TIEDE & EDISTYS 1/1993 SUMMARIES

YRJÖ HAILA: The Problem of Nature. The lead article discusses the multifaceted ways in which the concept of "nature" has become problematic for the modern culture. The impossibility of precisely defining the natural conditions of culture on a global scale need not lead us into an impasse; by way of deconstructing the dualism between culture and nature we may move towards an understanding of the dynamics of differentiating histories and their novel elements. It is argued that a moralist attitude towards nature - that human beings have no right to 'intefere' with nature - is mistaken, that humans live off nature, and therefore have no choice but to modify it, as do other species.

MARJA JÄRVELÄ: Regulation of the Greenhouse Effect and Socio-Political Rationality. The starting point of the article is the globalisation of environmental problems which poses several methodological and operational questions to social sciences. After an examination of the conceptual links between globalisation, universality, and risk management, the author turns to the so-called greenhouse effect as an example of the new lines of demarcation between humanity as a subject and nature as an object to be controlled. The policies and strategies adopted by modern nation-states in tackling this problem articulate an ambivalence between technical and political rationalities; in particular, the shared goal of reducing CO2 emissions has given rise to a wide range of contesting notions of who should bear the responsibility for attaining it.

MATTI KAMPPINEN, HASSE KARLSSON & PETRI RAIVOLA: Environmental Impact Assessment and the Layman's Point of View. In the authors' opinion, the layman's point of view is relevant for environmental impact assessment both as an empirical fact and as a normative rule. In a democratic society, neither political decision-makers nor industrialists can overlook the interests and desires of common people. More importantly, the layman's point of view involves fundamental ethical judgements concerning e.g. risk management. In determining the relative importance of contesting points of view, we are able to draw on the theory cognitivism which allows us to compare and evaluate different conceptualisations of reality, irrespective of whether we subscribe to an objectivist, subjectivist, or intersubjectivist theory of values.

ARI SIIRIÄINEN: Historical Dimensions of the Ecological Crisis in Africa. Certain ill-defined concepts, such as "sustainable development" and "grassroots level", have recently acquired a dominant position in discussions concerning development. The author argues that (1) ecological questions provide the key to development issues both in Africa and elsewhere in the so-called Third World; (2) a return to traditional processes of production does not guarantee ecologically sustainable development; and (3) a "grassroots level" approach in practical development activities serves to eclipse truly important macro- level processes at work behind the scenes. The argument is illustrated by an examination of the structural features of Sub-Saharan civilisations and their relationship with nature from a long-term historical perspective.

MATTI HYVÄRINEN: "Who Wields Power in Finland?" Rauno Setälä and the power of Stalinist discourse. Can research into the discourse on power offer us results worth pursuing that nonetheless fall beyond the scope of realist studies of the 'phenomenon of power'? The author sets out to answer this question by way of a close reading of the political autobiography of a self- proclaimed Finnish "Neo-Stalinist", dating from 1970. A textual analysis of this document illuminates the complex interplay between the conceptual equivalents of 'power', 'revolution', and 'violence' in Finnish language as well as their inscription in the rhetoric of a nascent Communist student movement. In this perspective, the instrumental and reifying concept of power implied in the text unfolds as the rhetorical device for construing opposition and for creating an identity of resistance.

TIEDE & EDISTYS 2/1993 SUMMARIES

JUKKA SIIKALA: The study of cultures in the Finnish universities. How to apportion budget cuts with the least possible damage is the subject of a study commissioned by the deans of the faculties of arts and humanities. According to the study, humanities in Finland hold such an important position in Finnish cultural discussion that the recourses granted to them are also usually expected to be rather high. In reality, however, they represent a mere one per cent of the total financing of the institutions of higher education in this country. The disciplines within arts and humanities have made an effort to increase their efficiency by means of improved delegation and co-operation, but closing down units which are already small and scattered is not the right way to build a truly functional system. Rather than accept internationalisation as a goal in itself, Finland should set its own national research interests, as well. These include, essentially, the study of so- called national fields, as the knowledge of one's own culture is a necessary condition for understanding other cultures.

IMMO PEKKARINEN: We - art and totalitarianism. Jevgeni Zamjatin's novel We (1920) has often been considered as the first representative of dystopian literature. Zamjatin's work thematises the implicit totalitarianism of realist representation and is directed against the pessimism of Wells and other realists. Free will, which detaches man's consciousness from the laws of nature and social codes, forms an optimistic element. The work-in-progress form and the emphasis on free will make Zamjatin's work a modernistic, not a neorealist, antiutopia. Besides the conventions of realism and symbolism, Zamjatin's work submits the various avant-gardist movements of the time to a critical valuation. The modernists proper" remain as the only critical and noncommitted element in the literary participation framework of the beginning of the century, according to Zamjatin.

