Moral Orders of Mobility : Youth Aspirations and ‘Doing’ Social Position in Finland

This is a self-archived version of an original article. This version may differ from the original in pagination and typographic details. Author(s): Title: Year: Version: Copyright: Rights: Rights url: Please cite the original version: CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Moral Orders of Mobility : Youth Aspirations and ‘Doing’ Social Position in Finland © The Author(s) 2021 Published version Nikunen, Minna; Ikonen, Hanna-Mari Nikunen, M., & Ikonen, H.-M. (2021). Moral Orders of Mobility : Youth Aspirations and ‘Doing’ Social Position in Finland. Sociological Research Online, 26(4), 908-925. https://doi.org/10.1177/1360780421997838 2021 https://doi.org/10.1177/1360780421997838 Sociological Research Online 1 –18 © The Author(s) 2021 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1360780421997838 journals.sagepub.com/home/sro Moral Orders of Mobility: Youth Aspirations and ‘Doing’ Social Position in Finland Minna Nikunen University of Jyväskylä, Finland Hanna-Mari Ikonen University of Jyväskylä, Finland Abstract By studying the moral orders that young Finnish adults (aged 18–30) attach to geographical mobility, this article reveals previously neglected relationships between aspiration and mobility. The 40 young adult interviewees are living in the midst of Finnish political debates about youth aspiration, which emphasise geographical rather than social mobility as a way to enhance employability and demonstrate aspiration. We argue that young people themselves use the discourse of geographical mobility by leaning on morally ordered social positionings which tend to be classed and gendered. They position themselves on a moral map of Finnish society, and in doing so they work and rework the social order and social hierarchies among young adults. The article suggests that notions of global and domestic mobility might best be grasped by focusing on the moral orders of aspiration that young adults also attach to intimate life. Keywords aspirations, gender, geographical mobility, moral order, social class, young adults Introduction In this article, we examine young Finnish adults’ moral orders of geographical mobility through which they construct themselves as full members of society. We regard doing moral orders (of geographical mobility and aspirations) as communicative practices that are often mundane. This view is in line with Stokoe and Edwards (2015: 165), for whom moral orders are ‘the practices of everyday life in which people mix moral evaluations, a sense of right and wrong, blame and culpability, etc., with ordinary accounts and Corresponding author: Minna Nikunen, Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä, P. O. Box 35, 40014 Jyväskylä, Finland. Email: [email protected] 997838SRO0010.1177/1360780421997838Sociological Research OnlineNikunen and Ikonen research-article2021 Article 2 Sociological Research Online 00(0) descriptions of persons, actions, and events’. Different aspirational models, which are conceived as ideals, may be used as a resource when young adults present their pathways to their present positions and their planned futures as understandable and morally sound. The assumed connection between young adults’ aspirations and their mobility is at the centre of public and official discourse on young people. To challenge this assumption, our intention is to find out how, and in relation to whom, young people themselves conceive of geographical mobility. We examine the rights and responsibilities young adults conceive for themselves and their peers in relation to domestic and international mobility. Do they define themselves (and others) as aspirational in relation to mobility, and if so, how is this done? What attributes and actions do they attach to the categories they use in their talk about mobilities? Might it be that aspirational models, which young adults are supposed to assume, actually exacerbate hierarchies and divisions among young people? Moral order and morality Moral reasoning is embedded in the daily practices of everyday life. However, because it is connected to social categories (identities), it can be used for ‘doing’ or ‘redoing’ differences that are bases or justifications for inequalities. Who is to blame for being too local and not aspirational enough? Who can be excused – or can excuse oneself – from being conventionally aspirational as a member of a certain category? Being critical of positionings and categorizations that bear social consequences which can create inequalities means stepping outside the immediate context. In our use of the term ‘moral order’, we are in line with the researchers who conceive of categorization as culture-in-action (Hester and Eglin, 1997). Culture is done and redone in mundane acts and utterances. Change occurs when some moral order is no longer used because it is not seen as valid. Furthermore, as researchers we utilise our own cultural understanding of subtexts connected to categorizations used, thus our interpretations are not purely data driven (Kitzinger, 2000). Thus, we are interested in the connections between a single utterance and larger structures, institutional practices or discourses