Choosing the Arranged One, Arranging the Chosen One – Imagining an Indian Modernity: Reconciling Love, Marriage and Family On and Off the Screen

This is a study on the changing practices of kinship in Northern India. The change in kinship arrangements, and particularly in intermarriage processes, is traced by analysing the reception of Hindi popular cinema. Films and their role and meaning in people´s lives in India was the object of my research. Films also provided me with a methodology for approaching my other subject-matters: family, marriage and love. Through my discussion of cultural change, the persistence of family as a core value and locus of identity, and the movie discourses depicting this dialogue, I have looked for a possibility of compromise and reconciliation in an Indian context. As the primary form of Indian public culture, cinema has the ability to take part in discourses about Indian identity and cultural change, and alleviate the conflicts that emerge within these discourses. Hindi popular films do this, I argue, by incorporating different familiar cultural narratives in a resourceful way, thus creating something new out of the old elements. The final word, however, is the one of the spectator. The “new” must come from within the culture. The Indian modernity must be imaginable and distinctively Indian. The social imagination is not a “Wild West” where new ideas enter the void and start living a life of their own. The way the young women in Dehra Dun interpreted family dramas and romantic movies highlights the importance of family and continuity in kinship arrangements. The institution of arranged marriage has changed its appearance and gained new alternative modes such as love cum arranged marriage. It nevertheless remains arranged by the parents. In my thesis I have offered a social description of a cultural reality in which movies act as a built-in part. Movies do not work as a distinct realm, but instead intertwine with the social realities of people as a part of a continuum. The social imagination is rooted in the everyday realities of people, as are the movies, in an ontological and categorical sense. According to my research, the links between imagination and social life were not so much what Arjun Appadurai would call global and deterritorialised, but instead local and conventional.

Women and their Agency in the Neo-Assyrian Empire

Tämä pro gradu-työ käsittelee naisten toimijuutta uusassyrialaisessa imperiumissa. Toisin sanoen työssä tutkitaan naisten vaikutusmahdollisuuksia assyrialaisessa, patriarkaalisessa yhteiskunnassa – aihe, johon ei aiemmin ole juurikaan kiinnitetty huomiota. Täydennän työssä assyriologista näkökantaa kulttuuritieteiden ja antropologian käsitteistöllä ja teorioilla. Työn teoreettinen viitekehys liittyy yksilön, yhteiskunnan ja vallan välisiin suhteisiin, jotka kohtaavat toimijuuden käsitteessä. Vaikka työssä esittelen toimijuuden käsitettä laajemminkin, päädyin aineiston asettamien rajoitusten takia määrittelemään toimijuuden seuraavasti: toimijoita ovat ne naiset, jotka toimivat aktiivisina subjekteina yhteiskunnassa. Näin määritellyt toimijat jaoin vielä kahteen ryhmään, eksplisiittisiin (explicit agents) ja implisiittisiin (implicit agents) toimijoihin. Ensimmäisen ryhmän jäsenet selkeästi toimivat teksteissä jollain tavalla, jälkimmäisen ryhmän jäsenten toimijuus on pääteltävä asiayhteydestä. Pro graduni perustuu laajan tekstiaineiston analyysiin. Jaan imperiumin toimijanaiset kolmeen laajaan ryhmään: palatsissa, temppelissä ja niiden ulkopuolella toimineisiin naisiin. Jokaisen näistä kolmesta ryhmästä jaan vielä useisiin alaryhmiin, useimmiten ammattinimikkeen tai arvonimen mukaan. Suurimmaksi ryhmäksi osoittautuivat palatsissa toimineet naiset. Heistä erityisen aktiivisia olivat šakintut, jotka hoitivat vastuullisia hallinnollisia tehtäviä palatseissa. Myös kuningatarten ja muiden kuninkaallisten naisten rooli toimijoina oli uusassyrialaisella kaudella merkittävä. Temppeleissä toimineista naisista merkittävin ryhmä toimijuuden kannalta olivat naispuoliset profeetat, jotka toimivat aktiivisissa rooleissa ainakin toimittaessaan jumalallisia sanomia. Palatsien ja temppelien ulkopuolelle jäi vain vähän naistoimijoita: omaksi selkeäksi ryhmäkseen erottuivat ainoastaan harimtut, prostituoidut. Lopuksi pohdin jokaisen ryhmän toimijuutta ensin taulukkomuodossa (taulukot 9, 10 ja 11) sitten lyhyessä analyysikappaleessa.

