Contemporary Finland Research Articles

Governing hybrid organisations: Lessons from the provision of local sports facility services in 2020s Finland

AbstractThe Finnish welfare society is based on strong public and civic sectors with an emerging private sector. In the context of sports, the public sector's statutory task has been to provide opportunities and facilities for citizens, whereas the civic sector has been responsible for organising activities. However, since the 1990s, economic recessions, new public management doctrines, and other societal changes have mixed this institutionalised setting and increased hybridity in the provision of public services. This study examines how hybridity is manifested and governed in the provision of local sports facility services in contemporary Finland through a literature review and a multiple case study focusing on three sports facility construction projects. The projects had partners from all societal sectors and, organisationally, assumed different forms: privately owned, sports clubs co‐owned, and municipally owned enterprises. The case data consist of thematic interviews and project documentation and are analysed with theory‐driven content analysis. The study deepens understanding of the mixed ownership structures, various funding arrangements, control mechanisms, and management of goal incongruency found in hybrid facility‐provider organisations. Additionally, it describes changing roles and challenges that municipalities face in hybrid settings and develops recommendations for future research on hybridity and sports policy.Points for practitioners Note that the capacity to steer the operations of hybrids in municipal services provision can be obtained in various ways which do not entail formal ownership. Deepen your understanding of the goals and commitment incentives of the different stakeholders planned to be involved in the hybrid project. Consider jointly written formal contracts as tools for managing goal ambiguity and incongruence and for creating trust in the hybrid arrangement. Examine comprehensively the resourcing of the facility‐provider organisation in the operational phase of the facility when evaluating the funding arrangements and public value creation of hybrid facility projects. Prepare to become a practitioner and the object subjected to more diverse forms of control when committing to hybrid arrangements with various stakeholders.

Social Resources are Associated With Higher Fertility Intentions in Contemporary Finland

Lower childbearing intentions can stem from a lack of social resources. However, not only actual but also perceived social support might signal that parents and parents-to-be will not be alone after having a child. Using register and GGS-Finland data from 2021-22, we investigate how emotional and instrumental support received from parents and other social network members, as well as a person’s subjective feeling that their social network is sufficient (measured as the absence of loneliness), are associated with fertility intentions. Logistic regression models reveal that receiving instrumental support ‒ especially financial support ‒ from parents and other relatives (but not non-kin) is associated with higher childbearing intentions. Not feeling lonely is also associated with higher childbearing intentions, particularly among individuals aged 26-30 years. Gender and partnership status nuance these associations. We conclude that social resources ‒ indicated by both perceived and received support ‒ shape childbearing intentions for those approaching or in prime childbearing age. The lack of perceived social resources among young adults may contribute to relatively low fertility, even in a high-income country with generous family policies such as Finland.

Kinship, heritage, and ethnic choice: ethnolinguistic registration across four generations in contemporary Finland

Abstract We studied how individuals’ ethnolinguistic affiliation relates to the ethnolinguistic structure of kinship in contemporary Finland, a society in which Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking ethnolinguistic groups have coexisted for centuries and mixed marital unions are common. Using multigenerational data from the population register, we determined how the ethnolinguistic registration of children born in 1990–2015 relates to three generations of ancestors. We created a family tree that links children to their parents, four grandparents and eight great grandparents. Our intention was to both map the ethnolinguistic background of young people and predict a child’s affiliation based on their ancestry. The data revealed that ethnolinguistic affiliation is a more fluid and complex feature than expected when assessed only through child and parental characteristics. We found substantial diversity in ethnolinguistic background within the Swedish-speaking minority group, while most individuals in the Finnish-speaking majority group had a uniform background. We identified three types of bias in the ethnolinguistic affiliation of mixed-origin children: a matrilineal bias, a kinship majority bias and a Swedish ethnic minority bias. The analyses advanced our understanding of how the size of minority groups can shrink even when most couples in mixed unions favour minority group affiliation for their children.

