Work Package 5 leader

Johanna Leinonen, University of Oulu, johanna.leinonen@oulu.fi,
+358 50 306 6920

About the work package

The WP5 approaches two-way integration by studying everyday encounters of people of diverse backgrounds in different localities (e.g., in Oulu and Turku). Researchers in this WP are working at the University of Oulu in two disciplines, history and gender studies, and at the Migration Institute of Finland and Åbo Akademi University. Placebound social interactions play a key role in the development of trust. The WP focuses on place attachment (the emotional ties and social and material connections that people build to a place) as a crucial component of integration. The researchers employ multisited ethnographic research, including ethnographic interviews and walking methodologies. In addition to scientific publications, the WP will produce training sessions, discussion events, and policy briefs.

The WP comprises two research themes (RT). The first RT examines trust-building and place attachment through everyday encounters between forced migrants and other local residents as well as encounters between migrants and local institutions (e.g., social work services, employment offices, KELA, NGOs). Johanna Hiitola and Iida Kauhanen examine how refugees and unaccompanied minors build their lives in Finland in the long-term; how they find permanent homes, jobs, education, or direction in life (or don’t), form (or break up) intimate relationships, find communities and places to attach to, and finally grow old and look back on their life paths. Zeinab Karimi studies skilled refugees who have moved to Finland, analyzing their life course after their arrival. Eveliina Lyytinen investigates how undocumented migrants’ institutional (mis)trust develops through encounters at local institutions and how NGOs could enhance undocumented migrants’ institutional trust. Liselott Sundbäck explores the role of NGOs in shaping institutional trust in everyday life of forced migrants and how the civic education trainings offered by NGOs are used as platforms for shaping institutional trust.

The second RT explores place-bound social relations and the development of social (mis)trust. Johanna Leinonen focuses on stay-at-home parents of diverse backgrounds (i.e., parents with or without migrant background, from single and two-parent households, as well as parents representing different genders) to examine their social networks in local communities and the role of trust – or mistrust – in their formation. Eveliina Lyytinen studies how the issues of social trust and diversity are viewed by elderly people of forced migrant and non-migrant backgrounds in Turku. Elina Turjanmaa focuses on intergroup trust experienced by young people who spend their time in multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural youth centres. She is interested in the ways in which everyday encounters create intergroup (mis)trust. All three case studies in this RT inquire how we can foster social trust in intra/intergroup and intergenerational relations among people of diverse backgrounds and in various life-stages.

Primary collaboration partners

Global Social Work Finland; Multicultural Center Villa Victor, City of Oulu; Training programme for specialists in multiculturalism (MONIerko); local schools and libraries.

Researchers

Johanna Hiitola, Gender Studies, University of Oulu
Zeinab Karimi, Gender Studies, University of Oulu
Iida Kauhanen, Gender Studies, University of Oulu
Johanna Leinonen, History, University of Oulu
Eveliina Lyytinen, Migration Institute of Finland
Liselott Sundbäck, Social Policy, Åbo Akademi University
Elina Turjanmaa, History, University of Oulu