On this page we list research projects of the members of Trivium affiliated with Tampere University and funded by the Academy of Finland or major foundations. If you wish your project to be included in the list, please contact Mr Saku Pihko (Saku.Pihko@tuni.fi).
Current Projects
How did Finland Manage to Avoid Witch Hunts? Action and Experience in De-escalating Persecution (Academy of Finland, 2023-2027)
This project investigates how different actors in early modern Finland sought to and managed (or failed) to prevent the escalation of rumours of witchcraft into trials and trials into hunts and persecution. The results are then compared to previous research on both persecution and any efforts to avoid persecution elsewhere in Lutheran Europe. The project uses court records as its main material, with both statistical and qualitative (narratological) methods. The scientific impact of the project is in the new knowledge concerning witch-hunts and the history of persecution in Finland and Europe, and in the new approach in persecution history in general. The societal impact comes from the applicability of the new knowledge in the challenges that social enmity and religious or political, ethnic and language related persecution poses to today.
PI Prof. Raisa Maria Toivo
Project members Dr Tiina Miettinen, Dr Kirsi Kanerva, Dr Doc. Marko Lamberg
Viabundus Finland 1350–1650: Database and GIS-location project of late medieval and early modern roads in Finland (Kone Foundation 2022–2025)
The aim of the Viabundus Finland 1350–1650 research project is to compile historical geospatial data (HGIS) on traffic routes and traffic related infrastructure of medieval and early modern Finland into a unified database and a map interface, and to make them open to the public. It integrates information on medieval and early modern traffic routes in Finland enabling its use in multidisciplinary research and various applications. The database and map created in the project include information on the Finnish road and traffic infrastructure (inns, taverns, postal system, market places and times, customs points, landing sites) in the years 1350–1650. Viabundus Finland is part of the Viabundus project, founded in 2019 by the Institut für Historische Landesforschung (University of Göttingen) and the Research Center for Hanse and Baltic History in Lübeck, with the aim of producing its own projects and a digital map of the Northern European Alpine Transport Network and related systems based on it.
PI Dr, Doc. Tapio Salminen
Project members Dr Jenni Lares, Katrina Virtanen MA
Lived Religion and the Changing Meaning(s) of Disability from the Late Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution (Academy of Finland, 2020–2025)
This research project examines the significance of Christian lived religion in understanding and experiencing disability, analysing the
ways religious rituals, views, and practices framed and shaped bodily and mental impairment. The project offers the first longue durée study about the continuities and changes in the role of religion as a framework that shaped conceptions and experiences of physical and mental impairments and long-term illnesses. By integrating lived religion into the core of disability history, it will significantly contribute to the scholarly discussion on how disability
and ‘normalcy’ were understood in past societies and what kinds of changes have occurred through time.
PI Dr Jenni Kuuliala
Project members Dr Daniel Blackie, Dr Riikka Miettinen, Dr Godelinde Gertrude Perk
Lived Religion in Medieval Finland (Society of Swedish Literature in Finland, 2021–2023)
The project analyses religion as lived and experienced, as a dynamic process and performative space. It focuses on interaction with saints in Finland and in wider Nordic context. In our analysis we combine various types of sources: sermons, liturgical manuscripts, wills and artefacts to provide new information on a less studied topic.
PI Sari Katajala-Peltomaa
Project members PhD, docent Marika Räsänen, PhD Sofia Lahti ja PhD Anna-Stina Hägglund
Biography as a Method for Early Modern History (Jalmari Finne foundation, 2021-2022)
The projects asks what historical biography as a methodology can offer for the study of early modern history and how does it influence historical biography if the objects of study were early modernWebsite people. We study this on three levels: 1) history of historiography: what kind of biographies have been done that deal with the early modern period 2) reconceptualization to develop biography as a method for early modern history and to update the questions it studies and 3 ) short case studies as examples for modern biographies on early modern history.
PI Raisa Maria Toivo
Researchers PhD Tiina Miettinen, PhD Jenni Lares and Mari Välimäki.
