Henni Alava
Biographic Data
| ID | 107169 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Henni Alava |
| GIVEN NAMES | Henni |
| FAMILY NAME | Alava |
| SIGNATURE | ALAVA H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Tampere University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1391-9289 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 31 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 17 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Work Behind the Words
Non peer reviewed
Hormones, culture and puberty
Medical literature suggests that girls are affected by persistent pain disproportionately to boys especially following the onset of puberty. This article turns attention to how clinicians treating pediatric pain patients conceptualize the role of sex/gender in persistent pain and its care. Drawing on in-depth interviews with members of interdisciplinary pediatric pain care teams in Finland, we argue that sex/gender is an elusive object of alterna…
Paradoxical scientization
Scientization tends to be understood as a process whereby a form of knowledge is rendered scientifically legitimate. In this way, scientists work with other experts and lay theories to move claims into the realm of fact, where they are stabilized and expanded through scientific practice. Paradoxical scientization describes a process in which efforts to render cultural values scientifically legitimate depend on and reproduce claims to cultural spe…
Finland’s New Children’s Hospital and resurgent charity in a Nordic post-welfare state
Finland's New Children's Hospital (NCH) opened in 2018 after a high-profile charity campaign. Through an analysis of the campaign, we illustrate how debates about children's hospitals and charities are simultaneously shaped by universal debates over the ownership and funding of healthcare services, and by the particularities of historical context and local institutional arrangements. Such debates also draw from and contribute to shaping cultural …
Mothering with migraine
Menstrual-related migraines affect a large number of people in childbearing age. This article brings together a focus on motherhood and migraine to contribute to an under-researched area of migraine studies. Drawing on crip theory, feminist parenting studies and social studies on chronic pain, we develop the notion of ‘crip mothering’ to describe how mothering takes its shape at the intersection of individual desires and abilities, cultural ideal…
The Suomen antropologi Ethnographic Reading Challenge
Each year just before the New Year, our hometown library-the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Library Network (Helmet 2024)-issues a curated 50-book reading challenge. To celebrate a new year, Suomen antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society, presents an ethnographic reading challenge in a similar style. The challenge is an outcome of one recent Friday evening when we-middle-aged neighbours and colleagues who did not know what else to…
Chosen Peoples
Non peer reviewed
Citizenship moods in the late Museveni era
This article develops the concept of citizenship moods to analyse citizens’ emotional (dis)engagements with the state in Uganda. Through a reflexive analysis of ethnographic and media material from 2019–2021, we claim that around the time of the 2021 elections, after 35 years of rule by Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement, the most prevalent moods among Ugandans were fear, contentment, cynicism, anger, hope, and despondency. Prior to t…
Family, failure and fatigue in the field
Many feminist scholars have experienced receiving critique for what are claimed to be overly narrative, emotional, or insufficiently scholarly pieces of writing. This piece speaks to this experience. The text was originally read as a presentation in a webinar on 'Patchwork Ethnography'. In resisting the coerciveness of dominant academic rhetorical codes, the paper calls for researchers to be more transparent about the devastating effects of patri…
Christianity, Politics and the Afterlives of War in Uganda
Christianity, Politics and the Afterlives of War in Uganda sheds critical light on the complex and unstable relationship between Christianity and politics, and peace and war. Drawing on long-running ethnographic fieldwork in Uganda’s largest religious communities, it maps the tensions and ironies found in the Catholic and Anglican Churches in the wake of war between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Government of Uganda. It shows how churches’ r…
Purity rules in Pentecostal Uganda
Rules concerning romantic relationships and sex-what we term 'purity rules'-are central to Pentecostalism in Uganda. In public church arenas, the born-again variant of the rules laid down during Uganda's 'ABC' response to HIV/AIDS - 'abstain till marriage and be faithful once you marry'-are presented as clear and non-negotiable. Yet in church members' lives, and in their conversations with each other or in small church groups, space is often crea…
Introduction to the special issue
