Nainen, mies, rakkaus, seksi : Heterosuhteen kulku, kulttuurinen malli ja sitä selittävät diskurssit kahden omaelämäkerta-aineiston valossa

The subject matter of this study is the cultural knowledge concerning romantic male-female relationships in autobiographies written by so called ordinary Finnish men and women born between 1901 and 1965. The research data (98 autobiographies) is selected from two collections by the Finnish Literature Society s folklore archives in the early 1990 s. Autobiographies are cultural representations where negotiation of shared cultural models and personal meanings given to hetero-relationship is evident in an interesting manner. In this research I analyze autobiographies as a written folklore genre. Information concerning male-female relationships is being analyzed using theoretically informed close readings thematic analysis, intertextual reading and reflexive reading. Theoretical implications stem from cognitive anthropology (the idea of cultural models) and an adaptation of discourse theory inspired by Michel Foucault. The structure of the analysis follows the structure of the shared knowledge concerning romantic male-female relationship: the first phase of analysis presents the script of a hetero-relationship and then moves into the actual structure, the cultural model of a relationship. The components of the model of relationship are, as mentioned in the title of the research, woman, man, love and sex. The research shows that all the writers share this basic knowledge concerning a heterosexual relationship despite their age, background or gender. Also the conflicts described and experienced in the relationships of the writers were similar throughout the timespan of the early 1900 s to 1990 s: lack of love, inability to reconcile sexual desires, housework, sharing the responsibility of childcare and financial problems. The research claims that the conflicts in relationships are a major cause for the binary view on gender. When relationships are harmonious, there seems to be no need to see men and women as opposites. The research names five important discourses present in the meaning giving processes of autobiographers. In doing so, the stabile cultural model of male-female relationship widens to show the complexity and variation in data. In this way it is possible to detect some age and gender specific shifts and emphasis. The discourses give meaning to the components of the cultural model and determine the contents of womanhood, manhood, sexuality and love. The way these discourses are spread and their authority are different: the romantic discourse evident in the autobiographies appeal to the authority of love supreme love is the purpose of male-female relationship and it justifies sexuality. In this discourse sex can be the place for confluence of genders. The ideas of romantic love are widely spread in popular culture. Popular scientific discourse defines a relationship as a site to become a man and a woman either from a psychological or a biological point of view. Genders are seen as opposites. These ideas are often presented in media and their authority in science which is seen as infallible. The Christian discourse defines men and women: both should work for the benefit of the nuclear family under the undisputed authority of God. Marital love is based on Christian virtues and within marriage sexuality is acceptable. The discourse I ve named folk tradition defines women and men as guardians of home and offspring. The authority of folk tradition comes from universal truth based in experience and truths known to the mediators of this discourse grandparents, parents and other elders or peers. Societal discourse defines the hetero relationship as the mainstay of society. The authority in societal discourse stems from the laws and regulations that control relationship practices.

The Narrative Turn in the French Novel of the 1970s

The most important French literary movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the nouveau roman, radically questioned the idea of the novel as storytelling, claiming that narratives create a false illusion of the world’s intelligibility. However, in the 1970s storytelling finds its way back into the French novel – a shift that has been characterized as the “return of the narrative”. In my article, I argue that the “narrative turn” in the French novel of the 1970s can be seen as a turn towards a fundamentally hermeneutic view of the narrative mediatedness of our relation to the world. From a hermeneutic perspective, the nouveaux romanciers – insofar as they reject the narrative in order to disclose the discontinuous, fragmentary and chaotic nature of reality – hang onto the positivistic idea that “real” is only that which is independent of human meaning-giving processes. By contrast, the hermeneutists, such as Paul Ricoeur, consider also the human experience of the world to be real, and largely narrative in form. This view is shared by the principal novelists associated with the narrative turn, such as Michel Tournier to whom man is a “mythological animal”. However, after the nouveau roman , narratives have lost their innocence: they no longer appear as “natural” but are conscious of their own narrativity, historicity, and the way they represent only one possible – inevitably ethically and politically charged – perspective into reality. By making storytelling thematic and by telling “counter-stories” that question prevailing models of sense-making, Tournier and other “new storytellers” strive to promote critical reflection on the stories on the basis of which we orient to the world and narrate our lives – both as individuals and as communities.

