Biotechnological developments and public health strategies raise urgent societal questions about what constitutes health, adequate care, a risk of illness, or knowledge about embodied differences between individuals. At the same time, emerging bioscientific and healthcare practices need to be ethical and stay within planetary boundaries. We approach the possibilities and tensions that arise at the intersection of experiences, practices and structures across bioscience and healthcare. Our research includes analyses of clinical practices, health activism, illness experiences, biomedical research settings, biotechnological development and marketing, healthcare governance and regulation, and public debate about bioscience and healthcare.
Keywords: bodies, materialities, clinical practices, biomedical research practices, ethics and politics of care
Contact persons: Venla Oikkonen and Valtteri Vähä-Savo
Researchers: Henni Alava, Ahalya Ganesh, Outi Koskinen, Mianna Meskus, Marianne Mäkelin, Elina Mäkinen, Venla Oikkonen, Hanna Ojala, Sanna Poelman, Lilli Aini Rokkonen, Maria Temmes, Tiina Vaittinen, Pia Vuolanto, Valtteri Vähä-Savo
Selected publications:
2025
- Alava, H., Lindroos, J. & Pihlman, A. (2025). Finland’s New Children’s Hospital and resurgent charity in a Nordic post-welfare state. Medical Humanities.
- Oikkonen, V., Helosvuori, E., Ganesh, A. & Rokkonen, L. A. (2025) Entangled illnesses: Embodied experiences of managing multimorbidity. Sociology of Health and Illness.
2024
- Meskus, M., Oikkonen, V. & Temmes, M. (2024) The processuality of ‘sex’ in biomedicine: Exploring stem cell research, cancer medicine and vaccine safety research. Body & Society.
- Wagner, A., Polak, P., Rudek, T. J., Świątkiewicz-Mośny, M., Anderson, A., Bockstal, M., Gariglio, L., Hasmanová Marhánková, J., Hilário, A. P., Hobson-West, P., Iorio, J., Kuusipalo, A., Numerato, D., Scavarda, A., Alcântara da Silva, P., Soares Moura, E. & Vuolanto, P. (2024). Agency in urgency and uncertainty: Vaccines and vaccination in European media discourses Social Science and Medicine.
- Mäkelin, M., Helosvuori, E. & Meskus, M. (2024) Strategic naturalizing in the Anthropocene: Managing cells, bodies and ecosystems. Sociological Review.
- Kuusipalo, A., Nurmi, J., Järvinen, K.-M., & Vuolanto, P. (2024) Trust and the public vaccine debate in Finland before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. In L. Borin, M.-M. Hammarlin, D. Kokkinakis, & F. Miegel (eds) Vaccine Hesitancy in the Nordic Countries: Trust and Distrust During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Routledge.
- Oikkonen, V. (2024) Anticipating immunity: Vaccine-induced immunity and vaccine safety in the Finnish news coverage of COVID-19 vaccines. MAT Medicine Anthropology Theory.
- Hautamäki, L. & Meskus, M. (2024) Living temporality: Speculative engagements with elderly people on bioscience and the body. Time & Society.
- . (2024). Living with acuteness in chronic illness: The temporal underpinnings of endometriosis. Medical Anthropology Quarterly.
2023
- Vaittinen, T., Koljonen, K., Tella, S., Asikainen, E. & Laatikainen, K. (2023) Holistically sustainable continence care: A working definition, the case of single-used absorbent hygiene products (AHPs) and the need for ecosystems thinking. Proc IMeche Part H: Journal for Engineering in Medicine.
- Homanen, R. & Meskus, M. (2023) Population anxieties in constituting Nordic welfare state futures: Affective biopolitics in the age of environmental crises. BioSocieties.
- Helosvuori, E. & Oikkonen, V. (2023) Sensing pain: Embodied knowledge in endometriosis. Health.
- Temmes, M. (2023) Reducing costs while optimizing health? A transnational feminist engagement with personalized medicine. In N. Lykke, R. Koobak, P. Bakos, S. Arora & K. Mohamed (eds) Pluriversal Conversations on Transnational Feminisms. Routledge.
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Nurmi, J., Vuolanto, P., & Järvinen, K.-M. (2023) Sairaanhoitajien, terveydenhoitajien ja kätilöiden suhtautuminen rokotteisiin. Sosiaalilääketieteellinen Aikakauslehti.
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Hilário, A. P., Scavarda, A., Numerato, D., Mendonça, J., Cardano, M., Marhankova, J., Gariglio, L., Vuolanto, P., et al. (2023) Recruiting a hard-to-reach, hidden and vulnerable population: The methodological and practical pitfalls of researching vaccine-hesitant parents. Qualitative Health Research.