämä vaatii uskallusta käyttää tarpeeksi avoimia tehtävänantoja, mutta myös tasapainoilua opettajalähtöisen opettamisen ja opiskelijoiden kokemuksellisen ja yhteistoiminnallisuuteen perustuvan oppimisen välillä. Lisäksi tutkimuksemme osoittaa, että kulttuurien tutkimuksen opiskelijoilla on valmiuksia käyttää kuvittelua, luovuutta ja aistietnografian vaatimaa ruumiillisuutta oppimisessaan.
Anthropological Journal of European Cultures, 2023
In this article, I discuss the way that the body becomes the crucial socio-material element of ag... more In this article, I discuss the way that the body becomes the crucial socio-material element of ageing in a future city when it is imagined in participatory workshops involving seniors, city officials and researchers and when this joint learning process is analysed through the lens of affect theory. The analysis shows how the materiality of bodies that move between places and with other human and nonhuman bodies adds to the anthropological understanding of ageing as an experienced and cultural phenomenon, as well as the understanding of ageing as a human-nonhuman assemblage. Furthermore, analysing participatory design processes through the lens of affects generates knowledge on how emotions participate in the making of boundaries that are essential when designing not only to cater to senior city dwellers, but also to anyone.
In smart cities, technologies are designed to assist people in their everyday lives, including in... more In smart cities, technologies are designed to assist people in their everyday lives, including intelligent homes, public transportation and e-services. However , these technologies can lead to new kinds of marginalisation for people who do not fit into the mold of a 'smart citizen'. In this article, I explore how seniors experience everyday practices in the smart city of Oulu in northern Finland and how they perceive themselves as smart citizens. Through generating ethnographic composition of ICT-biographies, walk-along interviews, and a series of participatory workshops; and thinking this process as collaborative knowledge making, the configuration of ageing in a smart city has emerged. In this configuration, the city is understood as an assemblage with distinct temporal dynamics and interactions of structures, communities and individuals within a global power geometry. Seniors support the ideology of smart city as a regional strategy but they want to make a voluntary decision to become smart citizens. The current smart city is mainly made for and by technology savvy people, excluding other citizens. To become a truly smart community the city must include a variety of citizens in the making of the city, and many seniors are willing to take up this challenge.
This article investigates participatory action research workshops from the perspective of feminis... more This article investigates participatory action research workshops from the perspective of feminist new materialism by asking, how we came to know ageing in the smart city of Oulu in northern Finland through collaborative workshops which aimed to include seniors into public service design. The most meaningful socio-material components in this knowledge-making are argued to be the shifts in social power relations, particular spatial and material practices, and the participant assemblage. These components intra-act transferring our understanding on ageing: ageing becomes a creative state where the seniors are included in the problem-solving instead of being citizens to be looked after, and thus being merely a socio-economic problem. The power dynamics are essential in participatory action research, therefore, the accountability of all agents should be carefully analysed to understand the impacts of epistemology both in design and social change.
This study focuses on the appropriation process of two public computing infrastructures in the Ci... more This study focuses on the appropriation process of two public computing infrastructures in the City of Oulu, Finland, a municipal WiFi network and large interactive displays. We analyze the adoption of these technologies in public urban places with a conceptual technology appropriation model involving three layers of factors contributing to the adoption or rejection of a technology. Quantitative data shows that while the use of the WiFi network has grown steadily, the use of the displays has been declining. Qualitative data obtained with ethnographic methods reveals that the adoption of the displays is hampered by their questionable utility and people's apprehension about interacting with the displays in a public social setting. Finally, we identify issues that designers should take into account when deploying these technologies in urban spaces in the future.
This article discusses the case of the Finnish city of Oulu which is designed and constructed as ... more This article discusses the case of the Finnish city of Oulu which is designed and constructed as a prototype of an intelligent city equipped with ubiquitous computing technology. By analysing ethnographic materials, the authors explore how the strategies, i.e. the conceptions and goals of urban development by the designers and decision-makers, meet the tactics (i.e. the everyday practices of the ageing and young adult city dwellers. By looking at this specific urban space as a meshwork, the authors argue that the design visions are based on the assumption that this high-tech city is full of competent and enthusiastic ubicomp users. The stories of the urbanites, however, show that though they utilise and appreciate the ubiquitous technology to a certain extent, they also resist the new enabled practices by refusing to attend to personal matters in public places. The study also unravels the notion that age as a singular category can explain people’s relations with information and communication technologies (ICTs).
Artikkelissa tarkastellaan ikääntyvien oululaisten suhdetta kaupunkiinsa ruumiillisen ja sosiomat... more Artikkelissa tarkastellaan ikääntyvien oululaisten suhdetta kaupunkiinsa ruumiillisen ja sosiomateriaalisen paikkasuhteen rakentumisen kautta. Kaupunkikeskustat ovat yhä tärkeämpiä elämisympäristöjä ikääntyville kaupunkilaisille, joten ikääntyvän väestörakenteemme vuoksi on syytä tarkastella, millaisena he itse nämä tilat kokevat. Tutkimukseni tavoitteena onkin vastata kysymykseen, miten ikä ja ikääntyminen vaikuttavat julkisessa tilassa liikkumiseen ja sen merkityksiin. Tutkimuskysymys liittyy kaupunkikävelyn ruumiillisuuden, sosiomateriaalisen tilan ja ajallisuuden ulottuvuuksiin, jotka yhdessä muodostavat paikantuneisuuden näkökulman. Tutkimuksen aineistona ovat yhdeksän 66–89-vuotiaan Oulun keskustassa asuvan kaupunkilaisen haastattelut, joiden aikana kävelimme heidän jokapäiväisiä reittejään. Kävelyhaastattelut osoittavat, miten hetkellisessä paikkakokemuksessa ovat läsnä niin ikääntyvän muuttunut ruumis, muut ihmiset kuin ei-inhimillisetkin toimijat, kuten rakennukset, kadut ja puistot. Tämä kokemus on osa paikkojen kudelmaa, jossa ovat läsnä myös muistot ja tulevaisuuden suunnitelmat. Refleksiivisen etnografian metodologiaa hyödyntämällä artikkelissa avautuu lisäksi se, miten tutkija tutkimuskysymyksillään, menetelmillään ja ruumiillisella mukana kävelyllään osallistuu haastateltaviensa paikkakokemuksen ja -suhteen muovaamiseen.
Avainsanat: Etnografia, ikääntyminen, julkinen kaupunkitila, kudelma, kävelyhaastattelu, paikkasuhde.
