Jukka Törrönen

The Concept of Subject Position in Empirical Social Research

The article proposes that, by applying the ideas from positioning theory and from the formulations of Stuart Hall, we can define the subject position as a construction which, on the one hand, evolves in specific relation to the audience and to the existing subject positions in a particular context of interaction and which, on the other hand, obtains its meaning by being attached situationally to categories and story lines. According to this definition subject positions evolve in communication as a co-effect of three elements: categories, story lines and positionings. The definition of subject position as a positioning in relation to categories and to story lines rends possible a kind of analysis in which the articulation of microprocesses and macroprocesses into each other is opened up for exact and non-reductionistic empirical analyses. Furthermore, in contextualising micropolitics as part of local, national and global processes, we need to have knowledge of historical background and apt political theories. The analytic power of the approach is demonstrated with a data extract concerning alcohol policy in Finland.

Changing drinking styles in Denmark and Finland. Fragmentation of male and female drinking among young adults.

A traditional heavy intoxication-oriented drinking style, “heroic drinking,” is a central drinking practice in Denmark and Finland, especially among men. However, it seems that another drinking style leading to intoxication, “playful drinking,” has become more prevalent in Denmark as well as in Finland. Playful drinking is characterized by self-presentations in diverse forms of game situations in which you need to play with different aspects of social and bodily styles. We approach the positions of heroic drinking and playful drinking among young adults (between 17 and 23 years) in Denmark and Finland by analyzing how they discuss these two drinking styles in focus groups (N = 16).

First drink: What does it mean? The alcohol socialization process in different drinking cultures

Aims: The aim of this qualitative research is to show how the alcohol socialization process – i.e. the ways children and young people get acquainted with alcohol – can generate very diverse experiences and meanings in different cultural contexts. Method: A total of 16 focus groups were conducted in Italy and Finland, divided by age (4 groups), gender and socio-cultural level. A total of 190 participants took part in the study. Findings: The findings support the hypothesis that the alcohol socialization process takes place in very different ways and assumes diverse meaning in the two countries involved in the study. In Italy the relationship with alcohol takes place as part of a gradual process and participants’ first memories of drinking alcohol are connected to positive values. In Finland, on the other hand, often the first experiences of drinking overlap with the first experiences of intoxication and alcohol images reflect an ambiguous relation with this substance, closely related to its intoxicating effects. Conclusions: Results show that the alcohol socialization process can take very different forms and meanings according to a specific drinking cultures. Thus, further comparative research should take into more consideration the implication of these substantial differences.

Light transgression and heavy sociability: Alcohol in young adult Finns’ narratives of a night out

This article explores the distinctive characteristics of present-day drinking habits in Finland. The data are young adults’ narratives of their nights out obtained in interviews that asked about ideal, typical and disastrous nights out. The data set comprises 117 interviews (60 women and 57 men). Questions covered in this article include: What motivates young adults to drink? What kind of self-regulation do they exhibit in their drinking? Is getting drunk a value in itself, or does it have a secondary meaning to other activities? Are there any gender differences in drinking habits? We look specifically at the roles of alcohol in young peoples nights out and how these roles vary during the course of the evening. Furthermore, the analysis looks at how the narratives are structured on the dimensions of goal-oriented linear time and ritualised repetitive cyclical time. Our analysis shows that the drinking habits of young adults reflect a movement away from the goal-oriented time of the everyday towards the cyclical time of ones own circle of friends. These breakaways are essentially an exercise in creating and strengthening a general will within the groups. They do not resemble total inversions or transgressions of the prevailing reality, nor are they about defiance, loutish behaviour, getting legless or locked up. Rather, these breakaways find mainly culturally regulated and ordered expressions. Indeed one can infer that sociable drinking habits have gained a stronger footing among young adults in Finland today.

Are Finnish drinking habits changing? In search of a cultural approach

Finnish drinking habits have undergone major changes over the past few decades. However, most Finnish studies of drinking habits conclude by stating that drinking is still traditional, national, and uniform in nature. These conclusions draw on the notion of a cultural lag and on stereotypical dichotomies between the traditional and the modern, or between the Finnish and European drinking habits. The article shows that in studies of drinking habits, the concept of habits has not been problematized. In many ways, only the most patterned behavior is dealt with, being mostly that of ‘intoxication-oriented drinking’. Other aspects tend to be overshadowed. Moreover, little attention has been paid to the meanings that actors give to their drinking as the studies of drinking habits have mainly used survey data. In order to allow a more sensitive analysis, the article elaborates on a cultural model of drinking habits, and then applies the model to Finnish statistical and qualitative studies of drinking habits from the past 30–40 years. The analysis reveals, first, that new time-series analyses should be conducted on the epidemiological data in order to both test the uniformity of drinking habits and to explore their diversity. Second, efforts should be made to combine the contradictory findings of epidemiological and qualitative research. Third, studies of drinking habits should devote more attention to the analysis of the situational variation of drinking.

Boundaries between Adult and Youth Drinking as Expressed by Young People in Italy and Finland

The study applies the concept of boundary work, as developed by Lamont and Molnár to analyze how young people perceive adult drinking. It is based on eight focus groups involving young people aged 17 to 24 years conducted in Torino (IT) and Helsinki (FI). The study contributes to understand why different orientations towards heavy drinking persist in the two geographical regions. In Italy young people draw explicit boundaries between theirs’ and adults’ drinking and between proper and deviant drinking, so that their boundary work results in producing social norms that are shared with adults, except for drunkenness, which is seen as normal for young people but not for adults. In Finland young people distance themselves from adults’ drinking situations, and describe them in terms of light versus heavy drinking, yet without making distinctions between proper and improper drinking in each situation, thereby articulating an absence of explicit norms against drunkenness.

