Program:
- Maria Niemiharju, ‘Identity Positions and Belonging among Retired Finnish Labor Migrants in Gothenburg, Sweden’
The study explores the now-retired Finnish labor migrants who moved to Gothenburg, Sweden, in the 1960s and 1970s and stayed. It aims to understand their life words and personal experiences concerning their cultural and national identity and a sense of belonging through qualitative interviews conducted in their homes in Gothenburg. The main interest is on how the now-retired Finnish labor migrants position themselves with Swedish society and Swedishness after living in Sweden for 50–60 years, and how they describe their relationship to Finland after being away for so long. Since the Finnish labor migrants interviewed in the study have resided in Sweden for half a century or more, their experience offers essential information on how migrants’ identity and a sense of belonging metamorphoses over an extended period.
- Heidi Latvala-White, ‘Finns, Europeans, citizens of the world? Identity construction among current-day expatriate Finns’
The diversifying expatriate Finnishness has growing societal, political and scholarly interest in Finland. Using the survey data collected by the Migration Institute of Finland, my Master’s thesis investigates the nature of identity among Finns around the world. Using both transnationalism and social identity theory as my theoretical background, I examine, what is the expatriates’ level of connectedness to Finland, on one hand, and to supranational identities such as ‘Europeanness’ and ‘internationality’, on the other?
Registration:
Please register here until November 22
The Research seminar will be organized online. A Zoom link will be provided before the seminar.
More information: toni.ahvenainen(a)migrationinstitute.fi