Walking as a place-making practice:
The city centre of Oulu as a socio-material environment of senior citizens
The article discusses the relationship between senior citizens of Oulu and the city as their home environment through the perspective of place-making, understood as embodied and socio-material practice. A growing number of seniors prefer to live in city centres, and since Finnish society is demographically ageing, it is important to investigate how they experience these places. Consequently, my aim is to scrutinize how ageing matters in moving around public urban places and the meanings attached to this movement. These questions are tightly entwined with embodiment, socio-materiality and temporal dimensions of space, which together form the notion of emplacement. In order to answer these questions, I have walked in the city with nine city dwellers aged between 66 and 89. These walk-alongs happened on their everyday routes and they illustrate the complexity of spatial experience. For the seniors, being in a “present” place is inseparably entangled with experiencing the ageing of one’s body, with other city occupants, past and present, as well as with non-human agents, such as buildings, streets and parks. The momentary spatial experience is part of the meshwork of places in which both memories and plans for the future are present. By using reflexive ethnographic methodology I also consider how the researcher, through her or his research questions and methods, but also through embodied walking with people, participates in constituting their relationship to a place.
Keywords: Ageing, public urban place, walk-along, reflexive ethnography, emplacement, meshwork.
Ikääntyvistä puhutaan toistuvasti tietoyhteiskunnan taloudellisena ja sosiaalisena kuormana, ”kri... more Ikääntyvistä puhutaan toistuvasti tietoyhteiskunnan taloudellisena ja sosiaalisena kuormana, ”kriisinä”, jonka vain teknologian kiihtyvä kehitys voi ratkaista. Samaan aikaan moni ikääntyvä panostaa tietotekniikan opetteluun tuntien itsensä kuitenkin käyttäjänä kömpelöksi ja siten vajavaiseksi tietoyhteiskunnan kansalaiseksi. Tässä artikkelissa pohditaan, mistä nämä kokemukset johtuvat keskittymällä ihmisten ja teknologian välisiin sekä ihmisten keskinäisiin rajanvetoihin, joita ikääntyvät tieto- ja viestintäteknologiaelämäkerroissaan tekevät.
“The world changes and you just have to hang in there.” Experiencing ageing through ICT
The experiences ageing adults have on using information and communication technologies are formed both in long-term processes and in momentary socio-material encounters with technology. By combining these two perspectives, this article discusses how the experiences of using ICT affect the ways the elderly interviewees experience their own ageing. Especially the indeterminate object/subject position of computing disclosed in human–non-human intra-actions; and the social encounters with other ICT users, strengthen their feelings of getting old. The notions of ageing as both individually lived and constructed in socio-cultural discourses are engaged in continuous dialogue in the interviews. Though the capabilities and ways of using ICT differ between the interviewees, they all express the feelings of incompetency, and thus reflect the discourse of the aged as burdensome citizens of information society. The article shows the complexity of individuals’ relationships with technology and the power of ICT in the lives of the ageing adults.
Technological Forecasting & Social Change: Special Issue on STS and Later Life (Online First; In print)
This article discusses how the elderly experience their ICT usage as the ageing citizens of the F... more This article discusses how the elderly experience their ICT usage as the ageing citizens of the Finnish information society. Through reflexive ethnographic analysis the human-(non-)human boundary-making and temporalities are analyzed from the “ICT biographies” of sixteen interviewees. The perspectives of ageing as lived experience and as socio-cultural phenomenon; and the socio-materiality entangled with temporal layers; are combined to understand the intra-action between the ageing ICT users and technology. The social relations are discussed as essential part of this intra-action: the interviewees perceive themselves as slow and clumsy ICT users in relation to younger “generations”, for example. In the human-machine boundary making the interviewees’ previous experiences on communication technologies are significant. As an addition to previous studies on ICT and ageing, this article further discusses the benefits of ethnographic study on existing ICT practices for urban computing design. What could be learnt from these practices in relation to, for example, technology usage in private and public places, negative and positive experiences, motivations and needs of ageing citizens? Or how could design benefit from understanding ageing as lived experience which however reflects the social discourses about ageing and technology, as well as the socio-cultural environment ageing adults live in.
This article discusses the case of the Finnish city of Oulu which is designed and constructed as ... more This article discusses the case of the Finnish city of Oulu which is designed and constructed as a prototype of an intelligent city equipped with ubiquitous computing technology. By analyzing ethnographic materials, we explore how the strategies (de Certeau, 1980), i.e. the goals and perceptions of the designers and decision-makers meet the tactics (ibid.), i.e. the everyday practices of the ageing and young adult citizens. By looking at this urban space as a meshwork (Ingold, 2011) we argue that the design visions are based on the assumption that this high-tech city is full of competent and enthusiastic ubicomp users. The stories of the citizens, however, show that though they somewhat utilize and appreciate the ubiquitous technology, they also resist the new enabled practices by refusing to attend to personal matters in public places. We also unravel the notion that age as a singular category could explain people’s ICT relations.
International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology, Vol 4, No 2 (2012), 2012
The living lab methodology in technology design emphasizes user involvement throughout the innova... more The living lab methodology in technology design emphasizes user involvement throughout the innovation process. This article discusses the execution of this methodology in building a future ubiquitous city in northern Finland. We analyse how the sociomaterial practices of ICT design are constructed in thematic interviews with the designers. Three practices determining the realisation of the ubiquitous city were identified: Funding resources framing user involvement; keeping up the high-tech image of the city; and pursuit of scientific innovation. Then, following feminist technology studies, we discuss how power relations are negotiated, and how the user of new technology is constructed in the design process. In this particular living lab, users were configured as unidentified testers and consumers of the implemented technology rather than innovative co-creators. By reflecting on our position as female anthropologists we also illuminate the situatedness of scientific knowledge.