The Far Eastern Question at the Washington Conference (1921-1922) with an outline of its implications for internal politics in China

This dissertation is a narrative account of the negotiations concerning the question of the Far East and the Shandong issue at the Washington Conference, leading to treaties, agreements and resolutions. In this dissertation, a certain stress is laid on the interaction between the Conference and the internal situation in China, particularly concerning the question of the implications of the Conference for Cabinet politics in Peking. Through the narrative account of the Conference, the general aim is an attempt to reassess the achievements of the Washington Conference. Too often the Washington Conference has been viewed negatively. The political aim behind the legal framework was to open the door to China as a sovereign State member of the international community whose territorial integrity was internationally recognized, despite its chaotic internal situation. It is undeniable that the Washington Conference opened a new chapter in modern Chinese history. The violations of the agreements concerning China that occurred in the 1930s should not lead to the belief that these agreements were of no value. Peace may not be lasting and evolves according to circumstances; agreements are transitory, and new situations need new arrangements. This dissertation tries to demonstrate that the agreements in themselves were not the cause of their failure, but the failure was due to the lack of determination on the part of the Signatories Powers to defend them.

Toiseustarinat : äitinä suomalaisessa yhteiskunnassa

The focus of this study is to analyse the power relations on how our society normalizes motherhood and what kind techniques of power can be found in the motherhood culture. This study is an educational family research, and the aim of this study was to analyse those power frames that try to limit mothers in their motherhoods. There were seven mother participants in this study. They wrote essays about their experiences of motherhood in the Finnish society. The method of the research was qualitative, and the data was analysed by discourse analysis. The theoretical part of the research consists of distinguish in parenthood, family policy in families with children and motherhood in the Finnish society. The methodological approach is Michel Foucault´s analytic of power relations, and in this viewpoint I try to find out the different discourses of motherhood. In this study, mothers process against those assumptions of motherhood, which limit their freedom as acting in their role as mothers. Mothers locate themselves in the position of the Other that differs from those motherhood discourses which mothers were talking about. From the point of the Others , mothers processed their own motherhood, and they feel that they were always distinguished from the motherhood which they were expected to belong. Six categories were found in the motherhood assumptions: the norm of education, the myths of motherhood, the role assumptions in the motherhood, the norm of motherhood and discourse of good parenting, and discourse of project parenting. These discourses of motherhood assumptions make limitations, classifications and difference among motherhood. These assumptions were told by people for example in maternity clinics, first and security houses, judiciary systems, nursery, or by some other people. Mothers in this study made a comparison between the motherhood assumptions and themselves. In this study, mothers also criticize the culture of motherhood in the society and feel incompatible with the norms of motherhood around them. This may also increase mothers exhaustion.

"Pitää kuitenkin lähentyä sitä vangin roolia, vaikka ite ois toista mieltä" : Diskurssianalyyttinen tutkimus toiseuden rakentumisesta vankilaopetuksessa

The focus of this discourse analytical study was to review the meanings which prison education and its participants are given in the formal educational policy and to find out whether these meanings are agreed by the prison students. The intrestes of this thesis were to examine what kind of social and individual promises are related to the prison education and what kind of subject positions are possible to the prison students. The thesis was also interested in the meanings of education in different contexts. The aim of this study was to examine prison education especially for women. This thesis was based on Michel Foucault s ideas of power and the view of this study was directly critical. The prison education was seen as normalizing governance which tends to prepare its subjects to the normal. In this process of differentiating the normal and the abnormal the subjects of prison education are reconstructed as the others . The three research questions of this thesis were: how and what kind of prison education is reconstructed firstly in the strategy of prison education and secondly in the interviews. Thirdly it was questioned how and what kind of meanings gender receive in the discourse of prison education. The main data was consisted by the Finnish Criminal Sanctions Agency s document The Strategy of the Prison education for years 2008 2012 and the three interviews of women who participated to prison education. The interviews were made for this thesis in Autumn 2010. Two other Finnish Criminal Sanctions Agency s documents Prisoners in education (2007) and Visible women (2008) - the report of the working group on female prisoners were also used as subtext materials. The methods of critical and realistic discourse analysis and rhetorical analysis were applied in the analysis. The results of the thesis support the outlook of prison education as a form of normalizing governance which reconstruct the others position for the prison students. Prison education was seen supportive for personal life control and for integrating to the society. The participants of prison education repeated the official discourses in their accounts which is a signal of internalized governance. The interviewees also used different types of anti-discourses when forming implications of prison education.