Lapsi, lapsuus ja perhe varhaiskasvatusasiakirjoissa 1967-1999

The aim of this study is to describe and interpret discourses in Finnish national early childhood education and care (ECEC) documents concerning the child, childhood and family, including preschool education of six-year-old children. The study begins with preparation phase of the Act on Children s Day Care (1967) and concludes with the definition of ECEC policy (1999). The research data consists of committee memoranda and national ECEC curriculum guidelines. The total number of documents studied was 20, comprising some 1700 pages. The research data was examined with qualitative text analysis and employed a discursive approach. A semiotic square (Greimas rectangle) served as a tool for clarifying the discourses and constructions reflected in the research data. The theoretical framework of the study consists of the theories of childhood and family studies. The main concepts from childhood studies used in this study were childhood as a cultural construct and child-centred pedagogy in ECEC. The theoretical approaches from family studies used were the formation of modern and late-modern parenthood and family, as well as the concept of familism. Two main discursive lines were constructed from the ECEC documents. The notion of universalistic childhood suggests that early education and care aim to create the same good childhood for all children, regardless of their family background or living area. The second discursive line followed in the documents is the familistic discourse. This discourse contains emphasis on the priority of parental care. The construct of the competent child was found in the research data as early as in the mid-1970s. On the other hand, the construct of the weak family is distinguishable throughout almost the entire research period. This raises the question of whether Finnish ECEC system has been developed for the competent and self-sufficient child of a weak family which needs constant support and guidance of welfare experts. According to the study, it appears that within the Finnish ECEC system the relatively heavy emphasis on social work rather than on early education has been legitimised by the construct of the weak family. This study also shows that a more thorough analysis should be given to what we mean when we say that the main task of ECEC system is to support families in the upbringing of their children. The study was completed during the period when historical decisions concerning the administration in Finland were in the making (i.e. the potential transfer of ECEC services from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health to the Ministry of Education). Also, over the past decade, a major reformation of the Act on Children s Daycare has been on the agenda, but no concrete measures have been implemented. Based on the findings of this study, we can ask for what kind of child and family we are preparing the ECEc reforms of the new millennium. Key words: ECEC policy Finland, childhood, family, familism, discourse analysis, semiotic square

Lapsi ulkomailta – vanhempien rooli adoptiolapsen identiteetin kehityksessä

The importance of open discussion with the adopted child and his parents about adoption and ethnicity is often emphasized in adoption literature (Kirk 1964; Grotevant 1999; Carli & Dalen 1999). The child should have the possibility of constructing a harmonious view of himself, which consists of his history before adoption, ethnicity and the social environment’s conception of him. The purpose of this study was to examine the Finnish adoptive parents’ supportive role in relation to their child’s adoptive and ethnic identity and the social environment’s disposition to the child as witnessed by the parents. The first research problem was to find out how the parents support their child’s adoptive identity formation. The second problem was to find out if the parents want to support the child’s ethnic identity. The third problem was regarding the environment’s disposition to the child and family. The hypothesis was that Finnish adoptive parents are well aware of the problems of adoption and they have been well selected, so they have the aspirations and skills to help their child with his identity formation. The focus of this study was on Finnish parents who had adopted internationally, from whom 58 answers were obtained. The data was collected with an Internet based questionnaire. The questions were mostly qualitative. The analysis was directed by the theory, so that the analysis units were obtained from the main questions of international adoption and identity formation. The results expressed that the adoptive parents want to support their child’s adoption identity. They accept their child’s questions regarding his history, and that they did not want to conceal any details about their child’s life, even if they felt that it was a sensitive issue for them. The main problem was that there was no information available on the child’s history. Contact with the biological parents was almost impossible because there was hardly any information on them. Instead the parents were in contact with the children’s home because they felt that it had an important role as the child’s former home. The parents felt that the child’s birth culture was of importance and they mainly offered aspects of it informally daily. Parents who stressed their child’s Finnish identity were concerned that their child would not form a feeling of being Finnish. However, the majority wished that their child would have a multicultural identity. The parents felt that the environment regarded the child positively and the possibility of upcoming problems was tackled by discussing them beforehand with the child and environment.

