"The most exciting thing we get to experience is everyday life"
Memory is a sieve, and a lot of it just slips away. But there are things that don't leave. A scent, a hit or maybe a quote. These are the bright spots that we want to focus on in this series of employee portraits. Next in line is Lasse Reinikainen: sociologist and equal opportunities representative.
Already in his early teens, Lasse Reinikainen began to think about why people act the way they do in different situations.
"Throughout my youth, I was fascinated by how people behaved in one way in individual meetings and in another way in group contexts, and was struck by the realisation that something happens to the individual when they end up in a group. I also began to notice that we have different expectations of ourselves depending on gender, that you didn't make your choices based on yourself alone, but you did it because you were a man or a woman. he says.
Still fascinating today
However, it would take a number of years before he found his way to university studies and eventually sociology, the subject that he still finds just as fascinating today. When he worked for a few years for the VTP-AG, which was the equivalent of the Conscription Council, he noticed that the others in his group could talk and negotiate with the authorities in a way that he did not master.
" I later realised that all of them had studied at university, and that made me decide to try university studies," he says.
The puzzle fell into place
After taking the detour via political science and media and communication, Lasse finally found his right subject.
" I knew there was something in society I wanted to get at, but I didn't really know what. It wasn't until I came into contact with sociology that the puzzle fell into place. There I found a home in my way of thinking. I discovered that others had already thought about the same things as I had; That there were words and concepts for the things I saw in everyday life.
Lasse Reinikainen normally teaches sociology and gender studies, but since 2017 he has also been the Equal Opportunities Officer for the NMT Faculty. Since 2023, he has also been the central coordinator for equal opportunities and gender mainstreaming at Mid Sweden University. Previously, he has also taught at the (then) University of Kalmar and Umeå University.
When he has to highlight five things that have been important to him, it will be a space epic, a musical instrument, hard rock, a band and two textbooks that have characterized his philosophy of life.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Once I started reading this book I just wanted more and now I've read them probably five or six times. They are very much about human shortcomings, but in a fantasy environment, and everyday thoughts and with a distanced sense of humour. It's a space epic, but very similar to Earth. There is something in the interpersonal relationships that becomes appealing and that is very easy to connect to sociology. It's not the people, or the beings, that are the focus for me, but it's the processes and relationships. There's something wonderfully absurd about it all because it's about many different life forms, but at the same time it's so incredibly mundane, human and recognizable. The most exciting thing we get to experience is everyday life, a social soup.
Guitar
Through music, and the guitar, I've made a lot of friends because I've played in different constellations. I'm not an advanced guitarist, but enough to be a troubadour and play in bands. My wife and I usually play together at weddings, baptisms and funerals. I like to play rhythm guitar, to support the other musicians. To support what I do as a teacher and as an equal opportunities representative, so when I play the guitar, it's kind of the same thing. Lately I've also started rebuilding guitars. I buy half-baked guitars that I renovate, modify and repaint, and make them more fun to play on. Then I give some of them new homes.
Philosophy
There are two classic textbooks in sociology that have influenced and inspired me deeply and have really made an impression on me, "Understanding Everyday Life" and "The Fine Line". The first book was an eye-opener and made me realize that society and the individual are different sides of the same coin, and that society exists within us rather than just outside of us. The second book, The Fine Line, describes how borders are socially created, ranging from the borders of countries to how to dress at a certain age. Some boundaries are razor-sharp, while others are very fuzzy. It also points out that we are often categorised, for example, as a man or a woman, but that we have our own identity that may not match the expectations that the categories give.
80's Hard Rock
I discovered late in life that the 1980s were a very formative time for my taste in music. I thought well into middle age that I was one of those 'all-eaters' when it comes to music, but when I look at my playlists, it's Iron Maiden, Accept and Pretty Maids that get a lot of airplay when I'm on the train or sitting and working. I wasn't a typical hard rocker, more of a softie with long hair, but there was something in the attitude and the rebelliousness that appealed to me. This was at the time when you were either a metalhead or a synthesizer, and the aesthetics in the heavy metal world were more working class while the aesthetics in the synth world were more middle class, which I didn't belong to or recognize myself in. It is as the sociologist Bourdieu wrote in one of his works: class affiliation affects one's tastes. Nowadays I don't just enjoy listening to heavy metal, I also amuse myself by turning heavy metal songs into songs. It's a fun contrast.
Galaxy music
Portishead is also a contrast to the melodic heavy metal. This is music that came to me at a later stage of life. It's a band that has a magical soundscape that mixes pop, jazz and the sounds of early hip-hop with scratching and samples of various kinds. They build up a world of sounds and beats that makes me think of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it's a bit the same thing, but in a musical style. It's the ordinary, the mundane combined with something unusual, unexpected. Nice music to just listen to, without doing anything else at the same time. Then you can also reflect on the texts that concern society and different conditions for women and men.
