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This introduction provides an analytical back ground for the notion of vulnerability as it is currently perceived mainly in social sciences, ethics, philosophy, queer studies and governmentality. Used both as descriptive and normative term, vulnerability, along with resilience and policy management, has acquired political dimensions, which are distant from those given by the philosophers Hannah Arendt and Emmanuel Levinas. In present day social and political discussions vulnerability has gained enormous popularity and seems to be a genuine 'sticky concept', an adhesive cluster of heterogeneous conceptual elements. Keywords: vulnerability, resilience, governmentality, intersectionality, racism, queer, vulnerable agency, sticky concept

This introduction provides an analytical back ground for the notion of vulnerability as it is currently perceived mainly in social sciences, ethics, philosophy, queer studies and governmentality. Used both as descriptive and normative term, vulnerability, along with resilience and policy management, has acquired political dimensions, which are distant from those given by the philosophers Hannah Arendt and Emmanuel Levinas. In present day social and political discussions vulnerability has gained enormous popularity and seems to be a genuine 'sticky concept', an adhesive cluster of heterogeneous conceptual elements. ; Peer reviewed

Résumé Dans cet article, sont analysés les récits de maladies cardiaques et de dépression à partir d'un séjour de terrain d'un an en Carélie du Nord. Depuis des siècles, cette région frontalière connaît guerre sur guerre, ce qui entraîne traumatismes, séparation, abandon, etc. De plus, depuis les années 1960, la politique rurale du gouvernement a peu à peu vidé la région de ses sources de revenu. Pour des milliers de personnes, la région est devenue un endroit d'où l'on part. De ce fait, parler de maladie en Carélie du Nord, c'est se remémorer les différentes étapes d'une histoire locale traumatisante, l'occasion de les commenter et d'agir en fonction de celles-ci.

In this article I discuss the problem of embodied subjectivity, viewed from the perspective of spatiality. The questions I address arise from my ethnographic study on chronic pain. My main argument is that, in contrast to philosophical understanding of space as an a priori, or as a container, space and spatiality are shaped and reshaped through the body in pain. What characterizes most patients' experiences of space is movement. This can be understood through Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological theory of the lived body but needs in addition a cultural contextualization. Because of biomedical thinking, in Western settings chronic pain is liminal. It does not fit the biomedical categories of disease or space. This profoundly shapes patients' understanding of their subjectivity as homeless, and their experience of spatiality as estranged and exiled.

As women have gone into paid labor in all industrialized countries, they have been recruited into jobs separate from those of men. This practice is deep-rooted and has produced a dual labor market. Anttalainen (1980) defines the dual labor market as the establishment of entirely distinct occupational sectors for women and men, even within industrial branches; the 'female sector' is always the low-paid sector. In addition, women are -when working in male-dominated branches-placed in different jobs than men. 'Female jobs' in the public sector are usually jobs that were formerly done at home (Liljestrom and Dahlstrom, 1981). The public sector has, in a way, become an extension of home. In industry, female jobs are clustered into certain branches of production, e.g., textile manufacturing, food processing, electronics, etc., which are characterized by traditional 'female' tasks. Accuracy, dexterity, speed, and endurance the central qualities of female industrial jobs -have been regarded as 'women's skills'. Women constitute 48 percent of the Finnish labor force, one of the highest percentages in the capitalist countries. The percentage of women in the labor force in industry has remained practically unchanged since the early 1960s: it is still 25 percent. This article is a discussion of dead-end jobs and sex-specificity. It is based on data collected mainly while I was participating in production for five months in spring 1981 in an electronics plant in the Helsinki area.

