Articles and essays
“We want to employ disabled people, but they just don’t apply”
This is a phrase Unlimited often hears and always questions. With disabled people making up 22.7% of the working age population, surely, they should be making up 22.7% of all applicants and staff, whatever your organisation? Unlimited believes a diverse team brings a broad range of perspectives and points of views. Unlimited aims to be transparent in their recruitment process, data driven and open to learning.
In this blog, Harry Murdoch, former Programme Coordinator, reflects on Unlimited’s recent recruitment process, digs into some of the diversity data around who applied and who was hired for these roles and shares findings that might help you. Published 1st June 2022.
Diversity Agents on Svenska Yle!
Svenska Yle’s journalist Jenny Jägerhorn opens up the question of who is allowed to play which roles, who gets access to the stage and whose stories and from which perspectives are highlighted in the cultural scene.
Jägerhorn raises that this is a current topic happening in many circles within the cultural industry as well as highlights how our Diversity Agents are trained to support the theaters and make the cultural field more inclusive. Published on November 9, 2021
Diversity Agents on Svenska Yle!
Article series by the Finnish Film Foundation: Diversity in the film industry
In this series, different writers take a look at diversity and equality in the Finnish film industry. The article series is in Finnish and English.
- Actor, activist, poet and screenwriter Laura Eklund Nhaga writes from an anti-racist perspective about the screen industries. Laura Eklund Nhaga: The whiteness of Finns is not neutral, natural or even true (you will go to ses.fi). Published on April 9, 2021.
- What is it like to see people like you represented on screen? Freelance writer Sanni Myllyaho talks about the importance of depictions of people with disabilities on screen. Sanni Myllyaho: Those who came before us – can we remember through films? (you will go to ses.fi). Published on April 19, 2021.
- THL’s Research Manager Shadia Rask shares some tools for promoting diversity and inclusion. Shadia Rask: Representation matters – this is how you can increase the diversity of your work community (you will go to ses.fi). Published on April 22, 2021.
- According to statistics, sexual and gender minorities have a minimal role in Finnish films and series. Jani Toivola writes how safer spaces for diverse filmmakers can set creativity free and enable new kind of storytelling. Jani Toivola: We see you King – moving from shame towards new kinds of stories (you will go to ses.fi). Published May 5, 2021.
- Jantsu Puumalainen, from Helsinki Casting, Mikko Mäkelä, director of A Moment in the Reeds, and Jani Toivola and Mete Sasioglu, director and producer of the series Ainoa huoneessa, talk about how you can foster diversity through casting in scripted drama productions. ”Everyone is worth a role” – advancing diversity in casting (you will go to ses.fi). Published 12.5.2021.
- Mira Eskelinen writes about trans representation on film and television. Mira Eskelinen: Nothing about us without us (you will go to ses.fi). May 19, 2021.
- Maryan Adbulkarim explores the importance of stories and expands the prevailing notion of diversity. Maryan Adbulkarim: Only change is a constant fact (you will move to ses.fi). Published on September 13, 2021
Feminisms in the Nordic Region. Neoliberalism, Nationalism and Decolonial Critique
This book explores how feminist movements in the Nordic region challenge the increasing gender, race and class inequalities following the global economic crisis, neoliberal capitalism and austerity politics, and how they position themselves in the face of the rise of nationalism and right-wing populism. The book contextualizes these recent events in the long histories of racial and colonial power relations embedded in Nordic societies and their gender equality and welfare state regimes. It examines the role of whiteness and racism and seeks to decolonize feminist knowledge and genealogies of feminist movements in the region. Editors: Suvi Keskinen, Pauline Stoltz and Diana Mulinari.
Chapters 6, 7, 9 and 10 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Feminisms in the Nordic Region (link.springer.com)
SQS Journal: Queer History Month
Some thoughts about the topic of trans / non-binary / gender diverse people in the arts
Blackness & the Postmodern
Blackness & the Postmodern is a publication by UrbanApa. This publication contains eight texts of various forms, each of them approaching the friction between Blackness and postmodern contemporaneity in one way or another. The writers come from different backgrounds and localities; they are artists, curators, researchers, performers, activists and much more. The collection is not seeking coherence, but juxtaposing different voices and perspectives.
Blackness & the Postmodern [PDF, link to urbanapa.fi] Accessibility of the PDF not checked.
Don’t Be Quiet, Start a Riot! Essays on Feminism and Performance
(Stockholm UP 2016)
Tiina Rosenberg’s essay collection Don’t Be Quiet, Start a Riot! investigates elements of the human voice and performance, and their implications for gender and sexuality. The chapters address affect, pleasure, and memory in the enjoyment of musical and theatrical performance. Rosenberg also examines contemporary feminist performance, anti-racist interventions, activist aesthetics, and political agency especially with regard to feminist and queer interpretations of opera and theatre.
Don’t Be Quiet, Start a Riot! can be downloaded on stockholmuniversitypress.se
Perspectives on Intercultural Dialogue
The publication brings together writings about the theme of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue 2008 from many different perspectives. Writers cover the theme from the view point of e.g. youth, education, civil participation, cultural cooperation and religions.
