Gender Studies

Research themes

Politics, Economy and Activism

Politics of Affect, Embodiment and Close Relations

Science, Technology and Society

Working Life

Politics, Economy and Activism analyses struggles around gender equality, gender and sexual diversity, equality policies and feminist politics within traditional institutions – such as, parliaments, political parties, economic institutions, labour markets as well as NGOized civil society and grassroots level. We study the interplay between international, national and local level institutions, both formal and informal. We explore the changing power relations where governance structures, democracy, and different forms of activism are negotiated.

Research projects in the theme:

• Gender, party politics and democracy in Europe: A study of European Parliament's Party Groups (EUGenDem), European Research Council Consolidator Grant, 2018-2023, PI: Johanna Kantola.
• Flows of Power - media as site and agent of politics (FLOPO), Academy of Finland, 2019–2022, PI: Anu Koivunen.
• Affective Activism: Sites of Queer and Trans World-Making (AQT), Academy of Finland, 2021–2025, PI: Tuula Juvonen.
• On the road to gender-sensitive parliaments? Gender Equality and Democratic Practices in the Finnish, German, and Polish Parliament Compared(GSParls), Academy of Finland, 2021–2026, Academy Research Fellow: Petra Ahrens.
• The impact of the Covid-19 crisis on gender equality in Finland, Government’s analysis, assessment and research activities, 2020–2022, PI for Tampere University: Anna Elomäki
• (Irti)kytkentöjä: ruokaomavaraistuminen kumppanuuslajien verkostoissa, Kone Foundation, 2019–2022, PI: Pieta Savinotko.

Politics of Affect, Embodiment and Close Relations conducts empirical work on affects, everyday experiences, and politics in social and intimate relations, intersectional differences, bodily boundaries, and cultural imaginaries. Key themes include intimate relations and sexualities, media representations, activism and social changes, knowledge production, and developing queer and feminist methods to study affect, embodiment, and relationships.

Research projects in the theme:

• Intimacy in data-driven culture (IDA),  Academy of Finland Strategic Research Funding, 2019–2022, PI: Anu Koivunen.
• Affective Activism: Sites of Queer and Trans World-Making (AQT), Academy of Finland, 2021–2025, PI: Tuula Juvonen.
• The Everyday Ethics of Reproductive Outsourcing: Makin Good Life in the Era of Biocapitalism (EEROS), Academy of Finland, 2019–2024, Academy Research Fellow: Riikka Homanen.

Science, Technology and Society provides intersectional studies of the relation between knowledge production, power and social justice, as well as studies of how technology is enacted in everyday life. In doing so we engage with the dynamic processes and relations that intertwine human and non-human actors, institutions, and society. We examine socio-material practices and policies as gendered embodied phenomena, for example, in the fields of biomedicine, biotechnology, bioeconomies and healthcare.

Research projects in the theme:

• Affect and Biotechnological Change: Three Vaccine Debates in Europe, Academy of Finland, 2018–2023, Academy Research Fellow: Venla Oikkonen.
• The Everyday Ethics of Reproductive Outsourcing: Making Good Life in the Era of Biocapitalism (EEROS), Academy of Finland, 2019–2024, Academy Research Fellow: Riikka Homanen.
• Gendered Chronic Disease, Embodied Differences and Biomedical Knowledge (GenDis), Academy of Finland and Kone Foundation, 2021–2025, PI: Venla Oikkonen.
• Technology, Ethics and Reproduction: Controversy in the Era of Normalisation, (ReproEthics), Kone Foundation, 2019–2022, PI: Riikka Homanen.

Working Life studies how work is shaping gendered and racialized subjectivities and how different power relations are conditioning working life. We focus on the changes, continuities and new forms of work with a critical lens on individual as well as organizational and institutional level and in local, national and international contexts.

Key themes include gendering practices in work; equal pay; the embodiment and bodily requirements in work; women's entrepreneurship; shifting boundaries between work and non-work; and burn-out at work; race; ethnicity; power; neoliberal conditions of work; digital capitalism; the role of affective and emotional labor; vulnerability in work, and higher education.

Research projects in the theme:

• Beyond the gender paradox: Women's careers in technology-driven research and innovation in and outside of academe, Nordwit, Nordic Center of Excellence, Nordforsk, 2017–2022, PI: Marja Vehviläinen.
• Neoliberalizing Welfare State Employment: Ideology, Institutional Agency, and Gendered Labour Market Outcomes, Academy of Finland, 2018–2022, Postdoctoral researcher: Paula Koskinen Sandberg.