Academy of Finland has granted three-year funding to Katariina Parhi´s (University of Oulu) study Working for moral improvement: Correctional labor facilities in Finland, 1920s–1980s. (Paremmiksi ihmisiksi:Työlaitosten historia Suomessa 1920-luvulta 1980-luvulle) Katarina will join HEX officially in fall 2021.
The project examines Finnish workhouses, i.e., correctional labor facilities, from the 1920s to the 1980s at Tampere University. The project focuses on what and who the workhouses were for, and what it was like to be in them. The history of the workhouses has the potential to illuminate the wider context of the Finnish social and health care sector, the history of security measures, and their role in the development of Finnish society. The research is based on archival sources and published material. Correctional labor facilities offer an opportunity to see turning points and continuities in the ways the changing society understood work, citizenship, security, inclusion and exclusion, and justice.