Chinese immigrants to Finland: A qualitative study of housing, employment, access to health care and child care as sociological dimensions in their settlement process

The Master’s thesis is qualitative research based on interviews of 15 Chinese immigrants to Finland in order to provide a sociological perspective of the migration experience through the eyes of Chinese immigrants in the Finnish social welfare context. This research is mainly focused upon four crucial aspects of life in the settlement process: housing, employment, access to health care and child care. Inspired by Allardt’s theoretical framework ‘Having, Loving and Being’, social relationships and individual satisfaction are examined in the case of Chinese interviewees dealing with the four life aspects. Finland was not perceived as an attractive migration destination for most Chinese interviewees in the beginning. However, with longer residence in Finland, the Finnish social welfare system gradually became a crucial appealing factor in their permanent settlement in Finland. And meanwhile, social responsibility of attending their old parents in China, strong feelings of being isolated in Finland, and insufficient integration into the Finnish society were influential factors for their decision of returning to China. Social relationships with personal friends, migration brokers, schools, employers and family relatives had great influences in the four life aspects of Chinese immigrants in Finland. The social relationship with the Finnish social welfare sector is supportive to Chinese immigrants, but Chinese immigrants do not heavily rely on Finnish social protection. The housing conditions were greatly improved over time while the upward mobility in the Finnish labour market was not significant among Chinese immigrants. All Chinese immigrants were satisfied with their current housing by the time I interviewed them while most of them had subjective feelings of being alienated in the Finnish labour market, which seriously prevented them from integrating into the Finnish society. In general, Chinese immigrants were satisfied with the low cost of accessing the Finnish public health care services and affordable Finnish child day care services and financial subsidies for children from the Finnish social welfare sector. This research also suggests that employment is the central basis in well-being. Support from the Finnish social welfare sector can improve the satisfaction levels among immigrants, especially when it mitigates the effects of low-paid employment. As well, my empirical study of Chinese immigrants in Finland shows that Having (needs for materials), Loving (needs for social relations) and Being (needs for social integration) are all involved in the four concrete aspects (housing, employment, access to health care and child care).

Work/Family Reconciliation: Corporate Management, Family Policies, and Gender Equality in the Finnish Context

Work/family reconciliation is a crucial question for both personal well-being and on societal level for productivity and re-production throughout the Western world. This thesis examines work/family reconciliation on societal and organisational level in the Finnish context. The study is based on an initial framework, developing it further and analysing the results with help of it. The methodology of the study is plural, including varying epistemological emphasis and both quantitative and qualitative methods. Policy analysis from two different sectors is followed by a survey answered by 113 HR-managers, and then, based on quantitative analyses, interviews in four chosen case companies. The central findings of the thesis are that there indeed are written corporate level policies for reconciling work and family in companies operating in Finland, in spite of the strong state level involvement in creating a policy context in work/family reconciliation. Also, the existing policies vary in accessibility and use. The most frequently used work/family policies still are the statutory state level policies for family leave, taking place when a baby is born and during his or her first years. Still, there are new policies arising, such as a nurse for an employee’s child who has fallen ill, that are based on company activity only, which shows in both accessibility and use of the policy. Reasons for developing corporate level work/family policies vary among the so-called pro-active and re-active companies. In general, family law has a substantial effect for developing corporate level policies. Also headquarter gender equality strategies as well as employee demands are important. In regression analyses, it was found that corporate image and importance in recruitment are the foremost reasons for companies to develop policies, not for example the amount of female employees in the company. The reasons for policy development can be summarized into normative pressures, coercive pressures and mimetic pressures, in line with findings from institutional theory. This research, however, includes awareness of different stakeholder interests and recognizes that institutional theory needs to be complemented with notions of gender and family, which seem to play a part in perceived work/family conflict and need for further work/family policies both in managers’ personal lives and on the organisational level. A very central finding, demanding more attention, is the by HR managers perceived change in values towards work and commitment towards organisation at the youngest working generation, Generation Y. This combined with the need for key personnel has brought new challenges to companies especially in knowledge business and will presumably lead to further development of flexible practices in organisations. The accessibility to this flexibility seems to, however, be even more dependent on the specific knowledge and skills of the employee. How this generation will change the organisations remains to be seen in further research.