Weeping out Loud:

Lamenting is a bodily experience, a means of expressing grief or sorrow, involving the shedding of tears and crying while singing. It stands as a deeply communal expression of grief and other profound emotions. This tradition is global and has been found in different parts of the world, from rural China (McLaren 2008) to Bangladesh (Wilce 2009) and from Ireland (McLaughlin 2019) to Greece (Caraveli-Chaves 1980). While some variation exists across traditions, a common thread worldwide is that laments have predominantly been oral traditions among women (McLaren 2008, 2). In this article, we look at the learning process of lamenting in contemporary Finland from a bodily and experiential perspective using somatics and somaesthetics as our framework.

Exploring the limits and boundaries between cultural practices and political values in contemporary Finland

ABSTRACT Cultural practices are indisputably socially stratified. At the same time, they are also connected to political values. Existing research has indicated that these two are linked, often pointing to the direction of a negative relation between more conservative attitudes and cultural capital. The aim of this paper is to examine how political values and cultural practices are intertwined in our era of ‘new politics’, in which cultural and social values have an increasing importance. Our paper disentangles this question in the light of qualitative interview data. Our empirical context is Finland, which has been found to have largely similar cultural and political differentiation than other Western societies. Our analysis identifies four different articulations showing how the cultural and the political intertwine.

Tradition and ownership

A new dispute about the ownership of Karelian laments emerged in Finland in 2021. The severely endangered Karelian language is the closest relative of Finnish. Karelian laments were brought into new Finnish contexts during the late twentieth century by Finnish individuals with Karelian roots, with an aim of making the Karelian lament tradition usable also for people not of Karelian descent. Recently, Karelian activists in Finland have strongly criticized the Finnish uses of laments. This relates to wider discussions about minority rights and the status of the Karelian language in Finland. Using social and traditional media material, panel discussions and interviews, we analyse this dispute and contextualize it in relation to the historical folk culture, the Karelian minority and uses of laments in contemporary Finland. The setting is complicated by the assimilation of Karelian speakers, the diversity and the closeness of Karelian and Finnish identities, and the complex intersections of national, ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic factors. Our approach is informed by the recent scholarly discussions about the ownership and appropriation of intangible culture. At the heart of the dispute, we see varying interpretations of what the laments actually are, and how they relate to languages, ethnic identities, communities, modernization and religion.

“That Must Have Been Uncanny!” Experiences of Invisible Others in Contemporary Finland

Abstract This article* examines experiences of invisible others considered uncanny in the context of secularity in contemporary Finland. Drawing from experience-centred theories of religion and spiritual belief by Ann Taves and David Hufford, the article analyses how uncanny experiences are differentiated from other kinds of experience and how they are justified as real in first-person narratives written by Finnish experiencers. The empirical analysis distinguishes four characterisations of experience the authors consider uncanny, which also serve to convince them of the realness of their experience. By conversating these findings with studies of experiences deemed religious or supernatural, the article seeks to reinforce dialogue with research on similar experiences that people rather consider in scientific and everyday terms. The article then suggests a framework for cross-secular enquiry that would allow scholars in different fields to address differences in how secularity manifests in different locations. Such a methodological framework may create possibilities to juxtapose and compare similar kinds of experience that people may or may not consider supernatural in different secular societies.

A matter of time: Bateman's principles and mating success as count and duration across social strata in contemporary Finland.

Bateman's principles heavily influence the understanding of human reproductive behaviour. Yet, few rigorous studies on Bateman's principles in contemporary industrialized populations exist. Most studies use small samples, exclude non-marital unions, and disregard recent insights on within-population heterogeneity in mating strategies. We assess mating success and reproductive success using population-wide Finnish register data on marital and non-marital cohabitations and fertility. We examine variability across social strata in the Bateman principles and analyse the mate count, the cumulated duration with a mate, and the association with reproductive success. Results support Bateman's first and second principles. Regarding Bateman's third principle, the number of mates is more positively associated with reproductive success for men than women, but this association is driven by ever having a mate. Having more than one mate is on average associated with lower reproductive success. However, for men in the lowest income quartile, having more than one mate positively predicts reproductive success. Longer union duration is associated with higher reproductive success, and more so for men. We note that sex differences in the relationship between mating success and reproductive success differ by social strata, and argue that mate duration may be an important component of mating success alongside mate count.

