{"title":"The hidden city of immigrants in Helsinki's urban leftovers – the homogenization of the city and the lost diversity","authors":"Hossam Hewidy","doi":"10.11143/fennia.121457","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.121457","url":null,"abstract":"Cities acknowledge the diversity of their population and consider the multicultural component a richness of their socio-cultural assets. Immigrants contribute to the reshaping of urban space in many European cities through their amenities. Such amenities, be they secular or spiritual, are a clear spatialization of multiculturalism. Ethnic retail is an emerging phenomenon in Helsinki, and it has increasingly replaced declining independent mainstream retail. Often, clusters of immigrant amenities are formed around Muslim prayer rooms activating a mosque-bazaar alliance that enjoys a dynamic footfall. Such a setting takes place spontaneously and typically at abandoned spaces, called in this dissertation urban leftovers. The leftovers are located in, or nearby, the neighbourhoods with a relative overrepresentation of immigrant population. However, these neighbourhoods are exposed to urban renewal steered by anti-segregation policy, thus facing the threat of erasure.\u0000This dissertation examines the capacity of urban planning to plan for diversity. It further studies the characteristics that ethnic retail requires to survive and emerge. The paradigm of The Right to the City is deployed to interpret the response of urban planning to multiculturalism. The findings are numerous. First, immigrant amenities prove their capability to play a role in place making and act as catalysts for public life recovery. Second, in doing so the created places not only fulfil the socio-cultural needs of immigrants, but they also attract mainstream clientele. Third, spontaneity, improvisation and authenticity are the main characteristics empowering the emergence of ethnic retail. However, the findings also show a failure of urban planning to reflect multiculturalism in the growth of the city. Often, the retail premises used by immigrants are demolished. Furthermore, conventional planning as well as alternative planning methods, such as scenario planning and urban planning competitions, have failed to reflect immigrants in the development.\u0000The main constraint preventing planning from being multicultural is the absence of a political interest and, accordingly, a clear vision to deal with the spatialization of multiculturalism. On the contrary, the clear vision of the city is its anti-segregation policy, which is by nature a homogenizing mechanism. Thus, the dissertation concludes that immigrants' Right to the City has been ignored.","PeriodicalId":45082,"journal":{"name":"Fennia-International Journal of Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84675039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cherishing the reproductive work within academia for securing emancipatory work outside academia – commentary to Refstie","authors":"Diana Vela-Almeida","doi":"10.11143/fennia.124807","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.124807","url":null,"abstract":"This commentary to Refstie’s article for a more reflexive co-production of knowledge grounded in critical, rooted, explanatory and actionable imperatives aims to expand her critique on the role of an ethics of care in dismantling the neoliberal university. It highlights the need to build transformative practices that start in our workplaces and where reproductive labor is collectively rewarded. This can result in an inclusive space of care for one another, a conducive working environment for the radical production of knowledge and the joyful engagement in education as a truthfully transformative practice.","PeriodicalId":45082,"journal":{"name":"Fennia-International Journal of Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81820826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An overview of the Nordic Battery Belt: an emerging network for cooperation within the Nordic battery cluster","authors":"E. Okonkwo","doi":"10.11143/fennia.120695","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.120695","url":null,"abstract":"There is an increasing global demand for batteries in the decarbonisation process and an attempt to increase its production within Europe, thereby reducing the dependency on the Asian market. Consequently, the battery industry cluster is emerging in the Nordic region with the requisite raw materials for battery production in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The industry will encounter medium- and long-term challenges in its supply value chain due to the envisaged transport connectivity issues in the region, especially as the industry begins experiencing growth. Regional networks will play a key role in mitigating these challenges by providing a space for cooperation among actors; however, how regional networks address these transport connectivity issues still needs to be explored. This paper introduces results from a qualitative study that adopts the network approach in examining the nature and the role of a novel network within the Nordic battery cluster. They show that the Nordic Battery Belt (NBB) is an emerging cross-border regional network established to proactively identify the prevailing and the envisaged connectivity challenges within the Nordic region. The NBB, therefore, contributes to the development of logistical strategies and inventories for sustainable and cost-effective transport systems, which will support the battery industry’s supply chain and reduce the industry’s carbon footprints. Overall, the paper advances the understanding of networks and their role in the regional energy transitions