TAINA RAJANTI: "This is my street" - the urban way of life in Mary Marck's novels about school pupils. Urbanism in Finland sounds like a late and foreign intruder. What is originally and truly Finnish is something austere and unsociable and has to do with countryside and wilderness. Urbanism - education and civilised manners, pluralism and politics, fast speed and superficiality - has always represented something suspect and insincere to Finns. Mary Marck's novels, however, are anchored in an absolutely Finnish urban environment in a way that brings to mind Walter Benjamin's interpretation of Charles Baudelaire's poetry. In Baudelaire, the mass is so integrated that it is useless to look for any descriptions of it in his work. ... Baudelaire describes neither any the city nor its inhabitants." Similarly, in Mary Marck's novels, the city and the urban way of life appear as a force, invisible in itself, which is carried along by the whole narrative.

JUHA SIHVOLA: What men have and women do not. Women and sexism in Aristotle. Aristotle laid the theoretical foundations of sexism in his biology: the woman is a deficient human being, produced by an unsuccessful fertilisation. Sexist attitudes are also conspicuous in Aristotle's ethics, but the only expression of female incapability mentioned is the lacking authority of her deliberative faculty. Aristotle's sexism was, in fact, moderate in its Greek context. He regarded women as intellectually equal to men and his empirical examples of female incapability do not always support the theoretical conclusions. Female weakness seems to be produced by the social environment rather than natural deficiency. The ingredients of a more egalitarian conception of gender can thus be found in Aristotle's own text.

LOÏC J. D. WACQUANT: America as realised dystopia - urban policy and the social disintegration of the black ghetto. The wrong use of theme of ghettoisation" and its sensationalistic imagery in France to address issues of urban marginalisation and disorder has prevented an analytic reading of America's dark ghetto" as a limiting case, which empirically reveals the effects of the withdrawal of the state on the structure and fabric of urban society under conditions of poverty and segregation. This becomes visible in everyday violence, the erosion of wage- labour employment, the growth of drug trading, and the transformation of programs of social welfare" into an apparatus of surveillance and defensive containment of poor minorities. Far from integrating ghetto residents into national life, urban public institutions contribute to their stigmatisation, isolation, and separation from the wider society.

TIEDE & EDISTYS 3/1993 SUMMARIES

JUKKA SIIKALA: The study of cultures in the Finnish universities. How to apportion budget cuts with the least possible damage is the subject of a study commissioned by the deans of the faculties of arts and humanities. According to the study, humanities in Finland hold such an important position in Finnish cultural discussion that the recourses granted to them are also usually expected to be rather high. In reality, however, they represent a mere one per cent of the total financing of the institutions of higher education in this country. The disciplines within arts and humanities have made an effort to increase their efficiency by means of improved delegation and co-operation, but closing down units which are already small and scattered is not the right way to build a truly functional system. Rather than accept internationalisation as a goal in itself, Finland should set its own national research interests, as well. These include, essentially, the study of so- called national fields, as the knowledge of one's own culture is a necessary condition for understanding other cultures.

IMMO PEKKARINEN: We - art and totalitarianism. Jevgeni Zamjatin's novel We (1920) has often been considered as the first representative of dystopian literature. Zamjatin's work thematises the implicit totalitarianism of realist representation and is directed against the pessimism of Wells and other realists. Free will, which detaches man's consciousness from the laws of nature and social codes, forms an optimistic element. The work-in-progress form and the emphasis on free will make Zamjatin's work a modernistic, not a neorealist, antiutopia. Besides the conventions of realism and symbolism, Zamjatin's work submits the various avant-gardist movements of the time to a critical valuation. The modernists proper" remain as the only critical and noncommitted element in the literary participation framework of the beginning of the century, according to Zamjatin.

TAINA RAJANTI: "This is my street" - the urban way of life in Mary Marck's novels about school pupils. Urbanism in Finland sounds like a late and foreign intruder. What is originally and truly Finnish is something austere and unsociable and has to do with countryside and wilderness. Urbanism - education and civilised manners, pluralism and politics, fast speed and superficiality - has always represented something suspect and insincere to Finns. Mary Marck's novels, however, are anchored in an absolutely Finnish urban environment in a way that brings to mind Walter Benjamin's interpretation of Charles Baudelaire's poetry. In Baudelaire, the mass is so integrated that it is useless to look for any descriptions of it in his work. ... Baudelaire describes neither any the city nor its inhabitants." Similarly, in Mary Marck's novels, the city and the urban way of life appear as a force, invisible in itself, which is carried along by the whole narrative.

