The Centre for Sociology of Democracy studies democracy in modern societies. Our projects deal with democracy from different perspectives and with different methods.
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Recent News & Blog Posts
What are the next walls to fall in science and society? Led by this question, the brightest minds from the international scientific community submitted their groundbreaking projects for the prestigious Falling Walls Science Breakthrough of the Year 2022.
In their article, Luhtakallio and Meriluoto argue that two significant shifts, namely, the blurring of lives offline and online and the increasing significance of the visual character of these lives, pose new challenges to social science research methods.
Julkisuuteen noussut kohu on keskittynyt pääasiassa yhden suuren ketjuravintolan toimintakulttuuriin, mutta Lotta Junnilaisen ja Lotta Haikkolan haastatteluiden perusteella ongelmat eivät koske yksittäistä pikaruokaketjua, vaan ravintola-alaa laajemminkin.
Kahdeksan kuplan Suomi kuvaa talouden murrosten silmässä elävien ihmisten kokemuksia itsestään ja yhteiskunnasta: sitä, mitä he odottavat itseltään ja toisiltaan. Se kertoo myös tahdosta ja tunteista, jotka sitovat ihmisiä yhteen. Millaista tarinaa suomalaiset kertovat itsestään, ja millaisia tunteita tarinaan liittyy? Kuulemmeko ja ymmärrämmekö toistemme tarinoita?
Linda Haapajärven, Jutta Juveniuksen ja Lotta Junnilaisen artikkeli valittiin Sosiologia-lehden toimituskauden 2020-2021 parhaan artikkelin palkinnon voittajaksi.
In her article, Lotta Junnilainen tackles the question of how particular places shape responses to stigmatization.
In his dissertation, Tomi Lehtimäki examines organic agriculture and the attempts to transform agricultural systems into more ecological and sustainable forms.
Koronapandemian synnyttämä kriisi on runnellut pahoin kulttuurialaa, josta on tullut maailmanlaajuisesti yksi eniten pandemiasta kärsineistä aloista. Lotta Junnilaisen tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan kulttuurialan itsensätyöllistäjien asemaa palkkatyösuhteiden ulkopuolella.
Artikkelissa esitetään Boltanskin ja Thévenot’n oikeuttamisteoriaan sekä Eeva Luhtakallion ja Tuomas Ylä-Anttilan kehittämään julkisen oikeuttamisen analyysiin (JOA)
perustuva metodi, joka havainnollistaa ja visualisoi moraalisen oikeuttamisen kategorioiden verkostoitumista.
The war in Ukraine has evoked immediate gut reactions from a distant, yet very mobilizable collective memory reserve in Finland: Russia, again. And: Are we next? We have certainly seen this one before, even though nobody wanted to see it coming this time.
Snapshots of 21st Century Citizenship: New Approaches to Young Citizens’ Political Practices (12–13 Dec)
Two-day seminar, Tampere University
Sign up here by 2 December! Program below.
Linna Building, Kalevantie 5, Ground Floor, Lecture Hall K103
Keynote speakers:
Associate professor Eeva Luhtakallio (Tampere University) is a sociologist and an ethnographer interested in the practices and processes of democracy, politicization, political (dis)engagement and citizenship, drawing on pragmatic social theory. Luhtakallio leads the Centre for Sociology of Democracy (CSD) and the research project Citizens in the Making.
Professor Laurent Thévenot (EHESS), Director of Studies at EHESS, is a sociologist and economist noted for his grounding work on critical pragmatic sociology as a comparative, methodological and theoretical framework for studying how personal attachments and concerns become translated into public issues when taking part in a community and communicating disagreement or difference.
Associate Professor Isaac Reed (University of Virginia) is a historical and cultural sociologist noted for his work on the questions of interpretation and explanation in the social sciences and the social theory of power and transitions to modernity. He is particularly interested in how acts of power are interpreted, and the multiple ways in which authority can render itself legitimate.
