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Is the Finnish debate climate so heated because of the sacred values? New report on how Finns perceive sacredness

According to the report At the core of sacred. A study on Finnish values and perceptions of sacredness, church, religion and devotion are sacred to one Finn out of six.

– These are quite low numbers. We often associate sacredness especially with religion or religious institutions. However, many of the themes that people tend to hold most sacred are ones treasured by the church, such as love and peace, assesses Professor of Church and Social Studies Anne Birgitta Pessi.

The study, based on more than 6000 survey answers, was written by Professor Pessi together with researchers Ville Pitkänen and Jussi Westinen, doctors in social sciences at e2, and Henrietta Grönlund, University Lecturer in Urban Theology.

– A uniting treat is that practically every Finn holds something sacred. Also, most people gave quite versatile answers, and usually named between four and ten sacred values, Pessi emphasises.

The survey used a total of 17 categories, from which the respondents were able to choose the ones they consider to be sacred.

Every seventh Finn holds themselves and their opinions are sacred

One of the most surprising research results was that 14 percent of the Finns see themselves and their opinions as sacred. This is most common among people below 30 years of age (27 %).

– In the age of social media, everybody’s right to an opinion is accentuated. Perhaps the current climate of discussion is linked to the reality that some Finns consider their own opinions sacred, researcher Jussi Westinen ponders.

Sacred has different meanings to value conservatives and value liberals

The divide between value-conservative and value-liberal views is evident in politics and public debate. Differences extend to the perception of sacred. To 70 percent of those with very conservative values, Finland and its independence are sacred, but only 20 percent of the very value-liberal think alike.

Traditions, along with church and religion, are held sacred by nearly a third of the strongly value-conservative and a tenth of the strongly value-liberal.

Those with very liberal values have an above-average tendency to attribute sacredness to human dignity, individual freedom, science, art and culture. Among very value-conservative that is distinctly rarer.

– These differences may explain conflicts in public debate. What is a matter without interest to some, may be sacred and untouchable to others. Clashes occur when you don’t recognize what is sacred to other people, or if you offend them deliberately, researcher Ville Pitkänen reflects.

Political affiliation divides views on human dignity and fatherland

Finland and its independence are sacred to the majority of True Finns (70 %), Blue Reform (66 %), Centre Party (58 %) and National Coalition Party (56 %) supporters, but to a fourth of Left Alliance (23 %) and Green League (29 %) supporters.

The emphasis on human dignity, on the other hand, is high among Left Alliance (68 %) and Green League (65 %) supporters, compared to a third of True Finns (31 %) and Blue Reform (37 %) supporters.

Art and culture are most sacred to Left Alliance supporters, least to Blue Reform supporters

One out of five holds art, culture and music as sacred. Art is sacred to 36 percent of Left Alliance supporters, but to only 10 percent of Blue Reform supporters. In general, the sacredness of art is shared by left-wing supporters and liberals.

City dwellers (29 %), too, hold art, culture and music sacred more often than those living in sparsely populated rural areas (12 %). The age group most likely to name these values as sacred are those under 30.

All in all, the perception of sacred correlates only to some extent with gender, age, profession, education or domicile. Sacredness thus bridges over many demographical boundaries.

”At the core of sacred. A study on Finnish values and perceptions of sacredness” is the fourth publication of a research project focusing on identity. The research results are based on 6398 survey answers, gathered by Taloustutkimus between 5 Oct 2017 and 11 Jan 2018 through face-to-face interviews and web panels. The research project was planned, financed and carried out jointly by the Finnish Cultural Foundation and e2.

The research report will be published at Finlandia Hall on 12 December at 10 a.m. The event will be opened by Antti Arjava, Secretary General of the Finnish Cultural Foundation. A presentation of the results will be followed by a panel discussion with Jaakko Heinimäki, Editor in Chief at Kirkko & Kaupunki; Paula Laine, Director at Sitra, the Finnish Innovative Fund; and Tuire Santamäki-Vuori, Director at THL, the National Institute for Health and Welfare.

The report is downloadable in Finnish at www.e2.fi

For more information, please contact
Professor Anne Birgitta Pessi, Dr.(Theol.),  tel. +358 41 544 3424, anne.b.pessi@helsinki.fi
Researcher Ville Pitkänen, Dr.(Soc.Sc.), tel. +358 40 777 0869, ville.pitkanen@e2.fi
Researcher Jussi Westinen, Dr.(Soc.Sc.), tel. +358 40 833 5799, jussi.westinen@e2.fi

Jarkko Räsänen, Hôtel Chevillon, 2018

”Emo”, 2018, Jarkko Räsänen

”Emo”, 2018, Jarkko Räsänen

My plan for the residency period at Hotel Chevillon was to focus on digitalising the photography archives of my parents, who were enthusiastic amateurs in their youth and from whom I learned my first skills in the field, for further processing. In my artistic practice, I have been interested in reordering the structures of photo and video files by means of artistic programming in order to visualise hidden properties within them, resulting in semi-abstract digital collages flirting with painting tradition. The peaceful and historical surroundings of the residency resonated well with the project about personal microhistories. Terrifyingly though, 90% of the archives were destroyed during my residency as an arsonist destroyed my mother’s house in Finland before she had had time to send me more material – But if I had not taken the 10% with me to France, everything would be gone now.

