Symbolic Boundaries in the Everyday Life of Underprivileged Finns
Karjalainen, Eeva (2021)
Karjalainen, Eeva
2021
Yhteiskuntatutkimuksen maisteriohjelma - Master's Programme in Social Sciences
Yhteiskuntatieteiden tiedekunta - Faculty of Social Sciences
This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.
Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2021-05-14
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202104263580
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202104263580
Tiivistelmä
This thesis examines the symbolic boundaries the underprivileged popular classes of Finnish people draw when talking about their everyday lives: about their work, their leisure time activities and their relationships to different cultural products and practices. It will also explore whether there are any gender differences in the ways in which the symbolic boundaries are constructed. Symbolic boundaries are distinctive lines that people draw between themselves and other people. They are a central way of defining things, people and groups and they are drawn all the time in people’s everyday conversations. Symbolic boundaries are expressed through patterns of likes and dislikes, and through attitudes and values. They are constructed in multiple ways and as lines of distinction, they are a tool in demarcating oneself from others, defining one’s in-group, and consequently distinguishing who is considered above or below one another on a subjective level. In doing these things, symbolic boundaries are a powerful mechanism for including, but also excluding people. Therefore, symbolic boundaries are linked to legitimizing and recreating class inequality. In this discussion, Michèle Lamont’s work on symbolic boundaries will be drawn on in particular.
The research questions of this thesis are the following: 1) What kinds of symbolic boundaries do the Finnish underprivileged popular classes construct related to their everyday lives? 2) What kind of gender differences are present in the ways in which the participants construct symbolic boundaries?
The data set utilized in this research has been originally gathered by Riie Heikkilä (2018) as a part of a project called “Understanding Cultural Disengagement in Contemporary Finland”. The original data set consists of 49 interviews conducted on people in the Finnish underprivileged popular classes, who are deemed less likely to participate in culture. From this data, a subset of 18 interviews has been constructed to investigate the research questions further. The gender division has been split equally with nine women and nine men. In order to answer these two research questions, discourse analysis has been employed as the method of this study. Discourse analysis views language as something inseparably tied to its social contexts, meaning that text does not only provide information about the situation or about the feelings, opinions, likes and dislikes of an individual, but it burrows deeper into the society. Analyzing the discourses constructed in text also conveys information about the social structures and how they are dynamically created and reproduced.
In the first section of the results chapter, I will analyze the cultural boundaries drawn by the participants. In the second section I will analyze the upward and downward boundaries drawn. These sections will serve to answer the first research question. And finally, in the third section I will answer the second research question by comparing the ways in which the men and women in the sample draw symbolic boundaries, and how the ways potentially differ from each other. After this I will discuss the conclusions of my research. The results of my analysis suggest that the Finnish underprivileged popular classes in my data showcase aversion when drawing upward boundaries against institutions such as school. Another notable finding I will discuss is that, when the Finnish underprivileged popular classes in my data draw cultural boundaries, they often draw downward cultural boundaries against soap operas and reality TV and, even when they enjoy watching them, they showcase reflexive skills as they signal their awareness about the prevailing negative image of such shows. This is similar to the reflexive skills possessed by middle-class women (Skeggs & Thumim & Wood 2008). The Finnish underprivileged popular classes in my data do seem to draw symbolic boundaries differently in some cases: the men tend to draw harsher symbolic boundaries than women do and showcase less cultural goodwill. Both the men and the women in the Finnish underprivileged popular classes demonstrate aversion towards cultural products traditionally popular among women, such as women’s magazines. This calls for future studies about the potential gender differences in the ways in which underprivileges popular classes draw symbolic boundaries and their relationship with culture traditionally popular among women.
The research questions of this thesis are the following: 1) What kinds of symbolic boundaries do the Finnish underprivileged popular classes construct related to their everyday lives? 2) What kind of gender differences are present in the ways in which the participants construct symbolic boundaries?
The data set utilized in this research has been originally gathered by Riie Heikkilä (2018) as a part of a project called “Understanding Cultural Disengagement in Contemporary Finland”. The original data set consists of 49 interviews conducted on people in the Finnish underprivileged popular classes, who are deemed less likely to participate in culture. From this data, a subset of 18 interviews has been constructed to investigate the research questions further. The gender division has been split equally with nine women and nine men. In order to answer these two research questions, discourse analysis has been employed as the method of this study. Discourse analysis views language as something inseparably tied to its social contexts, meaning that text does not only provide information about the situation or about the feelings, opinions, likes and dislikes of an individual, but it burrows deeper into the society. Analyzing the discourses constructed in text also conveys information about the social structures and how they are dynamically created and reproduced.
In the first section of the results chapter, I will analyze the cultural boundaries drawn by the participants. In the second section I will analyze the upward and downward boundaries drawn. These sections will serve to answer the first research question. And finally, in the third section I will answer the second research question by comparing the ways in which the men and women in the sample draw symbolic boundaries, and how the ways potentially differ from each other. After this I will discuss the conclusions of my research. The results of my analysis suggest that the Finnish underprivileged popular classes in my data showcase aversion when drawing upward boundaries against institutions such as school. Another notable finding I will discuss is that, when the Finnish underprivileged popular classes in my data draw cultural boundaries, they often draw downward cultural boundaries against soap operas and reality TV and, even when they enjoy watching them, they showcase reflexive skills as they signal their awareness about the prevailing negative image of such shows. This is similar to the reflexive skills possessed by middle-class women (Skeggs & Thumim & Wood 2008). The Finnish underprivileged popular classes in my data do seem to draw symbolic boundaries differently in some cases: the men tend to draw harsher symbolic boundaries than women do and showcase less cultural goodwill. Both the men and the women in the Finnish underprivileged popular classes demonstrate aversion towards cultural products traditionally popular among women, such as women’s magazines. This calls for future studies about the potential gender differences in the ways in which underprivileges popular classes draw symbolic boundaries and their relationship with culture traditionally popular among women.