Rules are a crucial part of much religious thought and practice. Their importance or insignificance, their strictness or laxness, and their rigidity or flexibility in the face of change are constant themes of debate, both within and outside religious communities. Yet they have arguably not been given the attention they deserve within recent anthropology. Since the rise of practice theory, rules have more often been considered something to look pa…
The everyday and spectacle of subdued citizenship in northern Uganda
Drawing on ethnographic research in the Acholi town of Kitgum in northern Uganda, this chapter illustrates how citizenship practices are embedded in particular relationships between the state and its citizens. Two key arenas for learning are identified: the everyday, which in this region is tinged by memories of past violence and fears of its recurrence, and moments of spectacular state performance such as the burial of a prominent politician. Th…
Unravelling Church Land
Christian churches control substantial areas of land in Africa. While intensifying struggles over their holdings are partly due to the increased pressure on land in general, they also reflect transformations in the relations through which churches' claims to land are legitimized, the increased association of churches with business, and churches' unique positioning as both institutions and communities. This article presents the trajectory of relat…
The Lord's Resistance Army and the arms that brought the Lord
This article develops the notion of polyphonic silence as a means for thinking through the ethical and political ramifications of ethnographically encountering and writing about silenced violent pasts. To do so, it analyses and contrasts the silence surrounding two periods of extreme violence in northern Uganda: 1) the northern Ugandan war (1986-2006), which is contemporarily often shrouded by silence, and 2) the early decades of colonial and mis…
Homosexuality, the holy family and a failed mass wedding in Catholic Northern Uganda
Christian churches have played crucial but diverse roles in public debates over homosexuality in Africa. In contrast to the vocal and explicit homophobia witnessed in many Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches (PCCs), homosexuality has until recently been an overwhelmingly silenced issue in the Acholi region of Northern Uganda, and an almost complete non-issue in the local Catholic Church. This article suggests that while this silence in part relates …
Religious (de)politicisation in Uganda's 2016 elections
Religion has influenced Ugandan politics ever since colonial times. While the interrelations of religion and politics have altered since the coming to power of president Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM), religion continues to influence Ugandan public culture and formal politics in important ways. Building on ethnographic fieldwork in Kampala and Acholi, as well as analysis of media reporting and discussions in social media, this arti…
Religious (de)politicisation in Uganda's 2016 elections
Religion has influenced Ugandan politics ever since colonial times. While the interrelations of religion and politics have altered since the coming to power of president Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM), religion continues to influence Ugandan public culture and formal politics in important ways. Building on ethnographic fieldwork in Kampala and Acholi, as well as analysis of media reporting and discussions in social media, this arti…
Citizenship moods in the late Museveni era
This article develops the concept of citizenship moods to analyse citizens’ emotional (dis)engagements with the state in Uganda. Through a reflexive analysis of ethnographic and media material from 2019–2021, we claim that around the time of the 2021 elections, after 35 years of rule by Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement, the most prevalent moods among Ugandans were fear, contentment, cynicism, anger, hope, and despondency. Prior to t…
Christianity, Politics and the Afterlives of War in Uganda
Christianity, Politics and the Afterlives of War in Uganda sheds critical light on the complex and unstable relationship between Christianity and politics, and peace and war. Drawing on long-running ethnographic fieldwork in Uganda’s largest religious communities, it maps the tensions and ironies found in the Catholic and Anglican Churches in the wake of war between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Government of Uganda. It shows how churches’ r…
Homosexuality, the holy family and a failed mass wedding in Catholic Northern Uganda
Christian churches have played crucial but diverse roles in public debates over homosexuality in Africa. In contrast to the vocal and explicit homophobia witnessed in many Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches (PCCs), homosexuality has until recently been an overwhelmingly silenced issue in the Acholi region of Northern Uganda, and an almost complete non-issue in the local Catholic Church. This article suggests that while this silence in part relates …
Finland’s New Children’s Hospital and resurgent charity in a Nordic post-welfare state