and their relation to the discourses on aspirations and mobility. In addition, we see accounts and their repletion as consequential. We do not restrict our analysis on the basis of ‘ethnomethodological indifference’ (Garfinkel and Sacks, 1970) but our approach is more in line with Lena Jayyusi’s (1991) idea that analysis should be critical and even political, otherwise we are in a danger of mere description. Interview accounts are culture-in-action: there is an interactional task in hand and the mobilisation of some moral order that justifies and judges some sort of action. Morality relates to possibilities to choose how a story is told – as Lena Jayyusi has stated, given the indefinitely extendible number of ways people can be correctly categorized, the categories that are used in descriptions and accounts are central to the emergence of morality in interaction. Members’ categorization work is therefore embedded in a ‘moral order’. (Jayyusi, 1984: 2). This refers to the division of morality as a topic and morality as a resource (Jayyusi, 1984, 1991; see also Drew, 1998; Stokoe and Edwards, 2015). People do not think about what is moral all the time but often only use categorizations to tell something and make their stories intelligible – not to judge anyone nor explain one’s own action. However, Nikunen and Ikonen 3 Pirjo Nikander (2002) states that there are some categories – such as age-bound categories, which are relevant also in our study – that have the potential to provoke moral judgements because of morality-laden ideas of progression, from youth to adulthood, for instance. Aspirations Aspirations are evidently a moral issue. It is bad if you do not have any aspirations as a ‘young adult’ (membership category). In addition some aspirations may be considered less good than others or less good for certain categories of people. Aspiring to be a professional footballer is good if you are an athletic boy, less good if you are a girl or seen as unathletic. Aspiration in itself means the will to approach a new category which is usually high in some hierarchy or somehow higher position than the current one. Sometimes, this shift of a category means orientation towards a whole new set of rules, a social as well as a moral order. ‘Aspiration’ is a keyword which crystallises several political debates about youth. According to Konstanze Spohrer (2011: 53), ‘strategies of “employability” and “activation” are increasingly favoured in the European Union (EU) policy context. These strategies are aimed at fostering inclusion of young people by stressing the responsibility of an individual to participate in education and employment’. Spohrer suggests that similar tendencies in the United Kingdom (UK) debate have been framed as ‘raising young people’s aspirations’. Her analysis suggests that the ‘debate on “aspiration” constructs young people from disadvantaged backgrounds as deficient, conflates economic and social equality discourses and individualises structural problems’ (p. 59). Furthermore, in that discourse, some aspirations are not defined as aspirations at all, such as moving without any educational or work-related aims. For our theorization of aspiration we draw on Mendick et al. (2018: 4), who write about aspirations as hopes and dreams that invoke young people to plan their futures. This includes some aspirations that government policy constructs as desirable, and others that it constructs as valueless. In a narrower sense, Mendick et al. (2018: 79) define aspiration as ‘a disciplinary technology that that shapes and directs our actions, hopes and dreams. It invokes young people to plan their futures in relation to socially approved pathways’. Aspiration in this sense demands that young people orient themselves to what counts as legitimate success. In addition, as Spohrer (2011: 58) has noted, ‘aspiration’ has its roots in psychology: it is seen as a personal trait or quality. The lack of it can be judged an ‘abnormality’. However, in our article, we also discuss aspirations which policymakers do not regard as desirable, and which rest on different moral orders (socially approved in other contexts) where actions that relate to mobility are judged on different bases. In the UK, policymakers are explicitly calling the country an ‘aspiration nation’ (Littler, 2013). The goal for young people is upwards social mobility through education (and other supporting activities). In Finland, aspiration is not a catchphrase in the same way. However, in this article, we examine our interview materials using this concept, since it provides a more vivid lens than either ‘activation’ or ‘employability’ – the terms used in Finnish and EU policy discourse, as we explain below. Indeed, the term ‘aspiration’ provides an opportunity to examine the other side of the aspiration coin: aspirations 4 Sociological Research Online 00(0) that are directed towards not economic prosperity (material goals) but private life (relational goals), or aspirations comprising plans that involve belonging to a certain place, which may be marginal but is still meaningful (see Cook and Woodman, 2019; Visser et al., 2015). Moreover, even aspirations for working life can resist or differ from current government ideals, and differences in aspirations may reflect social class and gender. In Finland, aspiration is often framed in more modest ways than in the UK’s ‘aspiration nation’ discourse, and more in line with what Spohrer (2011) has called the EU’s ‘inclusion and participation’ discourse. Although there is a need for those who will be assets in the competitive global market, the expectations placed on others are not so high: they should simply avoid social exclusion and be good citizens and taxpayers. This modesty of tone is observable in the Ministry of Finance’s (2010) document ‘Labour Markets of the Young: How Could Youth Employment Be Enhanced?’ (a response to the 2008 EU initiative ‘New Skills for New Jobs’). In this document, the ministry aims to enhance ‘the integration of young people into the labour market’, the main obstacles to which are (1) dropouts from basic education, (2) suspensions and noncompletions of education, (3) paid work while in education, which lengthens completion times, and (4) the relationship of education and location with demand for employment. The answers the document produces lie in choosing the right education, completing it on time, and being able and willing to move wherever the jobs are (Nikunen, 2017). Thus, the requirements are fairly practical and guide young people towards certain acts (such as moving to locations where employees are in demand), rather than towards a particular mind-set or even upwards social mobility; implicitly, young people are guided to aspire to be employed. Thus, the talk is not about aspirations – at least as psychological traits – but a mere and rational quest for employment. Mobility, immobility and aspiration When mobility is considered, morality is not always the issue: moving from one apartment to another or from one part of the country to another as an action is usually quite neutral morally, especially when moving with one’s parents. There are forms of moving that are often oriented as moral, such as moving to another country to study, which is usually conceived as morally sound, but backpacking just for the fun of it can be judged as morally questionable. Often, attachment to place is seen as hindering the ‘successful’ realisation of aspirations (Allen and Hollingworth, 2013). Schewel (2019) suggests that immobility should be reconceptualised on a spatial continuum from immobility to (hyper)mobility, and that we should also consider whether staying in one place is aspirational or reveals a lack of capacities to be mobile. Drawing from Carling (2002), Schewel (2019) proposes that migration (or mobility more generally) requires both aspiration and ability, while immobility can result from the lack of either. In Finland, both working-class youth in deindustrialised areas with declining employment and rural youth are seen as lacking aspiration, and the reason is supposed to be that they are spatially trapped: aspiring to gain an education and employment in these areas is not conceived as plausible (Juvonen and Romakkaniemi, 2019; see also Farrugia, 2016). In studies on the geography of young people’s aspirations, it has been concluded that immobile young persons in peripheral Nikunen and Ikonen 5 areas are conceived as ‘at-risk’ (e.g. Allen and Hollingworth, 2013). This speaks to the moral imperative related to aspiration: one should be willing to move in order to get ahead. ‘Social mobility requires escape from places that are deemed to lack opportunity’ (Mendick et al., 2018: 26). However, mobility in the sense of upwards social mobility seems to be a central aspect of the UK’s aspirational youth policies (e.g. Littler, 2013; Payne, 2018; Spohrer, 2011). Geographical mobility can also be related to social class, for instance as a need for aspirational working-class youth to move to middle-class districts (Payne, 2018). For critical researchers, the idea that aspirations should be about upwards social mobility is problematic, since working-class youth who do not succeed in climbing the social ladder are then labelled ‘non-aspirational’, which is perceived as negative (Littler, 2013; Spohrer, 2011). In addition, it bypasses working-class youths’ hopes and aspirations to find workingclass jobs (Holland, 2007; Ikonen, 2019). Upwards social mobility and the question of social class are not present in the Finnish discussion, which is usually gender- and class-neutral. This also applies to the more aspirational way of talking about mobility in the Finnish context – namely, talking about internationalisation (Nikunen, 2017). Finland’s Centre for International Mobility (CIMO, 2009) stresses that internationalisation is important not only for university students, but also for young vocational education students, employees and entrepreneurs. However, according to the statistics, it is mainly university students who are active in learning mobility (Garam and Korkala, 2014). Gender is not oriented to as a problem; it is merely noted that according to statistics, young women are more active than young men in learning mobility. This is related to a strong gender segregation in education in Finland: arts and humanities students are mainly women, and the skills needed in these fields, such as learning languages and different