Browsing by Subject "migration"
Now showing items 21-30 of 30
-
(2010)Tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli ensisijaisesti oppia kanan alkion manipuloinnin tekniikka ja tutkia sen avulla hermostopienan solujen vaellusta kehittyvässä alkiossa. Toinen tavoite oli tarkastella Ret-geenin mutaation (C634R) vaikutusta hermostopienan migraatiokaavaan. Tutkittu Ret-geenin mutaatio aikaansaa geenin tuotteen uudenlaisen toiminnankuvan, jolloin tuloksena voi olla syöpäsairaus. Tutkimus suoritettiin käyttämällä kanan alkiota. Kananmunia haudottiin inkubaattorissa sopivaan kehitysvaiheeseen, minkä jälkeen alkiota käsiteltiin kuoreen tehdyn aukon kautta. Mikroskoopin avulla alkion kehittyvään hermostoputkeen ruiskutettiin plasmidi-Dna:ta, joka sisälsi gfp-geenin sekä joko tutkittavan geenimutaation tai villityypin geenin. Plasmidin siirron jälkeen alkio elektroporoitiin, jotta siirretty perimäaines pääsisi alkion solujen sisään proteiinisynteesin alkamiseksi. Gfp:n fluoresoivan ominaisuuden avulla voitiin jälkitarkastelussa seurata plasmidin geenien ilmentymistä. Tutkimustulosten perusteella voidaan todeta tarkastellun Ret-geenin mutaation aiheuttavan hermostopienan solujen vaelluskaavioon häiriöitä verrattuna kontrolliin. Häiriöitä olivat mm. solujen rykelmäinen ryhmittyminen sekä hermostopienan solujen vaelluksen paikoittainen katkeaminen ja hajanaisuus. Tutkimusaineiston suppeuden vuoksi, mitään varmoja johtopäätöksiä suoritetun tutkimuksen perusteella ei voida vielä tehdä, vaan asia vaatii lisää tutkimuksia.
-
(2017)This Master’s thesis explores sport-for-inclusion programmes in the Helsinki capital region, a subject area which has been lacking critical investigation in Finland. The purpose of this study is to give an overview how these programmes are managed and delivered, as well as presenting possible improvements to the current system. There will be an analysis of the role which local NGOs play in the provision of such activities, alongside a discussion of how local authority and governmental actors are trying to promote work in the sector. The hypothesis of this study is that there is a discord between the various players involved in the delivery of these services, and that there is room for the existing strategy behind these programmes to be improved. International research has taken influence from the work of Pierre Bourdieu and his theory of social capital, which is thought to be generated through participation in inclusionary sports activities. Academics, including Fred Coalter and Ramon Spaaij, have paved the way for future researchers to take a critical approach to the study of these programmes. This, Helsinki-based, study will take inspiration from the international research to conduct an independent, and critical review, of the existing sport-for-inclusion work on-going in the capital region. Qualitative interviews with 11 key players in the Helsinki sport-for-inclusion arena were conducted in the research process of this study. Additionally, a critical examination of the existing Finnish sports legislature and promotional materials from these programmes helped to formulate an impression of how the system is operating. In the final discussion of this study it will be revealed that there is a field of tension between the various practitioners and policymakers in the local sport-for-inclusion sector. This is outlined with reference to the interviews and background research presented throughout the study. It is anticipated that the findings and recommendations given in this investigation can make a meaningful contribution to the healthy development of inclusionary sports programmes in the capital region and beyond.