Professor Gianpaolo Baiocchi (New York University) is a sociologist and an ethnographer interested in the questions of democracy, inequalities, politics and culture, critical social theory and cities. His work focuses particularly on the instances of actually existing civic life and participatory democracy.
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The Centre for Sociology of Democracy organises a two-day seminar offering in-depth analyses of and new approaches to understading young citizens’ participation in Finland and beyond from a pragmatist perspective.
Citizenship in 21st-century is marked by several simultaneous developments in civil society which change the conditions of participation: digitalization, polarization, and marginalization. These processes take place in public, local and online, digital and physical spaces, and give reason to expect that young people who grow up in today’s civil society will come to practice citizenship differently from previous generations.
The Citizens in the Making research project (funded by the Kone Foundation) has, since 2015, been studying these developments and what they mean for 21st-century citizenship in the Finnish context. This seminar publishes the results of that work and engages in discussion other scholars and stakeholders interested in 21st-century citizenship. The research of Georg Boldt, Veikko Eranti, Maija Jokela, Lotta Junnilainen, Eeva Luhtakallio and Tuukka Ylä-Anttila paint an image of young Finns’ civic imaginations: of their different conceptions of what it means to be a citizen and to act as part of society. These conceptions are explored in everyday social action of young people in urban spaces, formal politics, activist engagements as well as online debates. The findings suggest, among plenty of other insights, that young people approach political participation as individuals rather than collectives; that technocratic top-down systems of participation tend to breed technocratic bottom-up practices; and that empowerment without actually sharing power tends to breed shallow engagement.
This research effort now reaching its final stretch has been marked by an ambition to build further the theoretical background of pragmatically oriented cultural sociological conceptualization of politics, and the making of the common world.
The project has also had a methodological ambition: combining levels and types of data and methodology in order to build a holistic, multi-dimensional understanding of the future of political cultures. In particular, the project has taken on the challenge to combine computational and ethnographic methodology in order to both grasp the vastness of online data and the precision of the ethnographic eye.
Apart from discussing the results of the project work, we will widen the debate towards theoretical implications, different political contexts, and further empirical landscapes with keynote lectures by professor Laurent Thévenot (EHESS), professor Isaac Reed (University of Virginia), and professor Gianpaolo Baiocchi (New York University).
Program
December 12, 2019
10.00 Welcome address – Kalle Korhonen, The Kone Foundation
10.15 –11.15 Keynote by Professor Eeva Luhtakallio: 21st Century Citizens in the making: Towards a pluralism of engagements and projects?
11.15–12.45 Citizens in the Making: What we learned I
Veikko Eranti: Individualists in the making – Civic action, societal participation and the individualistic style of doing politics
Lotta Junnilainen: Place, Poverty and Political Participation – Imagining the future with young people living in disadvantaged neighborhoods
Georg Boldt: Citizens in Training – Notes on commitment and the resonance of style
12.45–14.00 Lunch
14.00–15.00 Keynote by Professor Laurent Thévenot (EHESS): The Trying Art of Taking Part
15.00–15.30 Coffee
15.30-16.30 Keynote by Professor Isaac Reed (University of Virginia): Pragmatics of Delegation: The King’s Two Bodies and its Afterlives
December 13, 2019
9.15 Coffee
9.30-11.30 Panel on Mixing methods: new innovations and insights into studying youth participation
Chair: Professor Anu Koivunen
Panelists: Veikko Eranti, Salla-Maaria Laaksonen, Minttu Tikka & Tuukka Ylä-Anttila
11.30-12.30 Citizens in the Making: What we learned II
Tuukka Ylä-Anttila: Going Overboard: Politicization in an anonymous online community
Maija Jokela: Social media affordances for activism: individual or collective action?
12.30-13.45 Lunch
13.45–14.45 Keynote: professor Gianpaolo Baiocchi (New York University)
14.45-15.30 Discussion