När finanskrisen slog till i Finland

Avhandlingen kartlägger användandet av metaforer i ekonomijournalistik då den globala ekonomikrisen anlände till Finland under hösten 2008. Syftet med den här kvalitativa forskningen är inte bara att presentera olika metaforer utan också påvisa att metaforer bildar större helheter. Med hjälp av en metaforanalys redogör denna studie vilka metaforer förekom i ekonominyheter och hur de reflekterar ekonomikrisen och den verklighet vi lever i. Forskningen presenterar också deltagarna i ekonomikrisdiskussionen och diskuterar deras position i samhället i förhållande till maktfrågan. Den tredelning av metaforer som Lakoff och Johnson presenterar i sin bok Metaphors we live by (1980) ligger till grund för den här undersökningen. I den här forskningen delas metaforer enligt den kognitiva metaforteorin till tre större grupper; strukturella, ontologiska och orientationella metaforer. Användning av metaforer i undersökta artiklar var rikligt och den största gruppen utgjordes av strukturella metaforer. Mest förekom krigs-, spel-, sjukdoms- och naturmetaforer. Den största gruppen var krigsmetaforer vilka tillsammans med spelmetaforer användes mest i början av rapporteringen om den ekonomiska recessionen. Färg- och religionsmetaforer förekom också om än i ett mindre antal. Ontologiska metaforer förekom i form av personifiering. Bland annat var marknad och börs de fenomen som fick personliga drag då de var i panik, reagerade föll eller sov. Av de orientationella metaforer var horisontella upp-ner -metaforer vanligare än de vertikala fram-bak -metaforerna. Denna studie visar att de metaforer som journalisterna använde i sina artiklar bildade större helheter. Med hjälp av dessa metaforer ville man förtydliga att den ekonomiska recessionen ansågs vara en överraskning, speciellt för makthavare och ekonomiexperter. Krisen slog till i Finland överraskande och med en mycket stark volym och osäkerheten om framtiden förstärktes med metaforanvändandet. Avhandlingen har också ett samhälleligt perspektiv. I den undersöks deltagarna i ekonomikrisdiskussionen samt deras position i samhället. Forskningsresultatet är relaterat till maktfrågan med stöd av maktforskarna Michel Foucault och Ilkka Ruostetsaari. I dagens samhälle och globala värld har ekonomins makt bara ökat. Analysen av det empiriska materialet visar att näringslivet dominerade debatten och därmed hör det till makteliten. Alla diskussionsdeltagare använder metaforer, dock används de kraftigaste metaforerna av journalister.

Birth of the European individual : Outline of a theory of legal practice

The modern subject is what we can call a self-subjecting individual. This is someone in whose inner reality has been implanted a more permanent governability, a governability that works inside the agent. Michel Foucault s genealogy of the modern subject is the history of its constitution by power practices. By a flight of imagination, suppose that this history is not an evolving social structure or cultural phenomenon, but one of those insects (moth) whose life cycle consists of three stages or moments: crawling larva, encapsulated pupa, and flying adult. Foucault s history of power-practices presents the same kind of miracle of total metamorphosis. The main forces in the general field of power can be apprehended through a generalisation of three rationalities functioning side-by-side in the plurality of different practices of power: domination, normalisation and the law. Domination is a force functioning by the rationality of reason of state: the state s essence is power, power is firm domination over people, and people are the state s resource by which the state s strength is measured. Normalisation is a force that takes hold on people from the inside of society: it imposes society s own reality its empirical verity as a norm on people through silently working jurisdictional operations that exclude pathological individuals too far from the average of the population as a whole. The law is a counterforce to both domination and normalisation. Accounting for elements of legal practice as omnihistorical is not possible without a view of the general field of power. Without this view, and only in terms of the operations and tactical manoeuvres of the practice of law, nothing of the kind can be seen: the only thing that practice manifests is constant change itself. However, the backdrop of law s tacit dimension that is, the power-relations between law, domination and normalisation allows one to see more. In the general field of power, the function of law is exactly to maintain the constant possibility of change. Whereas domination and normalisation would stabilise society, the law makes it move. The European individual has a reality as a problem. What is a problem? A problem is something that allows entry into the field of thought, said Foucault. To be a problem, it is necessary for certain number of factors to have made it uncertain, to have made it lose familiarity, or to have provoked a certain number of difficulties around it . Entering the field of thought through problematisations of the European individual human forms, power and knowledge one is able to glimpse the historical backgrounds of our present being. These were produced, and then again buried, in intersections between practices of power and games of truth. In the problem of the European individual one has suitable circumstances that bring to light forces that have passed through the individual through centuries.

