University of Eastern Finland

Project Reseacher, Finnish Language and Cultural Research

Thesis Title: Culturization of Economy and the Cultural Commons [ongoing]

About

I am a PhD candidate and a junior researcher in the field of cultural research / sociology in the University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu. My main research interests at the moment lie in the cultural studies of economy, critical political economy, commons, social theory and the philosophy of property law.

Foremost research projects:

(i) PhD study on the role of common(s) in cultural economy (2011–2014). This is a relatively wide and multifaceted theoretical project that works as a kind of umbrella for my different case studies. The general aim is to trace and decipher a historical shift in the capitalist mode of production, the culturization of economy, through the in notion of  ’becoming-common’ of economy. Some current subprojects (forthcoming articles etc.): the question of (im)measurability in context of 'cultural production', material domains of immaterial economy, linkages between affect theory and precarisation theory, and a theory of 'theoretical dérive".

(ii) Project for instituting a regional funding system for film production in North Karelia, Finland (2011–2013) . My position in the wider scheme is to develop a model for assessing regional economic, cultural and social impacts of film production and related activities. Also, I will look into some aspects of film economy in a more general level, e.g. the general cost and financing structures of Finnish feature film, social networks of service providers in the industry, the role of media education in relation to the industry and the linking of creative industries to regional planning and regional policies. My speciel interest is in the logics of utilizing cultural CPRs (common pool resources) and the ”hidden” costs and benefits involved in the process.

(iii) In the field of philosophy of law, I’m working with a set of themes related to the conceptual and political conflicts of private and common property regimes in property law.  Lately, I published an article on the idea of understanding political squatting movement as institutioning kind of ’neo-traditional’ regimes of common property in the field of urban commons.

(iv) Together with ethnomusicologist Noora Vikman, we are initiating a project for researching silence as a sort of ’immaterial fixed capital’ for rural tourism in peripheral areas.  The project is based on our pilot studies (also with Laura Kaljunen) in Ilomantsi, which is a sparsely populated town on the eastern border of Finland.  We will study the ideas, discourses, practices and conflicts of formulating silence-commons as a ”competitive advantage” for revitalizing local economy and stimulating regional growth.

(v) Together with dancer Pia Lindy and photographer Annuska Dal Maso, we are working with an artistic research project on the notions of ”connecting/”mediating”/”caring” (in Finnish ”välittäminen”). The basic method of the project is to carry and convey recorded spoken messages from ”normal citizens” to ”the ones in charge” (politicians etc.) on the more or less everday worries.  During the course, we also arrange a variety of workshops, informal meetings, performances, exhibitions and installations with a connection to the general theme. (see www.jokukohtatanssii.net)

(vi) I am also affiliated with the project ”Porous Work – New arrangements of labour, care and education” (2011–2014), led by professor Eeva Jokinen. The main objective of the research is to investigate both the effects of ongoing social changes on people’s lives and the ways people make their lives liveable in these circumstances.  By the notion of porosity we refer to the current social, political and economical situation in which work, care (reproduction) and education gradually lose their self-evident borders, contents and significance as central coordinates of the social life and the politics of the social.

Past projects:

(vii) In my MA thesis (in Sociology of Art) I describe and discuss the entrance and reception of the reality television phenomenon in the print press (in “Helsingin Sanomat” newspaper in particular). The aim is to read and reinterpret the spectacles and scandalds of “reality” in through a lens of political economy and critical media theory. In a sense, the thesis constructs a theoretically informed “critique of media critique” concerning the self-understanding (and self-misunderstanding) of the media sphere of the discourses of cognitive capitalism.

(viii) In my BA thesis (in Sociology of Art) I studied the concept and practice of “creative dance” as understood and described by the students of a creative dance instructor program based in Joensuu, Finland. In particular, my interest here is on the dichotomy of “pure art” / “applied art” but also in the conflicting understandings of dance-as-art in the field itself.

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