Recently Finished Projects
Hope springs eternal: Constructing hope and meaningful life in Medieval Byzantium (Tampere Institute for Advanced Studies, 2021-2023)
Dr. Oana Cojocaru’s project, which explores the ways in which the Byzantine families navigated personal crises related to children via hope, understood as a social and emotional practice, which has a central place in the strategies people built for the future and meaningful life.
The Insane in Early Modern Sweden and Finland (Academy of Finland, 2018-2021)
The Academy of Finland postdoctoral research project of Riikka Miettinen, which analyses the social history of mental illness and disability in early modern Sweden and Finland.
Vammaisuuden vaiettu historia – A Public disability history project (Kone Foundation, 2017–2021)
A project funded by the Kone Foundation. Leader of the project: Dr Jenni Kuuliala. Members of the team: Dr Daniel Blackie (University of Oulu), Dr Riikka Miettinen, Dr Tiina Miettinen, Dr Reima Välimäki (University of Turku), Amu Urhonen
Catholic Reformation in Lutheran Finland 1550-1700 (Academy of Finland, 2015-2020)
An Academy of Finland Research Fellow project of Doc. Raisa Toivo.
Segregated or Integrated? – Living and Dying in the harbour city of Ostia, 300 BCE-700 CE (Academy of Finland, 2015-2019)
A research project funded by the Academy of Finland, studying the formation of the population of the town of Ostia (300BCE-700CE).
PI Professor Arja Karivieri. Members of the research group: Katariina Mustakallio, Ria Berg, Marja-Leena Hänninen, Anna Kjellström, Ghislaine Van Der Ploeg
Disability, Illness and the Communal Dimensions of Healing in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, (Academy of Finland 2015-2018)
An Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Researcher project of Dr Jenni Kuuliala
The Hansa in the North – Cultural and Social Transformations. A Reassessment
Funded by the NOS-HS
Project manager: Christian Krötzl
“Honour Thy Father and Thy Mother”: Violence Against Parents in the North of Europe
Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and the Social Sciences
Nordic exploratory workshops
Migration and Multiethnic Cities 1500-2000 (Finnish Cultural Foundation, 2016-2017)
A research project funded by the Finnish Cultural foundation, investigating migration, movement of workers and multicultural cities from the late Middle Ages till the present day.
PI: Dr Maija Ojala. Members of the research group: Anitta Kynsilehto, Ilaria Tucci, Mari Välimäki, Ulla Ijäs, Pirita Frigren
Reunamailla – Tilattomat Länsi-Suomen maaseudulla 1600–1800 (2016–2017)
Members of the research group: Riikka Miettinen, Ella Viitaniemi, Sofia Gustafsson, Ulla Koskinen, Tiina Miettinen, Panu Pulma, Petri Talvitie, Merja Uotila, Heikki Vuorimies, Jorma Wilmi
Yhteisön reunamailla, tilallisten varjossa? Länsi-Suomen maaseutuväestön rakenteen muutokset ja talonpoikaiston ulkopuoliset väestönosat 1600-1800, (Jalmari Finne foundation, 2015-2017)
A research project funded by Jalmari Finne foundation, which investigates the Finnish agrarian society (c. 1600-1800) and those demographic groups ignored in earlier research
PI Doc. Raisa Toivo. Members of the research group: Riikka Miettinen, Ella Viitaniemi
Multilingual Practices in the History of Written English (Academy of Finland, 2012-2016)
A research project funded by the Academy of Finland, studying the multilingual practices of writteh language.
Project leader: Professor Päivi Pahta. Members of the research group: Laura Wright, Arja Nurmi, Janne Skaffari, Jukka Tuominen, Jukka Tyrkkö
Gender and Demonic Possession in Later Medieval Europe (Academy of Finland, 2011-2014)
An Academy of Finland postdoctoral research project of Dr Sari Katajala-Peltomaa
Religion and Childhood. Socialisation in Pre-Modern Europe from the Roman Empire to the Christian World (Academy of Finland, 2009-2012)
PI Docent Dr. Katariina Mustakallio
Members of the research group: Sari Katajala-Peltomaa, Christian Laes, Ville Vuolanto, Jenni Kuuliala