The Biopolitics of Gender

This dissertation inquires into the relationship between gender and biopolitics. Biopolitics, according to Michel Foucault, is the mode of politics that is situated and exercised at the level of life. The dissertation claims that gender is a technology of biopower specific to the optimisation of the sexual reproduction of human life, deployed through the scientific and governmental problematisation of declining fertility rates in the mid-twentieth century. Just as Michel Foucault claimed that sexuality became a scientific and political discourse in the nineteenth century, gender has also since emerged in these fields. In this dissertation, gender is treated as neither a representation of sex nor a cultural construct or category of identity. Rather, a genealogy of gender as an apparatus of biopower in conducted. It demonstrates how scientific and theoretical developments in the twentieth century marshalled gender into the sex/sexuality apparatus as a new technology of liberal biopower. Gender, I argue, has become necessary for the Western liberal order to recapture and re-optimise the life-producing functions of sex that reproduce the very object of biopolitics: life. The concept of the life function is introduced to analyse the life-producing violence of the sex/sexuality/gender apparatus. To do this, the thesis rereads the work of Michel Foucault through Gilles Deleuze for a deeper grasp of the material strategies of biopower and how it produces categories of difference and divides population according to them. The work of Judith Butler, in turn, is used as a foil against which to rearticulate the question of how to examine gender genealogically and biopolitically. The dissertation then executes a genealogy of gender, tracing the changing rationalities of sex/sexuality/gender from early feminist thought, through mid-twentieth century sexological, feminist, and demographic research, to current EU policy. According to this genealogy, in the mid-twentieth century demographers perceived that sexuality/sex, which Foucault observed as the life-producing biopolitical apparatus, was no longer sufficiently disciplining human bodies to reproduce. The life function was escaping the grasp of biopower. The analysis demonstrates how gender theory was taken up as a means of reterritorialising the life function: nature would be disciplined to reproduce by controlling culture. The crucial theoretical and genealogical argument of the thesis, that gender is a discourse with biopolitical foundations and a technology of biopower, radically challenges the premises of gender theory and feminist politics, as well as the emancipatory potential often granted to the gender concept. The project asks what gender means, what biopolitical function it performs, and what is at stake for feminist politics when it engages with it. In so doing, it identifies biopolitics and the problem of life as possibly the most urgent arena for feminist politics today.

Hämeenlinnan lääkäripiirin koulutetut kätilöt vallan rakenteissa 1879 - 1920

Tässä pro gradu -tutkimuksessa tutkin kätilötyön rakentumista Suomessa vuosina 1879 - 1920 Hämeenlinnan lääkäripiirin näkökulmasta. Analysoin vuoden 1879 kätilöohjesäännön tuomien muutosten sekä valtion organisaatioiden, lääkäreiden ja kunnallistason määräysten merkitystä kätilötoiminnalle ja kätilöille. Tutkimuksen ajallinen rajaus, 1879 - 1920, juontuu Keisarillisen Majesteetin vuonna 1879 antamasta kätilöohjesäännöstä, joka oli toimintaa ohjaavana lainsäädäntönä voimassa vuoteen 1920. Tutkin tässä työssä kätilötyötä kahdessa tasossa, mikrohistoriallisesti ja yleisellä tasolla. Tutkimusmenetelmänä sovellan kvalitatiivista ja kvantitatiivista menetelmää. Tutkimuksen teoreettisena kehyksenä toimii soveltavin osin Michel Foucault'n teoria biovallasta. Kätilöiden puutteeseen maalaiskunnissa oli pyritty vaikuttamaan vuoden 1859 kätilöohjesäännöllä. Käytännön muutoksia ei tapahtunut ja vuonna 1879 hyväksyttiin uusi kätilöohjesääntö. Uusi ohjesääntö oli valtion hallinnon ja lääkäreiden yhteistoiminnan tulos. Sen sanoma oli ohjaavaa, mutta ei pakottavaa. Lakiuudistuksella pyrittiin vaikuttamaan kuntiin ja kuntien kautta kansalaisten toimintaan. Haluttiin muokata ihmisten käyttäytymistapoja normalisoimalla kätilöhoitoinen synnytys. Kätilöohjesäännön voimaantulo ja vuodet 1879 - 1920 voidaan nähdä käännekohtana kätilötyössä. Tutkimusperiodin aikana kätilötyö alkoi saada itsenäisen ammattikunnan piirteitä selvemmin. Rahan rooli oli monessa suhteessa merkittävä, sillä elatuksen lisäksi raha vaikutti kätilön asemaan ja arvostukseen. Kunnan päättäjät olivat merkittävässä valtaapitävässä asemassa, koska heillä oli päätösvalta kätilön palkkaamisessa ja työn ehdoissa. Kunnissa, joissa kätilöä arvostettiin, maksettiin paremmin ja kuntalaiset tukeutuivat koulutettuun apuun enemmän. Tutkimusaikana kätilöiden olosuhteet kunnissa olivat haasteelliset eikä laki rajoittanut synnytyksen avustajaa, joten kätilöhoitoisissa synnytyksissä tapahtunut kasvu oli kätilöiden melko pyytettömän työn tulosta. Haluttiin muutakin kun käyttää valtaa.

