Helmi Järviluoma

Helmi Järviluoma was married to Finnish writer Matti Mäkelä (1951–2019).[in Finnish]

Helmi Järviluoma-Mäkelä (born 1960 in Ylivieska, North Ostrobothnia) is a Finnish sound, music, and cultural scholar and writer.

She is a Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Eastern Finland.

As sensory and soundscape ethnographer, Järviluoma has developed the mobile method of sensobiographic walking.

Her research and art spans the fields of sensory remembering, qualitative methodology (especially regarding gender), environmental cultural studies, sound art and fiction writing.

Helmi Inkeri Järviluoma was born in 1960 and went to high school in Ylivieska.

She earned her Bachelor's (1982) and master's degrees (1986) from the University of Tampere in folk tradition, especially folk music, with strong emphasis on sociology.

Järviluoma had already joined the workforce of Department of Folk Tradition (later called Department of Music Anthropology) in 1986, and by 1992 she was a Research Fellow.

As a fiddler, she has played in bands such as Balkan music orcherstra Slobo Horo (1986—1989), women's rock band Enkelimankeli (1992-1998), and Säilyn pelimannit (2016--).

In between, 1991-1992 she also worked as the first director of the popular music -oriented Institute of Rhythm Music in Seinäjoki.

She continued to study ethnomusicology and completed her PhD in Tampere in 1997.

Between 1998–2005 she was attached to University of Turku as a Senior Assistant and Lecturer of ethnomusicology, working for Academy of Finland as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow (1998–2001) and Academy Research Fellow (2004–2006), finished after one year in Autumn 2005, when receiving professorship in cultural studies in University of Joensuu (later: University of Eastern Finland).

Among her 180 publications, Gender and Qualitative Methods (2003/2010) continues to draw attention.

She has written and directed altogether six radio features for Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE; three alone and two in co-operation with Steven Feld, and one with Noora Vikman.

She has, as well, between 2005–2017 written and directed several radio features, combining art and research, for the Finnish Broadcasting Company's Radio Atelier, and written a collection of fiction (short stories) Ja katsella hain hampaita [And to watch sharks’ teeth] in 2016.

Decades of research on this topic culminated in the publication of Acoustic Environments in Change (2009) together with Simon Fraser University which sums up her four consecutive interdisciplinary, international soundscape research projects studying the changing European soundscapes.

Currently, her research focuses on sensobiographies, as well as the themes of mobilities, aging, remembering, technologies and dis-placement.

Järviluoma's publications include among others the results of a large interdisciplinary follow-up project, Acoustic Environments in Change (2009), and Gender and Qualitative Methods (Sage 2003/2010).

In 2016, she received an Advanced Grant of approximately 1,9 million euros from the European Research Council ERC, in order to study Sensory Transformations and Transgenerational Environmental Relationships, 1950–2020 SENSOTRA in the three European cities of Ljubljana, Turku and Brighton.

Järviluoma is probably best known for her work in the field of soundscape studies.