My name is Maria Petäjäniemi. I am a Ph.D. researcher at the University of Oulu, Faculty of Education, in a research group SAFE: “Social justice at the focus of education”.
In my Ph.D. I focus on the period of time young asylum-seeking men spend waiting for their asylum decisions. My nomadic research began in a temporary shelter in Northern Finland in 2015, and followed the lives of the men for three years, to normal rental apartments. In addition to waiting time, I am interested in the implicit discursive norms that regard people who are positioned as asylum seekers. Thus, in a post-structural manner I study the subjectification of young men seeking asylum. I am now finishing the thesis, and planning to defend this year!
This is my second year in the Board of ETMU, and I am happy to be a part of it.