Setting off for fieldwork in Finland!

My research project, Feeling at Home in a Digital World, is finally getting going! I started my Junior Research Fellowship at the University of Oxford back in October 2022 but my proposed project had to take a back seat for the past two terms as I finished up some publications from my PhD. At the beginning of May I submitted the manuscript for my book Ageing with Smartphones in Japan to the publisher. While I await reviewers’ comments it’s a perfect time to start fieldwork for my next project, so that’s exactly what I will be doing from mid-June!

It is a wonderful feeling to be at the start, when all things feel possible. Together with my one-year-old research assistant and my partner, we are off for three months to Finland. Why Finland, you might ask? Well, I am half-Finnish and have always wanted to conduct research in the land of forests, lakes, and Moomins. But in terms of my research on ageing, wellbeing, and all things digital, Finland offers a fascinating context. As one of the world’s most aged countries (second after Japan, tied with Italy), one of the ‘happiest’, and among the most digitalised, Finland is a prime location to study the intersection of these three phenomena.

During this trip my plan is to recruit participants for the project and narrow down my research questions. What will probably happen is the opposite… an explosion of possible avenues, ideas, and connections. In total, I will do a year of in-situ fieldwork in Finland, spread out over the next three years of my fellowship. Keeping in touch with participants digitally means I can continue remote fieldwork when I’m back in Oxford.

I hope that this research will contribute to our understanding of the relationship between wellbeing and digital technologies, beyond the headlines about screen time and smartphone addiction. For example, some of my research questions include: how does the use of digital technologies by older adults impact on their experiences of ‘ageing in place’ (a policy that encourages living at home for as long as possible)? Does technology augment people's understanding of 'feeling at home' and belonging? What role do technologies play in the crafting of comfortable living spaces? How is personal wellbeing connected with the wider wellbeing of communities and the environment? How does environmental change impact domestic and digital routines and vice versa? How can wellbeing be better incorporated in the design of digital and physical domestic environments?

Along with the standard anthropological research methods of participant observation (hanging out with people) and interviews, I will be employing participatory visual methods. I am particularly interested in exploring how graphic ethnography, i.e. using drawing/collage/painting as a research method, can be used to delve into people’s inner worlds. I want to uncover some of the analytical gifts of a graphic approach to ethnography, especially for investigating experiences that are difficult to put into words, such as wellbeing and happiness. At the end of the project my plan is to publish a book that sits in-between a typical textual anthropological monograph and a graphic novel. I haven’t seen many examples that combine text and image in this way, with authors (or perhaps publishers) preferring to stick to one or the other, but if you have please do let me know in the comments!

I will continue to provide updates on the progress of my research in future newsletters, illustrated with my own and my research participants’ images. Meanwhile, I’ll be busy meeting, getting to know, and drawing humans.

Thank you for reading and for supporting my work!