Nevertheless, I was immediately intrigued by the contemplative surroundings of the hotel and started studying the landscape intensively with my camera: I developed a new variation of my photo-deconstruction algorithm and created a series of neo-impressionistic nature photographs during my stay. I also worked on other structural experimentations that will serve as a good starting point for future projects.

Encounters with my fellow artists turned out fruitful: With a composer we created a video for his new music concert dealing with former resident August Strindberg’s paranoiac episodes. (The collaboration will continue next year). With an artist, we created a soundscape for his exhibition. I was also lucky to collect the first interviews for my upcoming documentary ”1ibrary 0f 1oss” about stories of losing data. My stay in Grez also enabled me to participate in the Food Art Week exhibition in Paris, where I presented a sound art piece based on my earlier recordings of a fermentation process recorded with a self-made piezo microphone.

The residency period was outstandingly productive and refreshing at the same time. The closeness of Paris made it possible to explore the cultural life there, which had previously been unknown to me. I am truly grateful of the possibility to spend time in Grez.

www.jarkkorasanen.com

PS. In the end I even stepped out of my artistic comfort zone, grabbed a guitar and recorded a sentimental song accompanied with a silly video featuring the birds of the river Loing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDvzyOAjTg4

Grants for Artists’ Residencies

Hôtel Chevillon

Elina Vainio, Artspace, 2018

Deep Listening event with Uncle Wes Marne, as part of Keg de Souza's exhibition Common Knowledge and Learning Curves, July 2018

Deep Listening event with Uncle Wes Marne, as part of Keg de Souza’s exhibition. Pic: Elina Vainio

I exited Sydney’s Kings Cross station very early in the morning in early June and was welcomed to the city by a flock of low-flying cockatoos, whose grating shrieks made my arrival feel really special – that these long hours of travel had really taken me someplace else. This kind of feeling of wonder towards many strange fruits of evolution in the insularity of the continent, its soft sandstone cliffs shaped by the wind and water, stayed with me until the very end of my stay.

A work in progress in the studio

A work in progress in the studio. Pic: Elina Vainio

The Artspace is staffed with great people and there were many great talks and other public programs that make it an active space for a residency. I don’t know if this is a particularly Australian character trait, but everyone was easy-going and sociable. In the other studio spaces, all along the same hallway, there were 10 artists, mostly local but some visiting, whose practices and backgrounds were varied, yet all very lovely people.

The scene or scenes of art seemed active and fascinating to me. I saw good shows, some in less conventional gallery settings, such as a car park and a private apartment. As I was quite busy preparing works for exhibitions, I wish there could have been another less production-oriented month for seeing more of the country. I’ve thought about this before and thought about it this time around, too, that it often takes a surprisingly long time to kind of tune in and get adjusted into a new context of living and working. In Sydney and at Artspace, however, it was relatively smooth thanks to the easiness of the city, location of the residency, its people, the space provided and the practical support at hand when needed.

Grants for Artists’ Residencies

Artspace

Anna Maria Häkkinen, O Espaço do Tempo, 2018

In June 2018, we were fortunate enough to spend three weeks working in O Espaço do Tempo, a beautiful old monastery located in Montemor o Novo in Portugal. The piece we were working on, titled DANCE, had already started materialising during two previous residency periods in Finland and Belgium, and the time we spent at O Espaço do Tempo provided us with a great opportunity to develop the work further. Like the name of the place suggests, it gave us exactly what we needed at the moment: space and time, along with the opportunity to share the process with insightful visiting artists and people working at the residency.

The core idea, and problem, of DANCE was to make a dance piece that would not be about something, and to make room for dance as a pleasurable, intellectual, and political activity in itself. Our working group at the residency consisted of three people: a choreographer, a dancer and a musician/designer. Our goal was to work on the choreographic and philosophical principles of the material in order to arrive at a general idea of the piece before we started to rehearse with all six of the dancers in August. The piece, which premiered in October, really seemed to benefit from this kind of approach, as it gave us the opportunity to concentrate on the rehearsing and dancing of the material during the final rehearsal period.

