Tuija Huuki | University of Oulu (original) (raw)
Papers by Tuija Huuki
YOUNG
This study focuses on how space acts in shaping non-normative pre-teen gendered and sexual cultur... more This study focuses on how space acts in shaping non-normative pre-teen gendered and sexual cultures. It was conducted in Northern Finland and consists of an arts-based case study of a group of 12- to 13-year-old students, who during our creative workshops on gender, sexuality and power reflected on the possibilities of gender and sexual diversity in their everyday lives. Inspired by feminist new materialist scholarship, which focuses on spatiality and materiality in co-constituting gendered and sexual meanings, in the analysis, we explore how school and social media—two central life spheres of today’s youth—act in affording distinct possibilities for transgressive gender and sexuality as well as attachments to LGBTIQ+ communities. Furthermore, the analysis indicates how non-normative relationalities can be supported in school-based creative workshops. By mapping how spaces co-constitute non-normative gender and sexuality, we can develop them to promote the sexual rights and welfare ...
Journal of Gender Studies
Journal of Gender Studies, Mar 15, 2023
Sexualities
This article explores the vital roles of matter in the emerging sexual cultures of elementary sch... more This article explores the vital roles of matter in the emerging sexual cultures of elementary school children. Based on a case study of a seven-year-old girl, it draws from ethnographic research on the gendered and sexual power relations of students in Northern Finland. Inspired by feminist, new materialist theories, the analysis indicates how everyday objects may be seen as co-constituting heterosexual femininity by attaching even young girls to teenage cultures and emphasizing femininity and distancing them from childhood and masculinity. This article shows, furthermore, how materiality acts in generating “cross-pulls” that may evoke popularity and admiration, but also cause restrictions to the agency of girls in the ambiguous entanglements of child sexual cultures.
Proceedings of the 2019 AERA Annual Meeting
International Journal of Social Research Methodology
New materialisms have informed an array of creative methodologies, inviting scholars to rethink e... more New materialisms have informed an array of creative methodologies, inviting scholars to rethink ethics in the practices of research with children. Participating in this rethinking, this study elaborates on ethical practices in creative research where new materialist and artsbased methodologies intra-act with children and the sensitivities of gender and power in young peer cultures. Drawing on experiences from the authors’ creative workshops, this paper investigates how new materialist creative practice allows children to explore and communicate their experiences of gender and power in safe and enabling ways. The authors suggest expanding their ethical practice by composing ethically sustainable encounters for children to engage with experiences of and visions for their peer cultures. They close by discussing practices for responding to the inherent un/safety of addressing gender and sexual abuses of power and for enabling microprocesses of change to – as a matter of sustainability – transform oppressive peer cultures towards social justice.
Timo Saloviidan artikkeli Isätkö muka huonoja kasvattajia? Kasvatus-lehdessä 4/2018
This paper draws on new feminist materialist and posthuman theories to explore discrimination exp... more This paper draws on new feminist materialist and posthuman theories to explore discrimination experienced by Sámi attendees at Finnish boarding schools. The aim is to shift attention away from the human actor to a wider field of power relations, and consider discrimination as force relations, emerging dynamically through assemblages of, for example, material, corporeal, historical, organic, discursive and affective elements. The case study, taken from the structured interview survey data from one Sámi woman, is used to demonstrate material, affective and historical forces, through which events of discrimination emerge. We argue that material objects and places and their histories are not inert, fixed backgrounds against which things occur, nor important contextualising features of situated events. Rather, they can be seen as significant actants in the rendering of the Sámi as the Other. Recognising how traces of place and history and material objects become revitalised within acting assemblages can provide some powerful insights into the barriers and opportunities the Sámi boarding school students encountered in their everyday lives and how they coped with experiences later in life.
Gender and Education, 2022
In this article, we examine the immensely popular animated Disney film Frozen 2 (2019) through it... more In this article, we examine the immensely popular animated Disney film Frozen 2 (2019) through its potential as decolonial queer pedagogy. Drawing on Indigenous educational studies, queer and feminist Indigenous theories, and research on affect and trauma, we ask how the film popularizes Sámi nature-based cosmologies, addresses and attempts to repair the cross-generational transmission of settler colonial trauma, and presents a complex view of gender and human and non-human relations. Unlike in its predecessor Frozen (2013), in Frozen 2 Disney involved Sámi consultants in the production process, and the film was dubbed in North Sámi language. We interrogate Frozen 2's production process as well as its narrative and aesthetics, proposing that it allows its viewerschildren and adults, Indigenous and non-Indigenous aliketo engage with and learn about Indigenous ethics, Sámi cosmologies, and more-than-human understandings of gender and sexuality in respectful and easily approachable ways.
Masks of masculinities : the representations of masculinities in boys' drawings and narratives
JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, 2021
This article examines the possibilities for re-imagining a queer indigenous past in Sparrooabbán ... more This article examines the possibilities for re-imagining a queer indigenous past in Sparrooabbán (Me and My Little Sister, Suvi West, 2016)-the first feature-length documentary film that discusses non-heterosexuality in Sámi communities. We explore how the film queers the gákti, the traditional Sámi dress; how it uses elements other than verbal expression to mark queer traces in Sápmi; and how spirituality and faith create a (dis)connection to a Two-Spirit past and present. We argue that the documentary produces a series of minor transformative gestures to create a queer Sámi archive of affect when there is no conventional archival knowledge of gender and sexual diversity pre-settler colonialism.