-
(2015)This master's thesis examines extra-European international students as an important part of the migrant labour force in Finland. Student migration is one of the fastest growing forms of migration today. Student migrants have principally been discussed in relation to education policy, human capital and the unwanted brain drain has been underlined. Aspects outside of the education-related have been studied less and for example wage work done by non-European students with a student visa in Finland has been ignored to a large extent. This thesis builds over the gap between the administrative migration-categories student-migrant and migrant-worker. Accordingly, the main subjects in this thesis are named student-migrant-workers. Emphasis is also put on the racist structures these migrants are confronted with at work and in everyday life as well as on their social and legal position in Finland. The analysed material consists of seven semi-structured theme interviews with migrants from five different countries in Sub-Saharan Africa who came to Finland in order to study. The analysis departs from a critical perspective on borders that underline how borders, and extensions of these, function as control mechanisms within the migration administration. Today borders no longer constitute a clear dividing line between nation-states, but are instead flexible and located at the centre of the migrants lives. The extensions of borders the analysis emanates from, is the temporary residence permit the migrants have obtained and how it influences their possibilities of forming their life in a way they would want to. Since the residence permit implies certain requirements for the migrants and restricts their social and political rights, this scope is remarkably limited. The thesis illustrates how borders, in the form of the student s residence permits, produce a precarious labour force that is easy to exploit. As will be seen, most of those holding a student s residence permit have no other choice than wage working in order to avoid deportation. Because of the strict limitations, these migrants are produced as flexible workers that quickly can react to the demand on the labour market. The analysis also shows that boundaries are created on the basis of race , ethnicity and language and also influence the position on the labour market as well as the experiences of everyday life. The analysis is situated in a context of migration in contemporary capitalism and shows that borders produce new subjectivities that are possible to utilize in the current economic system. The temporariness the characterises the lives of the student-migrant-workers renders inclusion in society more difficult and questions in this way integration as analytical tool in contemporary migration research.
-
(2016)The aim of this Master’s thesis is to find out what kinds of meanings the Mapuche living in Santiago de Chile give to food and food related practices. The study focuses on the meanings articulated in the interview talk on sociocultural practices and place attachment and is grounded on the notion of language as a tool in the social construction of reality. On the semantic level I study meanings constructed in the interview talk, but I also take into account how these meanings are described as embodied practices. The study has been influenced by place, identity, indigenous, everyday life, migration and memory studies but sets its ground in folklore studies for its aim to study what ’ordinary’ people tell about their life. The study reveals how food articulates culture and life and is related to spiritual and ritualistic practices in the everyday life of the Mapuche. In addition, food is a marker of belonging and identity: it is a way to differentiate us from ’the others’ and to strengthen the meaningful bond to the South, the Araucania region, from where the Mapuche have migrated to Santiago. For the Mapuche, food has an origin. Moreover, food can be seen as a site of memory, remembered in different food dishes and artefacts or by doing or talking about food. Food constructs the past in the present and is used as a tool to move between different spatiotemporal dimensions. There is an important distinction made between living and performing the culture, between adapting the culture ’naturally’ or consciously learning it. Some Mapuche argue that being a Mapuche can only be understood as a feeling inside while others find it important to practice the culture daily. These two opposing views form a basis for a new indigenous cultural theory that can offer understanding on how to practice culture and build identity in urban context distant from the land of origin. In the end, in spite of the worry for the continuity of food related practices to the following generations, food traditions still appear vivid and are actively transmitted in the lives of the Mapuche and show their importance to both migrated and Santiago-born Mapuche.
-
(2022)Microglia, the resident immune cells of the central nervous system, react to inflammatory stimuli in the brain in a variety of ways. These include migrating to the site of damage and releasing pro- and anti-inflammatory factors. Previous research indicates that these microglial functions require extensive intracellular calcium signaling. Microglial overactivation can exacerbate neuronal damage, especially in cases of chronic inflammation. The ability to modulate the microglial response to damage would therefore be of great clinical relevance. The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) acts as the cell’s main calcium store and regulates cellular calcium levels primarily through the activity of ryanodine receptors (RYR), inositol-triphosphate receptors (IP3R), and the sarco-endoplasmic reticulum calcium ATPase (SERCA) pump. Calcium depletion from the ER is associated with cellular stress and microglial reactivity and therefore the ER may be an important target for modulating the microglial reactive response. The aim of this study is to show whether ER calcium depletion in a microglial cell line causes changes in protein expression, cellular infiltration, and the release of key pro-inflammatory factors. Drugs that block the pumping of calcium from the cytosol via the SERCA pump, such as thapsigargin, effectively induce a state of calcium depletion in the ER. In the present study, treatment with the SERCA pump inhibitor thapsigargin was found to increase SERCA2 expression in BV2, but not SV40, microglial cell lines. Treatment of microglia with thapsigargin was associated with large increases in the release of pro-inflammatory factors IL-6 and TNF-alpha but had no effect on microglial migration.
