Essi Jouhki
I defended my doctoral dissertation at the University of Oulu in spring 2020, and just a week after my defence I packed my belongings and moved to Jyväskylä! I started here at Hela as a grant funded post-doc in a research project called (Kone Foundation). Our project focuses on the history of Finnish youth activism and school student radicalism in 1960–1970. The project was a direct thematical and methodological continuation for my PhD dissertation.
In August 2021, I moved on from school-aged children to smaller children, as I was granted a four-year position as a postdoctoral researcher in a multidisciplinary Social Sustainability for Children and Families (SOSUS) profiling area. In my personal research project, I’m focusing on the history of public playgrounds and the shaping of urban childhood in 20th century Finland.
My research interests include memory studies, childhood and youth, and history of education. I’m especially intrigued by the nuanced ways of remembering childhood and youth. Consequently, in my newest project I’m focusing on playgrounds as lived, remembered, and experienced children’s places, that have had (and still have) a great effect on the wellbeing of children and their families. Moreover, I study how playgrounds have changed and become established children’s places in the Finnish urban environments.
In my project I combine methods and theories from history, oral history, children’s geography, and urban studies. Moreover, I’m analysing the visuality and materiality of playgrounds and studying how play environments can be experiences through senses and emotions. This multivocal dialogue between different fields can open new perspectives on the history of playgrounds and children’s everyday lives.
You can read more about my project (in Finnish) here:
