Areas of expertise
Biography
I graduated from the University of Turku (MA, 1996) and gained my PhD from Åbo Akademi University (2004), both in the study of religion. After this, I have worked as a researcher at the Population Research Institute of the Family Federation of Finland (Väestöliitto), researcher and post-doctoral fellow of the Academy of Finland at Åbo Akademi University, university researcher and professor of ethnic relations at the University of Helsinki, director of the Migration Institute of Finland, university researcher and university lecturer in cultural anthropology at the University of Eastern Finland, as well as rector of the University of Helsinki's Swedish School of Social Science. On longer research visits, I have been to the universities of Leeds, Ottawa and Lucerne. In addition to these, I have served as a board member in the Federation of the Finnish Learned Societies and in several domestic and international scientific societies. I started as a professor in the study of religion at the University of Turku in August 2024.
Teaching
My primary teaching responsibilities are graduate and postgraduate studies in the study of religion. In addition, I teach at some basic level courses in cultural studies.
Research
My research career began with studying the religious situation in the City of Turku in the mid-1990s. At that time, immigration increased, various forms of new spirituality became common, and international charismatic Christianity was on the rise both in Finland and elsewhere. Since then, I have researched the religious communities of immigrants and their activities in Finland, as well as familiarized myself with international, post-Cold War migration and the integration of immigrants. I am also interested in the importance of demography behind cultural changes, such as the longer-term effects of the growth of the population with an immigration background on Finnish society. Gradually, I began to pay attention to the ongoing religious transition, i.e. the marketization of religions, which can be seen, for example, in growing customer orientation, branding of religions, religious and spiritual entrepreneurship, and new ways of doing things for traditional religions, such as strategic thinking and innovative events and congregational forms.