During the residency, we worked in two different studios out of which the one with wooden floors suited our work perfectly. On the last working day of the residency we had a short showing followed by a group talk with the residency staff and other visiting artists. This, along with the previous conversations we had had with others, provided us with new ways of thinking and writing about the work. It also gave us one experience of how the work interacts with its audience, and how this presence alters our own experience.

Grants for Artists’ Residencies

O Espaço do Tempo

The Finnish Cultural Foundation is aiming to evaluate and develop its activities

Have you applied for or received a grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation between the years 2005 and 2007? If so, you have received an invite to participate in an online study that investigates the impact of the Foundation’s doctoral dissertation funding. The questionnaire is open until November 27th.

The study is conducted in association with the Finnish Cultural Foundation and Optifluence Ltd. The information of the respondents to the questionnaire will be treated in confidence by Optifluence Ltd.

We are looking forward to receiving your responses!

Lotta Toivanen, Hôtel Chevillon, 2017

In the beautiful old house, you could almost hear ghost footsteps echoing.

Lotta Toivanen, literary translator. Pic: Eeva Pavy

Lotta Toivanen, literary translator. Pic: Eeva Pavy

During my stay at Hôtel Chevillon in the summer of 2017, I worked on a selection of short stories by the contemporary French author Anna Gavalda. The selection Fendre l’armure consisted of seven stories, and I finished the first draft of my translation into Finnish while in Grez-sur-Loing.

Grez was a charming little village, quiet and peaceful, enabling me to fully concentrate on my translation project. Yet, during the pauses, there was always someone downstairs in the common kitchen to chat with.

In the beautiful old house, you could almost hear the footsteps of residents long past echoing down the halls: Strindberg, Stevenson and company passing by… Yes, the surroundings were most inspiring for writing; I also did quite a bit of meditative cycling along the numerous trails at the nearby Fontainebleau Forest as well.

In the city of Fontainebleau, some ten kilometres away, I got the chance to listen to and exchange with the local people. Time flew – and what a lovely time it was – but I got my project done on time. My Finnish translation of Gavalda’s collection was published in the following spring under the title Lohikäärmetatuointi ja muita pintanaarmuja.

Grants for Artists’ Residencies

Hôtel Chevillon

Swedish-speaking Finns do not share a uniform identity

Identiteettejä kahdella kielellä, tutkimus suomen- ja ruotsinkielisistä

Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking Finns have surprisingly similar identities, values and attitudes. Both groups have nearly as many value liberals and value conservatives and their societal attitudes are almost identical. These are results of Identities in two languages – a study of Swedish-speaking and Finnish-speaking Finns, a new research report by the Finnish Cultural Foundation and e2. The report, written by e2 researchers Ville Pitkänen and Jussi Westinen, was based on more than 6 000 survey answers.

Differences between Swedish-speaking in Ostrobothnia and the Helsinki region are the biggest

In their identity, Swedish-speaking Ostrobothnians stress family, region and religion. In the Helsinki region, the emphasis is on gender, social class, political stance and a European identity.

Those considering themselves value liberals are in majority in the Helsinki region (58 %) and South-West Finland (52 %).

There are differences in the value basis, too: those considering themselves value liberals are in majority in the Helsinki region (58 %) and South-West Finland (52 %). In Ostrobothnia and Central Ostrobothnia liberal values are clearly scarcer (34 %). This regional variation is similar in both languages.

– Traditions, a down-to-earth attitude and a strong sense of pride in the area from which the family comes are characteristic also to Finnish-speaking Ostrobothnians. Interestingly, is it does not rule out a cosmopolitan identity, which is as strong in Ostrobothnia as in the Helsinki region, notes researcher Jussi Westinen.

Regional identities especially important to Swedish-speaking

Attachment to place plays a significant role in the identity of most Finns, including Swedish-speaking. People tend to direct this attachment to their childhood surroundings and region, and to their current home region.

– We observed that the emphasis on geographical attachment correlates with the share of Swedish-speaking population in the municipality. This finding can be explained partly through low migration, partly because the Swedish-speaking local communities are tightly knit, says Jussi Westinen.

Only slightly higher share of value liberals among Swedish-speaking  

On the whole, Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking Finns are surprisingly similar with regard to societal attitudes, values and identities. For examples attitudes to the social status of different groups of citizens, work-life questions, media and culture are parallel. The language groups did not take opposite views on any of the more than thirty questions measuring societal attitudes.

On a scale of liberal vs conservative, too, differences were small. 44 percent of the Swedish-speaking and 39 percent of the Finnish-speaking saw themselves as value liberals, and there was only a slightly higher share of value conservatives among the Finnish-speaking (33 % compared to 26 % Swedish-speaking).

