Pilvi Hämeenaho

I am an ethnologist and work as a university lecturer in the Cultures, Communities and Change degree program (KUMU). My research focuses especially on perceived well-being and social and cultural sustainability. Currently, I work with University Lecturer Miia Sainio in a multidisciplinary research project where our goal is to study and develop well-being in Finnish schools. Our research is linked to profiling area ‘Social Sustainability for Children and Families’ funded by the Academy of Finland (SOSUS 2021-2026).
In my doctoral dissertation (2014), I studied the everyday life of mothers living in rural areas in Finland, the use of public services and their views of countryside as a place of home. I wrote my doctoral dissertation as a part of the National Institute for Health and Welfare's (THL) project which explored impacts of the service reform PARAS and emphasized citizens’ perspectives. I have also studied rural areas as culturally constructed space where every day experiences and images related to rural areas and rurality overlap.
After my doctoral dissertation, I studied interprofessional practices related to provision of special needs education and cooperation between home and school in my Academy of Finland project ‘Bridging the Cultural Gaps in Service Chains. Meanings of cultural practices in collaboration between home, school, and psychiatric care professionals’ (SA 285851). In 2018–2019, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Environmental Policy at the University of Eastern Finland in the Academy of Finland project ‘The Frontiers of Sustainability Transitions. Cultural adaptations of sustainability policies in European peripheral regions’ (SA 286733). I have also studied the construction of experiential knowledge, expertise-by-experience in social and health care.
At the moment, I am a member of the board of the MUA- Maaseudun uusi aika  -association and a deputy member of the board of the Finnish Ethnologists' Association Ethnos. I also participate in the HYTTI network of well-being researchers and JYU.Well research community at the University of Jyväskylä.

Collaboration for well-being in schools -project: https://www.jyu.fi/edupsy/fi/tutkimus/hankkeet-projects/yhteistyolla-hyvinvointia-kouluyhteisoon