Onnellisten kylät : Vertaileva tapaustutkimus Kumpulan ja Sundsbergin asukkaiden subjektiivisesta hyvinvoinnista sekä onnellisuuden rakentumisesta

The aim of this masters thesis was to examine subjective wellbeing and personal happiness. Empirical study of happiness is part of broader wellbeing reseach and is based on an idea that the best experts of personal wellbeing are the individuals themselves. In addition to perceptions of personal happiness, the aim was also to acquire knowledge about personal values and components personal happiness is based on. In this study, moving into certain community and the charesteristics of neigbourhood contributing happiness, were defined to represent these values. The object was, through comparative casestudy, to obtain knowledge about subjective wellbeing of the inviduals in two different residental areas inside metropolitan area of Helsinki. In comparative case study the intention usually is that the examined units represent spesific "cases" from something broader and therefore the results can be somehow generalized. Consequently the chosen cases in this study were selected due to their image of "urban village" and thus the juxtapositioning was constructed between secluded post-suburban village and more heterogeneous urban village better attached to excisting urban structure. The researh questins were formed as follows: Are there any differencies between the areas regarding the components personal happines is based on? Are there any differencies between the areas regarding the level of residents subjective wellbeing? Based on the residents assesments, what are the most important charesteristics of neigbourhood contributing personal happiness? The data used in order to gain aswers to these questions was obtained from internet-based survey questionnaire. Based on the data residents of post-suburban village Sundsberg seem to share highly family oriented set of values and actualizing these values is ensured with high income, wealth and secure work situation. Insteadt in Kumpula the components of happiness seem place more towards learning and personal developement, interesting leisure and hobbies and specially having an influence regarding communal decisions. Conserning subjective wellbeing of residents there can be seen some differencies as well. Personal life is experienced a bit more happier in Sundsberg than in Kumpula. People are more satified with their personal health and job satisfaction in Sundsberg and additionally feelings of loneliness, inadequancy and frustration are bit more common in Kumpula. Regarding the charesteristics of neigbourhood contributing happiness data suggests that key charesteristics of area are peacefulness and safely, good location and connections and proximity of parks and recreational areas. These charesteristics were concidered highly significant in both areas but they were experienced to actualize better in Kumpula. In addition to these components the residents in Kumpula were overall more satisfied with various charecteristics contiburing happiness in their residental area. Besides these attributes mentioned above residents in Kumpula emphasize also some "softer" elements connecting into social, functional and communal side of area. From Sundsberg point of view residental area best contributing happiness is child friendly and safe community based on likeminded people who share the same sosioeconomical situation. The results of this study can be linked back into the society and metropolitan area, which they were chosen from as a cases to be studied. The results can thereby be seen as an example of differentation of conditions of personal happiness between certain population segments. It is possible to detect an spatial dimetion to this process as well and thereby the results suggests that regional segmentation affects between high-ranking residental areas as well. Thereby the results of this reseach contributes to the debate on innovative, diverse and dynamic urban area and as well cohesion of metropolitan area and the society in whole.

Community, Power, and Colonialism: The U.S. Army in Southern Arizona and New Mexico, 1866-1886

Empire is central to U.S. history. When we see the U.S. projecting its influence on a global scale in today s world it is important to understand that U.S. empire has a long history. This dissertation offers a case study of colonialism and U.S. empire by discussing the social worlds, labor regimes, and culture of the U.S. Army during the conquest of southern Arizona and New Mexico (1866-1886). It highlights some of the defining principles, mentalities, and characteristics of U.S. imperialism and shows how U.S. forces have in years past constructed their power and represented themselves, their missions, and the places and peoples that faced U.S. imperialism/colonialism. Using insights from postcolonial studies and whiteness studies, this work balances its attention between discursive representations (army stories) and social experience (army actions), pays attention to silences in the process of historical production, and focuses on collective group mentalities and identities. In the end the army experience reveals an empire in denial constructed on the rule of difference and marked by frustration. White officers, their wives, and the white enlisted men not only wanted the monopoly of violence for the U.S. regime but also colonial (mental/cultural) authority and power, and constructed their identity, authority, and power in discourse and in the social contexts of the everyday through difference. Engaged in warfare against the Apaches, they did not recognize their actions as harmful or acknowledge the U.S. invasion as the bloody colonial conquest it was. White army personnel painted themselves and the army as liberators, represented colonial peoples as racial inferiors, approached colonial terrain in terms of struggle, and claimed that the region was a terrible periphery with little value before the arrival of white civilization. Officers and wives also wanted to place themselves at the top of colonial hierarchies as the refined and respectable class who led the regeneration of the colony by example: they tried to turn army villages into islands of civilization and made journeys, leisure, and domestic life to showcase their class sensibilities and level of sophistication. Often, however, their efforts failed, resulting in frustration and bitterness. Many blamed the colony and its peoples for their failures. The army itself was divided by race and class. All soldiers were treated as laborers unfit for self-government. White enlisted men, frustrated by their failures in colonial warfare and by constant manual labor, constructed worlds of resistance, whereas indigenous soldiers sought to negotiate the effects of colonialism by working in the army. As colonized labor their position was defined by tension between integration and exclusion and between freedom and colonial control.

