Research projects related to KULTVA

Ongoing

Equality to economics, feminism to fiscal policy: Tensions of feminist knowledge and politics in the strategic state (FEMTIE) Kone Foundation (2021-2024), PI: Hanna Ylöstalo.

Political Imagination and Alternative Futures, Academy of Finland (2020-2024), PI: Suvi Salmenniemi

Contestation of Health and Wellbeing in the Nordic Countries, Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (2020-2023), PI: Suvi Salmenniemi

SOMA (The social mechanisms behind the economic consequences of physical appearance) is a research project funded by the Academy of Finland (2019–2023). While previous research has mainly highlighted benefits of beauty, SOMA aims at giving a more nuanced explanation of the relation of physical appearance and its economic outcomes. By using public image data, ratings of the image data and experimental vignette studies, the project explores a new social mechanism that could better explain the economic perks and penalties of physical appearance. PI: Outi Sarpila.

Health, Knowledge and Expertise: Criticism of biomedicine related to vaccination and alternative medicine since the early 1900s, funded by Emil Aaltonen Foundation. This project analyzes the criticism of biomedicine related to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and vaccine-criticism in Finland. We combine sociological and historical perspectives, responding to the social and political need to understand these phenomena and the criticism of biomedical expertise in general as processes that are deeply historical and cultural. PIs Johanna Nurmi (University of Turku) and Pia Vuolanto (University of Tampere.

Past

Tracking the Therapeutic: Ethnographies of Wellbeing, Politics and Inequality (TRACKTHERA), funded by the Academy of Finland. Life coaching, mindfulness, smartphone mental health apps, empowerment groups, self-help books, life management courses, and alternative spiritual and health services are an increasingly visible part of contemporary society. Yet there is little knowledge of their effects, functions, and meanings in people’s lives. TRACKTHERA is a research project funded by the Academy of Finland that addresses this gap in our knowledge by looking at subjective engagement with therapeutic technologies in a range of sites.

Political bubbles,  funded by HS foundation. This research project led by Arttu Saarinen examines the networks and media relations of Finnish parliament party members and supporters through population-level surveys.