Bloomsbury Education and Childhood Studies, 2019
International Journal of Education Through Art, 2020
This study examines existing research on the use of arts-based methods in approaching issues sens... more This study examines existing research on the use of arts-based methods in approaching issues sensitive for youth and children. We conducted a qualitative, systematic review of twenty academic publications on this topic from 1997 to 2017. Our results show the use of arts-based methods to (1) recognize and make visible previously invisible experiences, acts, voices and histories; (2) nurture change and transformation in the lives of the youth; and (3) allow exploring the more-than-human, more-than-present and less-than-conscious aspects in the lives of youth and children ‐ aspects that traditional study methods might not readily access. Our findings offer teachers, researchers, practitioners, psychologists and social workers greater awareness of the use of arts-based methods in matters young people find sensitive. This review allows education professionals to achieve a broader view of methods emerging from the arts in addressing the social and psychological issues that young human bei...
YOUNG
This study focuses on how space acts in shaping non-normative pre-teen gendered and sexual cultur... more This study focuses on how space acts in shaping non-normative pre-teen gendered and sexual cultures. It was conducted in Northern Finland and consists of an arts-based case study of a group of 12- to 13-year-old students, who during our creative workshops on gender, sexuality and power reflected on the possibilities of gender and sexual diversity in their everyday lives. Inspired by feminist new materialist scholarship, which focuses on spatiality and materiality in co-constituting gendered and sexual meanings, in the analysis, we explore how school and social media—two central life spheres of today’s youth—act in affording distinct possibilities for transgressive gender and sexuality as well as attachments to LGBTIQ+ communities. Furthermore, the analysis indicates how non-normative relationalities can be supported in school-based creative workshops. By mapping how spaces co-constitute non-normative gender and sexuality, we can develop them to promote the sexual rights and welfare ...
Journal of Gender Studies
Journal of Gender Studies, Mar 15, 2023
Sexualities
This article explores the vital roles of matter in the emerging sexual cultures of elementary sch... more This article explores the vital roles of matter in the emerging sexual cultures of elementary school children. Based on a case study of a seven-year-old girl, it draws from ethnographic research on the gendered and sexual power relations of students in Northern Finland. Inspired by feminist, new materialist theories, the analysis indicates how everyday objects may be seen as co-constituting heterosexual femininity by attaching even young girls to teenage cultures and emphasizing femininity and distancing them from childhood and masculinity. This article shows, furthermore, how materiality acts in generating “cross-pulls” that may evoke popularity and admiration, but also cause restrictions to the agency of girls in the ambiguous entanglements of child sexual cultures.
Proceedings of the 2019 AERA Annual Meeting
International Journal of Social Research Methodology
New materialisms have informed an array of creative methodologies, inviting scholars to rethink e... more New materialisms have informed an array of creative methodologies, inviting scholars to rethink ethics in the practices of research with children. Participating in this rethinking, this study elaborates on ethical practices in creative research where new materialist and artsbased methodologies intra-act with children and the sensitivities of gender and power in young peer cultures. Drawing on experiences from the authors’ creative workshops, this paper investigates how new materialist creative practice allows children to explore and communicate their experiences of gender and power in safe and enabling ways. The authors suggest expanding their ethical practice by composing ethically sustainable encounters for children to engage with experiences of and visions for their peer cultures. They close by discussing practices for responding to the inherent un/safety of addressing gender and sexual abuses of power and for enabling microprocesses of change to – as a matter of sustainability – transform oppressive peer cultures towards social justice.
Timo Saloviidan artikkeli Isätkö muka huonoja kasvattajia? Kasvatus-lehdessä 4/2018
This paper draws on new feminist materialist and posthuman theories to explore discrimination exp... more This paper draws on new feminist materialist and posthuman theories to explore discrimination experienced by Sámi attendees at Finnish boarding schools. The aim is to shift attention away from the human actor to a wider field of power relations, and consider discrimination as force relations, emerging dynamically through assemblages of, for example, material, corporeal, historical, organic, discursive and affective elements. The case study, taken from the structured interview survey data from one Sámi woman, is used to demonstrate material, affective and historical forces, through which events of discrimination emerge. We argue that material objects and places and their histories are not inert, fixed backgrounds against which things occur, nor important contextualising features of situated events. Rather, they can be seen as significant actants in the rendering of the Sámi as the Other. Recognising how traces of place and history and material objects become revitalised within acting assemblages can provide some powerful insights into the barriers and opportunities the Sámi boarding school students encountered in their everyday lives and how they coped with experiences later in life.
