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TURBULENCE AND CHALLENGES OF EVERYDAY LIFE IN RUSSIA AND FINLAND
This special issue, 'Turbulence and the challenging transitions of everyday life', has been produced as part of the Finnish Academy—funded project 'Reciprocal Relationships and the Construction of Well-Being During Critical Periods of Everyday Life' (No 257323). A theoretical understanding of reciprocity is connected to well-being, which is shaped through economic, social, cultural (see Bourdieu P. Distinction — A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, 1984) and health resources. These resources influence an individual's well-being and the well-being of people in general. Reciprocity is expressed through shared action and trust between individuals and communities. (See Tdrronen's first article in this journal.)
Global networks and media bring us information about global turbulence, increasing feelings of insecurity. Many issues related to this instability have been improved, for example the reduction of poverty and child mortality. Thus, the current era can be described as conflicting, because on one hand, cooperation between different countries has increased and people are moving from one country to another and caring about each other; but on the other hand, they express fear and hatred towards each other.
It is becoming more and more obvious that the world is entering an era of sweeping change, intensity and unpredictability, which can be defined as 'turbulent times'. Similarly, physical turbulence (from the Latin 'turbulentus', a chaotic stream of vortexes) in society involves an extreme degree of instability and unpredictability in the functioning of various social systems. It contributes to the instability of the world's economic and political systems, existing conflicts between cultures and the process of repartitioning the world, accompanied by local conflicts and wars. Instability and social crises generate new risks which are transferred from the outside social sphere to the social space of everyday life.
As risks become part of everyday practices, there is a change in everyday life towards increased riskogenics. In the meantime, a person's perception of risks changes significantly, and risks are perceived as an integral part of life — as a particular element of daily life to which people adapt gradually.
In our view, cooperation is the best way to familiarise oneselfwith other individuals and decrease fears about one another. In addition, information gives us tools to create an understanding of everyday changes, risks and challenges, but also of issues that are permanent. Understanding helps us to act in a way that improves everyday life.
In this journal, turbulence and the challenging transitions of everyday life are linked to families, young people and immigrants in different critical periods of everyday life. Turbulence and complex transitions are analysed not only from the point of view of professionals in the field of social work, but also from the point of view of citizens. This was possible by using qualitative and quantitative methods in conducting the research presented in the articles. Challenging transitions contain different periods and involve, for instance, the need for social support, experiences of exhaustion, low life satisfaction or quality of life, and lack of friends. These transitions are discussed in relation to family life and its challenges, migration and multiculturalism, working life, ageing and gender, youth, friendship and the importance of peer relations. These elements are assimilated in everyday life and well-being, a reciprocal combination that ties together the entirety of well-being, encompassing a family's or individual's economic situation, social relationships and opportunities for self-fulfilment. Everyday well-being is connected to the place an individual considers home, a place that links the socialising characteristics of changes in society both locally and globally, intergenerational relationships and people's symbolic and psychological identifications.
The content of the journal is divided into three parts. The first part, 'The challenging everyday life of families', starts with Maritta Tdrronen's article ' The Socio-Economic Well-Being of Finnish Families with Small Children: The Economic Dimension of Reciprocity', which focuses on the socio-economic dimension of reciprocity and economic resources and asks how socio-economic well-being is experienced by parents of Finnish families with small children. In the article, reciprocity is analysed in terms of socio-economic diversity or polarisation, which can also describe the socio-economic inequality of people.
The article ' The Rights of Working Mothers and Social Support of the Young Family in Russia' by Olga Bezrukova and Valentina Samoylova addresses the situation of a young Russian family from the point of view of its need for external support and the pursuit of prosperity and economic independence, based on the realisation of its labour potential. The focus of the authors' empirical research is violation of the social and labour rights of mothers, including pregnant women, as well as the practice of their social protection. The authors emphasize the importance of the resource approach, which allows extending the perception of the young family as an active social subject.
In his article 'Social Work, Capabilities and Needs', Michael Klassen substantiates the applicability of the capabilities approach concept by Martha Nussbaum (see Nussbaum, 2006, Frontiers of Justice) and Amartya Sen (see Sen, 2009, The Idea of Justice) for use in social work and reveals ways of measuring and recording capabilities/requirements in his example of working with people with disabilities living in Austria, as well as in relation with families.
