Browsing by Subject "mobility"

Ihmisten arkinen liikkuminen paikasta toiseen on tärkeä palanen laajemmassa kestävyysmurroksessa. Liikenne muodostaa Suomessa 20 % kansallisista kasvihuonekaasupäästöistä ja vaikka päästöt ovat tasaisesti vähentyneet, nykyinen tahti ei ole riittävä tämänhetkisten päästövähennystavoitteiden saavuttamiseksi. Kotitalouksien kulutuksen aiheuttamista kasvihuonekaasupäästöistä liikkuminen on suurin yksittäinen päästöjen aiheuttaja. Aikaisempi tutkimus on keskittynyt suurelta osin teknologisiin ratkaisuihin ja yksilöiden valintoihin syinä ja ratkaisuina kestävään liikkumiseen. Näitä lähestymistapoja on kritisoitu siitä, että ne eivät anna riittävää painoarvoa sosiaalisille tekijöille. Käytäntöteorioita on esitetty vaihtoehtona ja vallitsevien yksilökeskeisten lähestymistapojen haastajana arkisen liikkumisen ymmärtämiseen. Käytännöt ovat rutiininomaisia ihmisten käyttäytymismalleja, jotka koostuvat useista elementeistä: materiaaleista, merkityksistä ja kompetensseista. Tämä tutkielma analysoi ihmisten liikkumista ennen COVID-19-pandemiaa ja sen aikana käytäntöteoreettisesta näkökulmasta. Tavoite on selvittää mitä käytäntöteorioiden avulla voidaan oppia kestävästä liikkumisesta, sekä miten pandemia on vaikuttanut ihmisten liikkumiseen Suomessa. Tutkielmaa varten tehtiin yhdeksän puolistrukturoitua haastattelua, joissa osallistujilta kysyttiin heidän liikkumisestaan ennen pandemiaa ja sen aikana. Tulokset muodostavat kokonaisvaltaisen kuvan osallistujien elämästä liikkumisen näkökulmasta. Tulokset analysoitiin käyttäen kvalitatiivista teorialähtöistä sisällönanalyysia. Tuloksista selvisi, että ihmisten liikkuminen muodostaa monimutkaisen systeemin, johon pandemia vaikutti merkittävästi. Tutkimuksessa tunnistettiin lukuisia elementtejä, jotka joko mahdollistivat tai hankaloittivat eri liikkumismuotojen käyttöä. Käytäntöteorioita on usein käytetty tarkastelemaan yhtä liikkumismuotoa kerrallaan, ja tämän tutkielman laajempaa näkökulmaa voidaan pitää yhtenä sen tärkeimmistä ansioista liikkumisen tutkimukseen. Vaikka tutkielma ei tarjoa valmiita vastauksia siihen, miten ihmisten liikkumisesta saataisiin kestävämpää, se tarjoaa tärkeää uutta tietoa käytäntöteoreettiseen liikkumisen tutkimukseen, joka on Suomessa ollut todella vähäistä.

This paper focuses on youth in transition by meeting youth making choices regarding their further education as well as whether they stay in or move out of their local community. First, regarding the choices concerning work and education made by the youth, this study aims to explore the growing understanding of the strengths and talents that youth have in light of prominent theories in positive psychology. Second, in terms of the mobility and immobility of the youth, this study explores the concept of “capability to stay” and its relationship with aspirations of youth through the lens of the “aspiration–capability framework”. During the research, I collaborated with a practitioner working for an action-research organization in the Netherlands. The data used in this study is collected through recordings of eight conversations between the collaborator and the youth participating in a program facilitated by the organization. The recordings form a body of naturally occurring data, and narrative analysis was used to examine the data. The analysis supported the need to consider (im)mobility as one process and demonstrated the usefulness of the aspiration-capability framework as an instrument in migration research. Further, the narratives of the youth shed light on how the development of their strengths and talents were very closely tied. The three pillars of positive psychology – experience, individual traits, and institutions –were used to explore the ways in which meaning was given to the development of talents and strengths by youth in their narratives. This paper concludes with a discussion on the concept of good life in relation to the youth and their capacity to stay, and a call to better understand the role community and institution can play in supporting youth as they navigate their educational pathways.