Summary
Gendered forest
The paths of nature and gender in Finnish forestry professionalism
Sinc... more Summary
Gendered forest The paths of nature and gender in Finnish forestry professionalism
Since World War II many changes have taken place in Finnish forestry and forest work. The outcome of the war meant paying indemnities to the Soviet Union and re-building the Finnish society by making all industrial branches more effective. In forestry this soon produced efficient silviculture with mechanical timber harvesting, vast clear cuttings and chemical fertilisation. As a result in the 1960s the wood in Finnish forests were growing faster than they were cut down. The strong economic bias in forestry and the simultaneously radicalising and internationalising environmental movements led to the first modern environmental conflicts in Finland. During the decades the conflicts have transformed from local to more international, and their means and forms have also changed. Nowadays conflicts over the usage of forests still take place, and without exception, forestry professionals play some part in every conflict. While people have been disagreeing over Finnish forests, and hence forest issues have become more politicised the characteristics of forestry professionals have also diversified. The forestry institutions opened up for women after the change in legislation in 1965. Until then the fulfilment of military service had been one of the requirements for admission; and women had not been able to volunteer for the Finnish army until 1995. The number of female students has grown over the years, nevertheless still women are a minority among forestry employees. In 2007 the number of women among all employees in Finnish forestry came to eight percent. The structures of male dominated forestry are inevitably gendered, but how does this become visible in and affect the work forestry professionals are doing in the beginning of the 21st century? The aim of my research is to discuss the relationship between forestry professionalism, gender and nature through the interviews with female and male forestry engineers. In my study I am combining the two above mentioned changes in Finnish forestry: the change in general societal human-forest relationship and its impacts on forestry professionals’ views on forest; and the gender change in the forestry professionalism. I am analysing these themes both separately and intertwined with each other, by using the analytical tools of the sex/gender system and gender as an individual action; the concept of nature and human-nature relations; and finally connect them all by looking at the questions from the ecofeminist perspective. Ecofeminism in my research means looking for the links between the perception of nature and the gendered experiences of forestry professionals. Sex/gender system means the way sex is socially formed into gender. Hence, the gendered social world is not considered as natural or unchangeable. Gender is under constant social construction, in a process by which people act, but which they also can question. The basic mechanisms of this system are seeing and maintaining genders in dichotomy and in hierarchical power relations. The system includes the unspoken, or at least unwritten gender contracts, in other words social rules, duties and rights, which define the complex and interdependent relationship between genders. Sex/gender system frames people’s lives, their behaviour and their thoughts. Nevertheless, as Judith Butler (1990) argues, an individual has a possibility to either repeat gender as expected or repeat it against these expectations. Being an active actor in gender negotiations means balancing between the subjective world and the social world; thus, an actor does not have unlimited amount of freedom in her/his decision making. While acting against the cultural expectations, these expectations are still present, although at the same time the system provides at least partial individual choices.
Interpreting biographical interviews
The empirical research material of my study consists of 66 interviews with Finnish female and male forestry engineers. The interviews were conducted in an oral history project called Forestry Professions in Changing Society (1999–2001), in which I worked as an interviewer. The interviewees were born in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, except for one woman born at the end of 1940s. Their living and working environments vary from big cities to small rural municipalities, from coastal areas to deep inlands, and from areas of small forests to areas covered with vast forestlands. Most of the interviewees have lived their childhoods in rural Finland in the 1960s and 70s; in dichotomous gendered culture, where men’s and women’s spaces were still quite strictly separated. In those days, women could, occasionally, enter men’s world, but men doing, for example, women’s household work were normatively not appreciated. The interviewees carry out quite heterogeneous tasks, for example, in managerial positions of wood harvesting and trade, or making forest management plans for private forest owners, or as teachers in forestry institutes. The managerial positions are gendered, which means that half of the women and two-thirds of the men work at superior level. In the project the interviews were constructed biographically. Thus, the interviewed forestry professionals reminisced about their own lives reflecting their narrations on forestry as a profession, but also as a wider societal phenomenon. An individually experienced event as a starting point for the more general conceptions of life is typical for the autobiographical memory. In a process of remembering, individual and general levels of life overlap, they blend into each other. A person can recollect especially clearly exceptional, for example, dangerous or frightening situations, as well as experiences of positive achievements. In an autobiographical interview life is recalled from the current point of view; the actions taken and the events occurred, for example in one’s childhood, are used to explain the choices made later in life. I’m interpreting the interviews of forestry professionals as products of biographical remembering: since the project dealt with their professions, they consider every part of their life story as a step towards forestry. In studying forestry professionals’ experiences, I understand the experience as something told in the interview, but also as something constantly re-produced during the narration process. In their interviews people formulate different categories they either belong to or differ from. Gender is one tool in the remembering process, in which a person also constructs her/his conceptions of both femininities and masculinities, and sexualities. At the same time s/he processes her/his own gender identity by comparing it to the conceptions of other peoples’ similar or different gender performances. In remembering the narrator strengthens her/his own identity and aims at recognizing oneself and her/his own gender.
Playing and studying in a forest
When recalling their early childhood, forestry professionals describe their actions in the forest similarly regardless of gender. Both boys and girls have played and later practiced different sports in the forest, which contemporaneously socialised them with their friends and with nature. Gender becomes relevant in tasks related to working in forest. Almost every man looks back onto his childhood and sees himself as taking part in the forest work with his father. They have been involved in all sorts of tasks they have been capable of doing: at a younger age in brush- and firewood jobs, when older in cutting down the trees. For women, the forest work is more differentiated: they have also taken care of firewood, but very seldom have they been engaged in cutting or clearing tasks. Daughters of farmers with no brothers make an exception: they have all done the field and forest work with their father, while the sisters may have helped their mother in the household and with the cattle. The norm has, nonetheless, been that sons go to the woods with their fathers, and daughters stay at home with their mothers. During working hours the forest has been a gender-specific space. Women have, thus, broken the dichotomous sex/gender system by choosing forestry as their career in a highly segregated Finnish working life. For example, in 1984 of all the employees in the forestry fewer than eight percent were women, and their proportion grew one percent in 20 years. Their decisions illustrate how the rural areas have been both divided into gendered working tasks, but that there has occurred some fractures enabling women to make new kinds of choices. In Finnish society the gender contract, which Liisa Rantalaiho (1994) calls “wage-working motherhood”, was negotiated at the turn of the 1960s and 70s. The rebuilding of Finnish society after the war demanded women’s contribution in industrial production. This is what produced children’s day care system providing women with a chance to work outside their homes. In addition, individual families have made individual choices, i.e. mothers or fathers or both have encouraged daughters to educate themselves in forestry institutes. Women also mention their own stubborn and independent personalities as reasons behind their choice of a career; whereas most of the men have drifted to forestry without other possibilities in their minds. In forestry institutes women have been a visible minority. Their arrival into the institutes has certainly been noticed; it has been both appreciated and disapproved. Most of the female forestry engineers of my research, have studied in a small gender minority, or even as the only woman in the whole institute. Token woman in a forestry institute has had to heterosocialise with male students and teachers by acting, talking, thinking and even looking like men, to become accepted by them. The first female students have acted as important role models for younger girls; and the very first women both at the university studying forest science and in the forestry institute, are widely known by their name and reputation. The significance of these women has been ambiguous: they have adapted to the gender dichotomy and hierarchy of forestry, but on the other hand they have questioned it by their own actions. For men to accept women’s participation in physical forest work, such as felling with chain saws, has been especially hard. The youngest woman in my research material has studied in a forestry institute at the end of the 90s. According to her, there was no distinctive behaviour towards women and men during her school years. Even so, in the narratives of male forestry engineers the physicality of any work in forestry today, at the beginning of the 21st century is still stated as one of the reasons why it may be hard for women to work in the branch. Until the 1990s, most forestry engineer students lived in boarding schools, where homosociality, and earlier also military-like discipline and hierarchies, had remained strong. Some men claim that the traditional feeling of togetherness was destroyed when women entered the forestry institutes. In feminist theory homosocial relations are often understood as men supporting other men at the expense of neglecting women by leaving them out of the significant decision making. In the institutes women have also established networks with each other, both in their own classes, and with younger or older female students. They describe other women as their emotional supporters and their networks as shelters, especially in the beginning of their studies. In many cases these networks have remained strong, and they are still important for women working in forestry. And the same way, men have mostly stayed in contact with other men of their classes, but not with women.
