ÅAU Annual Minority Seminars

The minority profile of Åbo Akademi University organises yearly seminars on topical issues, with a focus on complexities involved in the production and construction of minority positions and identities.

The 10th Annual Minority Studies Profile Seminar 2025

Wellbeing in Minorities: Sustainability and Disruptions of Health in Non-dominant Groups

9-10 April 2025
Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland

The seminar aims at unpacking and exploring the complicated and multidimensional subject of well-being in minorities. It asks what constitutes and contributes to well-being or its deficiency in non-dominant, subordinated, liminal, and marginalised groups, considering their social positioning and resources available to them. The seminar takes up particular macro- and micro-level challenges, barriers, and obstacles that minorities (might) face trying to achieve and maintain their well-being. The seminar encourages critical thinking of how wellbeing deficiency is intertwined with a minority position. It builds on a broad understanding of well-being as a multidimensional phenomenon which entails physical and mental health, tightly bound to variegated social, economic and political factors. Thus, the seminar welcomes not only the perspectives and experiences of minorities but also actors and institutions playing an active role (or possibly failing in it) in the creation and maintain of wellbeing of others.

Day 1. 09.04.2025

Aud. Argentum, Aurum building

12:00 Registration
12:30 Welcome speech
12:45–14:00 Keynote 1: Dr. Laura Kemppainen, University of Helsinki:
The migration-ageing nexus: exploring the diversity of ageing experiences and well-being

14:00–14:15 Coffee-break
14:15–15:45 Panel 1. Health predictors and health factors in Minorities Chair: Camilla Nordberg

1. The Impact of Digitalisation in Healthcare on Minority Migrants: A Qualitative Case Study of Nepalis in Finland by Shrwan Khanal, University of Helsinki

2. Socioeconomic status, maternal risk factors, and gestational diabetes mellitus by Zahra Roustaei University of Helsinki

15:45–16:00 Coffee-Break
16:00–17:00 Panel 2. Migrants and labor

1. Ethnic differences in health-related labor market outcomes: A comparative longitudinal investigation of disability pension, sickness absence and earnings by Waseem Haider,  University of Turku/INVEST Flagship center

2. Wellbeing perceptions of Russian-speaking care workers employed in the Finnish elderly care services provided in Swedish by Anna Sjödal, Åbo Akademi

Day 2. 10.04.2025

Lilla Auditoriet, ASA building

09:30–10:45 Keynote 2: Professor Hannele Harjunen, University of Jyväskylä: Gendered body norms, weight stigma and health
10:45–11:00 Coffee break
11:00–12:00 Panel 3. Structural and institutional barriers for minorities’ wellbeing Chair: Magdalena Kmak

1. Barriers to Care for Trafficking Victims in Finland by Lotta Mäkipää, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare

2. Racism against migrants in German healthcare by Ksenia Meshkova, Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Germany

12:00–13:00 Lunch
13:00–14:15 Keynote 3: Dr. Elena Bogdanova, University of Helsinki:
A subjectivist perspective on health and well-being research among displaced persons in Finland
14:14–14:30 Coffee-break
14:30–15:30 Panel 4. Mental health and wellbeing in Minorities Chair: Anna Anna Avdeeva

1. Staff perspectives on mental health support in Finnish reception centers by Katariina Mankinen, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Åbo Akademi

2. Beyond the ‘talking cure’: Suicide, silence and Inuit mental health in the context of Greenland by Daria Schwalbe Centre for Culture and the Mind, University of Copenhagen,  Centre for Patient Communication, Department of Clinical Studies, University of Southern Denmark.

3. Exploring well-being of Muslim women caregivers in elderly care in Finland by Shahnaj Begum, University of Lappland

15:45 Conclusion

Register here:

Keynote Abstracts

 Dr. Laura Kemppainen, University of Helsinki
The migration-ageing nexus: exploring the diversity of ageing experiences and well-being

With an increasing number of people ageing outside their countries of origin, the experiences of older migrants remain understudied, highlighting a significant gap in our understanding of ageing and well-being. Life course trajectories—shaped by migration histories, socio-economic conditions, and experiences in both the country of origin and the country of residence—position individuals unequally in terms of resources, health, service access, and social participation. This talk explores the intersection of ageing and migration, emphasising the experiences of those ageing ‘in-place’ but ‘out-of-place.’ Drawing on research from the Migration and Ageing (MICA) group at the University of Helsinki, this presentation examines the ‘healthy migrant effect’ in later life and the role of transnational lifestyles in shaping the well-being of older migrants. It highlights findings from population register studies on mortality, survey and interview data on older Russian speakers in Finland, alongside some new insights from interviews with Vietnamese and East African older adults. By addressing these themes, the talk aims to deepen our understanding of how migration and life course experiences influence ageing and well-being in increasingly diverse ageing populations.