Tiivistelmä – Referat – Abstract This partly autoethnographical study of homelessness within highly mobile people asks if the meaning of home changes and how it changes when people do not have a fixed point of dwelling. It aims to shed light onto the question of space and place within social studies. This thesis combines personal narrative with semi-structured interviews in order to provide better understanding of the seemingly simple concept of ‘home’. The fieldwork was conducted in multiple locations around the world, following the mobile lifestyles of people working within the yachting industry. As the thesis focuses on the lifestyles of elites, it provides a different perspective to homelessness as the studies that focus on forced homelessness do. The ‘spatial turn’, which started in the late 1980’s, has changed the perception of space and place not only within anthropology but in other fields of academia as well. This thesis looks at how this theoretical approach has affected the way that space and place is reflected in everyday life. Utilising discourses from mobility and transnationalism studies, the aim is not to present highly mobile people as disconnected from place but, instead, to show how place and space are still meaningful. The analysis of different spatial perspectives concentrates on three different aspects: home as a dwelling place, home as a community and home as a nation. Through these approaches, the thesis makes the concept of home easier to understand. Another important element that this thesis reveals is how anthropologists should not forget the temporal aspect of life while putting more emphasis on spatiality. The thesis argues that only by combining these two elements, we can fully comprehend the implications of mobile lifestyle. Without the temporal aspect, the understanding of homelessness remains partial. Drawing from previous ethnographic studies of lifestyle migration, this thesis contributes to the discourse of rootedness and the implications of leaving one’s homeland. Identity and nomadic lifestyle are in a constant dialogue with each other, affecting the life trajectories of the “elite homeless”. This thesis looks at how time changes its shape, when life consists of short periods of time in multiple different locations. The interview material amplifies the paradox of the need for a permanent home and the urge to keep travelling. The thesis aims to show how once uprooted, the ability to relocate and return to location bound lifestyle becomes problematic. This thesis also aspires to show how autoethnography can be a useful tool for anthropologists. The writer’s personal experiences act as the structure around which other ethnographic material and the theory build on. As autoethnography is not widely used method in anthropology, the thesis looks into the history and two main branches of autoethnography.

Throughout history, the growth of cities has been considered a great source of prosperity. However, in recent years negative environmental impacts have led to a growing concern about the consequences of the sometimes seemingly unlimited urban growth. One of the key topics when speaking about these negative environmental impacts is mobility. With the increasing importance of mobility in the modern urbanized world, improving the urban built environment to stimulate the use of sustainable modes of transport is one of the major challenges for today’s land use and transport planners. The research in this thesis builds upon the reciprocal interaction between the (design of the) built environment and travel behavior. Use is made of the concept of transit-oriented development (TOD), a well-established planning approach originating from the US, aiming at achieving a shift in modal share towards sustainable forms of transport, while simultaneously creating a more livable environment with high standards for urban space. Much of the available research on TOD is, however, mainly based on the policy scale and the regional planning scale, while attention to the detailed design level has been minimal. Furthermore, much of the research has focused on the North-American context. Consequently, practical design guidelines for TOD in the European and Finnish context are still lacking. This thesis aims at bridging the gap between academic research on the topic of built environment and travel behavior, and the professional practice of land use planning. This is done, first of all, by examining the relation between land use, design, and sustainable modes of mobility in academic research, and second, by producing spatial design guidelines for TOD in the Finnish context. The main method used to bridge the gap between research and design is the creation of guidelines, a research method for environmental design disciplines defined by Prominski. The creation of the guidelines has been done in two ways. First, a study of three best-practice examples of TOD (Rieselfeld, Vauban, and Hammarby Sjöstad) has been done, from which a number of guidelines have been extracted. Second, the applicability of these guidelines for the Finnish context has been examined through several test designs for the Malmin kenttä district, a new urban development area in Helsinki. Simultaneously, new guidelines have been developed throughout the process. The creation of the toolbox of TOD guidelines for spatial development in the Finnish context forms an important first step in translating the available academic knowledge into usable practical tools for Finnish planners. Although a comprehensive understanding of the functioning of the related theoretical models is still required to achieve overarching goals, such as a modal shift, the toolbox provides a set of practical guidelines that planners can directly apply to their work. Furthermore, the guidelines may, in combination with the test designs, spark a larger discussion on the role of TOD in Finnish planning and the importance of a good integration of land use and transport planning.