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LIVING and LEARNING in a CHANGING EUROPEAN PERIPHERY Abstract 158. Living and learning.doc Ari Antikainen & Päivi Harinen, University of Joensuu LIVING AND LEARNING IN A CHANGING EUROPEAN PERIPHERY Abstract Living and learning in a changing European periphery In the article, the issue of ”new” identity and the meaning of education and learning for young people and adults in the changing and diversifying Finnish society are examined. The authors refer to Manuel Castells’ and Pekka Himanen’s view of Finland as a peculiar (Nordic) model of information society that forms a unique mixture of technological-economic innovation, welfare state policies and national identity. In the light of their biographical and ethnographic studies on young people’s and adults’ everyday life, education and learning, the authors try to describe the complexity and controversy of identity work on the eve of multicultural information society. Problem and perspective Finland is located far up in the North. The easternmost corner of Finland and the European Union is the province of North Karelia, where we are living and reseaching. Karelia has a special position in Finnish cultural history. A major part of Finnish folklore, for instance the poems “Kalevala” and “Kanteletar” has been collected in Karelia. Harry Martinson, a great Swedish poet, praises the symbolic beauty of Karelia in “Sång om Karelen” (Song of Karelia), a poem in his space epic “Aniara”. During World War II Finland lost a substantial part of Karelia, receiving 400 000 displaced Karelian immigrants (e.g. Mead 1988). This created a major refugee problem in a country of only 4 million people. The problem was solved by establishing about 100 000 new small farms for the Finnish Karelians. Nowadays, Finland, among other post-industrial societies, has reached a stage that often is called information age. The information-technology related business units are, however, located mainly in very few cities, especially in Helsinki region. So, North Karelia, as the rest of Eastern and Northern Finland, is classified by the EU as an underdeveloped Objective I area where the rate of unemployment is 15-20%, twice that of the country as a whole. In our article, we examine the everyday life of people living in Finland and in North Karelia in the light of our case studies. The scrutiny proceeds according to results of two research groups, one studying the meaning of education in Finnish life courses and the other concentrating on young people's everyday life (Note 1). We are especially interested in identity work in the middle of the 158. Living and learning.doc social and cultural change, which people are living through. In public discourse, this change is characterized by the terms ‘globalization’ and ‘information society.’ In everyday life this change is manifested through, among other things, tightening economic competition, in which some are winners and others are unemployed losers; through migration and immigration; and in terms of risks and uncertainty. From the outset we agree with the view that ‘globalization’ and ‘information society’ can be used to describe the surface of the transformation. The concept of ‘globalization’, used to refer to the social order, means the collapse of the cold war’s bipolar world and the emergence of a unipolar economic world system, where governments, corporations and individuals compete at coping and winning. This tendency has also often meant a decrease in welfare state structures, which especially in Finland has been hastened by a deep economic repression in the 1990s. The concept of ‘information society’ indicates technological change and intensive use of information in the economy as central features of social transformation. What are the place and meaning of education and learning for young people and adults on the eve and in the waiting room of information society? That is one question we are examining in our ethnographic and biographical studies. We are studying culture and everyday life, but at the same time we want to discuss the nature of the contemporary social change. The article proceeds from a general view of the contemporary Finnish society to a closer sight on people's life courses and everyday realities. Towards a Finnish model of information society? Based on theories of postindustrial society or informational society, Manuel Castells (1996, 13-18) argues that an informational mode of development with its distinctive social structure is historically succeeding the mode of industrial development. According to Castells’ view, societies are organized around human processes structured by historically determined relationships of production, power and experience. Human symbolic communication in time and space creates cultures and collective identities. Castells (1996, 15) states: “Symbolic communication between humans, and the relationship between humans and nature, on the basis of production (with its complement, consumption), experience, and power, crystallize over history in specific territories, thus generating cultures and collective codes.” From the point of view of social organization, informational societies are network societies: 2 158. Living and learning.doc “Networks constitute the new social morphology of our societies, and the diffusion of networking logic substantially modifies the operation and outcomes in processes of production, experience, power, and culture.” (Castells 1996, 469.) In a network society the power and influence of traditional political institutions are weakened, while media has a central position. Thus the emerging culture could be called as a media culture. As a counter-force to the media culture, and to the entire global informational market logic, a search for local cultural identity rises among people. In this search or identity crisis, people rely on such old identity markers as nationality and religion. Gender, too, is a central marker, as well as social movements like feminism and the ecological movement, business connections mediated by the new network, and new opportunities arising from new forms of mysticism. The global Net and the local Self are the central social forces of the informational society. Manuel Castells’ theories have been well received in Finland. A remarkable Finnish foundation, SITRA, has appointed Castells, together with a young philosopher Pekka Himanen, to study Finland as an information society (Castells & Himanen 2001; 2002). In their work, Castells and Himanen argue that in Finland a unique mixture of technological-economic innovation, welfare state policies and national identity has developed. They compare this Finnish model with Silicon Valley and Singapore in terms of some technological, economic, welfare and openness indicators. Finland comes out ahead in this comparison, or should we say that the Nokia Mobile Valley does. Castells’ and Himanen’s study provides evidence that also in the information society a welfare state is possible and even “a decisive contributing factor to the growth of the new economy on a stable basis” (ibid., 181). However, there are weaknesses and challenges emerging from new social structures as well, such as the rise of new inequalities and the contradiction between a strong national identity and integration in a multicultural world (Castells & Himanen 2001, 162-179). Thus, in this article we also scrutinize the issue of identity, to which Castells has paid a lot of attention as well. National identity as a history of survival Castells and Himanen (2001) state, that cultural identity and a strong feeling of nationalism are central elements of the Finnish information society. These legitimize the government’s function in 3 158. Living and learning.doc global economic competition if not in the struggle of survival. The authors also analyze through what kind of experiences this identity has been produced. First, they consider the challenge of nature in the form of cold winter. They argue that cold weather has killed more Finns than war. An extreme example are the Hunger Years of 1867-68 when cold weather delayed the sowing of the crop and then an early frost destroyed the harvest. Consequently 120 000 people, 6.5% of the whole population died (ibid. 134-5). Castells and Himanen do not, however, refer to the shortage of food in 1918 and the next decades. In any case, war has also killed a lot of Finns. The civil war in 1918, the winter war and the continuation war against the former Soviet Union in 1939-40 and 1941-44 were very bloody ones. Castells and Himanen (ibid. 138-148) list other constituents of Finnish identity like a positive attitude to technology, networks of direct and informal communication, and work ethic that is changing from a Protestant ethic towards the hacker ethic. By the hacker ethic Himanen (2001) means a hobby-like, passionate and creative relationship to work by which: ”life may become a source of enjoyment rather than a battle for survival” (ibid., 148). The basic nature of Finnish identity has, however, developed from the experience of a long history of survival and by Castells’ and Himanen’s credo the information society as a project is not just producing a new Finnish identity but it also is the Finnish “coping” identity. If we try to analyze this production and formation of Finnish identity as a story or narrative, we can not avoid some critical questions. We put them in an exaggerated form: How many and what kind of victims or losers the survival from and coping to this experience will require? Is the Finnish information society more a state strategy than a national citizens’ project? Is it realistic to believe that the promise of life as a source of enjoyment will be realized or are there new threats in the horizon? Can the possible threats be controlled by means of welfare structures, school, education, life-long learning, or identity politics? Education and biographical learning as identity producers First we look for answers to our questions from a study where several researchers collected and analyzed people's biographies. What kind of stories are the individual identity production and formation narratives? What are the place and meaning of education in these stories? We have applied the life history method and the data were collected by means of narrative biographical 4 158.
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