Forestry professionalism in transition
The gender contracts are constantly under negotiations, though often this happens imperceptibly. In these non-verbal negotiations the temporal and spatial relations between genders are under consideration; and these relations become evident in social practices and ways of thinking. The negotiations do not always end up with consensus and strengthening the prevailing situation, instead the result may be a conflict followed by a change. One of the male interviewees describes forestry as rigid and slowly changeable branch full of conservative attitudes. The same can be read from the other interviews: in the first decades the gender contract was hardly negotiated, and the women arriving in forestry had to adapt to the roles and positions given to them by men. In practice, this meant acting like men, or being a more productive forestry professional than men in order to be able to continue one’s career. Women wander around in the labyrinth of working life according to Alice Eagly and Linda Carli (2007), where they occasionally stumble across gender obstacles. In the center of the labyrinth are equal possibilities to construct individually satisfying working conditions including equal wages and equal chances of building one’s career. The specific obstacles in a way to the centre are gendered wages; men’s more rapid career development and homosocial networking; gendered leadership where women are expected to have different kinds of qualities and capabilities than men; and gendered cultural demands for combining family and working life. In forestry one of the obstacles is the gender segregated working tasks. On the whole, token women have to control the visibility of their gender by trying to make it invisible with for example masculine talk, behavior and dressing; by emphasizing their own capabilities in successful forestry professionalism to make gender seem unnecessary; or by gaining appreciation through heterosocial networking. While questions of forest-usage have become more social, new kinds of experts have entered the forests. Environmental movements, but also forest owners and local people have started to make their own demands for the forests. The expert position of forestry professionals has thus become challenged by other perspectives. Among the professionals this led in the fist decades to fierce defence and attack especially against environmental movements. Nowadays, forestry professionals have to take into consideration the different actors and their requests while making decisions on harvesting and conserving the forests.
The forest of meanings
For forestry professionals the forest is a working place, but it offers an environment for other activities as well. They refresh themselves in the forest by hunting, picking berries or mushrooms or just by wandering around in there. During the decades the work of forestry official has moved from wood measuring in physical forests to working with computer programs in indoor offices. Thus, in their free time they have an urge to get into the forest-nature. The forest has a calming effect because it is quiet and sometimes even completely dark in there, and you literally can breathe better air than in a city. Experiencing the forest is comprehensive; its indescribable scents and atmosphere must “be smelled and tasted with every sense”. One essential tenet in ecofeminism is considering nature as an active independent actor instead of a passive resource for human beings to exploit. In their narrations forestry professionals talk of the ways the forest affects them and their behaviour. Some feel that in a forest they can be completely themselves; but it also has an impact on groups visiting a forest, like work meetings held or family outings in there. The relation forestry professionals have to the forest is complex, they live with it everyday and it can be described as “a way of life” or as “a living environment balancing the whole life”. Nevertheless, the most important meaning of the forest is providing people with economical well-being. In addition, forests provide an important social and cultural surroundings, emotional and refreshing environment of leisure. The importance of the social meaning of the forest is primary: even while the narrator is alone in the forest, s/he looks at other human beings’ or her/his own ancestors’ or other forestry professionals’ actions taken there. Or the narrator enjoys the company of her/his friends, colleagues, or family members in the forest-nature. There have occurred some minor changes in the interviewed forestry professionals’ perceptions of forest. For example, in hunting; since the animals of the forest have become the narrator’s friends and therefore hunting them does not feel suitable anymore. The forest has also become a familiar and safe place, even though as a child a person had experienced it as strange and intimidating. Narratives of changes in forest perceptions are, however, a minority in the whole research material. Forestry has been an important income especially for those forestry professionals who have lived their own childhood in the countryside and farms, and its economic importance has not changed. Being socialised as a child with the perception of the forest as an economic resource affects forestry professionals’ perceptions, because “you have grown up and worked always” in a forest. Nature conceptions and human-nature relationships are temporally and spatially contextualised, and therefore in a constant transformation. A person’s relationship with nature is formed by numerous different kinds of meanings; like meanings related to values and to economic and social relations. In addition, it is constructed in interactions between diverse actors. In ecofeminism nature itself can be considered as one of these actors: it restrains people’s actions and livelihood at the same time as it enables them. On the whole, the human-nature relationship is built both on the relation between an individual and nature and in the social relationships between individuals. The familiar forest sceneries have stayed as the most important ones; they carry a great deal of the aesthetic value the narrators associate with. Those sceneries have an influence also on the ethical values of forest, but first and foremost people consider conserving both the flora and fauna in forests as the most meaningful ethical issue. At the same time these professionals discuss protecting people, and their possibilities to earn a livelihood from the forests, as one of the most important meaning of forest. A good forest offers bread for the forest-owners, as well as for forestry professionals themselves.