-
The Extraterritorial Reach of Positive Obligations : the ECtHR Case of S.S. and the Others v. Italy (2021)The thesis is a study of the communicated case ‘S.S. and the Others v. Italy’ (application no. 21660/80) of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The application is on behalf of the victims of an incident in which a migrant boat found itself in distress after having left Libya for Europe. The Libyan Coast Guard failed to rescue all of the migrants and allegedly acted negligently, mistreating those they took onboard, and returned them to Libya, exposing them to continued ill-treatment and some of them also to forced return (refoulement) to their countries of origin. Italy is a State Party to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and has a bilateral agreement, ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ (MoU), with Libya (a non-ECHR State). On the basis of the MoU, Italy funds and equips the Libyan Coast Guard. The agreement can be seen as a means to ‘outsource’ border control and to instruct Libya to intercept migrants before they reach Italy and the European Union (EU), thus effectively circumventing the obligations of the ECHR. The research question is in two parts. First, I ask whether Italy had extraterritorial jurisdiction as stated in Article 1 ECHR, and second, if it had, has Italy violated its positive obligations to secure the applicants’ rights. Jurisdiction is a ‘threshold criterium’ for the Court to study the merits of an application. As for the violations, the thesis focuses on Article 2 (right to life) and Article 3 (prohibition of torture; includes also the prohibition of forced return, or refoulement). The methodology is doctrinal in that the thesis aims to examine critically the central features of the relevant legislation and case law in order to create an arguably correct and sufficiently complete statement on the Court’s reasoning and outcome. The main sources are the provisions of the ECHR itself and the relevant previous case law of the Court, together with a literature review. Additionally, there are third-party interveners’ statements and a video reconstruction of the events. The Court’s questions and information requests to the parties, as attached to the application, are used as a starting point. Besides a hypothesis of the argumentation and the decision of the Court, some estimations are made about what could be the consequences of the decision to such bilateral pacts as the MoU between Italy and Libya, and, in general, to ‘deals’ between the EU Member States and third or transit countries. Finally, the thesis reflects on the eventual repercussions on the topical issue of the EU Commission’s 23.9.2020 proposal for the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, which appears to encourage the Member States to maintain and develop outsourcing practices.
-
(2013)In recent times, most western societies appear to be confronted with an ever growing number of immigrants as a consequence of globalization and the need to preserve national culture and identity. This is an intricate situation where migrants themselves are constantly faced with difficulties to socially integrate into their new societies. They also have to deal with maintaining distinctiveness of their identity and cultural heritage. Studies suggest that the media plays a crucial role in constructing immigrant identity and affiliation with their new host society. This empirical study explores the media use of Ethiopians in Finland and its implication to their identity and social integration. I have argued based on the existing theory and scholarship regarding multiculturalism, social integration, media use and identity. Specifically, the study gives a special emphasis to immigrant’s diaspora and transnational identity—that has been gaining recent academic significance in migration and media studies. This study employs a qualitative research method using a semi-structured interview with 10 Ethiopians living in Finland and thematic network analytical tool. The finding shows that there is a reciprocal relationship between media use and social integration. Finnish media portrayal of immigrants shows the depiction of 'the other', and that this has been affecting immigrant social integration in to the society. It also finds out that the main media menu for Ethiopians in Finland are Ethiopian diaspora media—that employ hybrid journalism where there exists political activism and journalism.