The ambiguous role of materiality in transitions to Orthodox Christianity in contemporary Finland

ABSTRACT According to the basic starting point of the study of material religion, religion is an inextricably material phenomenon. In theorizations of religious conversion, however, materiality is accorded little attention. This article presents a case study that investigates the role of materiality in individual religious change, as well as highlighting the dematerialized underpinnings of modern Western conceptualizations of conversion. It concerns transitions from Lutheranism to Orthodox Christianity in contemporary Finland. In this context, the sensory aspects of liturgical life are often identified as a central pull-factor of Orthodoxy. Nevertheless, partiality towards Orthodox aesthetics is not always considered a proper reason for switching churches. The article analyses interview material gathered from converts and is informed by the concept of semiotic ideology, which it applies to examine the different and sometimes conflicting assumptions regarding material expressions as mediators between humanity and divinity present in the data.

Social and cultural mobility: rising to the middle class and cultural practices in contemporary Finland

Abstract How does social mobility influence cultural taste and participation? Cultural reproduction theory predicts little change, while cultural mobility theory suggests more substantial makeover. This article explores the influence of upward educational and occupational mobility in reading literature, participation in highbrow activities, television watching, and music and food tastes, focusing on mobility from the secondary-level education and the working class to the higher education and the middle class. By analysing survey data (N = 2,813) collected in Finland in 2007 and 2018 with ordinary least squares regression, we show that educational mobility and occupational mobility are mostly differently related to tastes and participation. Both educationally and occupationally upwardly mobile people tend to participate more in highbrow activities, watch less television and dislike meat-heavy food, as is more typical to their social destination than to their social origins. Conversely, the educationally upwardly mobile, again more typical to their destination, tend to read more books, like light-ethnic food and classical music, and dislike popular folk, but occupational mobility is not associated with reading or liking light-ethnic food, and the occupationally mobile retain their original tastes in classical and popular folk music when education is controlled for. We discuss the implications of our results.

‘Ordinary’ and ‘diverse’ families. A case study of family discourses by Finnish early childhood education and care administrators

ABSTRACT The increased family diversity is a major global trend. Although family configurations are also diverse in contemporary Finland, it has been argued that Finnish family policies and institutional understanding of family life continues to focus on the heteronormative two-parent family with a native Finnish background. To address this issue, we analysed Finnish family discourses through qualitative interviews with early childhood education and care administrators (n = 47), applying a discourse analytic framework. Our results suggest that families are discussed through two divergent but interwoven discourses, i.e. the discourse of ordinary families and that of diverse families. The former focuses on heteronormative two-parent native-born Finnish families, perceived as ‘ordinary’ and familiar, and the latter on, especially, LGBTIQ and immigrant families, perceived as ‘new’, confusing and strange. We demonstrate how diversity is produced discursively by othering families that diverge from the ‘ordinary’. These discourses, reflecting wider cultural understandings of family, may have implications for both families and institutional practices. We conclude by arguing that the conventional and heteronormative understanding of family remains entrenched in Finnish family discourses.

‘No problem’ advice during occupational health examinations

In many countries, occupational health examinations are considered to have a central role in ensuring that employees’ health and work ability are maintained or enhanced. In contemporary Finland, the institutional goal of these examinations is to construct a health plan based on the client’s own aims, and in this paper we analyse how occupational health nurses and clients in Finland negotiate what is considered to be a problem. The data consist of 10 video-recorded occupational health examination encounters, analysed by means of conversation analysis. Our analysis focuses on ‘no problem’ advice, in which the advice giving is initiated in the absence of a problem-indicative response. The client’s ‘no problem’ response was typically followed by the nurse upgrading the problem that she had identified and giving a general reminder of a possible problem. The clients resisted not so much the content of the advice, but the act of advising itself. In a few cases, the client’s ‘no problem’ response was followed by a turn in which the nurse contested the client’s knowledge and offered advice that was tailored to the client’s situation. The client acknowledged the advice as new information. Our findings indicate that regardless of client-centred ideals, the interaction in occupational health examinations is largely led by nurses, who set up the agenda and raise issues that they consider to be problems for their clients.

