Kahden valtakunnan kansalaiset : vanhoillislestadiolaisuuden poliittinen teologia

Teksti perustuu 2.11.2012 Lapin yliopistossa järjestetyn väitöstilaisuuden lectio praecursoria -esitelmään.

Keski-Suomen maahanmuutto-poliittinen ohjelma

Keski-Suomen maahanmuuttopoliittista ohjelmaa on tehty Keski-Suomen työ- ja elinkeinokeskuksen (elinkeino-, liikenne- ja ympäristökeskuksen), Keski-Suomen liiton, Jyväskylän työ- ja elinkeinotoimiston, Keski-Suomen kuntien, Keski-Suomen kauppakamarin, ammattiliittojen ja kolmannen sektorin edustajien sekä monien muiden tahojen yhteistyönä. Tavoitteena on ehdottaa toimenpiteitä maahanmuuttajien osallisuuden vahvistamiseksi ja heidän tarvitsemiensa palveluiden kehittämiseksi sekä työperusteisen maahanmuuton edistämiseksi. Ohjelmassa korostuu kaksi keskeistä kehittämisaluetta, joihin liittyvät toimenpide-ehdotukset sisältyvät useaan eri toimenpidelinjaukseen: - suomen kielen opetuksen tarjoaminen ja opetuskäytäntöjen mukauttaminen kaikille opetusta tarvitseville sekä - koko väestölle kohdennetun asennekasvatuksen kehittäminen. Toimintaohjelmassa esitetään seitsemää toimintalinjaa toimenpiteineen. 1. Maahanmuuttajien työllistyminen ja heidän osaamisensa hyödyntäminen 2. Maahanmuuttajien kotoutumisen edistäminen 3. Humanitaarisen maahanmuuton kehittäminen 4. Työperusteisen maahanmuuton edistäminen 5. Ulkomaalaisten opiskelijoiden työllistymisen kehittäminen 6. Keski-Suomen vetovoimaisuuden lisääminen ja osaavan työvoiman saatavuuden varmistaminen 7. Aktiivista maahanmuuttopolitiikka tukevien rakenteiden vahvistaminen

Arjen poliittinen kulttuuri

Kirjallisuusarvostelu

Negotiating home and belonging. Young Kurds in Finland

This study looks at negotiation of belonging and understandings of home among a generation of young Kurdish adults who were born in Iraq, Iran, and Turkey and who reached adulthood in Finland. The young Kurds taking part in the study belong to the generation of migrants who moved to Finland in their childhood and early teenage years from the region of Kurdistan and elsewhere in the Middle East, then grew to adulthood in Finland. In theoretical terms, the study draws broadly from three approaches: transnationalism, intersectionality, and narrativity. Transnationalism refers to individuals’ cross-border ties and interaction extending beyond nationstates’ borders. Young people of migrant background, it has been suggested, are raised in a transnational space that entails cross-border contacts, ties, and visits to the societies of departure. How identities and feelings of belonging become formed in relation to the transnational space is approached with an intersectional frame, for examination of individuals’ positionings in terms of their intersecting attributes of gender, age/generation, and ethnicity, among others. Focus on the narrative approach allows untangling how individuals make sense of their place in the social world and how they narrate their belonging in terms of various mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, including institutional arrangements and discursive categorisation schemes. The empirical data for this qualitative study come from 25 semi-structured thematic interviews that were conducted with 23 young Kurdish adults living in Turku and Helsinki between 2009 and 2011. The interviewees were aged between 19 and 28 years at the time of interviewing. Interview themes involved topics such as school and working life, family relations and language-learning, political activism and citizenship, transnational ties and attachments, belonging and identification, and plans for the future and aspirations. Furthermore, data were collected from observations during political demonstrations and meetings, along with cultural get-togethers. The data were analysed via thematic analysis. The findings from the study suggest that young Kurds express a strong sense of ‘Kurdishness’ that is based partially on knowing the Kurdish language and is informed by a sense of cultural continuity in the diaspora setting. Collective Kurdish identity narratives, particularly related to the consciousness of being a marginalised ‘other’ in the context of the Middle East, are resonant in young interviewees’ narrations of ‘Kurdishness’. Thus, a sense of ‘Kurdishness’ is drawn from lived experiences indexed to a particular politico-historical context of the Kurdish diaspora movements but also from the current situation of Kurdish minorities in the Middle East. On the other hand, young Kurds construct a sense of belonging in terms of the discursive constructions of ‘Finnishness’ and ‘otherness’ in the Finnish context. The racialised boundaries of ‘Finnishness’ are echoed in young Kurds’ narrations and position them as the ‘other’ – namely, the ‘immigrant’, ‘refugee’, or ‘foreigner’ – on the basis of embodied signifiers (specifically, their darker complexions). This study also indicates that young Kurds navigate between gendered expectations and norms at home and outside the home environment. They negotiate their positionings through linguistic repertoires – for instance, through mastery of the Finnish language – and by adjusting their behaviour in light of the context. This suggests that young Kurds adopt various forms of agency to display and enact their belonging in a transnational diaspora space. Young Kurds’ narrations display both territorially-bounded and non-territorially-bounded elements with regard to the relationship between identity and locality. ‘Home’ is located in Finland, and the future and aspirations are planned in relation to it. In contrast, the region of Kurdistan is viewed as ‘homeland’ and as the place of origins and roots, where temporary stays and visits are a possibility. The emotional attachments are forged in relation to the country (Finland) and not so much relative to ‘Finnishness’, which the interviewees considered an exclusionary identity category. Furthermore, identification with one’s immediate place of residence (city) or, in some cases, with a religious identity as ‘Muslim’ provides a more flexible venue for identification than does identifying oneself with the (Finnish) nation.

Ympäristöjärjestöjen juridis-poliittinen EU-aktiivisuus Vuosaaren satamakiistassa

1/2014 on lehden EU-erikoisnumero.

Musiikin poliittinen ekonomia tuoreen tutkimuksen kohteena

Kirjallisuusarvostelu