cultures, call for going abroad (Garam and Korkala, 2014). The less mobile groups are encouraged towards international mobility, but in that case the focus is on vocational education, not on men as such (Garam and Korkala, 2014). We culturally assume that men are more internationally mobile than women during working life, when family responsibilities remain a ‘burden’ for women, which may explain why mobility statistics do not give rise to concern about boys (see Nikunen, 2017). Due to structural inequalities, Finnish men are more internationally mobile than women in their work careers, while women often accompany their spouses abroad (Nivalainen, 2010). While these EU and CIMO documents emphasise that those who are active in learning mobility will also be mobile in their working lives – and will therefore be employable and improve global competitiveness – mobility is also seen as an instrument for personal growth: becoming more tolerant and open-minded towards other cultures. It can be argued that for policymakers, young people who demonstrate international mobility also demonstrate the proper type of aspiration. Furthermore, mobility can be seen as ‘embodied cultural capital’ that expresses values, aspirations and life goals (Holdsworth, 2006), and it therefore concerns a wider spectrum of aspirations than working life alone. David Farrugia (2016) uses the term ‘aspirational mobility’, by which he refers to ‘upward mobility through geographical mobility’ (see also Mendick et al., 2018: 12). Moving upwards in the social order is achieved by increasing one’s cultural capital (i.e. skills and knowledge) and social capital (i.e. networks) through spatial movement. 6 Sociological Research Online 00(0) We suggest that this geographical mobility as part of a desired ‘aspirational package’ deserves extra attention. In studies of the transition to adulthood, the time aspect is usually hegemonic, hiding the fact that there are people who must overcome spatial difficulties in order to fit into those time limits (e.g. Farrugia, 2017). Farrugia (2016) even writes about the ‘mobility imperative’, meaning young rural people’s need to move elsewhere – to centres and metropoles. However, the mobility imperative does not concern rural youth only, as Farrugia (2017) also acknowledges. Elliott and Urry (2010: 47) point out that mobility constrains those who want to be on the top of hierarchy: it is not good to appear too localist or not networked enough. David Cairns (2014) writes about the ‘mobility imperative’, referring to (mainly international) mobility that is motivated by the limited opportunities for educated young people living in marginal areas. In addition, he and his colleagues (Cairns et al., 2017) point out that motives for geographical mobility are not purely rational but also contain hopeful elements, ‘mobility dreams’. They argue that the EU and governments, as well as various ‘gatekeepers’ such as administrators in educational institutions, encourage such dreaming, even though it largely benefits only those who also have other employable capacities (see also Nikunen, 2017). This reading of the scholarly debate leads us to present two approaches to aspirational mobility. First, social mobility, often seen as upwards mobility, is more visible in other European – especially UK – discussions than in Finland, where class as a social category does exist but is less explicitly articulated. Second, there is mobility in the meaning of geographical mobility, in both official texts and young people’s own conceptions. Generally, this mobility is from peripheries to centres, and from rural to urban areas. In the Finnish context, this mobility is complemented by an emphasis on international mobility. Data and analysis of moral orders The research data consist of semi-structured interviews conducted in 2015 and 2016 for our research project ‘Division into Two? Young Adults, Work and Future’. Altogether, 40 young adults (aged 18–30) were interviewed about their geographical and social life paths; their situations in terms of work, education and intimate relationships at the time of the interview; their future plans, hopes and fears; their conceptions of the good life, success and failure; and the expectations placed on young people in working life. The participants came from different class backgrounds, and they were recruited through a variety of social and institutional networks, using email lists and contact persons from different organisations. The sample included 12 men and 28 women, most of whom were white, had Finnish-born parents, and had lived in Finland all their lives, with a few exceptions. The interviewees lived in the Tampere city region. Tampere is the third-largest city in Finland with about 250,000 residents. Some of the interviewees were active in education, the labour market or entrepreneurship, while some were unemployed or had no education beyond compulsory schooling. Some had had various international experiences, while others had not been internationally mobile. The smaller proportion of men reflects the fact that it is often easier to recruit young women interviewees than men (see Butera, 2006; Koivunen, 2010). Nikunen and Ikonen 7 In our analysis, we examine