literature viz-a-viz the battery industry.","PeriodicalId":45082,"journal":{"name":"Fennia-International Journal of Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79407610","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"'It’s the right thing to do': specificities of the Polish response to the Ukrainian crisis","authors":"H. Ruszczyk, K. P. Kallio, J. Riding","doi":"10.11143/fennia.125368","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.125368","url":null,"abstract":"Overwhelmingly, the Polish response to the 24 February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has been based on the moral imperative of ‘It is the right thing to do’. Within three months, Poland was hosting 3.3 million Ukrainian refugees. This is equivalent to 8.7% of Poland’s population of 38 million. The numbers are difficult to grasp. I have identified four specificities in the Polish response. Firstly, a collective intergenerational trauma and fear that Russia may not stop at Ukraine. Secondly, the attitude of the Polish state towards refugees is generally restrictive and hostile with the exception of Ukrainians. Thirdly, there were pre-existing Polish-Ukrainian relationships upon which Polish society’s response has been layered upon. Lastly, there has been sustained collective and grassroots response for over nine months. For how much longer can the humanitarian response be driven by local authorities, local organisations and civil society ‘to do the right thing’?","PeriodicalId":45082,"journal":{"name":"Fennia-International Journal of Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76780427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Construction of the Ukrainian identity in a neighbourhood: the role of the host society. Example of the Parc de l’Ukraine in Rosemont, Montreal.","authors":"Kim Pawliw, É. Berthold","doi":"10.11143/fennia.116597","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.116597","url":null,"abstract":"The Parc de l’Ukraine (Ukraine Park) located in the neighbourhood of Rosemont, Montreal, acquired its Ukrainian toponym in 1981 and began its replanning in 2017 which consisted of the upgrading of equipment and of the addition of Ukrainian symbols. These symbols were chosen to bring out the Ukrainian identity of the park and of the neighbourhood. During the replanning, relations were established between the Ukrainian community of Montreal and municipal governing bodies who each enunciated discourses in this context. Based on discourse analysis and using the Ukrainian community of Montreal as an example, this article will focus on the role of the host society at a municipal scale, meaning municipal governing bodies, in immigrant identity construction processes. It will look at the interrelationships between ethnic associations and the representatives and professionals of a city, during the replanning of an urban park. This article will demonstrate that the host society (municipal governing bodies) can instrumentalize immigrant communities to promote a specific identity of the city that varies according to various spatiotemporal contexts and more specifically that the neighbourhood of Rosemont has been at the centre of construction processes through which it has acquired a symbolic value as the Ukrainian neighbourhood of Montreal. Such processes have relied on the one hand, on Ukrainian associations, and on the other hand, on Montreal’s governing bodies.","PeriodicalId":45082,"journal":{"name":"Fennia-International Journal of Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83613836","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Moving policy out of time – commentary to Refstie","authors":"Colin Lorne","doi":"10.11143/fennia.125169","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.125169","url":null,"abstract":"This paper is prompted by Hilde Refstie’s lecture on co-production and the role of academia in the search for sustainability in times of fast policymaking. My aim is to keep the conversation going by reflecting on how policy researchers negotiate all kinds of tensions and contradictions when traversing academic and policy worlds. It seems to me that those involved in making and researching fast policy are – in rather different ways – moving out of time: there is an urgent search for ‘solutions’ to the many, different crises we are now facing. Yet, the very existence of political alternatives requires holding open the possibility of interrupting the now all-too-familiar rhythms of fast policy. While calls for ‘slow scholarship’ may push back against the increasing tempo of the neoliberal academy, if we are not careful such appeals risk reproducing existing exclusions and inequalities, not least among those struggling by on temporary contracts. Confronting these dilemmas and antagonisms may help go some way towards reconfiguring research relevance in the present political moment.","PeriodicalId":45082,"journal":{"name":"Fennia-International Journal of Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83957345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Charlotte Van der Lijn, Marisofia Nurmi, Elina Hasanen, Janne Pyykönen, Lotta Salmi, Anna-Katriina Salmikangas, Kirsi Vehkakoski, Ilkka Virmasalo, T. Toivonen, P. Muukkonen