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AbstractWe investigated if cultural activities are associated with improved quality of life experiences of older people. In 2012, older people in five care units were invited to participate more cultural activities (study group) than usual. Each person in the study group had a tailored cultural plan integrated into the care plan. Older people in traditional care units (control group) did not have such cultural plans.One hundred sixty-one persons from care units in two cities in Finland participated in 2012 and 161 persons in 2014 in a cross-sectional study. Their quality of life was assessed with the World Health Organization's Quality of Life WHOQOL-BREF (Field Tríal Version) enquiry. The quality of life variable contained four domains: physical, psychosocial, social and environment. The values of these domains underwent multivariate analysis of variance of the following explanatory variables: intervention group, age (</= to 80 compared to >80 years old), education background, marital status, gender and comorbidities. The domains of the participants' self-rated experience were also assessed.The quality of life experience was similar at baseline in 2012 in both study groups. In 2014 the study group rated the quality of life (p<0.0001 respectively) and satisfaction with health (p=0.001 respectively) higher than the control group.Older people in care units need cultural activities as a necessary part of their care. The care provided in the care units does not put enough emphasis on this need. With individually tailored cultural activities set down in a cultural plan, care providers can ensure a better quality of life for older people.

Causal attributions of mental health problems play a crucial role in shaping and differentiating illness experience in different sociocultural and ethnic groups. The aims of this study were (a) to analyze older Somali refugees' causal attributions of mental health problems; (b) to examine the associations between demographic and diagnostic characteristics, proxy indicators of acculturation, and causal attributions; and (c) to analyze the connections between causal attributions and the manifestation of somatic-affective and cognitive depressive symptoms. A sample of 128 Somali refugees aged 50–80 years living in Finland were asked to list the top three causes of mental health problems. Depressive symptoms were analyzed using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). The results showed that the most commonly endorsed causal attributions of mental health problems were jinn, jealousy related to polygamous relationships, and various life problems. We identified five attribution categories: (a) somatic, (b) interpersonal, (c) psychological, (d) life experiences, and (e) religious causes. The most common causal attribution categories were life experiences and interpersonal causes of mental health problems. Men tended to attribute mental health problems to somatic and psychological causes, and women to interpersonal and religious causes. Age and proxy indicators of acculturation were not associated with causal attributions. Participants with a psychiatric diagnosis and/or treatment history reported more somatic and psychological attributions than other participants. Finally, those who attributed mental health problems to life experiences (e.g., war) reported marginally fewer cognitive depressive symptoms (e.g., guilt) than those who did not. The results are discussed in relation to biomedical models of mental health, service use, immigration experiences, and culturally relevant patterns of symptom manifestation.

Suicide is a puzzling phenomenon. Not only is its demarcation problematic but it also eludes simple explanation. The cultures in which suicide mortality is high do not necessarily have much else in common, and neither is a single mental illness such as depression sufficient to lead a person to suicide. In a word, despite its statistical regularity, suicide is unpredictable on the individual level. The main argument emerging from this collection is that suicide should not be understood as a separate realm of pathological behavior but as a form of human action. As such it is always dependent on the decision that the individual makes in a cultural, ethical and socio-economic context, but the context never completely determines the decision. This book also argues that cultural narratives concerning suicide have a problematic double function: in addition to enabling the community to make sense of self-inflicted death, they also constitute a blueprint depicting suicide as a solution to common human problems

Mental and somatic health was compared between older Somali refugees and their pair-matched Finnish natives, and the role of pre-migration trauma and post-migration stressors among the refugees. One hundred and twenty-eight Somalis between 50–80 years of age were selected from the Somali older adult population living in the Helsinki area ( N = 307). Participants were matched with native Finns by gender, age, education, and civic status. The BDI-21 was used for depressive symptoms, the GHQ-12 for psychological distress, and the HRQoL was used for health-related quality of life. Standard instruments were used for sleeping difficulties, somatic symptoms and somatization, hypochondria, and self-rated health. Clinically significant differences in psychological distress, depressive symptoms, sleeping difficulties, self-rated health status, subjective quality of life, and functional capacity were found between the Somali and Finnish groups. In each case, the Somalis fared worse than the Finns. No significant differences in somatization were found between the two groups. Exposure to traumatic events prior to immigrating to Finland was associated with higher levels of mental distress, as well as poorer health status, health-related quality of life, and subjective quality of life among Somalis. Refugee-related traumatic experiences may constitute a long lasting mental health burden among older adults. Health care professionals in host countries must take into account these realities while planning for the care of refugee populations.