People

Find out more about people involved in the project below!

Jari Martikainen

Project Leader
University of Eastern Finland

I am Jari Martikainen, the leader of this project. I work as a university lecturer in social psychology. My previous education was in arts history and I worked for a long time as a teacher of visual culture at various levels of education. My recent research has focused on refugees, populist communication and leadership, using visual, multimodal and art-based research methods. This project combines many of the things I love: developing theories and methods in social psychology, art and art-based methods, working with young people, multiculturalism, multidisciplinarity and inspiring teamwork. In this project, we will use art-based methods to dive into young people’s perceptions of meeting young people from different cultural backgrounds, living in Savo, and their future. So far, the project has already brought many unforgettable encounters and insights – and there are sure to be many more as the project progresses.

Katja Lötjönen

Project Researcher
University of Eastern Finland

My name is Katja Lötjönen and I work as a researcher on a project. I started in August 2023 and will continue until the end of the project. In general, I am interested in inequality among young people and especially their perceptions of various aspects of inequality, both on the societal and individual level. Lately I have studied young people’s lay perceptions on equality of opportunities and social class and how these perceptions play a role in building young people’s perceptions of their agency. 

In our project I look forward the most combining different theories on social psychology and different data to form a more compelling ways of understanding intergroup relations and local encounters of immigrant and Finnish young people. Also using art-based methods is something totally new for me and I find it extremely inspiring to have this opportunity to learn more about them!

Hadi Farahani

Project Researcher
University of Eastern Finland

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Social Work with a background in Sociolog. My Ph.D. dissertation investigates the mental health of Afghan forced migrants in Finland, exploring lay perceptions, risk factors, and resilience strategies. Concurrently, as a project researcher from January 2023 to December 2026, alongside my colleagues, I focus on examining intergroup relations and local encounters between immigrant and Finnish young people. My broader research interests include domestic violence, disability studies, and innovative art-based and visual research methods.

Helena Rovamo

Post-doctoral Researcher
University of Eastern Finland

My name is Helena Rovamo and I work as a researcher in this project. I started working as a part of this project in February 2024 and will continue until the end of 2026. In this project, I am particularly interested in exploring the perceptions of young people from different backgrounds about each other and their future in Savo and combining perspectives from different theoretical approaches in social psychology in my research.  I am also interested in developing my skills in using visual research methods.

My dissertation research preceding this project was on populism. My dissertation was based on interview data conducted in Finland, which examined the views of supporters of different political parties on political issues such as immigration and populism. In my PhD, I focused primarily on examining the divisions between ‘us’ and ‘them’ as constructed in the interviewees’ talk.

Jennifer De Paola

Post-doctoral Researcher
University of Helsinki

My name is Jennifer De Paola, and I am very much looking forward to starting to work on this project in January 2025.

I am a clinical psychologist and I have a PhD in social psychology. My research focuses on the meaning of happiness and good life, and aims to provide strategies to help schools, organizations and societies to become happier.

I have several years of experience with the employment of visual methods in qualitative research. In my research I have worked with memes circulating on social media, photographs posted on Instagram, and images published on news. Currently, I am completing a project involving twelve schools in Helsinki, with the aim of exploring children’s perspective on happiness and unhappiness using drawing techniques.

As an immigrant myself I feel truly inspired to join a project employing art-based method to improve the relations among local and immigrants youth.

Mari Puttonen

Visual arts teacher
Siilinjärvi Community College