Finland's New Children's Hospital (NCH) opened in 2018 after a high-profile charity campaign. Through an analysis of the campaign, we illustrate how debates about children's hospitals and charities are simultaneously shaped by universal debates over the ownership and funding of healthcare services, and by the particularities of historical context and local institutional arrangements. Such debates also draw from and contribute to shaping cultural …
Purity rules in Pentecostal Uganda
Rules concerning romantic relationships and sex-what we term 'purity rules'-are central to Pentecostalism in Uganda. In public church arenas, the born-again variant of the rules laid down during Uganda's 'ABC' response to HIV/AIDS - 'abstain till marriage and be faithful once you marry'-are presented as clear and non-negotiable. Yet in church members' lives, and in their conversations with each other or in small church groups, space is often crea…
Introduction to the special issue
Rules are a crucial part of much religious thought and practice. Their importance or insignificance, their strictness or laxness, and their rigidity or flexibility in the face of change are constant themes of debate, both within and outside religious communities. Yet they have arguably not been given the attention they deserve within recent anthropology. Since the rise of practice theory, rules have more often been considered something to look pa…
Unravelling Church Land
Christian churches control substantial areas of land in Africa. While intensifying struggles over their holdings are partly due to the increased pressure on land in general, they also reflect transformations in the relations through which churches' claims to land are legitimized, the increased association of churches with business, and churches' unique positioning as both institutions and communities. This article presents the trajectory of relat…
The Lord's Resistance Army and the arms that brought the Lord
This article develops the notion of polyphonic silence as a means for thinking through the ethical and political ramifications of ethnographically encountering and writing about silenced violent pasts. To do so, it analyses and contrasts the silence surrounding two periods of extreme violence in northern Uganda: 1) the northern Ugandan war (1986-2006), which is contemporarily often shrouded by silence, and 2) the early decades of colonial and mis…
Homosexuality, the holy family and a failed mass wedding in Catholic Northern Uganda
Christian churches have played crucial but diverse roles in public debates over homosexuality in Africa. In contrast to the vocal and explicit homophobia witnessed in many Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches (PCCs), homosexuality has until recently been an overwhelmingly silenced issue in the Acholi region of Northern Uganda, and an almost complete non-issue in the local Catholic Church. This article suggests that while this silence in part relates …
Religious (de)politicisation in Uganda's 2016 elections
Religion has influenced Ugandan politics ever since colonial times. While the interrelations of religion and politics have altered since the coming to power of president Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM), religion continues to influence Ugandan public culture and formal politics in important ways. Building on ethnographic fieldwork in Kampala and Acholi, as well as analysis of media reporting and discussions in social media, this arti…
The everyday and spectacle of subdued citizenship in northern Uganda
Drawing on ethnographic research in the Acholi town of Kitgum in northern Uganda, this chapter illustrates how citizenship practices are embedded in particular relationships between the state and its citizens. Two key arenas for learning are identified: the everyday, which in this region is tinged by memories of past violence and fears of its recurrence, and moments of spectacular state performance such as the burial of a prominent politician. Th…
Unravelling Church Land
Christian churches control substantial areas of land in Africa. While intensifying struggles over their holdings are partly due to the increased pressure on land in general, they also reflect transformations in the relations through which churches' claims to land are legitimized, the increased association of churches with business, and churches' unique positioning as both institutions and communities. This article presents the trajectory of relat…
The Lord's Resistance Army and the arms that brought the Lord
This article develops the notion of polyphonic silence as a means for thinking through the ethical and political ramifications of ethnographically encountering and writing about silenced violent pasts. To do so, it analyses and contrasts the silence surrounding two periods of extreme violence in northern Uganda: 1) the northern Ugandan war (1986-2006), which is contemporarily often shrouded by silence, and 2) the early decades of colonial and mis…
Family, failure and fatigue in the field
