Passion and Exploitation Among Young Adults with Different Labor Market Status in Europe

The aim of this article is to describe and analyze the relationship between attitudes to work, wellbeing, and labor market status among young adults in Europe and to discuss the extent to which the relationship can be understood in terms of passion or exploitation. This aim is made concrete in the following research questions: To what extent do young adults in Europe have a passionate attitude to work? Are there differences between groups with various labor market status and nationalities? Are there differences in levels of well-being between the groups of young adults with different labor market status, and differences between the countries? The results are based on an individual survey conducted with three categories of young people (18–34 years old): long-term unemployed, those in precarious employments, and those regularly employed. The study had a cross-national comparative design and the countries included were France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland

Självständighetens livsform(er) och småföretagande : tillämpning och utveckling av realistisk livsformsanalys

This thesis focuses on the realist life mode analysis, especially the independent life mode, and the empirical field of entrepreneurship – running a small firm. The aim is to broaden the general understanding for entrepreneurship to include non-capitalistic rationality through application and development of realist life mode analysis. The application of the analysis is done by studying different social phenomena within the field of entrepreneurship. The two phenomena in question are expansion of small firms and trust between an entrepreneur and an employee, and flexibility in small firms. The problem concerning this theoretical application has to do with showing how life mode analysis can be used to explain that entrepreneurship does not have to be about capitalism. The problem concerning theoretical development has to do with identifying social relations and mechanisms that constitute the everyday life of entrepreneurs. The study has been carried out as a qualitative interview study and it is based on the methodology of critical realism. Concerning expansion and trust between an entrepreneur and an employee, my study shows that as an expression of an entrepreneur’s socio centric life mode specific way to interpret reality trust can be an obstacle for employing extra labour-force outside the own firm. Trust can also be an obstacle for an existing relationship to function smoothly if the entrepreneur and the employee live different life modes. However, my study shows that trust can also function as a possible incitement for employment. My conclusion concerning flexibility is that the concept of flexibility, defined with a starting point in the capitalist principles of the economic market, is occasionally misused in literature. My structural perspective shows that not all small firms are driven by these motives powers. Capitalistic small firms do exist and are to be described as flexible, but not all small firms. The size of the firm conditions entrepreneurship in many ways but it does not condition the rationality. My study also shows that the independent life mode as described in the theory so far characterizes simple commodity production and not production of services. Structural changes seem to have resulted in two different life modes for independent entrepreneurs; a commodity specific independent life mode and a service specific independent life mode

Next to you - self-portrait coloured by the breast cancer

Taiteellisesti suuntautunut opinnäytetyöni käsittelee omakuvaa. Tutkin osallistuvan taiteentutkimuksen keinoin, miten syöpäkokemus on muokannut identiteettiäni ja millaista kuvastoa ja taiteellista toimintaa omakohtainen rintasyöpäkokemus on tuottanut ja edelleen tuottaa. Miten se on värittänyt ja muovannut taiteellista ilmaisuani ja ajatteluani. Ajattelun visualisointi taiteen keinoin on yritys kommunikoida ympäristön kanssa. Työni visuaalisessa kuvastossa on nähtävissä kolme eri kerrostumaa, kolme eri näkökulmaa: yksityinen, jaettu ja julkinen. Yksityisen piiriin kuuluu visuaalinen päiväkirja eli syöpäprosessin aikana otetut valokuvat, jaetun kuvaston muodostavat voimakuvat Soturi ja Frida ja julkisia ovat videoinstallaatio RintaRinnan, teos Turvaverkko sekä uudet, varta vasten lopputyöhön liittyvään julkisesti AMF-Galleriassa 3.-26.9.2014 esillä olleeseen näyttelyyn tehdyt teokset. Tarkkailen ja analysoin itseäni, kokemiani elämyksiä ja ajatuksia taiteen tekemisen prosessissa kuvien ja dokumentaatioiden avulla jälkikäteen, mutta myös samanaikaisesti uusia teoksia työstäessäni. Nojaudun fenomenologiseen lähestymistapaan. Kuvilla ja teoksilla on niiden välittämän totuuden, mielikuvien ja synnyttämien ajatusten kautta merkitystä katsojalle ja sitäkautta yhteiskunnassa vallitsevalle (nais)ruumiinkuvalle. Teoksissani kuvaan niitä emootioita ja tunteita, joita syöpäkokemus minussa herätti. Materiaaliksi on valikoitunut lähes itsestään selvästi rintaliivit, sillä rintasyöpä kohdistuu ensisijaisesti juuri tuohon vaatekappaleeseen.My artistic MA thesis deals with self-portrait. What kind of visual imagery and art practise has the personal experience of breast cancer produced - and still produces? How has it coloured and shaped my artistic expression and thinking? Visualizing my thinking through art has been my way to communicate with the others. In the visual imagery of my thesis, three layers and three points of view can be seen: the private, the shared and the public. The private includes my visual journal, consisting of the photos I took during the cancer process. The shared includes the power pictures, the Warrior and Frida. The public includes the video installation Rintarinnan, the art piece Turvaverkko (Safety net) and the new artwork, created specifically for the final thesis project, exhibited at the AMF Gallery (3-26.9.2014) I observe and analyse myself, my experiences and thoughts in the process of art creation, with the help of images and documents, taken both before but also during the process of creation. My framework is phenomenology. The images and artwork have, due to the truth, vision and thoughts they deliver, meaning to the public and to the way the (female) body is perceived in society. My artwork processes the emotions and feelings that the cancer experience in me have raised. It is almost self-evident that the material I have used are bras – the one piece of clothing most related to breast cancer