Tsoi Yuen Resistance and Post-80s Generation: A new wave of domestic social movement

Hong Kong was once a British colony and has been under the sovereignty of People’s Republic of China (PRC) since 1997. However, some of the unjust practices and colonial legacies are infiltrated into the development ideology as well as the social structures. The construction of intercity express railway project announced in 2008 causing the demolishment of Tsoi Yuen Tsuen, a “non-indigenous” agricultural village in Hong Kong, was one of the current examples. Tsoi Yuen village was established under the former colonial sovereignty sixty years ago. Approximately 450 populations were affected that they had to relocate their homeland involuntarily. However, these villagers were very attached to their homelands and were unwilling to move, and meanwhile they found that they were absent in the government’s consultation and decision-making process. Soon they began their resistance and demanded for “No Move! No Demolish!”. Their movement was strongly supported by a group of “Post-80s generation” and turned into the most important social movement of the city in recent years. In fact, demolition of Tsoi Yuen Village for city development is not an isolated case in the city. Meanwhile the situation is getting worse in Mainland China. I chose the case study of Tsoi Yuen Resistance from 2008 to 2011 for revelation of the complicated colonial history and postcolonial era of Hong Kong. I focused on discussing the Tsoi Yuen Resistance and the Post-80s movement, and how they have exposed the tension between top-down urban planning and development and public movements fighting for a more democratic process in choosing their way of living. Through the study of a village movement which as well as the rationale behind the Post-80s’ support, I hoped to illustrate how this movement has awaken a different sense of living for the new generations in the midst of the high-sounding urban development. It is an opportunity to examine Hong Kong’s colonial epoch in a different perspective: through studying the Tsoi Yuen Village, let them (subalterns) speak for themselves. Furthermore, the significance of this resistance, taking place eleven years after the handover to the PRC, is an important fact that I shall not miss in later discussion. Last but not least, during the resistance, advanced technology and social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, iPhone were used by Post 80s generation to spread the latest information in order to attract public’s concern and participation. Therefore, apart from studying Tsoi Yuen Resistance as a local social movement, I also regard it as a part of the global movement in perusing ecological lifestyle and civil society. How Post 80s’ generation manipulates the global idea in a local context will also be examined.

Pienet ketut Herran viinitarhassa : Katarismi Lauragaisin kylissä 1200-1245

Tutkimus käsittelee keskiajan suurinta harhaoppia katarismia Toulousin hiippakunnassa 1200-luvun ensimmäisellä puoliskolla. Tarkempi tutkimusalue on Lauragaisin maaseutu Toulousin ja Carcassonnen välissä. Alue oli Etelä-Ranskan katarismin sydänaluetta. Tutkimus käy läpi katarismin historian vuosina 1200 1245. Tuolloin se muuttui julkisesti siedetystä uskosta salassa harjoitettavaksi harhaopiksi. Erityisessä tarkkailussa ovat Lauragaisin kylät ja niiden asukkaiden suhde katarismiin. Tutkimus selvittää miten kiellettyihin kataarien tapaamisiin osallistuttiin Lauragaisissa ja kuinka suuri osa alueen väestöstä uskoi katarismiin. Tutkimus pohjautuu pitkälti Bernard de Caux n vuosien 1245 1246 inkvisition kuulustelujen rekisteriin, joka sisältää 5 471 lauragaisilaisen inkvisitiotunnustusen. Tarkempaan tarkasteluun on valittu seitsemän kylää ja niiden 1 069 inkvisitiotunnustusta. Niiden sisältämät tiedot on syötetty tutkimuksen apuna toimivaan relaatiotietokantaan. Kylien asukkaiden kuulusteluja on verrattu keskenään tietokannan avulla. Kuulustelujen perusteella on rekonstruoitu kataarien tapaamisia vuosina 1195 1245. Lisäksi tutkitaan tarkemmin katarismin toiminnan kannalta tärkeitä mekanismeja Saint-Martin-Lalanden kylässä. Tutkimuksen mukaan katarismi vetosi kaikkiin yhteiskuntaluokkiin kuuluneisiin ihmisiin. Sukusiteillä ja Lauragaisin kylien asukkaiden keskinäisellä solidaarisuudella oli suuri merkitys katarismin säilymisessä, kun harhaoppi yritettiin tukahduttaa. Inkvisitiot onnistuivat murtamaan kylien sisäisen solidaarisuuden 1240-luvulla. Tutkimuksen keskeisin tulos on arvion esittäminen katarismiin uskoneiden maallikoiden lukumäärästä. Noin kymmenesosa Lauragaisin aikuisväestöstä oli aktiivisia kataariuskovia. Jopa kaksi viidesosaa alueen asukkaista oli jossain elämänsä vaiheessa osallistunut kataarien kiellettyihin uskonnollisiin tilaisuuksiin. Katarismiin uskoneiden ja siihen kosketuksissa olleiden ihmisten määrä on keskeinen tieto, kun arvioidaan katolisen kirkon harhaopin vastaisia toimia. Katarismin tuhoamiseksi julistettiin 20 vuotta kestänyt ristiretki. Inkvisitiolta kului sen jälkeen vielä 90 vuotta katarismin tuhoamiseen. Katarismi oli merkittävä harhaoppi, koska se vetosi kiellettynäkin huomattavaan osaan Lauragaisin väestöstä.