-
(2017)International degree students sojourning in Finland’s Helsinki Capital Region may acquire skills in two official languages: Finnish and Swedish, respectively spoken natively by 79.9% and 5.8% of the region’s population. This study uses 114 web survey responses from students enrolled in English-medium Master’s programmes to determine whether they report knowledge of Finnish and especially of Swedish, a minority language. The likelihood a respondent reports knowledge of a local language is predicted by a model of language acquisition used on immigrant populations in bilingual countries, a model in which local language skills are considered to be a source of both social and economic capital. Over 90% of participants stated they had Finnish abilities while 21% reported having non-native Swedish skills. Almost all of those who declared being able to speak some Swedish could also speak some Finnish, a language for which they generally reported higher skills. Knowledge of Finnish was primarily associated with having a Finnish-speaking partner, living outside of a student neighborhood and originating from Russia or Central Asia. Knowledge of Swedish was mainly associated with studying in a primarily Swedish-language institution, being male and regarding as likely to live in a Nordic country in 5 years. While Finnish dominates most spheres of social life in the Helsinki Capital Region, it appears an institution of study provided sufficient exposure to the minority language of Swedish to explain in part its acquisition by international degree students. While learning Swedish was not compulsory in their study programme, respondents enrolled at a Swedish-language institution were as much as 16 times more likely than those studying at a Finnish-language institution to report knowledge of Swedish. Consequently, for newcomers like international degree students to adopt the minority language of their bilingual host community, involvement in institutions where the language is dominant might be key.
-
(2021)The thesis studies the European anti-trafficking framework, comprehending relevant EU and Council of Europe instruments, and the narrative of trafficking that it creates. The aim of the thesis is to identify the assumptions and the imagery of trafficking upon which the framework is formed as well as the exclusions and blind spots that these assumptions create. The thesis analyses the legal framework by adopting a critical feminist methodology. It studies assumptions concerning gender and migration in the trafficking narrative by first focusing on a linkage between trafficking and prostitution policies, then on a linkage between trafficking and migration and finally on connections between trafficking and other forms of gender-based violence. Assumptions of what trafficking is are produced through linkages, and sometimes lacks of linkages, between these frameworks. The thesis argues that trafficking is assumed to involve organized criminal groups trafficking migrant women to the sex industry and forced prostitution. Trafficking is combated as a form of organized crime, and legal instruments are based on this assumption. The anti-trafficking framework is also linked to migration policies as trafficking is understood as a form of irregular migration, contributing to a focus on transnational trafficking. In addition, the understanding of trafficking is marred by a debate on the nature and potential harmfulness of prostitution which has been among the most controversial issues of the anti-trafficking framework. The role of the sex industry and prostitution is thus at the focus in the debated narrative of trafficking. As the narrative of trafficking focuses on some experiences, it forgets others. Victims of trafficking taking place within romantic relationships are excluded from the narrative of trafficking, as the relational nature of trafficking remains invisible due to a focus on organized crime. Domestic trafficking victims often remain unidentified as well, as the anti-trafficking framework focuses on transnational trafficking. As the question of prostitution takes space in legal discourses around the anti-trafficking framework, other forms of trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation remain unidentified and under-analyzed. A more inclusive narrative of trafficking would be beneficial for the identification of victims. In addition to being conceptualized as a question of migration and organized crime, trafficking should be understood in more relational terms, as a form of gender-based violence with connections to other such crimes. Trafficking should altogether be understood as a complex phenomenon that can take many forms and needs to be combated in multiple ways, as generalizing assumptions are too often counterproductive and based on political motives instead of empirical analysis.
-
(2015)Based on previous research conducted in North America and Europe, young people have a negative attitude towards the police and law enforcement by showing scepticism and expression of doubt towards its legitimacy (Brown & Benedict, 2002; Brunson, 2007). This study looks into young people’s (between the ages of 14 to 17 years) attitude towards the police in Finland and the role of migration background. The literature analysis was done by using theories from a social psychological and criminological approach. The data collection was conducted in Finland using quantitative methods by using the International Self-report Delinquency Study (ISRD-3) (Kivivuori, Salmi, Aaltonen & Jouhki, 2014). The results of the regression analysis show that there is no significant association between migrant status and attitudes towards the police. However, there seems to be strong associations between police contact, self-control and delinquency.
Now showing items 21-30 of 30