Browsing by study line "Teologian opintosuunta"
Now showing items 1-7 of 7
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(2023)This case study analyzes post-conflict intervention and internal displacement from a broader Iraq context. The research is conducted through case studies, utilizing content analysis of five publicly available ongoing development plans. The plans are investigated with content analysis to find out 1) how internal displacement is taken into consideration within the context of post-conflict reconstruction, 2) how post-conflict intervention and internal displacement are framed, and 3) how durable the solutions to displacement are. This study aims to get an insight into how development is planned and where the emphasis lies in the post-conflict reconstruction context of Iraq. The theoretical framework of this study builds on Yosef Jabareen's framework on post-conflict reconstruction intervention and the Inter-Agency Standing Committee's (IASC) framework on durable solutions for the internally displaced. By combining these frameworks, the study analyzes the concepts interconnectedly, providing a deeper understanding of Iraq in a specific time and context. The analysis reveals that the documents consider the issue of internal displacement, with sustainable development forming the basis for planning. However, the approach and emphasis on these topics vary across the plans, where most attention is put on priorities and challenges to reconstruction. Moreover, external intervention, inclusion, and cooperation are said to be needed to achieve durable solutions. The government of Iraq is the leading actor in development, so much emphasis is put on government action and change. It is recommended that the government should increase implementation efforts and specify how the development goals and targets are to be achieved because the current development plans only offer guidelines for future development. The plans are structured within the durable solutions framework for migration. However, this does not necessarily align with the reality.
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(2022)This thesis investigates the transnational identities among current-day expatriate Finns around the world. It asks, what is the nature of transnational identity among these individuals who have emigrated from Finland? What is the level of their connectedness to their own Finnishness, on one hand, and to supranational identities such as Europeanness and internationality, on the other? The motivation to investigate the topic rises from the notion that the issues related to Finnish people in various expatriate communities, as well as their potential return migration, appears to have growing interest in Finland. The aim is also to contribute to the existing research literature by adding more contemporary theoretical approaches of migration studies to the investigations of expatriate Finns. The data (n=3195) was collected through a survey carried out in research project titled "The Changing Nature of Being an Expatriate Finn: Survey on Emigration and Expatriate Finns" (The Migration Institute of Finland, 2020-2021). Cluster analysis as an example of the so-called person-centered analyses was chosen as a method. The benefits of cluster analysis go hand in hand with the awareness that the focus group, expatriate Finns, is not a homogenous group but that the motivations of these people to move abroad as well as their lifestyles and circumstances vary greatly. Cluster analyses revealed three clearly different groups of people with respect to their Finnishness, Europeanness and internationality. In the first cluster, the three different identity markers were not seen as exclusionary, and a strong attachment to both the country of origin and the host country was not viewed to be incompatible. These individuals possessed the freedom to maintain and reject different sides of their identities depending on the context. The perspective of privilege was also considered, as their mobility was possible due to their relatively high quality of life and the social and human capital obtained over the years. Individuals in the second cluster gave high regard to Finnish identity which had often activated outside of Finland. Negative feelings, such as home sickness and disappointment in the life abroad, were also reported. These individuals also defined Finnishness in rather stereotypical ways and reduced the concept to a few well-known traits. This way, it was easy for them to emphasize their own belongingness to this homogenous category of Finns. Lastly, the individuals in the third cluster rejected the affiliation to the national identity of Finnishness altogether, their perceptions about Finland and other Finns varying from casual indifference to an apparent hostility. Instead, Europeanness and internationality were embraced as identities more inclusive and less particular.
