Search results for "poliittinen osallistuminen"

The relevance of biographic narratives for social workers’ professional memory, reflexivity and identity

2020

The present article is about the use of biographic methods and oral history, and its contribution to developing processes of critical reflection and reflexivity. It is based on a set of oral data collected from Portuguese social workers who played an active role in the revolutionary phase during the transition from dictatorship to democracy in Portugal (following the 25th April 1974 military coup). The article explores how the use of biographic methods (integrated within a historical methodological framework), other than simply producing accounts of past experiences, allowed interviewees to re-capture, re-interpret and re-signify their own experiences in the light of changing professional …

Äänioikeuden ja demokratian haasteet Suomessa

2009

The participation paradox: demand for and fear of immigrant participation

2019

In this paper, we address the ambivalence in European immigrant integration discourses toward the political participation of immigrants. We show how this ambivalence manifests in what we call a ‘participation paradox’, which is constituted by two apparently conflicting, but potentially mutually reinforcing characteristics of the discourse. The first emphasizes the need for immigrants to be active in order to attain a well-integrated society and well-functioning democratic polity; the second is a call for the protection of liberal democratic institutions from the alleged ‘illiberal threats’ that migrants pose to society. Immigrant participation is thus both demanded and feared. Using illustr…

A Model Country or a Peripheral Anomaly? The Finnish Women's Suffrage and Female MPs in Transnational Debates, 1906-19

2022

The introduction of women’s suffrage in 1906 and the election of the first female members to parliament made Finland an object of international attention. Contemporary cross-national comparisons were common, and there was a tendency to compete and evaluate each other. In Finland, many women activists and some male politicians, too, felt that they had to prove women’s political competence and hence actively communicated the experiences of women’s suffrage struggle internationally. Abroad, comparisons were exploited either to support women’s suffrage or to demonstrate its evil consequences, depending on party affiliation. The Finnish example encouraged suffragists in France, the Netherlands a…

Emma Brockes ja Megan Rapinoe, Yksi elämä. Megan Rapinoen tarina

2021

Bene vivere politice

2022

Abstract This chapter approaches the question of biopolitics in ancient political thought looking not at specific political techniques but at notions of the final aim of the political community. It argues that the “happiness” (eudaimonia, beatitudo) that constitutes the greatest human good in the tradition from Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas is not a “biopolitical” ideal, but rather a metabiopolitical one, consisting in a contemplative activity situated above and beyond the biological and the political. It is only with Thomas Hobbes that civic happiness becomes “biopolitically” identified with simple survival; for modernity, as Hannah Arendt puts it, mere being alive becomes the greatest human…

Political community resilience in declining rural areas in Finland

2021

Abstract In this article, we study how declining rural communities build political resilience in Finland. Community resilience is an adaptive process through which rural communities try to maintain their viability in changed circumstances. This process does not entail a submissive attitude, but rather active agency and an effort to influence matters concerning the community’s well-being. We focus on the political dimension of resilience by identifying different local tactics that rural communities adopt to promote their own development following municipal mergers. We classify these tactics into three categories: cooperation, conflict and community-led development. The significant difference…

The usage of social media among young adults living in Nairobi, Kenya : only entertainment or contributions to societal change?

2015

Social media usage has been found to have increased all over the world, also in the so-called developing countries. Although the percentages are still rather low, it can be argued that the use of social media is becoming increasingly important also in African countries. Kenya has been found to be one of the leading countries regarding social media usage in East Africa. Although research on social media has been conducted, for instance, on the use of social media in protest movements and in the areas of users’ motivation, less emphasis has been placed on their developmental aspects. Thus, to gain a deeper understanding of the usage of social media in the so-called developing countries, this …

Political Action Beyond Resistance: Arendt and "Revolutionary Spirit" in Egypt

2016

The article examines what it calls the "politics-as-resistance" frame in contemporary political theory, originating in the works of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler. This way of organizing political experience is contrasted with Hannah Arendt's political thought, particularly her writings on revolutionary action. Arendt's often overlooked – and partly unpublished – passages on virtù and fortuna are further suggested as important additions to her thinking on action. I argue that Arendt's "world-centric" approach can illuminate certain aspects of political experience that remain dimmed in the more subject-oriented politics-as-resistance frame. Particular focus is paid to the austere notion o…

The everyday and spectacle of subdued citizenship in northern Uganda

2019

Drawing on ethnographic research in the Acholi town of Kitgum in northern Uganda, this chapter illustrates how citizenship practices are embedded in particular relationships between the state and its citizens. Two key arenas for learning are identified: the everyday, which in this region is tinged by memories of past violence and fears of its recurrence, and moments of spectacular state performance such as the burial of a prominent politician. The chapter shows how practices of citizenship are learned through embodied experiences: by taking part in public debate, by voting or by greeting a flag, but also by running away from a soldier or by staying quiet due to fear. The chapter’s overall a…