Reinventions of an Old Tradition: Orthodox Processions and Pilgrimage in Contemporary Finland

Abstract This article examines two cases of Finnish Orthodox traditions of procession and pilgrimage that are currently being reframed in response to physical, political, and religious disruption. Annual Orthodox processions are now held in Northern Karelia close to and across the Finnish-Russian border, while the pilgrimage of St. Tryphon of Pechenga, the patron saint of the Skolt Saami in northeastern Finland, crosses the border between Finland and Norway to visit their lost home area, as an act of remembrance and recognition of the history of the Skolt Saami. Here I argue that, contrary to some trends within pilgrimage studies to blur tourism and pilgrimage, these journeys are primarily religious, understood only with an appreciation of Orthodox theology and worldview. Each case demonstrates both continuity and change in Orthodox pilgrimage praxis and its theological underpinnings. It highlights the pragmatism of the priests and congregations involved in adapting traditional forms to complex new contexts involving the loss of tangible and intangible heritage. The analysis shows that both events include the active agency of both the institution and local participants and a significant amount of invention in relation to new contexts of loss.

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND EXPERIENCES OF PROTESTANT CHRISTIAN IMMIGRANTS IN FINLAND: AN INTEGRATING OR ALIENATING EXPERIENCE?

The contemporary Finland is more culturally diverse than previous years thanks to increased international migration. A large number of immigrants entering Finland today are religious in one way or another. This article is a case study of religious beliefs and experiences of protestant Christian immigrants in Finland with the aim of finding out the personal feelings of immigrants towards the Finnish society. A comparative analysis of Protestant Christian immigrants’ experiences in both the host country and country of origin was taken as a foundation for determining effects of the immigrants’ religious beliefs in Finland. This study takes a cross-cultural perspective in analyzing and evaluating the religious beliefs of immigrants. Even though religion is credited to have an upper hand in facilitating social integration of immigrants into host societies, this study found out that religious beliefs and experiences of protestant Christian immigrants in Finland can be integrating or alienating, depending on the degree of religiosity of the immigrants. An awareness of this observation as discussed in this article goes a long way in providing options to choose from in navigating the common problems faced by Protestant Christian immigrants in Finland.

The slippery slope of cultural non-participation: Orientations of participation among the potentially passive

Research on cultural practices has highlighted the rise of different cultural consumption patterns that challenge the classic theories on class-based hierarchies. However, most scholarly work has focused on active, rather than passive, cultural consumers. This article aims to fill that gap by exploring the orientations of cultural participation of hypothetically passive cultural consumers in contemporary Finland. Existing research proves that culturally non-active groups are difficult to reach through quantitative methods, so this project will draw on qualitative data: 40 individual interviews on everyday life, cultural taste, knowledge and participation with a theoretical sample of people whose background profiles statistically predict cultural non-participation. This article finds three main orientations of participation, expressed as attitudes on different kinds of cultural practices and symbolic boundaries drawn – these orientations of participation are the social-mundane, the cultural-legitimate and the introvert-hostile. It is argued that while none of the orientations equals to cultural non-participation, the latter orientation stands out from the other two as drawing symbolic boundaries upward, highlighting that cultural participation remains a highly stratified and polarized field, also in an egalitarian society.

Shorter birth intervals between siblings are associated with increased risk of parental divorce.

