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. Food is reserved primarily for registered participants, but everyone is welcome to join. It is possible to get lunch from the Lozzi restaurant and bring it downstairs to the room.
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 ends on Tuesday, 3 March at 12:00.
