Do Kalevi Sorsa and Petteri Orpo share anything in their views about human wellbeing?
The pursuit of well-being guides the functioning of societies and is generally accepted as a justification for various policy measures. Therefore, the prevailing understanding of well-being has a significant impact on societal targets, also those concerning sustainability transformations. The paradigms of well-being, i.e. widely shared core beliefs about the nature of reality and desirable state of affairs, are often unspoken, even unconscious and their elements appear as common sense or ‘beyond politics’. A critical examination of whether the paradigms of transformation well-being in modern Finland are compatible with the sustainability is needed. Whose well-being claims are recognized? On which ontological, normative, and epistemological assumptions are the paradigms of well-being based on? What are the components of well-being paradigms in contemporary Finnish societies? In this lunch colloquium, we offer preliminary findings from qualitative research in which we interpret and describe paradigmatic assumptions related to well-being conveyed in Finnish government programs in 1983-2023.
About the project
The project Paradigms of wellbeing and the possibility of a sustainability transformation, funded by the Kone Foundation and led by Assistant Professor Teea Kortetmäki, examines the connections between the sustainability transformation and the concept of sustainable well-being. The first objective is to identify the prevailing well-being paradigms in Finnish society and examine their connections and implications for the possibility of a sustainability transformation. The second objective is to build a theoretical framework for an alternative well-being paradigm, based on the concept of planetary well-being, to promote transformation and reform social policy. The project team consists of postdoctoral researchers Annika Lonkila, Liia-Maria Raippalinna, and Miikka Salo, and PhD researcher Linda Majander.
Welcome to the event!
This event is open for all, and it is organized on-site only. Participants will be served a vegan salad lunch, during which you get to hear an interesting research presentation as described above. There is also room for interdisciplinary discussion around the topic.
Note: the first 15 minutes are reserved for taking lunch and settling down, and the actual program begins at 11:30.
Registration
A salad lunch and coffee/tea will be served to registered participants. Non-registered participants are also most welcome, but food is reserved primarily for those who registered (note: it is also possible to get lunch from the Lozzi restaurant and bring it downstairs to the room).
Registration for the lunch has ended.
