Suvi Pihkala
PhD
Postdoctoral Researcher
Gender studies and feminist research
Values, Ideologies and Social Contexts of Education
Faculty of Education and Psychology

I am postdoctoral researcher in Gender Studies with interest in feminist posthuman and new materialist methodologies and approaches to ethics and responsibility. These were the themes at the heart of my PhD research Touchable Matters: Reconfiguring Sustainable Change through Participatory Design, Education, and Everyday Engagement for Non-Violence (2018). My PhD focused on responsible participatory practices in participatory design, and on the challenge of cultivating non-violence and relationships based on care, belonging and equality.
Inspired by feminist theorizations within new materialisms, I'm interested in exploring how ethics and politics figure in the research-entanglements that we co-compose and find ourselves in. This takes and keeps my work connected to diverse transdisciplinary terrains. Currently, I conduct my research as part of the FIRE research collective where I continue to explore how participation, responsibility and ethical encounter materialize in and through creative arts-based research-activism to address gender, sexuality and power in pre-teen peer cultures (see also Mapping, making & mattering, 2019-2023; Academy of Finland research project).
Research interests
- Feminist new materialisms
- Participatory design
- Ethical sustainability
- Response-ability
- Creative methodologies
- Non-violence
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