moral orders of aspiration and mobility. What moral orders do young adults orient to – either by rejecting them or complying with them? What rules of mobility do they construct as moral, and is this morality also aspirational? These rules are category-bound: they relate to the categories in which people are placed, and the attributes and actions related to those categories. (Garfinkel, 1967; Heritage, 1984; Jayyusi, 1984; Sacks, 1972a, 1972b; Stokoe and Edwards, 2015). Our analysis is an application of membership categorisation analysis (see Jayyusi, 1984; Sacks, 1972a, 1972b). We do not trace all the categorisations used, but we focus on how young adults categorise themselves and others, in relation to mobility. In categorization work (in interviews) common ideas mobility and aspiration may be complied – the moral order read in the question is accepted–or rejected – often by ‘shifting’. The shift from one moral order to another is usually made by changing categorisations – as if to say ‘this is a more suitable categorisation to think about this question or this context’ (on shifting, see Watson, 1983). Indeed, a counter-force to categorisation is particularisation: one may emphasise that the person in question is a representative of many categories, not just one – and thus that she or he is a particular person with a set of many features (Billig, 1987). Some actions and attributes are usually seen as ‘normal’ or ‘ordinary’ for a person who is categorised in a certain way and belongs to a certain group. One is socially punished if one’s behaviour or appearance is out of (social) order and one cannot correct it (explain it away) (Heritage, 1984: 121). On average, people want to be socially accepted, and they often orient themselves to the possibility of moral accountability, before any sanctions are imposed. Thus, explanations that are requested – and even more so, explanations that are not requested – often mark a moral order and orientation to morality. A moral order relates to rights and responsibilities: does one have the right or responsibility to do something – behave in a certain manner – as a member of the group to which one is assigned in a certain situation or context? It is clear from the policy documents about young people and mobility that young adults have a responsibility to be mobile to gain an education and employment. They have a right to be immobile only if they live in an area with vast possibilities, such as a few metropolitan areas (see Nikunen, 2017). Next, we analyse how young adults themselves utilise and resist these moral orders. Moral orders of domestic mobility: reasoning moving or staying Our interviewees currently live in the Tampere region. Some have moved here from other parts of the country or other countries, while others have lived in the region all their lives. For most of the interviewees, domestic mobility connected to education seems to be taken for granted, especially and obviously for those who have moved to Tampere from rural parts of Finland. Former rural or otherwise peripheral youth have lived according to the aspirational-geographical moral order, and thus have nothing to explain nor correct. A moral order is used as a resource but explicit morality is not mobilised. Some of those who have lived here for most of their lives are hesitant to move away for precisely that reason: they have always been here. It is a fact that the area offers vast 8 Sociological Research Online 00(0) educational possibilities, and therefore young people living in Tampere are not seen, or do not see themselves, as responsible for giving any explanation for their own ‘immobility’ other than their preference to stay. For instance, a journalism student expressed a sense of injustice and failure when she did not get into the university in her home town, but only a university in a somewhat smaller town 150 kilometres away: Then I applied to Jyväskylä and Tampere, with the same entrance exam. Here [in Tampere] I was the first on the waiting list but then no one cancelled, and then I had this study place in Jyväskylä, and then I took that, even though it was not my plan in the beginning since I absolutely wanted to get in here [Tampere], but then I did not want to wait any more [before starting her studies]. [. . .] Well, it was a huge disappointment that I did not get in here even though I had enough points. (Woman, 24, university student) In this extract, the interviewee does not see any reason to explain her reluctant attitude towards mobility. It is understandable through the lens of the spatial moral order of centres and peripheries: those who aspire do not want to move to smaller places or smaller universities. Later she got into the University of Tampere. Now she is reluctant to move from Tampere to any other city. She herself constructs a moral order of places: in this order, Tampere is a (relative) centre from which one cannot be expected to move for education or work – not even to Helsinki, the capital city. However, she feels obliged to explain her anti-aspirational reluctance to move to Helsinki, because such a move would benefit her career as a journalist. Building an aspirational career with a higher-education qualification often requires one to