Many feminist scholars have experienced receiving critique for what are claimed to be overly narrative, emotional, or insufficiently scholarly pieces of writing. This piece speaks to this experience. The text was originally read as a presentation in a webinar on 'Patchwork Ethnography'. In resisting the coerciveness of dominant academic rhetorical codes, the paper calls for researchers to be more transparent about the devastating effects of patri…
Christianity, Politics and the Afterlives of War in Uganda
Christianity, Politics and the Afterlives of War in Uganda sheds critical light on the complex and unstable relationship between Christianity and politics, and peace and war. Drawing on long-running ethnographic fieldwork in Uganda’s largest religious communities, it maps the tensions and ironies found in the Catholic and Anglican Churches in the wake of war between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Government of Uganda. It shows how churches’ r…
Purity rules in Pentecostal Uganda
Rules concerning romantic relationships and sex-what we term 'purity rules'-are central to Pentecostalism in Uganda. In public church arenas, the born-again variant of the rules laid down during Uganda's 'ABC' response to HIV/AIDS - 'abstain till marriage and be faithful once you marry'-are presented as clear and non-negotiable. Yet in church members' lives, and in their conversations with each other or in small church groups, space is often crea…
Introduction to the special issue
Rules are a crucial part of much religious thought and practice. Their importance or insignificance, their strictness or laxness, and their rigidity or flexibility in the face of change are constant themes of debate, both within and outside religious communities. Yet they have arguably not been given the attention they deserve within recent anthropology. Since the rise of practice theory, rules have more often been considered something to look pa…
Chosen Peoples
Non peer reviewed
Citizenship moods in the late Museveni era
This article develops the concept of citizenship moods to analyse citizens’ emotional (dis)engagements with the state in Uganda. Through a reflexive analysis of ethnographic and media material from 2019–2021, we claim that around the time of the 2021 elections, after 35 years of rule by Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement, the most prevalent moods among Ugandans were fear, contentment, cynicism, anger, hope, and despondency. Prior to t…
The Suomen antropologi Ethnographic Reading Challenge
Each year just before the New Year, our hometown library-the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Library Network (Helmet 2024)-issues a curated 50-book reading challenge. To celebrate a new year, Suomen antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society, presents an ethnographic reading challenge in a similar style. The challenge is an outcome of one recent Friday evening when we-middle-aged neighbours and colleagues who did not know what else to…
Finland’s New Children’s Hospital and resurgent charity in a Nordic post-welfare state
Finland's New Children's Hospital (NCH) opened in 2018 after a high-profile charity campaign. Through an analysis of the campaign, we illustrate how debates about children's hospitals and charities are simultaneously shaped by universal debates over the ownership and funding of healthcare services, and by the particularities of historical context and local institutional arrangements. Such debates also draw from and contribute to shaping cultural …
Mothering with migraine
Menstrual-related migraines affect a large number of people in childbearing age. This article brings together a focus on motherhood and migraine to contribute to an under-researched area of migraine studies. Drawing on crip theory, feminist parenting studies and social studies on chronic pain, we develop the notion of ‘crip mothering’ to describe how mothering takes its shape at the intersection of individual desires and abilities, cultural ideal…
The Work Behind the Words
Non peer reviewed
Hormones, culture and puberty
Medical literature suggests that girls are affected by persistent pain disproportionately to boys especially following the onset of puberty. This article turns attention to how clinicians treating pediatric pain patients conceptualize the role of sex/gender in persistent pain and its care. Drawing on in-depth interviews with members of interdisciplinary pediatric pain care teams in Finland, we argue that sex/gender is an elusive object of alterna…
Paradoxical scientization
Scientization tends to be understood as a process whereby a form of knowledge is rendered scientifically legitimate. In this way, scientists work with other experts and lay theories to move claims into the realm of fact, where they are stabilized and expanded through scientific practice. Paradoxical scientization describes a process in which efforts to render cultural values scientifically legitimate depend on and reproduce claims to cultural spe…
Sociology (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Political science (12 works) · Politics (10 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · African history and culture analysis (6 works) · Gender Studies (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (5 works) · Aesthetics (4 works)