Academy Professor
Faculty of Social Sciences
Tel. +358 50 421 1053
Office hours: by appointment
Pertti Alasuutari is interested in the cultural aspects of social life and especially in their links to power and politics. His areas of specialization are everyday life and identity construction, media reception and audiences, cultural dimensions of globalization, social and cultural theory, and methodology of social research.
TCuPS – Tampere Research Group for Cultural and Political Sociology
Research interests:
In Alasuutari’s scholarly work, empirically driven research approach is combined with theory-building that serves the understanding of the human reality. The ethnographic approach of his earlier production (e.g. Desire and Craving: A Cultural Theory of Alcoholism, SUNY Press 1992) has during the 1990s changed into a methodology that makes use of the analysis of public discourses, but common to all his works is an attempt to understand the cultural processes of contemporary society. His current research projects deal with the way global trends are domesticated and how local ideas and policies are synchronized with what is going on elsewhere in the world society.
Alasuutari’s interest in social research methodology, especially qualitative research can be seen in many of his articles and textbooks (e.g. Researching Culture: Qualitative Method and Cultural Studies, Sage 1995; An Invitation to Social Research, Sage 1998). He is also interested in social and cultural theory, which can be seen in his latest book, Social Theory and Human Reality (Sage 2004).
Alasuutari is founding and current editor of the European Journal of Cultural Studies and the first president of the international Association for Cultural Studies .
Publications:
Alasuutari, Pertti: The Synchronization of National Policies: Ethnography of the Global Tribe of Moderns. London: Routledge 2016.
Alasuutari, Pertti, Marjaana Rautalin & Jukka Syväterä: Organisations as Epistemic Capital: the Case of Independent Children’s Rights Institutions. International Journal of Politics, Culture & Society, published online August 13, 2015, DOI 10.1007/s10767-015-9205-3
Alasuutari, Pertti (2015) “The Discursive Side of New Institutionalism“. Cultural Sociology 9(2): 162-184.
Alasuutari, Pertti and Ali Qadir (2014) “Epistemic governance: An approach to the politics of policy-making“.European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology 1(1): 67-84.
Alasuutari, Pertti and Ali Qadir (eds.) (2014) National Policy-Making: Domestication of Global Trends. London: Routledge.
Alasuutari, Pertti, Ali Qadir, and Karin Creutz (2013) The Domestication of Foreign News: News Stories Related to the 2011 Egyptian Revolution in British, Finnish and Pakistani Newspapers. Media Culture & Society 35(6), 2013, 692-712.
Alasuutari, Pertti & Alasuutari, Maarit (2012) “The Domestication of Early Childhood Education Plans in Finland“.Global Social Policy 12(2): 129–148.
Alasuutari, Pertti (2011) “Modernization as a Tacit Concept Used in Governance“. Journal of Political Power 4(2): 217–235.
Alasuutari, Pertti: Spreading Global Models and Enhancing Banal Localism: The Case of Local Government Cultural Policy Development. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 2011, DOI:10.1080/10286632.2011.625418.
Alasuutari, Pertti: Modernization as a Tacit Concept Used in Governance. Journal of Political Power, 4, No. 2, 2011, 217-235.
Alasuutari, Pertti: The Governmentality of Consultancy and Competition: The Influence of the OECD. In: Germán Solinís and Nicolas Baya-Laffite (eds.): Mapping out the Research-Policy Matrix: Highlights from the First International Forum on the Social Science-Policy Nexus. Paris: UNESCO Publishing 2011, 147-165.
Alasuutari, Pertti: The Rise and Relevance of Qualitative Research. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 13, No. 2, 2010, 139-155.
Alasuutari, Pertti: The Domestication of Worldwide Policy Models. Ethnologia Europaea 39, No. 1, 2009, 66-71.
Rautalin, Marjaana and Pertti Alasuutari: The uses of the national PISA results by Finnish officials in central government. Journal of Education Policy, 24, No 5, 2009, 539-556.
Alasuutari, Pertti and Maarit Alasuutari: Narration and Ritual Formation of Diasporic Identity: The Case of Second Generation Karelian Evacuees. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 16, Issue 3, 2009, 321-341.
Alasuutari, Pertti and Ari Rasimus: Use of the OECD in Justifying Policy Reforms: The Case of Finland. Journal of Power 2, No 1, 2009, 89-109.
Alasuutari, Pertti: Social Theory and Human Reality. London, Sage 2004.
Check also my publications in Researchgate by clicking on this text.
Research projects:
TCuPS – Tampere Research Group for Cultural and Political Sociology