Backgrounding women and nature
An individual may strengthen the sex/gender system and at the same time question it; like female forestry engineers have done in crossing over the boundaries of gendered working life and at the same time maintaining the hetero-normative gendered networks. Even so, their narrations make an individual’s possibilities to exercise power in sex/gender system visible. Making a new gender contract requires at least two parties, but due to the gendered power relations, women and men have very different positions in the negotiations. This partly explains the stability of the sex/gender system. Besides, a change in gender order can happen only, when it is negotiated and accepted in both on individual and social level. Nevertheless, some changes have taken place also in quite conservatively masculine forestry. Some qualities that the interviewed forestry professionals consider as feminine have recently been appreciated. One of these is the capability to communicate with different kinds of people. For example, a woman can be sent to deal with a customer who is known to be difficult to work with. On the other hand, other qualities held as feminine do not seem to be suitable for forestry, such as softness and emotionality. On the whole, the forestry professionals hold on to the dichotomy of stereotypical femininity and masculinity speaking gender order as something “natural” and hardly changeable. At the same time their perceptions on the relationship between nature and human beings is quite dichotomic, and in the end, the wellbeing of human beings is the primary value for the narrators. This order seems to them as natural as the gender order. Feminine features and nature are something forestry can hold in the background, and when needed, take advantage of. However, the interviewed women have questioned the gender dichotomy by their own actions, and thus shaken the prevailing sex/gender system. In first decades women adapted to forestry by acting and even looking like men, but over the years the features that are culturally held as feminine have gained some respect in forestry as well. The traditional masculinity of a lumberjack is exceptionally strongly present in the narrations, which shows how biographical life stories are simultaneously both individual and collective. Though none of the forestry professionals in my study actually needs physical strength in her/his work, the admiration for forest workers working in the woods, is still very high affecting the ideal picture of a good forestry professional. This way masculinity and men are put hierarchically in a higher position that women can only aspire to. Breaking down the dichotomy in the sex/gender system has been a big step on the way to equal working life and society. The next step is to tear up the gender hierarchy of the system.
Ilmastonmuutos ja matkailun haasteet Kuusamossa ja Sotkamossa -tutkimus on osa vuonna 2009 alkanu... more Ilmastonmuutos ja matkailun haasteet Kuusamossa ja Sotkamossa -tutkimus on osa vuonna 2009 alkanutta kolmivuotista VACCIA (Luonnon tarjoamien palveluiden haavoittuvuusarviointi ja sopeutuminen muuttuvaan ilmastoon)-hanketta. Hankkeessa sovelletaan globaaleja ilmastonmuutosmalleja paikallisella tasolla ja välitetään ilmastonmuutokseen liittyvää tietoa yhteiskunnan eri toimijoiden välillä. Suomen ympäristökeskus koordinoi VACCIA-hanketta, ja rahoituksesta kiitämme Euroopan Yhteisön LIFE rahoitusinstrumenttia.
Oulun yliopiston Matkailu-työryhmän (Action 12) raportissa arvioidaan ilmastonmuutoksen vaikutuksia luonnon vetovoimaan perustuvaan matkailuun Kuusamossa ja Sotkamossa ja jäsennetään paikallisia sopeutumiskeinoja. Sovellettu haavoittuvuuden arviointimalli (D1, kuva 1) huomioi sekä ekologisia että sosiaalisia ja hyvinvointivaikutuksia ja se toteutettiin paikallisia matkailutoimijoita haastattelemalla ja osallistavalla tulevaisuustyöpajatyöskentelyllä. Tutkimustuloksissa korostui se, että paikallisen matkailun kannalta ajankohtaisin haavoittuvuustekijä suhteessa ilmastonmuutokseen on lisääntynyt epävarmuus etenkin vesistöjen ja kosteikkojen jäätymisessä sekä lisääntyneiden säävaihteluiden mukanaan tuomat turvallisuusriskit. Nopeat säävaihtelut sekä talvisten olosuhteiden epävarmuus aiheuttavat vaikeuksia myös matkailumarkkinoinnille. Pitkällä aikavälillä haavoittuvuustekijät lisääntyvät.
Sopeutumisen kannalta ajankohtaisinta on saada talvimatkailureitistöt mahdollisimman pian kuivalle maalle ja turvallisten vesistöylitysten rakentaminen. Tärkeää on myös kehittää vaihtoehtoisia matkailutuotteita vaihteleviin sääolosuhteisiin. Matkailun ympärivuotisuuden kehittäminen todettiin sekä ilmastonmuutoksen että kokonaisvaltaisen paikallisen hyvinvoinnin kannalta tärkeimmäksi tekijäksi. Matkailun ympäristövaikutusten vähentäminen vaatii puolestaan käyttöasteiden, joukkoliikenteen sekä uusiutuvan energian kehittämistä.
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http://gaz.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/07/09/1748048513491911.abstract""
Avainsanat: Etnografia, ikääntyminen, julkinen kaupunkitila, kudelma, kävelyhaastattelu, paikkasuhde.
Walking as a place-making practice:
The city centre of Oulu as a socio-material environment of senior citizens
The article discusses the relationship between senior citizens of Oulu and the city as their home environment through the perspective of place-making, understood as embodied and socio-material practice. A growing number of seniors prefer to live in city centres, and since Finnish society is demographically ageing, it is important to investigate how they experience these places. Consequently, my aim is to scrutinize how ageing matters in moving around public urban places and the meanings attached to this movement. These questions are tightly entwined with embodiment, socio-materiality and temporal dimensions of space, which together form the notion of emplacement. In order to answer these questions, I have walked in the city with nine city dwellers aged between 66 and 89. These walk-alongs happened on their everyday routes and they illustrate the complexity of spatial experience. For the seniors, being in a “present” place is inseparably entangled with experiencing the ageing of one’s body, with other city occupants, past and present, as well as with non-human agents, such as buildings, streets and parks. The momentary spatial experience is part of the meshwork of places in which both memories and plans for the future are present. By using reflexive ethnographic methodology I also consider how the researcher, through her or his research questions and methods, but also through embodied walking with people, participates in constituting their relationship to a place.
Keywords: Ageing, public urban place, walk-along, reflexive ethnography, emplacement, meshwork.
“The world changes and you just have to hang in there.” Experiencing ageing through ICT
The experiences ageing adults have on using information and communication technologies are formed both in long-term processes and in momentary socio-material encounters with technology. By combining these two perspectives, this article discusses how the experiences of using ICT affect the ways the elderly interviewees experience their own ageing. Especially the indeterminate object/subject position of computing disclosed in human–non-human intra-actions; and the social encounters with other ICT users, strengthen their feelings of getting old. The notions of ageing as both individually lived and constructed in socio-cultural discourses are engaged in continuous dialogue in the interviews. Though the capabilities and ways of using ICT differ between the interviewees, they all express the feelings of incompetency, and thus reflect the discourse of the aged as burdensome citizens of information society. The article shows the complexity of individuals’ relationships with technology and the power of ICT in the lives of the ageing adults.
http://gaz.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/07/09/1748048513491911.abstract""
Avainsanat: Etnografia, ikääntyminen, julkinen kaupunkitila, kudelma, kävelyhaastattelu, paikkasuhde.