"Totta kai pyrin koko ajan tuntemaan oman kroppani siellä" : Kolmen orkesteriviulistin kokemuksia ruumiillisuudestaan.

Tutkielmassa esitellään kolmen orkesteriviulistin kokemuksia ja käsityksiä omasta ruumiillisuudestaan muusikon työssään. Muusikkolähtöisyys, laajemmin tarkasteltuna tekijälähtöinen tutkimus, on nykyisin yhä tärkeämpi osa musiikintutkimusta. Muusikkolähtöistä tutkimusta on Suomessakin kirjoitettu jonkin verran, harvoin kuitenkaan ruumiillisuusteeman kautta. Haastatellut viulistit ovat pääkaupunkiseudun suurista orkestereista. Muusikon työtä voidaan tarkastella monista eri lähtökohdista. Tässä työssä pyritään ottamaan huomioon ihmisen oma kokemus ja ruumiillinen sidos maailmaan, ja näin se sitoutuu fenomenologisiin lähtökohtiin, erityisesti Maurice Merleau-Pontyn ajatteluun. Michel Foucault ja Elizabeth Grosz edustavat tämän työn kannalta sitä ajattelutapaa, jonka hengessä pidän muusikon työtä historiallisesti rakentuneena ja muutoksenalaisena prosessina. Groszin teoretisointi keskittyy subjektin ruumiillisuuteen ja tapoihin käsitteellistää ruumis länsimaisessa ajattelussa. Haastattelumateriaali jakaantuu kahteen päälukuun. Ensimmäisessä käsitellään soittajien omaa yksityistä tilaa. Harjoittelun oma tila liittyy ruumiillisuuteen sikäli, että ruumiillinen toistotyö ja viulistisen identiteetin muotoutuminen tapahtuu pitkälti yksityisesti, tietoisena julkisen tilan vaatimuksista. Orkesteriviulistien sosiaaliseen tilaan liittyy toisaalta vuorovaikutus muiden muusikoiden kanssa harjoituksissa ja toisaalta muusikoiden ja yleisön kohtaaminen konserteissa. Sosiaaliseen tilaan liittyviä ruumiillisuuteen kytkeytyviä ilmiöitä käsitellään erillään, toisessa analyysiluvussa. Tutkielma tuo esiin välähdyksiä erilaisista ruumiillisuuteen ja viulunsoittoon kytkeytyvistä ilmiöistä. Kvalitatiivisen ja fenomenologisen tutkimuksen hengessä haastateltujen erilaiset kokemukset on pyritty esittelemään pyrkimättä universalisoimaan niitä. Haastattelumateriaali osoittaa viulistisen ruumiillisuuden liittyvän merkittävällä tavalla muusikkojen käsityksiin itsestään. Haastateltujen kokemukset tuovat lisää tietoa orkesteriviulistin työstä.

Producing interactivity : Does media convergence promote interactivity and audience participation?