'The challenging everyday life of families' ends with a discussion about exhaustion among elderly informal caregivers in Finland. In their article 'Exhaustion among Elderly Informal Caregivers — A Gender-Sensitive Approach', Maritta Tdrronen, Marjaana Seppanen, Ilkka Haapola and Teemu Vauhkonen define elderly informal caregivers as those who have reported providing help or taking care of a person who is ill long-term, disabled or aged. In recent decades, remarkable changes have taken place in the service structures of elderly care in Finland. The article uses the data of the longitudinal GOAL study (Good Ageing in Lahti Region) and asks why elderly women more often experience caregiving as exhausting than elderly men. The analysis is based on gender-related findings of differences between elderly male and female caregivers and their experiences of exhaustion.
In the second part of the journal, 'Capabilities and life choices of young people', Valde-mar Kallunki, Olli Lehtonen, Olga Borodkina and Valentina Samoylova analyse life satisfaction among young adults in southeast Finland and northwest Russia, in their article ' Life Satisfaction among Young Adults in South-East Finland and North-West Russia (St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region)'. Life satisfaction as a whole is analysed by quantile regression analysis, which makes it possible to compare the differences within and between countries in quantiles of well-being.
The results of study of the vocational education of young people with disabilities in St. Petersburg are present in Olga Borodkina's article 'Problems and Perspectives in the Professional Education of Young People with Disabilities'. The article submits that the well-being of people with disabilities depends on the interaction of three key actors: the state, the public and the community of people with disabilities. The results show that Russian social policy took a turn towards the social integration of people with disabilities, but that there are still social and infrastructural barriers to inclusive education. The public have become more tolerant. At the same time, paternalistic attitudes are still quite strong regarding disabled people, and empowering young people with special needs is one of the key issues of social work.
Marina Hakkarainen's article 'Narrating Immigrant Experience: Friends and Friendship in the Biographical Stories of Young Russian-Speakers in Finland' discusses immigrant
experience of friends and friendship in the biographical stories of young Russian-speakers in Finland. The author considers the importance of friends and friendship in Russian culture and language, and simultaneously in the transnational space of migrants in Finland.
Veronika Romanenko's article 'The Transformation of a Female Prostitution's Social Space: the example of young commercial sex workers in St. Petersburg' shows that social turbulence frequently results in the higher vulnerability of young women as a social group, pushing some of them into illegitimate earnings, including involvement in various forms of commercial sex. The author considers young commercial sex workers in the context of the social space of sex and analyses various features related to the social control (formal and informal) of prostitution.
In the third part, 'Stress of migration and resources of migrants', Minna Veistila and Eveliina Heino focus on the quality of life of families with a Russian background living in Finland, in their article 'Migrant Families and Social Quality'. In their study, authors adopt the theoretical framework of social quality, analysing narratives gathered through a series of interviews from a social perspective.
Alexander Tavrovskiy's article 'Challenges and Contradictions of Russian Migration Policy', deals with the transformation of Russia's migration policy from the collapse of the Soviet Union until 2015. The author outlines major periods of Russian migration policy, showing how the focus on repatriating the Russian-speaking population from the former Soviet Republics in the 1990s and restrictive measures totally ignoring the integration of migrants in the first half of the 2000s were gradually replaced by the more liberal and inclusive policy of the 2010s. This transformation was partly due to an understanding of economic and demographic pressures and the need to deal with the outcomes of the previous rather ineffective migration policies.
In her article 'The Multicultural Workplace Community as a Learning Environment', Marja Katisko discusses multicultural workplaces as learning environments and focuses on the challenges and possibilities that increasing multiculturalism creates in workplace communities in Finland. Her interest is in the construction of intercultural competence in interpersonal interactions, which she approaches through the stories of three adult students of immigrant backgrounds, each studying for a basic degree in social and health care and working on a permanent contract in Finland.
The article by Eveliina Heino, Nadezda Karmeniemi, Marja Katisko and Olga Borod-kina, 'Factors affecting the integration of migrants and features of social work among migrants in Finland', discusses integration and social work with migrants in Finland and concludes this theme issue. This paper deals with the challenges of migration (language, cultural features, the attitude of the receiving society, socio-economic problems, the lack of social connections, etc.) and the efforts of the Finnish policy for the social integration of immigrants. The article is based on the research results of Finnish studies over the past 20 years. The experience of Finland in the social integration of immigrants could be useful for Russian social agencies working with migrants.
We thank all the contributors to this journal and the Academy of Finland for making it possible to publish this issue and to continue our cooperation with researchers from both Finland and Russia.
Maritta Torronen (Professor, University of Helsinki), Olga Borodkina (Professor, St.Petersburg State University), Valentina Samoylova (Associate Professor, St.Petersburg State University), Tarja Juvonen (University Lecturer, University of Lapland), Eveliina Heino (Doctoral student, University of Helsinki)