Walking as a place-making practice:
The city centre of Oulu as a socio-material environment of senior citizens
The article discusses the relationship between senior citizens of Oulu and the city as their home environment through the perspective of place-making, understood as embodied and socio-material practice. A growing number of seniors prefer to live in city centres, and since Finnish society is demographically ageing, it is important to investigate how they experience these places. Consequently, my aim is to scrutinize how ageing matters in moving around public urban places and the meanings attached to this movement. These questions are tightly entwined with embodiment, socio-materiality and temporal dimensions of space, which together form the notion of emplacement. In order to answer these questions, I have walked in the city with nine city dwellers aged between 66 and 89. These walk-alongs happened on their everyday routes and they illustrate the complexity of spatial experience. For the seniors, being in a “present” place is inseparably entangled with experiencing the ageing of one’s body, with other city occupants, past and present, as well as with non-human agents, such as buildings, streets and parks. The momentary spatial experience is part of the meshwork of places in which both memories and plans for the future are present. By using reflexive ethnographic methodology I also consider how the researcher, through her or his research questions and methods, but also through embodied walking with people, participates in constituting their relationship to a place.
Keywords: Ageing, public urban place, walk-along, reflexive ethnography, emplacement, meshwork.
“The world changes and you just have to hang in there.” Experiencing ageing through ICT
The experiences ageing adults have on using information and communication technologies are formed both in long-term processes and in momentary socio-material encounters with technology. By combining these two perspectives, this article discusses how the experiences of using ICT affect the ways the elderly interviewees experience their own ageing. Especially the indeterminate object/subject position of computing disclosed in human–non-human intra-actions; and the social encounters with other ICT users, strengthen their feelings of getting old. The notions of ageing as both individually lived and constructed in socio-cultural discourses are engaged in continuous dialogue in the interviews. Though the capabilities and ways of using ICT differ between the interviewees, they all express the feelings of incompetency, and thus reflect the discourse of the aged as burdensome citizens of information society. The article shows the complexity of individuals’ relationships with technology and the power of ICT in the lives of the ageing adults.
Gendered forest
The paths of nature and gender in Finnish forestry professionalism
Since World War II many changes have taken place in Finnish forestry and forest work. The outcome of the war meant paying indemnities to the Soviet Union and re-building the Finnish society by making all industrial branches more effective. In forestry this soon produced efficient silviculture with mechanical timber harvesting, vast clear cuttings and chemical fertilisation. As a result in the 1960s the wood in Finnish forests were growing faster than they were cut down. The strong economic bias in forestry and the simultaneously radicalising and internationalising environmental movements led to the first modern environmental conflicts in Finland. During the decades the conflicts have transformed from local to more international, and their means and forms have also changed. Nowadays conflicts over the usage of forests still take place, and without exception, forestry professionals play some part in every conflict.
While people have been disagreeing over Finnish forests, and hence forest issues have become more politicised the characteristics of forestry professionals have also diversified. The forestry institutions opened up for women after the change in legislation in 1965. Until then the fulfilment of military service had been one of the requirements for admission; and women had not been able to volunteer for the Finnish army until 1995. The number of female students has grown over the years, nevertheless still women are a minority among forestry employees. In 2007 the number of women among all employees in Finnish forestry came to eight percent. The structures of male dominated forestry are inevitably gendered, but how does this become visible in and affect the work forestry professionals are doing in the beginning of the 21st century?
The aim of my research is to discuss the relationship between forestry professionalism, gender and nature through the interviews with female and male forestry engineers. In my study I am combining the two above mentioned changes in Finnish forestry: the change in general societal human-forest relationship and its impacts on forestry professionals’ views on forest; and the gender change in the forestry professionalism. I am analysing these themes both separately and intertwined with each other, by using the analytical tools of the sex/gender system and gender as an individual action; the concept of nature and human-nature relations; and finally connect them all by looking at the questions from the ecofeminist perspective. Ecofeminism in my research means looking for the links between the perception of nature and the gendered experiences of forestry professionals.
Sex/gender system means the way sex is socially formed into gender. Hence, the gendered social world is not considered as natural or unchangeable. Gender is under constant social construction, in a process by which people act, but which they also can question. The basic mechanisms of this system are seeing and maintaining genders in dichotomy and in hierarchical power relations. The system includes the unspoken, or at least unwritten gender contracts, in other words social rules, duties and rights, which define the complex and interdependent relationship between genders. Sex/gender system frames people’s lives, their behaviour and their thoughts. Nevertheless, as Judith Butler (1990) argues, an individual has a possibility to either repeat gender as expected or repeat it against these expectations. Being an active actor in gender negotiations means balancing between the subjective world and the social world; thus, an actor does not have unlimited amount of freedom in her/his decision making. While acting against the cultural expectations, these expectations are still present, although at the same time the system provides at least partial individual choices.
Interpreting biographical interviews
The empirical research material of my study consists of 66 interviews with Finnish female and male forestry engineers. The interviews were conducted in an oral history project called Forestry Professions in Changing Society (1999–2001), in which I worked as an interviewer. The interviewees were born in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, except for one woman born at the end of 1940s. Their living and working environments vary from big cities to small rural municipalities, from coastal areas to deep inlands, and from areas of small forests to areas covered with vast forestlands. Most of the interviewees have lived their childhoods in rural Finland in the 1960s and 70s; in dichotomous gendered culture, where men’s and women’s spaces were still quite strictly separated. In those days, women could, occasionally, enter men’s world, but men doing, for example, women’s household work were normatively not appreciated. The interviewees carry out quite heterogeneous tasks, for example, in managerial positions of wood harvesting and trade, or making forest management plans for private forest owners, or as teachers in forestry institutes. The managerial positions are gendered, which means that half of the women and two-thirds of the men work at superior level.
In the project the interviews were constructed biographically. Thus, the interviewed forestry professionals reminisced about their own lives reflecting their narrations on forestry as a profession, but also as a wider societal phenomenon. An individually experienced event as a starting point for the more general conceptions of life is typical for the autobiographical memory. In a process of remembering, individual and general levels of life overlap, they blend into each other. A person can recollect especially clearly exceptional, for example, dangerous or frightening situations, as well as experiences of positive achievements. In an autobiographical interview life is recalled from the current point of view; the actions taken and the events occurred, for example in one’s childhood, are used to explain the choices made later in life. I’m interpreting the interviews of forestry professionals as products of biographical remembering: since the project dealt with their professions, they consider every part of their life story as a step towards forestry.