Femininities of drinking among Finnish and Swedish women of different ages

This article discusses femininities of drinking in Finland and in Sweden. It compares how Finnish and Swedish women define accepted and desired drinking-related femininity. It also asks how femininity related to drinking is constructed and to what traits it is associated with. According to the general assumption increased intoxication oriented drinking among women means that drinking habits and behavior between women and men have become more similar. We rather suggest that women have not only adopted intoxication oriented drinking but they connect it to their feminine identity by shaping it according to their own needs and actions. The analysis is made by using focus group interviews from Finland and Sweden from four different age groups (20 years, 25–30 years, 35–40 years and 50–60 years) and from two educational levels. The data has been analyzed by examining how Finnish and Swedish women construct femininities of drinking while interpreting the pictures of drinking situations. The analysis shows that there is variety of femininities of drinking. Age seems to be an important factor in the construction of femininities; younger and older Finnish and Swedish women relate different traits to drinking-related femininity. It seems that the composition of drinking related gender identity has broadened from traditional hegemonic feminine values to versatility. This relates to the expansion of drinking related actions and the strengthening of drinking related agency among women. Based on these findings, younger generations seem to have a wider variety of drinking related repertoires and ways to interpret femininity than older generations.

Changes in mortality due to major alcohol‐related diseases in four Nordic countries, France and Germany between 1980 and 2009: a comparative age–period–cohort analysis

AIMS To investigate age, period and cohort effects on time trends of alcohol-related mortality in countries with different drinking habits and alcohol policies. DESIGN AND SETTING Age-period-cohort (APC) analyses on alcohol-related mortality were conducted in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, France and Germany. PARTICIPANTS Cases included alcohol-related deaths in the age range 20-84 years between 1980 and 2009. MEASUREMENTS Mortality data were taken from national causes of death registries and covered the ICD codes alcoholic psychosis, alcohol use disorders, alcoholic liver disease and toxic effect of alcohol. FINDINGS In all countries changes across age, period and cohort were found to be significant for both genders [effect value with confidence interval (CI) shown in Supporting information, Table S1]. Period effects pointed to an increase in alcohol-related mortality in Denmark, Finland and Germany and a slightly decreasing trend in Sweden, while in Norway an inverse U-shaped curve and in France a U-shaped curve was found. Compared with the cohorts born before 1960, the risk of alcohol-related mortality declined substantially in cohorts born in the 1960s and later. Pairwise between-country comparisons revealed more statistically significant differences for period (P < 0.001 for all 15 comparisons by gender) than for age [P < 0.001 in seven (men) and four (women) of 15 comparisons] or cohort [P < 0.01 in two (men) and three (women) of 15 comparisons]. CONCLUSIONS Strong period effects suggest that temporal changes in alcohol-related mortality in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, France and Germany between 1980 and 2009 were related to secular differences affecting the whole population and that these effects differed across countries.

From Genius of the Home to Party Princess : Drinking in Finnish women's magazine advertisements from the 1960s to the 2000s

The data for this article consist of alcohol-related advertisements published in seven Finnish womens magazines from 1967 to 2006. We are interested in finding out what kind of alcohol-related subject positions these magazines have created for women audiences from the 1960s onwards, to see how those positions have changed and what these changes tell us about the changes that have happened in the cultural position of drinking in Finland. Our analysis applies semiotic and discourse analytical methods. It shows that in the advertisements from the 1960s, women were placed in the subject position of full-time mother responsible for taking care of the heterosexual relationship. Womens drinking was associated with the private space of the home, with eating meals and socialising with family and friends. Womens subject positions in the 1970s and 1980s were still largely the same, but they also took on slightly new features. The 1990s and 2000s saw the emergence of the active woman who appears in public places, and drinking was associated with womens own time, enjoyment and pleasure. During the period under review we see the emergence of a drinking, self-assertive woman who is a responsible and distinctive consumer, a consumer who toys with stereotypes, and a partying consumer.

Changes in mortality due to major alcohol-related diseases in four Nordic countries, France and Germany between 1980 and 2009: a comparative age-period-cohort analysis

AIMS To investigate age, period and cohort effects on time trends of alcohol-related mortality in countries with different drinking habits and alcohol policies. DESIGN AND SETTING Age-period-cohort (APC) analyses on alcohol-related mortality were conducted in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, France and Germany. PARTICIPANTS Cases included alcohol-related deaths in the age range 20-84 years between 1980 and 2009. MEASUREMENTS Mortality data were taken from national causes of death registries and covered the ICD codes alcoholic psychosis, alcohol use disorders, alcoholic liver disease and toxic effect of alcohol. FINDINGS In all countries changes across age, period and cohort were found to be significant for both genders [effect value with confidence interval (CI) shown in Supporting information, Table S1]. Period effects pointed to an increase in alcohol-related mortality in Denmark, Finland and Germany and a slightly decreasing trend in Sweden, while in Norway an inverse U-shaped curve and in France a U-shaped curve was found. Compared with the cohorts born before 1960, the risk of alcohol-related mortality declined substantially in cohorts born in the 1960s and later. Pairwise between-country comparisons revealed more statistically significant differences for period (P < 0.001 for all 15 comparisons by gender) than for age [P < 0.001 in seven (men) and four (women) of 15 comparisons] or cohort [P < 0.01 in two (men) and three (women) of 15 comparisons]. CONCLUSIONS Strong period effects suggest that temporal changes in alcohol-related mortality in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, France and Germany between 1980 and 2009 were related to secular differences affecting the whole population and that these effects differed across countries.