Gender and Education, 2022
In this article, we examine the immensely popular animated Disney film Frozen 2 (2019) through it... more In this article, we examine the immensely popular animated Disney film Frozen 2 (2019) through its potential as decolonial queer pedagogy. Drawing on Indigenous educational studies, queer and feminist Indigenous theories, and research on affect and trauma, we ask how the film popularizes Sámi nature-based cosmologies, addresses and attempts to repair the cross-generational transmission of settler colonial trauma, and presents a complex view of gender and human and non-human relations. Unlike in its predecessor Frozen (2013), in Frozen 2 Disney involved Sámi consultants in the production process, and the film was dubbed in North Sámi language. We interrogate Frozen 2's production process as well as its narrative and aesthetics, proposing that it allows its viewerschildren and adults, Indigenous and non-Indigenous aliketo engage with and learn about Indigenous ethics, Sámi cosmologies, and more-than-human understandings of gender and sexuality in respectful and easily approachable ways.
Masks of masculinities : the representations of masculinities in boys' drawings and narratives
JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, 2021
This article examines the possibilities for re-imagining a queer indigenous past in Sparrooabbán ... more This article examines the possibilities for re-imagining a queer indigenous past in Sparrooabbán (Me and My Little Sister, Suvi West, 2016)-the first feature-length documentary film that discusses non-heterosexuality in Sámi communities. We explore how the film queers the gákti, the traditional Sámi dress; how it uses elements other than verbal expression to mark queer traces in Sápmi; and how spirituality and faith create a (dis)connection to a Two-Spirit past and present. We argue that the documentary produces a series of minor transformative gestures to create a queer Sámi archive of affect when there is no conventional archival knowledge of gender and sexual diversity pre-settler colonialism.
Bloomsbury Education and Childhood Studies, 2019
International Journal of Education Through Art, 2020
This study examines existing research on the use of arts-based methods in approaching issues sens... more This study examines existing research on the use of arts-based methods in approaching issues sensitive for youth and children. We conducted a qualitative, systematic review of twenty academic publications on this topic from 1997 to 2017. Our results show the use of arts-based methods to (1) recognize and make visible previously invisible experiences, acts, voices and histories; (2) nurture change and transformation in the lives of the youth; and (3) allow exploring the more-than-human, more-than-present and less-than-conscious aspects in the lives of youth and children ‐ aspects that traditional study methods might not readily access. Our findings offer teachers, researchers, practitioners, psychologists and social workers greater awareness of the use of arts-based methods in matters young people find sensitive. This review allows education professionals to achieve a broader view of methods emerging from the arts in addressing the social and psychological issues that young human bei...
Poikatutkimus - Boyhood Studies, 2018
First anthology on boyhood studies in Finland, in Finnish
Gender and Education , 2022
In this article, we examine the immensely popular animated Disney film Frozen 2 (2019) through it... more In this article, we examine the immensely popular animated Disney film Frozen 2 (2019) through its potential as decolonial queer pedagogy. Drawing on Indigenous educational studies, queer and feminist Indigenous theories, and research on affect and trauma, we ask how the film popularizes Sámi nature-based cosmologies, addresses and attempts to repair the cross-generational transmission of settler colonial trauma, and presents a complex view of gender and human and non-human relations. Unlike in its predecessor Frozen (2013), in Frozen 2 Disney involved Sámi consultants in the production process, and the film was dubbed in North Sámi language. We interrogate Frozen 2's production process as well as its narrative and aesthetics, proposing that it allows its viewerschildren and adults, Indigenous and non-Indigenous aliketo engage with and learn about Indigenous ethics, Sámi cosmologies, and more-than-human understandings of gender and sexuality in respectful and easily approachable ways.
International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 2022
New materialisms have informed an array of creative methodologies, inviting scholars to rethink e... more New materialisms have informed an array of creative methodologies,
inviting scholars to rethink ethics in the practices of research with
children. Participating in this rethinking, this study elaborates on
ethical practices in creative research where new materialist and artsbased
methodologies intra-act with children and the sensitivities of
gender and power in young peer cultures. Drawing on experiences
from the authors’ creative workshops, this paper investigates how
new materialist creative practice allows children to explore and communicate
their experiences of gender and power in safe and enabling
ways. The authors suggest expanding their ethical practice by composing
ethically sustainable encounters for children to engage with
experiences of and visions for their peer cultures. They close by
discussing practices for responding to the inherent un/safety of
addressing gender and sexual abuses of power and for enabling
microprocesses of change to – as a matter of sustainability – transform
oppressive peer cultures towards social justice.
Gender and Education, 2021
This article focuses on a study in which feminist new materialist and arts-based methodologies we... more This article focuses on a study in which feminist new materialist and
arts-based methodologies were employed to explore how three
girls address their experiences of sexual harassment as part of
‘crushes’ with boys in fourth and fifth grade. The study stems
from longitudinal research on how Finnish children from preschool
to pre-teen years are caught up in entanglements of
power in the formation of romantic relationship cultures. Such
entanglements often escape articulation and are therefore
difficult to study using more traditional research methods. During
the arts-based process, the girls began to negotiate consent and
self-determination in new ways through collecting, crafting, and
making a booklet and a YouTube video. Conceptualising the
changes as minor gestures (Manning 2016) that gradually
transform girls’ somatic archives (Paasonen 2013), we
argue that arts-methods can empower children to relate
differently to each other, refuse harassment and assert their desires.