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(2023)This thesis investigates the compatibility of the French, Republican values and Islam as portrayed in the Charter of the Republican Values (La Charte des principes pour l’islam de France). It asks the question of whether there is, according to the Charter, a fundamental incompatibility between the two or whether the two can coexist in a person’s identity. The aim is to discover which types of discourse relating to Islam’s place in the French society this Charter furthers. The Charter of the Republican Values is a charter written by the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) and commissioned by the French government. The Charter was published in January 2021, and thus offers a new angle into the research on Islam in France. It is document consisting of ten articles which touch upon subjects such as foreign influence, laïcité, equality, and education. With the use of Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) the Charter is analyzed on multiple levels to determine its place in the larger, societal picture. All discourse is affected by power structures, which subsequently affect the social order. CDA’s aim is to analyze the material in question to find out how it fits into the discourse and which types of power structures it is a) affected by and b) it furthers. The authors of the Charter of the Republican Values clearly state that the Republican values and Islam are compatible. However, upon further analysis and the application of CDA it becomes clear that this is the case with islam de France, a specific version of Islam that the French government deems appropriate for the French context. Thus, the Charter furthers the belief that there are “good” and “bad” Muslims and acceptable and non-acceptable versions of Islam, and further divides the nation. It also clearly demonstrates the hegemony of the core French values which date back to the French Revolution. Finally, it furthers the belief of Islamic exceptionalism and legitimizes treating Islam differently than other religions in the French context.
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Sacred body of the parliament : Religious populism of the political discourse around the trans-law (2023)The popularity of populism, especially right-wing populism, has been one of the most central global political trends of the 21st century. One central aspect of right-wing populism is its close relationship to Christianity and the product of this collaboration is religious populism. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze whether this closeness is true in Finnish political context. I have examined whether the populist and religious populist rhetoric was used in three proceedings of the commonly called trans-law in the Finnish Parliament between 2022 and 2023. According to my research, political speech combines the three core features of the populist style: built-in demagogy, performance of threats and bad manners (Moffitt 2016) and uses religion as a framing device counts as religious populism. The amount of populist rhetoric in my data was significant. According to the data analysis several representatives use a lot of different populist style rhetorical means and religious populism in their political speech. Demagogy appeared both as traditional dichotomy between the people and the elite as well as between liberal and conservative representatives. The bad manners appeared mostly as colorful and informal self-expression and within the use of false information. The performance of various crises, threats and collapses was appearing primarily as a concern about the fundamental collapse of the values of the Finnish welfare state. As a conclusion it can be said that the use of religious populist style in Finland follows largely the same legalities than abroad. All of these enable religion and its symbolism and tradition to be utilized in different ways. This research backs up the consensus about religious populism being a global phenomenon and somehow similar regardless of the local context. According to the results of my analysis, in Finland, religion was used in many ways as a rhetorical device as part of political speech.
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(2022)Counter-terrorism discourses have been increasingly studied during the recent decades but still mostly in the context of the Global North. One of the key researchers in this area is Elizabeth Shakman Hurd whose ‘Two Faces of Faith’ conceptual framework shows the tensions and consequences that arise when religion becomes an object of international public policy. The current study uses critical discourse analysis to apply this framework to two West African cases, ECOWAS and the G5 Sahel, to see how they construct the role of religion and religious actors in conflicts and peacebuilding. The data consist of 10 publicly available counter-terrorism and peacebuilding policy documents of the two organizations. The findings indicate that the ‘two faces’ framework is a relevant and useful analytical lens for investigating the role religious actors are given within the context of counter-terrorism and prevention of violent extremism. However, the documents are not a reproduction of Hurd’s arguments and often, the discourses do not follow the secularist dichotomies of the ‘two faces’ framework. Instead, religion is conceptualized through its role and position in the complex historical, cultural, and social systems in the region. Thus, even though the ‘two faces’ framework has been successfully used to explain the US-led political discourse on religion, more complex approaches based in systems thinking might be needed to conceptualize the West African understanding of the issue.
