Johanna

Nurmi

In my doctoral dissertation (2014, University of Turku), I studied the recovery processes of two Finnish communities after school shootings. I have also published a book Shared Experiences of Mass Shootings (Routledge) on the topic. 

After my dissertation, I have done research on the field of health sociology. My research topics have included vaccine hesitancy, the use of alternative treatments, human–microbe relations related to alternative health conceptions, and health influencers on social media. In my postdoctoral research on vaccine hesitancy, I collected data through ethnographic interviews, expert interviews, online ethnography, and visual ethnography.

Together with Pia Vuolanto, I was co-PI of a research project called Health, knowledge and expertise (Emil Aaltonen foundation 2018-2021). Using historical and sociological approaches, the project examined critiques of medicine associated with vaccine scepticism and alternative therapies among citizens and healthcare professionals.

I have participated in the EU Horizon 2020 project VAX-TRUST, which investigated vaccine confidence in seven EU countries. In 2019-2020, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Tampere University, in the project Nutrition, Expertise and Media (Academy of Finland, PI Pia Jallinoja) concerning the public debate on food and health. I have also worked as part of the project Tracking the Therapeutic - Ethnographies of Wellbeing, Politics and Inequality (Academy of Finland 2015-2019, PI Suvi Salmenniemi), and Microbial Lives - Practices of New Human-Microbial Cultures (Kone Foundation 2019-2022, PI Salla Sariola).