JUHA SIHVOLA: What men have and women do not. Women and sexism in Aristotle. Aristotle laid the theoretical foundations of sexism in his biology: the woman is a deficient human being, produced by an unsuccessful fertilisation. Sexist attitudes are also conspicuous in Aristotle's ethics, but the only expression of female incapability mentioned is the lacking authority of her deliberative faculty. Aristotle's sexism was, in fact, moderate in its Greek context. He regarded women as intellectually equal to men and his empirical examples of female incapability do not always support the theoretical conclusions. Female weakness seems to be produced by the social environment rather than natural deficiency. The ingredients of a more egalitarian conception of gender can thus be found in Aristotle's own text.

LOÏC J. D. WACQUANT: America as realised dystopia - urban policy and the social disintegration of the black ghetto. The wrong use of theme of ghettoisation" and its sensationalistic imagery in France to address issues of urban marginalisation and disorder has prevented an analytic reading of America's dark ghetto" as a limiting case, which empirically reveals the effects of the withdrawal of the state on the structure and fabric of urban society under conditions of poverty and segregation. This becomes visible in everyday violence, the erosion of wage- labour employment, the growth of drug trading, and the transformation of programs of social welfare" into an apparatus of surveillance and defensive containment of poor minorities. Far from integrating ghetto residents into national life, urban public institutions contribute to their stigmatisation, isolation, and separation from the wider society.

TIEDE & EDISTYS 4/1993 SUMMARIES

TUULA JUVONEN: Explosive Experiences - The challenge of queer studies to lesbian studies. Heterosexuality between women and men is usually seen as essential and stabile. In this article the notions of gender and sexuality and their supposed linkage are questioned. The critique of compulsory heterosexuality that developed in the practices of the lesbian movement of the 1970s questioned the essential nature of (hetero)sexuality. The lesbian definition of womanhood called also in question the cultural understanding of gendered bodies. The queer community of the late 1980s with its emphasis on providing a different perspective on sexuality pushed the traditional expectations of gender- or sexuality-based identities to the direction of more fluid and temporary identities. That change poses a severe challenge on identitybased lesbian studies: how to incorporate the new ideas of queer studies into lesbian studies without losing what is vital to it: the sexuality between women?

JAN LÖFSTRÖM: The end of identity politics - Gay and lesbian politics on the threshold of the 21st century. The article discusses the present-day state and the future of gay and lesbian politics, with a special reference to Finland. It points out the constraints and strategic dead-ends inherent in gay and lesbian identity politics. Mapping the possibilities of a less category-bound and more flexible politics of emancipatory transgression the article draws from the theoretical contributions of Judith Butler and Ernesto Laclau in particular. It argues that the factual developments in Finnish society and among "gays and lesbians" show the hetero/gay/lesbian categorisation is becoming redundant. Consequently, the strategy of identity politics is not sexual politically innovative anymore, either.

TUIJA PULKKINEN: Artificial sex? - The natural, the perverse and the radical gender politics. Modernity tries to find the basis for sexual behaviour from nature. Homosexual culture is thus either something inexplicable in nature or a cultural phenomenon without a natural basis. Postmodernity does not search for the basis of sexual identities in nature but attempts to deconstruct the nature/culture dichotomy. Nature and science define and distinguish the "natural" and "perverse" sexuality, and the prevailing heterosexual matrix leaves no room for individual choices. Lesbian identity servers as a political-philosophical argument against this universalising heterosexuality. An alternative identity politics involves the risk of naturalising identities and stabilising what the radical gender politics has set in motion. On the other hand, identity is essential in all gender politics. We must only understand that a sexual identity that has not become naturalised, that is random and whose structure has been deconstructed is still an identity and it can serve as a framework in various political situations.

EEVA PELTONEN: The idealised and denied legacy of the Finnish wars 1939- 1945. The attitude towards the reported history and the collective memory of the Second World War became a divide between generations in many European countries in the 1960s and 1970s. In their rebellion against the older generation the children of the war generation brought up nasty questions about their parents' past during the war, at the same time calling into question national myths about the war. Recently, signs have emerged of a need by some of those rebels to understand their parents' past. There is, however, a fear that this kind of a more understanding attitude can reinforce nationalistic tendencies. Therefore, new approaches have been searched in order to find a balance between an understanding and a critical attitude. This Central European discourse about the Second World War has helped me to define my orientation in the research on recollections of the Second World War of Finnish women who belong to my parents' generation. This article is a by-product of my research and it consists largely of elements which could be excerpts form my research diary - if I had kept one.