Josefina Sipinen, Tampere University; Peter Söderlund, Åbo Akademi University; Hannamaria Kuusio, Finnish Institution for Health and Welfare: Sense of belonging and political participation in Finland: A positively reinforcing relationship?
Literature in social psychology, political science, and sociology suggests that a stronger sense of belonging increases political participation. Belonging to a community reinforces norms of engagement in group affairs and enhances the sense of influence over common matters, while alienation weakens this efficacy. This study examines the link between participation and sense of belonging among migrants in Finland. The MoniSuomi survey, collected by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (n=7,838), asked migrants about their political participation and experiences of inclusion and belonging. We employ latent class analysis (LCA) to identify subgroups with shared characteristics. Some migrants may feel included but not participate politically, while others may experience the opposite. The MoniSuomi data allows for examining both institutional political participation and non-institutional participation, such as demonstrating. This is important as political participation also includes non-conformist forms like protest participation, which oppose the current administration or status quo and can stem from low levels of belonging. This study explores factors influencing subgroup membership, such as the democratization level in the country of origin, reasons for moving to Finland, age at migration, socio-economic status in Finland, gender, and discrimination experiences.
Eveliina Lyytinen, Migration Institute of Finland: Ageing and the end of life in refuge – The case of men
Ageing and the end of life are becoming increasingly critical issues in the context of forced migration, as more and more of the world’s population live in exile, yet elderly refugees are under-researched and underrepresented in migration-related debate (Bastia, Lulle, & King 2022). In this research, I investigate how elderly men with a refugee background experience their belonging in Finland, alongside their feelings and strategies connected with dying in the context of refugeehood.
I hope to bridge the study of individuals’ end-of-life-connected experiences and reflections with the analysis of transnational community practices of support and care at times of death and the expansions of ‘deathscapes’ in refuge (Maddrell & Sidaway 2010). In doing so, my aim is to produce further understanding of the ways in which ‘transnational death raises questions about identity, belonging, and customs, but also about the logistical care of bodies, rituals, and commemoration’ (Saramo 2019: 8).
The premise of this research is that elderly refugees face particular challenges of belonging or finding an alternative end to their refugeehood, due to their age, with age-sensitive approaches therefore being needed in both research and services for them. Moreover, refugees are obliged to create novel transnational strategies in conjunction with dying and mourning in exile.
The empirical research utilizing observation, FGDs and interviews will commence in 2025 with a small group of elderly men with a forced migration background. This research is conducted as part of Mobile Futures – Diversity, Trust, and Two-Way Integration (Strategic Research Council) and Endings – Refuge, Time, and Space (Kone Foundation) projects. The project has an ethical clearance from the University of Turku.
Stephanie Clark, University of Helsinki: Affecting masculinities in Privileged Migrant Men in Finland
This paper theorises research interviews with privileged groups of migrant men as affective encounters in which normative masculinities have the potential to be challenged and ultimately transformed. It forms part of my doctoral monograph in which I examine the construction and deconstruction of masculinities in privileged migrant men in Finland.
The data for this paper comes from interviews with educated white migrant men coming from Minority World countries (e.g. UK, USA, Germany) – those whom policy makers and journalists in Finland deem “the good migrant” (Koskela 2014: 24). Many of the men interviewed expressed feelings of alienation and loneliness in their lives in Finland, while others did not express such feelings explicitly but told stories which left a similar intensity and were often accompanied by a sensation of profound sadness for me as a researcher. Some men stated that the interview was the first time they had been invited to talk about these topics, while others said that they previously had not even considered them even privately to themselves. This paper examines these encounters in terms of Todd Reeser and Lucas Gottzén’s (2018) arguments on transformational affect, and Reeser’s (2020) work on leaky affect, looking at how affect moves between researcher and participant and other bodies within the space of the interview.
Alongside contributing to studies on migration between Minority World countries, this work intends to contribute to the still underdeveloped but growing body of work in masculinities and affect theory (Reeser and Gottzén 2018).
Anastasia Diatlova, University of Helsinki: The building blocks of a nation: Migrant men working in construction industry in Finland
The construction sector depends on cheap and precarious labor in order to turn a profit. This cheap labor is often recruited from abroad and from among the migrants living in Finland. However, as the construction sector in Finland is slowing down due to various economic pressures, it leaves many migrant construction workers without work and income, and subsequently without the possibility to stay in Finland. Despite their integral contribution to building the infrastructure of the country, their own lives and futures as treated by the industry and the migration legislation as disposable. Based on semi-structured interviews, the paper examines the ways in which migrant men working in the construction sector in Finland cope and resist this precarity.