This study investigates the process of producing interactivity in a converged media environment. The study asks whether more media convergence equals more interactivity. The research object is approached through semi-structured interviews of prominent decision makers within the Finnish media. The main focus of the study are the three big ones of the traditional media, radio, television and the printing press, and their ability to adapt to the changing environment. The study develops theoretical models for the analysis of interactive features and convergence. Case-studies are formed from the interview data and they are evaluated against the models. As a result the cases arc plotted and compared on a four-fold table. The cases are Radio Rock, NRJ, Biu Brother, Television Chat, Olivia and Sanoma News. It is found out that the theoretical models can accurately forecast the results of the case studies. The models are also able to distinguish different aspects of both interactivity and convergence so that a case, which at a first glance seems not to be very interactive is in the end found out to receive second highest scores on the analysis. The highest scores are received by Big Brother and Sanoma News. Through the theory and the analysis of the research data it is found out that the concepts of interactivity and convergence arc intimately intertwined and very hard in many cases to separate from each other. Hence the answer to the main question of this study is yes, convergence does promote interactivity and audience participation. The main theoretical background for the analysis of interactivity follows the work of Came Fleeter, Spiro Kiousis and Sally McMillan. Heeler's six-dimensional definition of interactivity is used as the basis for operationalizing interactivity. The actor-network theory is used as the main theoretical framework to analyze convergence. The definition and operationalization of the actor-network theory into a model of convergence follows the work of Michel Callon. Bruno Latour and especially John Law and Felix Stalder.

Tunne, taistele tai taivu : synnytys ja valta Foucault'n näkökulmasta verkkokeskustelussa

Kun synnytyksessä mikään ei suju suunnitelmien mukaan, mistä oikeastaan on kysymys? Kenellä on valta synnytyksessä ja miten se jaetaan? Pro gradu -työssäni yritän ratkaista tätä oman pettymykseni herättämää kysymystä Michel Foucault'n valtakäsityksien avulla. Työlleni erityisen tärkeitä ovat ranskalaisfilosofin teoriat vallan osapuolten välisistä kamppailuista, vallan ja tiedon suhteesta sekä vallasta mahdollisuuksien hallintana. Foucault'sta inspiroituneilta hallinnan analyytikoilta Nikolas Roselta ja Mitchell Deanilta saan käytännön apua analyysin tekemiseen aineistolähtöisen tulkinnan keinoin. Heidän neuvostaan keskityn miten-kysymyksiin sekä sanoihin asioiden mahdollistajana. Aineistonani käytän erään aktiivisuutta ja luottamuksellisuutta vaalivan keskustelupalstan Synnyttäjän oikeudet -aiheista keskustelua. Analyysin alku nosti keskustelusta kolme selkeää tapaa synnytyksen ja vallan hahmottamiseen: luonnon ja synnyttäjän voimia korostavan, taisteluasennetta kannattavan sekä sopuisaa, tyydyttävää elämystä toivovan. Tämä on kuitenkin vasta johtolanka, jonka seuraamisessa tarvitsen tutkimuskirjallisuutta sekä teoreettisen viitekehyksen tukea. Tärkeimpiä hyödyntämiäni tekstejä ovat Foucault'n The Subject and Power (2000a) ja Truth and Power (2000b) sekä synnyttämisen mahdollisuuksia pohtivat teokset, kuten Johanna Ruusuvuoren Synnyttämisen suuntia (1992) ja Robbie Davis-Floydin ja Carolyn Sargentin toimittama Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge (1997). Teorian, tutkimustulosten ja aineistoni perusteella väitän, että synnytyksen ja vallan suhteessa on kysymys auktoriteetin ja itsehallinnan erilaisista kohtaamistavoista. Tiedon ja vallan järkähtämätön suhde on pönkittänyt synnytyssalin auktoriteeteille tukevan aseman, jota ei helposti heiluteta. Yrittää silti voi ja pitääkin, ainakin keskustelijoideni mielestä. Naiset synnyttävät uusia kansalaisia lääketieteen valvonnassa, mutta he tekevät sen omillakin ehdoillaan, omien tavoitteidensa toteuttamiseksi. Verkon kautta synnytyksen vaihtoehdot ovat levinneet ja jättäneet jälkensä myös perinteisen synnytyskulttuurin pintaan. Yksien totuudet ovat kuitenkin toisten totuuksia arvokkaampia, kuten Tammisaaren synnytysosaston sulkeminen osoittaa.

