Oma esittely
My research explores health, medicine, and social life through ethnographic approaches informed by anthropology and science and technology studies. My current work focuses on pediatric persistent pain and its care in Finland. I am interested in how medical knowledge, cultural values, healthcare systems, and everyday experiences are reshaped as young people and their families live with persistent pain.
Across my research, I examine how people navigate uncertainty, suffering, care, and social change in their everyday lives. I am especially interested in the relationships between personal experiences and wider social, political, and institutional processes, including the role of welfare state services in shaping wellbeing and experiences of care.
Before turning my focus to health and medicine, I conducted long-term ethnographic research in Uganda on religion, politics, citizenship, and the legacies of conflict. This work continues to inform my broader interest in questions of belonging, morality, power, and social transformation.
Through my research, I aim to contribute both to academic debates and to public conversations about wellbeing and the diverse bodily, cultural, and societal conditions that shape people's lives.
My PhD research was based in Development Studies, and I hold the title of Associate Professor (Docent) in Social Anthropology at Tampere University.