Kone project HuriIA has started!
In January 2025 the Kone project ‘Human Rights Incorporated and Acquired – Participatory research on Iraqi women between multiple normative frameworks in Finland’ (HuriIA) has officially started!
HuRiIA is a co-research project conducted with Iraqi women living in Finland. It seeks to uncover and give recognition and visibility to 50 Iraqi women’s creative responses and resistance as they pursue their rights in Finland. The researchers aim to scrutinise their adaptation and creation of new spatial practices to access their fundamental human rights, navigating through multiple normative frameworks shaped by both Finnish and Iraqi contexts. The tasks are meant to support creative self-expression, strengthen their narratives, and acts of resistance.
In HuRiIA, important themes to investigate, such as access to overall freedom, (الحرية “huriia” “freedom” in Arabic) and influence of different norms in access to rights were identified and selected in collaboration with a group of Iraqi women. Iraqi women in Finland navigate a complex landscape of norms and laws from both Finland and Iraq. These borderless and occasionally contradictory norms and unwritten rules (al-‘urf) can pull women in various directions, leaving some to grapple with questions about their rights. Despite living in a democratic and egalitarian country, many Iraqi women still face significant challenges in accessing their rights.
The HuRiIA project aims to achieve three key objectives:
- To explore the impact of the interactions between various spaces—such as countries, homes, streets, restaurants, the internet, and personal bodies—and normative orders—including state law, religious norms, tribal law, and family rules—on the lives and access to rights of Iraqi women in Finland.
- To develop creative scientific methods for investigating and presenting the lived experiences and challenges faced by these women across physical, digital, and imaginary spaces.
- To create a significant societal impact by amplifying the voices of Iraqi women, engaging actively in social debates, and producing educational materials for seminars aimed at stakeholders monitoring fundamental rights in Finland and Europe.
Members of the working group are:
Dr. Katri Gadd, Department of Geography and Geology, University of Turku (PI)
Pasqualina Eckerström, Doctoral Researcher, Study of Religions, Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki
Dr. Miriam Tedeschi, Faculty of Law, University of Turku
Meiju Marttila, Department of Geography and Geology, University of Turku
Dr. Gadd is presenting the project at UTULaw on 15th May 2025.
The website of the project is: http://www.huriia.fi/