Kolme vuosikymmentä pakolaisten vastaanottoa - Kati Turtiaisen haastattelu

Small agency and precarious residency in Afghan refugee families

This chapter examines agency and ways of enduring suffering in Afghan families in a small Finnish town. Three stories, where the mothers and children have lived in Finland for some years already, but the fathers have arrived during the 2015 large-scale migration, are presented and analysed. Ethnographic methods are used in enquiring how family members endure suffering when they are faced with the threat of deportation of a family member. Our results show that fathers’ precarious residency has an impact on family members’ agency. First, the informants were enduring alone, and thus the social element, being able to share one’s struggles of enduring, was missing. Second, it was not only one ty…

Formation, Structural Characterization, and Calculated NMR Chemical Shifts of Selenium-Nitrogen Compounds from SeCl4 and ArNHLi (Ar = supermesityl, mesityl)

Supermesityl selenium diimide [Se{N(C6H2tBu3-2, 4, 6)}2; Se{N(mes*)}2] can be prepared in a good yield from the reaction of SeCl4 and (mes*)NHLi. The molecule adopts an unprecedented anti, anti-conformation, as deduced by DFT calculations at PBE0/TZVP level of theory and supported by 77Se NMR spectroscopy and a crystal structure determination. An analogous reaction involving (C6H2Me3-2, 4, 6)NHLi [(mes)NHLi] unexpectedly lead to the reduction of selenium and afforded the selenium diamide Se{NH(mes)}2 that was characterized by X-ray crystallography and 77Se NMR spectroscopy. The Se-N bonds of 1.847(3) and 1.852(3) A show normal single bond lengths. The <NSeN bond angle of 109.9(1)° also indi…

Enroling around : Reconfiguring place and space in the wake of a new reception centre in a small rural town

The paper examines how a small rural town Kauhava, Finland, is reconfigured in the wake of a reception centre being established. Drawing on the conceptual toolbox of the sociology of associations, we find that regardless of attitudes towards asylum seekers, people springing into action and enroling others leads to the problematisation and intensification of place. This involves turning public and private spaces into contested places. Competing definitions of community and identity emerge. While new identities are configured, new associations and ways of linking actors and places together also take form. The paper examines how the micropolitics of place and belonging are carried out in pract…

Assessing violence in the family : social work, courts, and discourses

This article investigates social work, decision-making, and gendered violence in the family in Finland. Discourses on gendered violence in the family are compared in custody disputes, handled in district courts, and out-of-home placements, dealt with in administrative courts. Both data sets altogether include 237 cases. Proceedings in both courts share a legislative emphasis on the ‘child’s best interest’ principle, and both contexts also rely on documentation provided by social workers. The examination of the two studies is based on discourse analysis, through which we have identified hegemonic discourses that are active in both courts. The study found that violence was often disregarded o…