move to the Helsinki metropolitan area. To explain her non-aspirational thinking, she then shifts to the moral order of intimate relationships and talks about her commitment to her boyfriend (a turn we examine below). Interviewees who have moved to Tampere from other parts of the country can also mobilise the moral order of centres and peripheries. For many who have moved from a smaller to a bigger place with more opportunities for education and employment, the move is a self-evident idea that requires no explanation. This applies even to those with a low-level education who moved to Tampere to seek a job and have not yet found a position. Young people can connect mobility to other hierarchies and differences between smaller and bigger places, beyond the educational and employment opportunities. In such hierarchies, smaller places are plagued by immoral thinking: they are characterised by narrow-mindedness, bigotry, anti-individualism, and bullying of those who are ‘different’. Feelings of attachment and pride – which rural youth sometimes connect to rural areas – are rare among the interviewees, whereas feelings of detachment and entrapment are common (see Pedersen and Gram, 2018). Particularly for university students who have moved, young adults who stay put appear to be immobile, anti-aspirational, compliant with traditional but not modern norms, and at a symbolic level as potential ‘losers’ or ‘socially excluded’, as also noted by e.g. Pedersen and Gram (2018). Indeed, social exclusion is often depicted using metaphors of immobility: being stuck at home, or in some isolated small town or village. A female university student who has moved from Eastern Finland, a generally peripheral area, says: Nikunen and Ikonen 15 the experiences of young people instead of forming mobility policies based on hegemonic mobility discourse. Relatedly, an important finding of our study was that young adults distance themselves from the government’s ‘ideal youth’ who complies with others’ advice. We conclude that the highest form of international learning mobility for the Finnish young adults is to be unique (particular) and self-directed. This idea about international mobility as part of being aspirational was mainly held by higher-education students. For those with lower educational levels, gaining experiences, recreation and intimate relationships were the main motivators for aspiring to move or travel abroad. Overall, it must be noted that the moral order of intimate relationships means that taking a significant other into account is important and justifies mobilities as well as immobilities (also Schewel, 2019). Our findings support the argument that the project of becoming adult is not always the same as official moralities depict (e.g. Holland, 2007; Mendick et al., 2018). It is not a direct path through education to work or career success in which mobility is a mere instrument. Young adults may have other aspirations than those presented as ‘proper’ in youth policies, and they can still position themselves as aspirational. This is owing to different moral orders. The tendency to particularise one’s own experiences and to be self-directed, autonomous and independent can direct aspirations in other directions and even counter the moralities of governing bodies, officials, peers and parents. As geographical mobility is at the centre of public and official discourse on young people, in order to better understand the phenomenon, it is important to pay attention to these other moralities and aspirations which guide young adults’ mobilities. Acknowledgements We would like to express our warmest appreciation to professor emerita Päivi Korvajärvi (Tampere University), the leader of the research project ‘Division into two? Young adults, work and future’. Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/ or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Kone Foundation ORCID iDs Minna Nikunen https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5618-138X Hanna-Mari Ikonen https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4370-5778 References Allen K and Hollingworth S (2013) ‘Sticky subjects’ or ‘cosmopolitan creatives’? Social class, place and urban young people’s aspirations for work in the knowledge economy. Urban Studies 50(3): 499–517. Billig M (1987) Arguing and Thinking: A Rhetorical Approach to Social Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Butera KJ (2006) Manhunt: The challenge of enticing men to participate in a study on friendship. Qualitative Inquiry 12: 1262–1282. 16 Sociological Research Online 00(0) Cairns D (2014) Youth Transitions, International Student Mobility and Spatial Reflexivity: Being Mobile? Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Cairns D, Cuzzocrea V, Briggs D, et al. 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Hanna-Mari Ikonen works as a Senior Lecturer in Social and Public Policy at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her research has dealt with entrepreneurial mindset, different forms of entrepreneurship, gender and place. Her research with young adults has been published in, e.g., Gender and Education and Journal of Youth Studies. Date submitted 1 October 2019 Date accepted 4 February 2021