{"title":"Assessing travel time-based accessibility to outdoor ice skating fields for children in Helsinki during the COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"Charlotte Van der Lijn, Marisofia Nurmi, Elina Hasanen, Janne Pyykönen, Lotta Salmi, Anna-Katriina Salmikangas, Kirsi Vehkakoski, Ilkka Virmasalo, T. Toivonen, P. Muukkonen","doi":"10.11143/fennia.114590","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.114590","url":null,"abstract":"Informal sport is central to Finnish children’s leisure and physical activity time. This paper aims to build a better understanding of the travel time-based accessibility to informal sports facilities, specifically to ice skating fields, for children and adolescents (aged 7–19) in the city of Helsinki. We focused on the winter of 2020–2021 because COVID-19 restrictions on indoor activities resulted in ice skating fields being among the few public facilities that could remain open. Additionally, the weather was favourable for maintaining outdoor ice skating fields. We analysed if there would be a difference in children’s independent travel times by public transport or walking to ice skating fields due to the COVID-19 pandemic related recommendations by Helsinki Region Transport to avoid public transport. Children in Finland usually travel to and from school independently. Hence we focused on the transition from public transport to walking and omitted car usage, which would require an adult. We also looked at the potential differences in travel time to ice skating fields by analysing different types of fields separately. This difference would be of significance if climate change resulted in warmer winters in Finland. Helsinki has two types of ice skating fields: naturally frozen and mechanically frozen, of which only the mechanically frozen fields would be used during a warmer winter that is above zero degrees Celsius. We took a geographic information systems (GIS) analysis approach using travel time and population catchments. The study’s main findings show that during a milder winter and by walking, the accessibility for children is greatly reduced to 55.2%; that is, children face an increased travel time when naturally frozen ice skating fields are not in use. However, almost 100% of the child population can access both types of fields within a travel time of 30 minutes by public transport.","PeriodicalId":45082,"journal":{"name":"Fennia-International Journal of Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81326156","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Revisiting the ‘dual imperative’ of forced-migration studies – commentary to Refstie","authors":"E. Lyytinen","doi":"10.11143/fennia.123036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.123036","url":null,"abstract":"From the perspective of forced-migration studies, the reflections article elaborates on the question Hilde Refstie posed in her keynote speech at Geography Days in 2021 – “what doing our part means in a progressive world of fast policymaking”. Discussing the nature of forced‑migration studies as a both policy-relevant and policy-critical field, then deliberating the issue of what ‘action’ may look like in action-oriented refugee research, this presentation of self-critical reflection on these issues is grounded in the Academy-of-Finland-funded research project Action-oriented Research on Asylum Seekers’ Deportability (ARADE, 2018–2022). The author concludes that, while research should be conducted in solidarity with refugees and those collaborating with them, such as activists, scholars must maintain reflexive criticism considering which actions and approaches are suitable and desired in particular contexts. There are no simple solutions for designing and implementing action‑oriented research for and with refugees.","PeriodicalId":45082,"journal":{"name":"Fennia-International Journal of Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76525679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Towards washing the baby in the bathwater? – commentary to Refstie","authors":"J. Häkli","doi":"10.11143/fennia.121950","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.121950","url":null,"abstract":"As a response to Hilde Refstie’s research paper ‘Reconfiguring research relevance – steps towards salvaging the radical potential of the co-productive turn in searching for sustainable solutions’, in this commentary I reflect on some of the issues that I consider key elements in her timely and important argument. I mainly pay attention to how she lays out the key problems in co-creative research in our fast-paced academia that meets the increasing demands for relevance coming from the policymaking for sustainability. Yet, Refstie’s paper also states that we do not necessarily have to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I end with some remarks on where Refstie’s argument for rescuing the critical potential of co-creative research meets its understandable limits.","PeriodicalId":45082,"journal":{"name":"Fennia-International Journal of Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83308743","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The urbanization of poverty: rethinking the production of unjust geographies","authors":"Sònia Vives-Miró","doi":"10.11143/fennia.103192","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.103192","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Hegemonic studies understand urban poverty as a consequence of an uneven distribution of resources differentially distributed throughout the city. In this context, this article aims at further understanding the production of urban inequalities and socio-spatial injustice through a Lefebvrian approach, which considers space as an active agent and not merely a physical environment. It proposes the use of the concept “urbanization of poverty”, understood as the trialectic production of poverty through urbanization, leading to unjust geographies through processes of unequal geographic development and accumulation by dispossession.\u0000","PeriodicalId":45082,"journal":{"name":"Fennia-International Journal of Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76016929","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}