In studying forestry professionals’ experiences, I understand the experience as something told in the interview, but also as something constantly re-produced during the narration process. In their interviews people formulate different categories they either belong to or differ from. Gender is one tool in the remembering process, in which a person also constructs her/his conceptions of both femininities and masculinities, and sexualities. At the same time s/he processes her/his own gender identity by comparing it to the conceptions of other peoples’ similar or different gender performances. In remembering the narrator strengthens her/his own identity and aims at recognizing oneself and her/his own gender.
Playing and studying in a forest
When recalling their early childhood, forestry professionals describe their actions in the forest similarly regardless of gender. Both boys and girls have played and later practiced different sports in the forest, which contemporaneously socialised them with their friends and with nature. Gender becomes relevant in tasks related to working in forest. Almost every man looks back onto his childhood and sees himself as taking part in the forest work with his father. They have been involved in all sorts of tasks they have been capable of doing: at a younger age in brush- and firewood jobs, when older in cutting down the trees. For women, the forest work is more differentiated: they have also taken care of firewood, but very seldom have they been engaged in cutting or clearing tasks. Daughters of farmers with no brothers make an exception: they have all done the field and forest work with their father, while the sisters may have helped their mother in the household and with the cattle. The norm has, nonetheless, been that sons go to the woods with their fathers, and daughters stay at home with their mothers. During working hours the forest has been a gender-specific space.
Women have, thus, broken the dichotomous sex/gender system by choosing forestry as their career in a highly segregated Finnish working life. For example, in 1984 of all the employees in the forestry fewer than eight percent were women, and their proportion grew one percent in 20 years. Their decisions illustrate how the rural areas have been both divided into gendered working tasks, but that there has occurred some fractures enabling women to make new kinds of choices. In Finnish society the gender contract, which Liisa Rantalaiho (1994) calls “wage-working motherhood”, was negotiated at the turn of the 1960s and 70s. The rebuilding of Finnish society after the war demanded women’s contribution in industrial production. This is what produced children’s day care system providing women with a chance to work outside their homes. In addition, individual families have made individual choices, i.e. mothers or fathers or both have encouraged daughters to educate themselves in forestry institutes. Women also mention their own stubborn and independent personalities as reasons behind their choice of a career; whereas most of the men have drifted to forestry without other possibilities in their minds.
In forestry institutes women have been a visible minority. Their arrival into the institutes has certainly been noticed; it has been both appreciated and disapproved. Most of the female forestry engineers of my research, have studied in a small gender minority, or even as the only woman in the whole institute. Token woman in a forestry institute has had to heterosocialise with male students and teachers by acting, talking, thinking and even looking like men, to become accepted by them. The first female students have acted as important role models for younger girls; and the very first women both at the university studying forest science and in the forestry institute, are widely known by their name and reputation. The significance of these women has been ambiguous: they have adapted to the gender dichotomy and hierarchy of forestry, but on the other hand they have questioned it by their own actions.
For men to accept women’s participation in physical forest work, such as felling with chain saws, has been especially hard. The youngest woman in my research material has studied in a forestry institute at the end of the 90s. According to her, there was no distinctive behaviour towards women and men during her school years. Even so, in the narratives of male forestry engineers the physicality of any work in forestry today, at the beginning of the 21st century is still stated as one of the reasons why it may be hard for women to work in the branch. Until the 1990s, most forestry engineer students lived in boarding schools, where homosociality, and earlier also military-like discipline and hierarchies, had remained strong. Some men claim that the traditional feeling of togetherness was destroyed when women entered the forestry institutes. In feminist theory homosocial relations are often understood as men supporting other men at the expense of neglecting women by leaving them out of the significant decision making. In the institutes women have also established networks with each other, both in their own classes, and with younger or older female students. They describe other women as their emotional supporters and their networks as shelters, especially in the beginning of their studies. In many cases these networks have remained strong, and they are still important for women working in forestry. And the same way, men have mostly stayed in contact with other men of their classes, but not with women.
Forestry professionalism in transition
The gender contracts are constantly under negotiations, though often this happens imperceptibly. In these non-verbal negotiations the temporal and spatial relations between genders are under consideration; and these relations become evident in social practices and ways of thinking. The negotiations do not always end up with consensus and strengthening the prevailing situation, instead the result may be a conflict followed by a change. One of the male interviewees describes forestry as rigid and slowly changeable branch full of conservative attitudes. The same can be read from the other interviews: in the first decades the gender contract was hardly negotiated, and the women arriving in forestry had to adapt to the roles and positions given to them by men. In practice, this meant acting like men, or being a more productive forestry professional than men in order to be able to continue one’s career.
Women wander around in the labyrinth of working life according to Alice Eagly and Linda Carli (2007), where they occasionally stumble across gender obstacles. In the center of the labyrinth are equal possibilities to construct individually satisfying working conditions including equal wages and equal chances of building one’s career. The specific obstacles in a way to the centre are gendered wages; men’s more rapid career development and homosocial networking; gendered leadership where women are expected to have different kinds of qualities and capabilities than men; and gendered cultural demands for combining family and working life. In forestry one of the obstacles is the gender segregated working tasks. On the whole, token women have to control the visibility of their gender by trying to make it invisible with for example masculine talk, behavior and dressing; by emphasizing their own capabilities in successful forestry professionalism to make gender seem unnecessary; or by gaining appreciation through heterosocial networking.
While questions of forest-usage have become more social, new kinds of experts have entered the forests. Environmental movements, but also forest owners and local people have started to make their own demands for the forests. The expert position of forestry professionals has thus become challenged by other perspectives. Among the professionals this led in the fist decades to fierce defence and attack especially against environmental movements. Nowadays, forestry professionals have to take into consideration the different actors and their requests while making decisions on harvesting and conserving the forests.
The forest of meanings
For forestry professionals the forest is a working place, but it offers an environment for other activities as well. They refresh themselves in the forest by hunting, picking berries or mushrooms or just by wandering around in there. During the decades the work of forestry official has moved from wood measuring in physical forests to working with computer programs in indoor offices. Thus, in their free time they have an urge to get into the forest-nature. The forest has a calming effect because it is quiet and sometimes even completely dark in there, and you literally can breathe better air than in a city. Experiencing the forest is comprehensive; its indescribable scents and atmosphere must “be smelled and tasted with every sense”.