Professor Hannele Harjunen, University of Jyväskylä
Gendered body norms, weight stigma and health

Research has well established that fatness is a strongly stigmatising characteristic and fatphobia is prevalent in society. The so-called fat stigma indicates that there are powerful negative stereotypes and prejudices concerning fatness and fat people. Since fatness is always intersectional, the experience of being fat often intersects also with other aspects of identity, such as gender, skin color, sexuality, and disability. The effects of the fat stigma can be, and often are, multi-layered and significant. Although fatness is stigmatizing for all genders, women experience the effects of the fat stigma more intensely and more frequently. Gendered normative expectations concerning women’s bodies are deeply intertwined with the fat stigma. Bearing this in mind, it is not surprising that fat women in particular experience discrimination in a number of spheres including work, health care, and physical activity. Moreover, research has shown that fat stigma can have serious health consequences in itself that affect both physical and mental well-being. In this talk, I will discuss the origins of fat stigma, how it is maintained societally, for example, though diet culture and the dominating neoliberally attuned view on health and healthy bodies, and argue for a better understanding and awareness of the multi-layered nature of the fat stigma and its health effects. I will ask what we can do to address the fat stigma in society.

Dr. Elena Bogdanova, University of Helsinki
A subjectivist perspective on health and well-being research among displaced persons in Finland

This presentation explores the potential of a subjectivist perspective in health and well-being research among refugees in contemporary settings. The importance of subjectivist approaches is growing due to the increasing demands for refugee adaptation in the new environment. Objectively-oriented research often fails to capture the crucial components of what constitutes contemporary understandings of subjective well-being, while algorithms for working with refugees are becoming increasingly digitized. The subjectivist perspective focuses on studying displacement as a subjective and traumatic experience, one that is biographically, situationally, and culturally conditioned. This presentation examines what information we can glean from studying aspects of refugees’ biographies, bodily experiences, sensuality, and emotionality, and how this information can contribute to the integration of refugees. This presentation is inspired by the project “Sensing as a refugee: Vulnerable bodies on the move” (Kone Foundation), which studied the refugee experience of individuals with chronic illnesses from Ukraine as a subjective bodily experience.

Past Minority Profile Annual Seminars

11 April 2024 Many Gazes of Law: Plurality and Ordering will be organized in collaboration with Åbo Akademi University Law School. The seminar will celebrate the launch of ÅAU Law School by critically engaging with law manifesting itself in various forms and funcitions, and at various levels of social reality. The seminar will approach sources, subjects and practice of law from five perspectives: LAw as rights; Law as legal profession; Law as jurisprudence; Law as education; and Law as justice. Speakers will include: Assoc. Prof Visa A.J. Kurki (University of Helsinki), Assoc. Dean for Learning and Teaching Moshen al Attar (Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University), Prof. Swethaa Ballakrinshnen (Univerity of California Irvin), Prof. Christopher Mbazira (Makerere University) and Postdoc. researcher Maria-Refore Legge (Uppsala University).

The seminar is followed by a PhD workshop. More information about the workshop can be found here. 

11 May 2023 Contesting the Collective Past: Exploring Testimony and Cultural Memory in Minority Research was organised in collaboration with the departments of history and philosophy at ÅAU. The seminar explored the role of testimony and cultural memory for knowledge and understanding of minority positions in the humanities and social sciences. It had a dual focus: (i) general theoretical and methodological questions for minority research and (ii) the contestation of collective pasts in relation to specific minority positions in the Nordic countries.

Keynote speakers were: Berber Bevernage (Ghent University), Wulf Kansteiner (Aarhus University), Siobhan Kattago (University of Tartu), Malin Thor Tureby (Malmö University).

6-7 April 2022 Living with the Sea was co-organised in collaboration with the ÅAU strategic profiling area The Sea. The seminar focused on coastal regions and climate change and will hereby explored water as a space: as a space of movement and life/living, as a shared and disputed space, and as a space for politics, governance and justice. It explored existing plurilegal regimes & governance, including critically in light of alternative visions and models, e.g. indigenous perspectives on human-water relations or the decentering of anthropocentric perspectives through object oriented ontologies, as well as climate justice.

Keynote speakers were: Rikke Becker Jakobbsen (Aalborg University), Kristin Ilves (University of Helsinki), Timo Koivurova (University of Lapland), Hélène Mayrand (University of Sherbrooke), Christopher Raymond (University of Helsinki), Liselotte Viaene (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid).

14-16 May 2021 Minority Experiences and European Narratives: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives. The seminar was organised together with the Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives (EuroStorie) at the University of Helsinki. The seminar explored the multifaceted links between minority experiences and European narratives, both in the past and in the present. It also discussed how the idea of Europe has developed with reference to minority experiences in the official narratives of the policy papers produced under the auspices of the Council of Europe and the European Union.

Keynote speakers were: Huub van Baar (University of Giessen), Manuela Boatca (University of Freiburg), and Marie-Claire Foblets (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle).

Abstracts of the talks: Minority experiences seminar all abstracts

6-8 May 2020 Curriculums for Social Justice canceled due to Covid-19 pandemic

25 April 2019 Writing In, Writing Out – Historicizing Agency, Mobility and Positionality

The annual seminar of the Åbo Akademi University minority research profile explored histories and historiographies of minority positions. It traced practices of exclusion and inclusion, agency and mobility through archives and the materialities of class, race, body, gender and religion. How, what and whose stories are being told and untold – and by whom? How can they be told otherwise? Keynote speakers were: Milinda Banerjee (LMU Munich), Mona Oraby (Amherst College), Åsa Bharathi Larsson (Uppsala University),  Daniel Blackie (University of Oulu), Miika Tervonen (Migration Institute of Finland), Gunlög Fur (Linnaeus University) Speaker Abstracts and Bios Minority Seminar 2019. The seminar was followed by a PhD workshop on April 26th.