Kati Rantala

Dancing on the tightrope Ever yday aesthetics in the practices of shopping, gym exercise and art making

Drawing on interviews we discuss everyday aesthetics in recreational shopping, gym exercise and art making. For our interviewees these practices represent a sphere of autonomy and self-fulfilment, constituted by a constant balancing between restraint and pleasure. In a process which resembles ‘dancing on the tightrope’, freedom and restriction, moments of release and self-discipline, desire and enforcement produce one another. Our comparative material suggests that this process is characteristic of everyday aesthetics. We discuss it under four themes – ‘doing your own thing’, building up competence, submitting to ideals and coping with failure – which build on one another and lead towards an image of self as a self-responsible agent. The process is about active creativity; people are striving to become the kind of people they want to be. This does not imply voluntarism, however. The activities take place in the midst of differently enforcing ideals, values and skills, and most importantly, forms of self-discipline.

The Evaluator as a Critical Interpreter Comparing Evaluations of Multi-Actor Drug Prevention Policy

Evaluation research mixes administrative objectives with social scientific aims.This article distinguishes between three types of evaluation research based on the role of the evaluator. First, social engineers seek mechanisms that have objectively measurable outcomes. Second, programme promoters act as counselling resources for community developers or other stakeholders. Instead of these two traditional roles, this article considers a third type of evaluation which is based on the role of the evaluator as a critical interpreter, embodied in the sociological intervention approach. The role of the critical interpreter is illustrated by two cases where evaluation has focused on the policy of devolved responsibility combined with community-based prevention.The interventions took place in very different settings: a large-scale, long-lasting evaluation of a large and expensive policy-testing programme and an independent, voluntary and brief evaluation of small-scale, local groups. The comparison of these demonstrates that the context of evaluation determines the more specific type of a critical interpretation.

Art as a communicative practice for teenagers

Fifteen-year-old Kelly’ is concerned about the mistreatment of animals. She draws and paints argumentative pictures as her contribution to this issue. One of her pictures illustrates partly scorched pigs at slaughter: ’The pigs look depressed with their heads down (...) they are treated as if they were nothing but pieces of merchandise (...) The purpose of this picture is to make people aware of these things’. As a contrast to this, she has made another picture representing a herd of zebras and the solidarity they share despite having different characters. ’People, too, should feel togetherness even if some of us think differently; we should respect our different thoughts and talk about them.’