KatiMikkola

I serve as Secretary General of the Finnish Literature Society (SKS), where I am responsible for leading the Society’s activities and ensuring the implementation of its mission and strategy.

My academic background is in cultural studies, and I hold the title of Docent in Folklore Studies at the University of Helsinki (since 2015). I have conducted research at the Universities of Turku and Helsinki and in the research department of the Finnish Literature Society, and have contributed to the work of several organisations in the fields of culture, research, and education.

In my research, I have examined a range of topics, including the influence of Johann Gottfried Herder on Finnish national thought; self-taught Finnish folklore collectors of the 19th and early 20th centuries; processes of secularisation and religious change; and the roles of ethnic and linguistic minorities in archival collection policies in Finland and Estonia. My doctoral thesis in Comparative Religion (2009) focused on resistance to innovations in Finland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

My long-standing interests also include educational development and archival pedagogy. Over the course of my career, I have worked as a teacher, textbook author, Counsellor of Education at the Finnish National Agency for Education, and in various roles at the Matriculation Examination Board.

Minority Cultures and the Making of Cultural Heritage Archives in Finland (with Pia Olsson and Eija Stark). – Ethnologia Europaea 49:1, 2019, pp. 58–73.

Inclusion and Exclusion of Roma in the Category of Finnish Folklore – The Collections of the Finnish Literature Society from the 1800s to the 2000s (with Risto Blomster). – Journal of Finnish Studies 18(1). 2014, pp. 11–45.