Introduction

Fluid World is a research development programme funded by the University of Tampere on years 2010-2012 . The programme consists of some ten post-doctoral researchers from social sciences and humanities. The multidisciplinary programme aims at outlining emergent sociocultural changes and identifying new research topics. Particularly the programme examines formation, uses and effects of social and cultural knowledge.

The title of the programme refers to a world characterized by dis- and re-locations of customary borderlines and increasing movement between areas that earlier were not necessarily closely connected to each other. The borders, areas and movements studied are both real (such as borders of nation-states or movements of people, messages and commodities) and ideational (intertwining of economy, politics and culture, movement of ideas and concepts between institutional locations or new relations of official and informal knowledge). The programme maps how the fluid world both questions customary forms, classifications and categories of knowledge and produces new objects, divisions and borderlines.

The programme organizes regular workshops and seminars. It aims at publications in English and Finnish as well as new crossdisciplinary research initiatives.

The research director of the programme is professor Mikko Lehtonen (mikko.s.lehtonen@uta.fi). The board members of the programme are Pertti Alasuutari, Tuomas Forsberg, Pertti Haapala, Risto Heiskala, Laura Huttunen, Jouni Häkli, Päivi Korvajärvi, Risto Kunelius, Päivi Pahta and Juha Suoranta ( @uta.fi).