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(2022)Finnish society is increasingly pluralistic regarding religion, and especially Muslims are rapidly growing in numbers. The population structure of Muslims in Finland is increasingly young, yet young Muslims’ experiences are currently under-studied. Muslims have been present in Finland since the early 19th century, along with other ethnic and religious minorities. Still, ever since then, Finland has been viewed as culturally homogeneous. This is connected to the view of Lutheranism as an intrinsic part of the Finnish national identity. This has led to an exclusion of people who do not belong to the category of Finnishness, and thus resulted in anti-Muslim racism. The objective of this master’s thesis is three-fold. The first aim is to contribute to the currently scarce research on social media representations of Islam and Muslims. Secondly, the existing media research on Islam and Muslims is heavily concentrated on media produced by non-Muslims, rather than media produced by Muslims themselves. Especially, research on media representations produced by young Finnish Muslims themselves are next to none. Thirdly, previous research shows that young Muslims in Europe are mostly studied in relation to issues of extremism, radicalization and violence. The manifolded nature of Muslim identities is not considered enough in the academia, and thus it is important to adopt an intersectional research approach that considers Muslims’ different identity categories, such as religion, ethnicity and age. This is done through qualitatively examining young Finnish Muslims in a previously unstudied social media environment: podcasts. The thesis answers two research questions: 1. ‘How do young Muslims negotiate their identities, especially in relation to Finnishness?’ and 2. ‘How are experiences of racism discussed in podcasts produced by young Muslims in Finland?’ The data of the thesis consists of four episodes from three different podcasts produced by young Finnish Muslims, ‘Ramadan Radio: Limitless Talks’, ‘Kahden kulttuurin väkeä’ and ‘Kh4nVision Podcast’. The thesis adopts a social constructionist approach to studying identity, based on the assumption that knowledge is produced in interaction with others. The chosen analytical methodology is critical discourse analysis (CDA). Six dominant discourses emerged from the data in the analysis: 1) intersectional identities as problematic; 2) code-switching between different identities; 3) Islam as an identity marker; 4) agency in change; 5) assigning responsibility of racism to the structures; and 6) internalized racism. The results reflect a complicated reality of being a young Muslim in Finland. In the podcasts, young Muslims negotiate their intersectional identities in relation to Finnishness from a problem-based perspective. Experiences of racism are manifested in the podcasts in numerous ways, from code-switching to reproducing racist language. The results of the study indicate that young Finnish Muslims’ identity is socially constructed and religious and ethnic identities are interconnected. The results of the thesis also show that discourse of identities is tightly connected to the context of production and the assumed audience of the content. The results support previous research findings, demonstrating that Muslims choose to emphasize different parts of their identity in contexts where Islam is not at center stage.
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(2021)This thesis explores the connection between interfaith dialogue and building positive peace through the case study of Together for Finland (TFF), a youth-led interfaith dialogue program. It does so through the main research question ‘How does TFF understand and utilize interfaith dialogue and to what end?’ In this way the thesis also seeks to contribute to the understanding of how and why youth in particular engage in interfaith dialogue and peacebuilding. Arising from the data of the study, the thesis also examines the role of non-religious participants in interfaith dialogue. To achieve these goals, this thesis builds on two main theoretical foundations. The first is a wider understanding of peace and peacebuilding reliant on Johan Galtung’s concept of positive peace. The relation of this to religious peacebuilding and peace education is also explored to better understand how it connects to the work of TFF. The second relies on the social identity theory by Tajfel and Turner to examine the role of identities and intergroup relations in TFF’s work. In connection, concepts and models of interfaith and intergroup dialogue are explored to reflect on how TFF’s format of interfaith dialogue relates to existing theoretical models of dialogue. The particularities present in TFF’s work, mainly that the participants are youth and some identify as non-religious, are examined in relation to previous research on the topic. The main data set for this thesis is interpersonal semi-structured interviews with six active members of TFF, whose selection is based on purposeful sampling. A secondary data set is an exhibition TFF held on the topic of their work. The study takes a constructionist and qualitative approach to gain a comprehensive understanding of how the interviewees, and through them TFF, construct their understanding of the concepts of interfaith dialogue and peacebuilding along with their work. The data is analysed using qualitative content analysis as a method. The study found that active members of TFF construct their understanding of their work through four main categories. Firstly, majority of their work relies on a storytelling method based on personal narratives. Secondly, identities feature prominently in their work through a focus on facilitating identity exploration and breaking prejudices and TFF has found a way to successfully include non-religious participants and values their participation. Thirdly, the main focus of their dialogue format is to bring people together to learn from each other and to improve intergroup relationships. And fourthly, they seek to build peace through increasing awareness of inequalities and subsequent motivation to engage in social justice work. Through all of this youth are viewed as key actors, both in engaging in dialogue and in creating change, and the youth perspective shapes their work.
Now showing items 1-7 of 7