My research interests include post/decolonial feminism, critical race and whiteness studies, politics of belonging, nationalism, welfare state, political activism and violence. I recently finished the Academy Research Fellow project Postethnic Activism in the Neoliberal Era: Translocal Studies on Political Subjectivities, Alliance-Building and Social Imaginaries, funded by the Academy of Finland (2014-2019). I also lead the research projects Intersectional Border Struggles and Disobedient Knowledge in Activism (2018-2022), funded by the Academy of Finland, and Border Crises in Two Languages - Mediatized Politics and Solidarity Activism in the Wake of the 2015 Asylum Migration (2019-2022), funded by the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland. I am PI and Workpackage leader in the Nordic research project Social Exclusion, Polarization and Security in the Nordic Welfare State (SEPOS, 2021-2023, Nordforsk). My recent project's also include The Stopped - Spaces, Meanings and Practices of Ethnic Profiling, funded by the Kone foundation (2015-2019).

 

Previously I have investigated the politics of gender, nation and race in debates on immigration and multiculturalism, with a special focus on right-wing populist rhetoric. My post doctoral research project analysed the construction of national belonging and unbelonging in Danish and Finnish public debates on gendered violence in migrant/minority families.

 

I have also participated in a research project on generational negotiations, social control and gendered sexualities, funded by the Academy of Finland (2012-2016). In a previous research project, I analysed the narratives of migrant women abused by their family members, and the discourses of multiculturalism and violence that welfare professionals and authorities (police, social workers, staff in shelters and projects) draw upon.

 

I lead The Centre for Research on Ethnic Relations and Nationalism (CEREN) at the Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki.

 

I am on the Editorial Board of the scienfic journals Current Sociology and Women's Studies International Forum.

 

RESEARCH NETWORKS

I actively participate in Nordic and European research networks. I was the leader of the Nordic research network Multiculturalism, Cultural Homogeneity and Societal Security (NOS-HS, 2016-2018). I am the Finnish partner in the research networks Decolonial Critique, Knowledge Production and Social Change (NOS-HS, 2018-2019) and The Power of Narratives: Democracy and Media in Political Turmoil (NOS-HS, 2018-2019). I am a member of the Management Committee of EU COST Action Police Stops -network (2018-2022) and of the Erasmus+ Jean Monnet funded research network Post-Truth Politics, Nationalism and the (De)Legitimation of European Integration (2019-2022).  

I have also been the Finnish coordinator in the Nordic research network The Futures of Feminism in the Nordic Region (NOS-HS, NIKK, 2016-2017) and Research Network on Nordic Populism (Nordforsk, 2011-2015).