The complexities of social transition

Drawing on long-lasting ethnographic fieldwork, the researcher focuses on transition processes that affect women's social position in Nepalese rural communities. The research data derive from women’s everyday life and two organizations founded by women and striving for social change.

“The study puts emphasis on women’s active role and subjectivity in the processes of change. It also challenges our conception of Nepalese women as targets of various measures. The participating women’s role in their families and local communities was important, but their lives were nevertheless restricted by intricately intersecting local and global hierarchies. This dichotomy was also evident in advancing the transition,” the author notes.

The local methods and goals of the social transition were linked to the women’s daily realities, to cultural traditions, to land, and to spirituality. Getting organized had reduced the poverty of many families, increased the women’s education, and bestowed recognition respect on them on the communal and societal levels. Meanwhile, the change effected by the organizations had created new elites and increased the distance to the poorest and marginalized women – especially to those left outside the community. Although the leaders of the organizations used communal and local arguments to a great extent, they had also engaged in liberalistic and capitalist pursuits. This conflicted with some traditions promoting wellbeing and impaired communality, among other things.

Social change proved a complex process. Instead of proceeding straight toward a predetermined goal, it took to many directions within the communities. People tried to effect a change not only within the local communities but also from the outside, especially through international development cooperation and political reforms.

“The complexity could be seen in the fact that local and international conceptions of social transition sometimes conflict with one another. In addition, the local hierarchies complicated the transition process further. The social transition contained various aspects to which the women conformed, or which they opposed or welcomed. Women in the Nepalese countryside are not a homogenous group and their positions in the processes of change are diverse,” the author continues.

Localness and solidarity as drivers of social transition

According to the research results, the forces of change embedded in traditions and local communities are in the core of ethically sustainable social change. However, in the pursuance of change these forces are often overshadowed by social restrictions and discriminatory structures created by traditions.

“The study elaborates on ways to recognize local forces of transition and to implement ethically sustainable social change through a feminist and decolonizing solidarity approach. This approach is based on a setting in which local actors on many hierarchical levels define the direction of the change, while external actors are in a learner's position," the author notes.

Development cooperation workers, social workers, activists, and other external actors are thus left with the task to recognize and support the wellbeing generated by local traditions and communality – while standing up against discriminatory structures on the global and local levels. An external actor may team up with local communities, enabling the exchange of resources and information and a dialog that will eventually reveal and deconstruct hierarchies, privileges, and otherness. This leads to a setting in which the typical us-and-them thinking is questioned and the diversity of the communities and the external actors is recognized. This study provides penetrating, hands-on knowledge that also deals with international politics. It is therefore useful to actors in development politics, international social work, and non-governmental organizations.

Information on the public examination:

The dissertation “Bridges over the Mountain Ranges - Ethnography on the Complexities of Transition in Women’s Social Position in Nepalese Rural Communities” by Enni Mikkonen, MSSc, will be examined in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Lapland on Friday, 9 June 2017 at 12 noon. The venue of the event is Esko and Asko Hall, Yliopistonkatu 8, Rovaniemi. The opponent is Adjunct Professor Riitta Granfelt from the University of Turku and the custos is Professor Merja Laitinen from the University of Lapland. Coffee and cake will be served in restaurant Petronella after the event. Welcome!

Information on the doctoral candidate:

Enni Mikkonen (born 1981 in Oulu) graduated from Madetoja Music High School in 2000. She earned her Master’s degree, majoring in social work, at the University of Lapland in 2010. She has worked as a university teacher of social work at the University of Lapland in 2011 and 2012 and as a paid doctoral candidate in the Finnish National University Network for Social Work (Sosnet) Graduate School between 2012 and 2016. Since 2016 the candidate has worked in the project Matkalla ajassa ja paikassa – turvapaikanhakijat pohjoisessa Suomessa (Journeys through time and places – Asylum Seekers in Northern Finland), funded by Kone Foundation, and in the University of Lapland’s project Taidevaihde – Nuorten kaksisuuntainen kotoutuminen (Art Switch – Youths’ Bidirectional Domestication), funded by the European Social Fund.

Further information:

Enni Mikkonen
enni.mikkonen(at)ulapland.fi
+358 40 7439572

Sale of the dissertation: Juvenes web store. Further information and press release copies: Lapland University Press, phone: 040 821 4242, email: julkaisu (at) ulapland.fi

Information on the publication:

Enni Mikkonen: Bridges over the Mountain Ranges: Ethnography on the Complexities of Transition in Women’s Social Position in Nepalese Rural Communities. Acta Universitatis Lapponiensis 354. ISBN 978-952-337-008-1. ISSN 0788-7604. University of Lapland Printing Centre, Rovaniemi 2017. PDF: Acta electronica Universitatis Lapponiensis 221. ISBN 978-952-337-009-8. ISSN 1796-6310.