Birth intervals are a crucial component of fertility behaviour and family planning. Short birth intervals are associated-although not necessarily causally-with negative health-related outcomes, but less is known about their associations with family functioning. Here, the associations between birth intervals and marital stability were investigated by Cox regression using a nationally representative, register-based sample of individuals with two (N = 42,481) or three (N = 22,514) children from contemporary Finland (observation period 1972-2009). Shorter interbirth intervals were associated with an increased risk of parental divorce over a ten-year follow-up. Individuals with birth intervals of up to 1.5 years had 24-49 per cent higher divorce risk compared to individuals whose children were born more than 4 years apart. The pattern was similar in all socioeconomic groups and among individuals with earlier and later entry to parenthood. Our results add to the growing body of research showing associations between short birth intervals and negative outcomes in health and family functioning.

Financial opportunity costs and deaths among close kin are independently associated with reproductive timing in a contemporary high-income society

Evolutionary demography predicts that variation in reproductive timing stems from socio-ecologically contingent trade-offs between current and future reproduction. In contemporary high-income societies, the costs and benefits of current reproduction are likely to vary by socioeconomic status (SES). Two influential hypotheses, focusing on the parenthood 'wage penalty', and responses to local mortality have separately been proposed to influence the timing of parenthood. Economic costs of reproduction (i.e. income loss) are hypothesized to delay fertility, especially among high childhood SES individuals who experience greater opportunities to build capital through advantageous education and career opportunities. On the other hand, relatively low childhood SES individuals experience higher mortality risk, which may favour earlier reproduction. Here, we examine both hypotheses with a representative register-based, multigenerational dataset from contemporary Finland (N = 47 678). Consistent with each hypothesis, the predicted financial cost of early parenthood was smaller, and mortality among close kin was higher for individuals with lower childhood SES. Within the same dataset, lower predicted adulthood income and more kin deaths were also independently associated with earlier parenthood. Our results provide a robust demonstration of how economic costs and mortality relate to reproductive timing. We discuss the implications of our findings for demographic theory and public policy.

Jesus and Metal Music Don’t Mix? The Controversy over the ‘Metal Mass’ in Finland

In 2006, a Metal Mass—a regular Lutheran mass with accompanying metal music—was celebrated in Helsinki and created a controversy on several online forums. On the one hand, the focus was the appropriateness of metal music in the context of a Christian mass. On the other hand, the issue at stake was the appropriateness of Christianity in the context of metal music and culture. In this article, we concentrate on how the controversy over the boundaries of ‘good’ religion is constructed in discourse about the appropriateness of metal music in the context of a national church and its services. We argue that the controversy over the Metal Mass is a case of broader negotiation between the function and performance of religious actors in contemporary Finland, yet when it happens within a secularized context, the temporarily full pews turn out to be an anomaly rather than a sign of revival.

Family and Hope in Finland

This article reports on a survey regarding the importance of family life in contemporary Finland. The “sacred” character of the domestic sphere is interpreted as a feature that generates and sustains hope and meaning in everyday human life. While marriage and procreation rates decrease in Scandinavian societies, family and home values are nevertheless given a high priority. The article also claims that many current philosophical and theological explanations of hope are outdated. New approaches to hope are needed to understand how ecological matters shape the evaluation of home and family.

Intersections of gender and minority status: perspectives from Finnish Jewish women

In this article, I examine how contemporary Finnish Jewish women understand their roles and identities as women in a small Orthodox Jewish community, on the one hand, and as members of a tiny minority in largely secular and predominantly Lutheran/Christian Finland, on the other. How do Finnish Jewish women negotiate their identities in relation to their community, strongly organised along gender lines, and in relation to Finnish society and especially its equality ideals and norms? I divide my article into four sections. First, I give a short overview of the theory of intersectionality, concentrating on its possibilities and limitations for the study of religion and gender in general, and for the study of Judaism, specifically. Second, I focus on my informants’ views of the gendered practices of their Orthodox Jewish community, which, by many standards, is a very specific form of Orthodoxy, which could be called ‘Finnish Orthodoxy’. Third, I analyse my informants’ views on how they perceive being Jewish women in contemporary Finland. The intersection of the last two broad themes will highlight the realities of Finnish Jewish women in contemporary Finland. Fourth, I discuss possibilities and limitations of intersectional theorising in the light of my data.