Piia

Vuorinen

I am currently a researcher in the Department of Contemporary History. I am conducting research into the staff of the Finnish Security Police between 1919 and 1948, from the perspectives of professionalisation and gender. By studying the staff, it is possible to shed new light on the control exercised during that era.

Between 2024 and 2026, I worked as a researcher on the ‘Hotet från Åland?’ project led by Tiina Lintunen. In this project, we investigated the activities of the Finnish Security Police in the Åland Islands.

In November 2023, I defended my doctoral thesis in Finnish History, entitled Valtiolle vaaralliset naiset – Valtiollinen poliisi, valvonnan arki ja sukupuoli Suomessa 1919–1944 (Women dangerous to the state – the Security Police, the everyday reality of surveillance and gender in Finland 1919–1944). In my research, I took a multifaceted approach to the control policies of the Finnish Security Police. I was particularly interested in the significance of gender among female suspects in the day-to-day practice of surveillance. Although I examined the activities of the Security Police specifically from the perspective of women subject to surveillance, my research provides a broader account of the Security Police’s surveillance: how individuals came to be regarded as suspects, what forms of information gathering and monitoring were employed, what kind of discretion the authorities exercised in carrying out surveillance, and how the ways in which individual suspects responded to surveillance sometimes influenced the application of such measures.

Based in part on my doctoral thesis, in the spring of 2026 I published a narrative non-fiction book entitled Vaarallisen viekkaita – Naisvakoojan myytti ja vastavakoilun arki (Dangerously cunning – the myth of the female spy and the everyday reality of counter-espionage). In this book, I examine the perceptions associated with female spies, the circumstances under which women become the subject of espionage suspicions, and the actions taken by the security police to verify such suspicions.