One essential tenet in ecofeminism is considering nature as an active independent actor instead of a passive resource for human beings to exploit. In their narrations forestry professionals talk of the ways the forest affects them and their behaviour. Some feel that in a forest they can be completely themselves; but it also has an impact on groups visiting a forest, like work meetings held or family outings in there. The relation forestry professionals have to the forest is complex, they live with it everyday and it can be described as “a way of life” or as “a living environment balancing the whole life”. Nevertheless, the most important meaning of the forest is providing people with economical well-being. In addition, forests provide an important social and cultural surroundings, emotional and refreshing environment of leisure. The importance of the social meaning of the forest is primary: even while the narrator is alone in the forest, s/he looks at other human beings’ or her/his own ancestors’ or other forestry professionals’ actions taken there. Or the narrator enjoys the company of her/his friends, colleagues, or family members in the forest-nature.
There have occurred some minor changes in the interviewed forestry professionals’ perceptions of forest. For example, in hunting; since the animals of the forest have become the narrator’s friends and therefore hunting them does not feel suitable anymore. The forest has also become a familiar and safe place, even though as a child a person had experienced it as strange and intimidating. Narratives of changes in forest perceptions are, however, a minority in the whole research material. Forestry has been an important income especially for those forestry professionals who have lived their own childhood in the countryside and farms, and its economic importance has not changed. Being socialised as a child with the perception of the forest as an economic resource affects forestry professionals’ perceptions, because “you have grown up and worked always” in a forest.
Nature conceptions and human-nature relationships are temporally and spatially contextualised, and therefore in a constant transformation. A person’s relationship with nature is formed by numerous different kinds of meanings; like meanings related to values and to economic and social relations. In addition, it is constructed in interactions between diverse actors. In ecofeminism nature itself can be considered as one of these actors: it restrains people’s actions and livelihood at the same time as it enables them. On the whole, the human-nature relationship is built both on the relation between an individual and nature and in the social relationships between individuals. The familiar forest sceneries have stayed as the most important ones; they carry a great deal of the aesthetic value the narrators associate with. Those sceneries have an influence also on the ethical values of forest, but first and foremost people consider conserving both the flora and fauna in forests as the most meaningful ethical issue. At the same time these professionals discuss protecting people, and their possibilities to earn a livelihood from the forests, as one of the most important meaning of forest. A good forest offers bread for the forest-owners, as well as for forestry professionals themselves.
Backgrounding women and nature
An individual may strengthen the sex/gender system and at the same time question it; like female forestry engineers have done in crossing over the boundaries of gendered working life and at the same time maintaining the hetero-normative gendered networks. Even so, their narrations make an individual’s possibilities to exercise power in sex/gender system visible. Making a new gender contract requires at least two parties, but due to the gendered power relations, women and men have very different positions in the negotiations. This partly explains the stability of the sex/gender system. Besides, a change in gender order can happen only, when it is negotiated and accepted in both on individual and social level.
Nevertheless, some changes have taken place also in quite conservatively masculine forestry. Some qualities that the interviewed forestry professionals consider as feminine have recently been appreciated. One of these is the capability to communicate with different kinds of people. For example, a woman can be sent to deal with a customer who is known to be difficult to work with. On the other hand, other qualities held as feminine do not seem to be suitable for forestry, such as softness and emotionality. On the whole, the forestry professionals hold on to the dichotomy of stereotypical femininity and masculinity speaking gender order as something “natural” and hardly changeable. At the same time their perceptions on the relationship between nature and human beings is quite dichotomic, and in the end, the wellbeing of human beings is the primary value for the narrators. This order seems to them as natural as the gender order. Feminine features and nature are something forestry can hold in the background, and when needed, take advantage of.
However, the interviewed women have questioned the gender dichotomy by their own actions, and thus shaken the prevailing sex/gender system. In first decades women adapted to forestry by acting and even looking like men, but over the years the features that are culturally held as feminine have gained some respect in forestry as well. The traditional masculinity of a lumberjack is exceptionally strongly present in the narrations, which shows how biographical life stories are simultaneously both individual and collective. Though none of the forestry professionals in my study actually needs physical strength in her/his work, the admiration for forest workers working in the woods, is still very high affecting the ideal picture of a good forestry professional. This way masculinity and men are put hierarchically in a higher position that women can only aspire to. Breaking down the dichotomy in the sex/gender system has been a big step on the way to equal working life and society. The next step is to tear up the gender hierarchy of the system.
Oulun yliopiston Matkailu-työryhmän (Action 12) raportissa arvioidaan ilmastonmuutoksen vaikutuksia luonnon vetovoimaan perustuvaan matkailuun Kuusamossa ja Sotkamossa ja jäsennetään paikallisia sopeutumiskeinoja. Sovellettu haavoittuvuuden arviointimalli (D1, kuva 1) huomioi sekä ekologisia että sosiaalisia ja hyvinvointivaikutuksia ja se toteutettiin paikallisia matkailutoimijoita haastattelemalla ja osallistavalla tulevaisuustyöpajatyöskentelyllä. Tutkimustuloksissa korostui se, että paikallisen matkailun kannalta ajankohtaisin haavoittuvuustekijä suhteessa ilmastonmuutokseen on lisääntynyt epävarmuus etenkin vesistöjen ja kosteikkojen jäätymisessä sekä lisääntyneiden säävaihteluiden mukanaan tuomat turvallisuusriskit. Nopeat säävaihtelut sekä talvisten olosuhteiden epävarmuus aiheuttavat vaikeuksia myös matkailumarkkinoinnille. Pitkällä aikavälillä haavoittuvuustekijät lisääntyvät.
Sopeutumisen kannalta ajankohtaisinta on saada talvimatkailureitistöt mahdollisimman pian kuivalle maalle ja turvallisten vesistöylitysten rakentaminen. Tärkeää on myös kehittää vaihtoehtoisia matkailutuotteita vaihteleviin sääolosuhteisiin. Matkailun ympärivuotisuuden kehittäminen todettiin sekä ilmastonmuutoksen että kokonaisvaltaisen paikallisen hyvinvoinnin kannalta tärkeimmäksi tekijäksi. Matkailun ympäristövaikutusten vähentäminen vaatii puolestaan käyttöasteiden, joukkoliikenteen sekä uusiutuvan energian kehittämistä.