Mainstreaming Populism in the 21st Century is a research consortium funded by the Academy of Finland. It is based on collaboration between media and communication studies, as well as political science and political theory researchers at the universities of Helsinki, Jyväskylä and Turku. The research consortium explores different forms of mainstreaming of populism in Europe and the Americas in the 21st century. The project will analyse how populist parties have become part of the mainstream, how other parties have coloured their policies increasingly with a populist streak and how different mainstreaming forms of populism have transformed public debate, the media and democracy in various polities. One of the country case studies in the project focuses on Venezuela. This sub project is conducted by Salojärvi.

Team

The project analyses the ways that fragile cities are dealing with societal security, environmental vulnerability and representative justice in the spaces of multi-scale governance. The dimensions to be analysed are: 1) governance of insecurity and creation of accountable institutions; 2) authoritarian legacies and political-representation efforts; and 3) governance of environmental vulnerabilities and claims for justice. The research aims to develop a revised theory of urban political ecology and urban justice to better understand the interlinkages and scalar complexities of societal security, environmental vulnerability and representative justice.

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Anja Nygren, Florencia Quesada, Mauricio Romero, Elisa Tarnaala, Kjell-Åke Nordquist

This project, funded by the Academy of Finland (2013–2016), provided theoretically innovative and empirically new and valuable knowledge of the complex dynamics between governance and resistance in the context of the dominant, neoliberal development paradigm. It studied social and political struggles in three countries in South Asia – Nepal, Bangladesh and India – by examining social movements that fight against forced displacement and slum demolitions – all caused by development projects. The project engaged critically in the debate on neoliberal development by analyzing problems related to it, charting possibilities for addressing hem, and offering alternative visions for socially, culturally and politically more sustainable models of development.

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Impact assessments used by large-scale development projects are often portrayed as neutral tools providing objective and value-free information to decision-makers. However, scholars widely agree that impact assessments are inherently biased, political, and distorted by power dynamics. Using a forthcoming natural gas project in Mozambique as case study, my ethnographic field research provides important baseline study of the social, relational, and place-bound aspects of wellbeing, often overlooked in impact assessment processes.

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The research project focuses on contemporary societal changes in contexts where the rapidly growing majority of population is young, and where questions of political participation, citizenship, livelihoods and frustrations require urgent attention. It draws on empirical research in Egypt, Somalia, Tunisia, Zambia, Kenya and South Africa and reveals different aspects of what ‘politics’ may mean in unstable contexts. They differ in terms of state formation and democratic structures, post-conflict developments, NGO involvement, donor funding and global connections. The ethnographic case studies focus on forms, contents and experiences of political engagement in the everyday lives of young people – including potential de-politication, professationalization, consumerism and struggles for mundane livelihoods – in different contexts of contemporary Africa.

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Elina Oinas, Leena Suurpää, Sofia Laine, Eija Ranta, Henri Onodera, Petri Hautaniemi, Tiina-Maria Levamo, and Ella Alin

Scientific assessments and politics addressing environmental changes rarely involve local residents and their knowledge. Usually reasons of demographic growth and environmental mismanagement are used to justify local degradation; however, our aim is to understand the local perspective about causes and reasons of the degradation that causes insecurity, livelihood changes, migration trends and other decisions that bring into further environmental degradation. An ethnographic research has been conducted in two catchments of Taita Hills, South-East Kenya. Participatory mapping, observation, transect walks, historical timelines, semi-structured interviews with experts and civil society representatives, as well as focus groups were employed as main methods of data gathering.

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Paola Minoia, Johanna Hohenthal, Belinda Kivivuori, Marinka Leppänen, Emmah Owidi.

The objectives of the project are to analyze the emergence of bioenergy governance systems and regulation from a transnational scale to local environments. This research project aims to study means how the conflicts are dealt with and develop tools to include stakeholders to governance processes. The study aims to: 1) Study how conflicts and stakeholder involvement are taken into account in the emerging transnational BEG by focusing on two cases: Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP) and EU bioenergy policy. 2) Scrutinize concrete local bioenergy projects through case studies in Europe and Africa (Kenya, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone). 3) Examine bioenergy conflicts globally by constructing a broad database, as well as develop related educational resources.

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Jarmo Kortelainen, Javier Arevalo, Moritz Albrecht

Through an ethnographic study of Catholic and Anglican parishes in Kitgum, Northern Uganda, this study aims to find ways for conceptualising the relationship between Christianity and public culture in post-conflict society. The study contends that nuanced, contextualised understandings of the relationships between religion and politics are essential also for a more general understanding of politics and development in the region.

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This international comparative study of three Central American countries, Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua, aims contributing to finding the best solutions, ideas and practices for sustainable tourism business and industry. For this purpose, the project analyzes, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the development of power relations, politics, policies and practices of Central American tourism. At the same time, the study seeks the complex inter-dependencies between public, national and international planning, global tourism, local needs, sustainable development and business interests.

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Florencia Quesada (PhD Docent), Emily Höckert (PhD student), Tiina Kukkurainen (PhD student)

The project examines indigenous and Afro-American peoples’ ways to create new cognitive models for producing power. People from these backgrounds have been active in designing new education systems, engaging in politics, and creating new religious intersubjectivity in Latin America. We stress a ‘not-yet’ consciousness, modes of attention to the fact that something has still to happen or become. The proposed project focuses on agency constructions in different social, cultural, religious, and political contexts and the ideas of imagined (home)places and spaces based on indigenousness, ethnicity, and religion as they may affect people’s future transformation. We examine agencies including both human and non-human subjects. The global influences, technology, new contacts, new knowledge, and state policies are important factors in creative processes the actors can use for their agency construction.

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Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen, Eleonora Riviello, Anna Vohlonen