Kansan raittiudeksi ja kotien onneksi : Naisten kieltolakimielipiteet ja toiminta kieltolain puolesta ja sitä vastaan 1919 - 1932

It is often maintained that the Prohibition Act (in force from 1 June 1919 to 5 April 1932) still influences both the Finnish alcohol policy and notions about alcohol. This study focuses on the development of women s opinions concerning Prohibition in Finland. What role did the formulation and expression of women s opinions and women's actions play in the final outcome of the Prohibition Act? What do the debate on Prohibition and women s activities for and against the legislation tell us about the status and possibilities of women to exert influence in the Finnish society of the Prohibition era? Women s opinions are particularly interesting since they deviated radically from what has generally been assumed. It was expected that the referendum of 1931 would result in a resounding vote of 100% in favour of Prohibition, but the outcome was a majority vote against it. Over 65% of the women who cast their vote in the referendum wanted a full repeal of Prohibition. The study approaches the history of Prohibition by combining methods and theories of the history of mentalities and social history with gender history. Women are examined as a heterogeneous group with dissimilar objectives and differing ways of acting and thinking. The research material consists of press materials, archival materials from organisations, personal materials and statistics from the Prohibition period. Both discourses and practices are examined; the object of the research is best described by Michel Foucault's concept of dispositif. When participating in the public debate on Prohibition, women based their right to express their opinions and take part in action on an ideological continuum spanning a hundred years, according to which home and family were central areas of women s interest. This idea was linked to questions of morality and social policy. On the other hand, women presented themselves as working taxpayers, voters and equal citizens. The most crucial issue in women's discussions was whether Prohibition improved or worsened the temperance of fathers, husbands and sons. The dichotomies town dweller - countryside dweller, Swedish-speaking Finnish-speaking, and middle class - working class were highly significant backgrounds both as factors dividing women and in public discussions regarding Prohibition. The 1931 referendum showed that the lines of demarcation drawn during the preceding debate did not materialise in political action in line with these dichotomies: the dispositif did not correspond to the discourse. Contrary to what was expressed in public, a great number of women among the labour and rural classes, among inland inhabitants and among Finnish-speakers were also against Prohibition. The media and organisations defended temperance and Prohibition almost until the end of the Prohibition era. This discourse was in conflict with the discourse of everyday conversations and practices in which alcohol was present.

Structure and properties of Tl0.5Pb0.5Sr2Gd2−xCexCu2O9−δ

A systematic study of the Tl0.5Pb0.5Sr2Gd2−xCexCu2O9−δ system has revealed the existence of a pure phase in the compositional. range 0.0≤x≤0.6 crystalizzing in the 1222 structure. It has an intersheet distance of approximately 6 Å, a value much higher than those found in other cuprates with double CuO2 sheets interleaved by a single fluorite layer. Superconductivity has been observed in the range 0.1≤x≤0.4 with a Tc of 45 K and a superconductive volume fraction up to 20% for the optimal composition. An interesting variation of the superconducting properties of the above system with the composition, i.e. cerium content, has also been noticed. A possible dependence of superconductivity on the coupling between CuO2 sheets in the layered cuprates has been pointed out to bring out a correlation between structure and properties.

The top 100 questions of importance to the future of global agriculture

Despite a significant growth in food production over the past half-century, one of the most important challenges facing society today is how to feed an expected population of some nine billion by the middle of the 20th century. To meet the expected demand for food without significant increases in prices, it has been estimated that we need to produce 70-100 per cent more food, in light of the growing impacts of climate change, concerns over energy security, regional dietary shifts and the Millennium Development target of halving world poverty and hunger by 2015. The goal for the agricultural sector is no longer simply to maximize productivity, but to optimize across a far more complex landscape of production, rural development, environmental, social justice and food consumption outcomes. However, there remain significant challenges to developing national and international policies that support the wide emergence of more sustainable forms of land use and efficient agricultural production. The lack of information flow between scientists, practitioners and policy makers is known to exacerbate the difficulties, despite increased emphasis upon evidence-based policy. In this paper, we seek to improve dialogue and understanding between agricultural research and policy by identifying the 100 most important questions for global agriculture. These have been compiled using a horizon-scanning approach with leading experts and representatives of major agricultural organizations worldwide. The aim is to use sound scientific evidence to inform decision making and guide policy makers in the future direction of agricultural research priorities and policy support. If addressed, we anticipate that these questions will have a significant impact on global agricultural practices worldwide, while improving the synergy between agricultural policy, practice and research. This research forms part of the UK Government's Foresight Global Food and Farming Futures project.