44 percent of the Swedish-speaking and 39 percent of the Finnish-speaking saw themselves as value liberals

Swedish-speaking tend to emphasize more their political stance as a part of their identity. However, this is not connected to supporters of the Swedish People’s Party but to left-wing voters among the Swedish-speaking.

– The same observation is valid for the population as a whole. Politics is particularly often part of the identity of Left Alliance supporters, tells Ville Pitkänen.

Strong minority identity among those who worry

For over 60 percent of Swedish-speaking Finns, belonging to a minority was important to their identity. This is the clearest difference between the two language groups. Another significant difference is that only 3 percent of the Finnish-speaking but as many as 30 percent of the Swedish-speaking think that the latter are mistreated.

For over 60 percent of Swedish-speaking Finns, belonging to a minority was important to their identity.

The concern about how Swedish-speaking are treated links to the identity of belonging to a minority. Almost half (45 %) of those emphasizing their minority identity feel that Swedish-speaking are treated poorly, compared to a mere fifth (19 %) among those who give no importance to the minority identity.

– However, our study does not reveal cause and effect. Do those identifying themselves strongly with the Swedish-speaking minority pay more attention to how the language group is treated? Or is it the other way around, i.e. do the worries strengthen the minority identity? It could be a two-way effect, ponders Ville Pitkänen.

The research report Identities in two languages – a study of Swedish-speaking and Finnish-speaking Finns is the third out of four publications within the project. The fourth, on sacredness, is due at the end of 2018.

The research results are based on 6398 survey answers, gathered by Taloustutkimus between 5 Oct 2017 and 11 Jan 2018 through face-to-face interviews and web panels. The analyses and the report were made by e2, and the research project was planned and financed jointly by the Finnish Cultural Foundation and e2. The third publication was published with the support of The Swedish Cultural Foundation of Finland.

For more information, please contact

Mr. Ville Pitkänen, Dr.(Pol.Sc.), ville.pitkanen@e2.fi
Mr. Jussi Westinen, Dr.(Pol.Sc.), jussi.westinen@e2.fi

The Cultural Foundation’s October round of grant applications

In 2019, the Cultural Foundation will award a total of 39,5 million euros in grants, of which 26 million euros in the Central Fund October round of applications. The regional funds will award 12,8 million euros in the January round of applications.

The Central Fund Grant application period is open from October 1 to October 31 2018. Applications can be found at www.skr.fi/haku. The Online Application Service closes at 4 pm local Finnish time (Eastern European Time) on the deadline date.

Eligible applicants include all Finnish nationals, people and organisations residing or working in Finland. Others are eligible as well, provided their application demonstrates clear, strong ties to Finland or Finnish culture.

Artists may apply for grants for work and project purposes. In addition, organisations may apply for grants to carry out cultural projects. For the first time, games are included in the application as their own field. You may apply for a grant for the artistic design or development of games. The game must have artistic, cultural or social aims.

The science grants are specifically aimed at doctoral dissertation work and post-doctoral scientific research. In the field of science, it is possible to combine salaried employment with grant funding by applying for a Combined Funding for Doctoral Students grant. The annual grant sum for postdoctoral research work will be increased to 30 000 euros – other annual grants will remain at 24 000 euros.

The Eminentia and Art for Institutions grants are open for applications as in the previous years.

Additional funding for medicine

In the 2018 October round of applications, the Finnish Cultural Foundation is granting additional funding of approximately one million euros for clinical studies in genome medicine and precision medicine. The application is open to all branches of medicine, but due to the nature of its donor funds, the Cultural Foundation invites applications particularly in the field of rheumatology. The additional funding will support 1-5 research projects. The funding is granted for a maximum of three years and may be used for the working grants of doctoral or postdoctoral researchers, as well as other research expenses.

Detailed application guidelines and further information on grants can be found at www.skr.fi/en/grants.

 

Additional Funding for Medical Research

As part of its application round for October 2018, the Cultural Foundation will grant additional fund totalling around one million euros intended for clinical studies in genome medicine and precision medicine.

The additional grant funding will be awarded to between one and five research projects. Due to the nature of the Cultural Foundation’s donor funds, the foundation is hoping to receive applications particularly from the area of rheumatology research, but applications are welcomed from all fields of medicine.

The funding is intended especially for young clinical researchers who are just setting up their own research teams. Applications may be made in the name of teams of several researchers, but not entire universities or research institutions. Funding is granted for a maximum of three years and may be used to cover doctoral or post-doc researchers’ working grants, as well as other costs arising from the research.

Unlike the Cultural Foundation’s customary practices, applications may also be made by a research team leader on behalf of the rest of the team – i.e. the signatory of the application does not have to be one of the grant recipients. A research proposal in Finnish or English may be appended to the application, but the abstract on the application form must be in Finnish.

The application period is from 1st to 31st October.