Liisa Lalu profile picture
Liisa
Lalu
Doctoral Researcher, History and Archaelogy
Project Researcher, History and Archaelogy
MA

Contact

Areas of expertise

Cultural history
gender studies
oral history
life narratives
social movements
new left

Biography

I am a doctoral researcher and project coordinator in Cultural History at the University of Turku. In 2025, I split my time between ABOAGORA – Between Arts and Sciences (see https://www.aboagora.fi/) and finishing my doctoral thesis. ABOAGORA is a symposium that brings together the arts, humanities, and sciences, and the aim is to question and re-envision the juxtapositions between the arts and sciences, to establish new kinds of dialogical connections, and to develop experimental models for academic and artistic expression. 

In my doctoral dissertation, I study the stories of belonging of young women in the Marxist-Leninist movement in Finland in the 1970s. I am interested in how women participated in the movement and how it is remembered and told, especially now, half a century later.

Recently, I worked on the project "Passion and Emotion in Finnish Secondary Schools, 1960-1975: The Breaking of the Emotional Regime in the Final Stages of the Secondary School System", funded by the Kone Foundation. In this project, we studied the history of an influential but now mostly forgotten organization and understand the mechanisms behind young people's social and emotional participation.

I am a board member of the International Society for Cultural History (ISCH) and belong to the Finnish Oral History Network (FOHN) Board of Directors. I am active in the Finnish Association of Academic Researchers (SATY) and was a part-time organizational secretary until March 2025. See: https://tieteentekijat.fi/en/union-close-to-you/member-associations/finnish-association-of-academic-researchers-saty-ry/

Research

My research interests include social movements, in particular, leftist movements and oral history, life writing, and gender studies. In my thesis, I focus on the radical communist movement in Finland from the perspective of women activists, but I am interested widely in social movements and activism, and how they are developed and sustained in different stages of life. 

Publications

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Johdanto: Etujoukoissa (2023)

Soimetsä Ville, Jouhki Essi, Lalu Liisa
(B2 Vertaisarvioimaton kirjan tai muun kokoomateoksen osa)