Sophy Bergenheim

I am a PhD candidate in political history specialised in welfare state history and intellectual and conceptual history. In my dissertation, For the People, Society and Nation. Finnish Social Welfare and Health Organisations as Social Reformers in the 1930s–1960s (in Finnish), I study Finnish social and health policy organisations as public policy experts and policy actors. The objective is to highlight how Finnish NGOs have played an important part in the contingent construction process of the Finnish welfare state during the 1940s–1960s.

The studied organisations are the Finnish Population and Family Welfare League (Väestöliitto), the Public Health Organisation of Swedish Finland (Samfundet Folkhälsan), the Finnish Federation for Social Welfare (Sosiaalihuollon Keskusliitto) and the Social Policy Association in Finland (Sosiaalipoliittinen yhdistys). I analyse how these actors have constructed social phenomena into social problems, as well as how they have constructed their expertise and utilised it as an instrument for political power.

My supervisors are Professor Pauli Kettunen (political history) and Associate Professor Johan Strang (Nordic studies). My work has been funded by the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland and Kone Foundation.

My research interests include knowledge and expertise, social inequality and social policy, gender history, history of medicine and health policy, urban history and housing policy as well as non-governmental organisations.