Paradoxical scientization: sisu, Finnish exceptionalism, and the limits of universal human experience

Abstract

Scientization tends to be understood as a process whereby a form of knowledge is rendered scientifically legitimate. In this way, scientists work with other experts and lay theories to move claims into the realm of fact, where they are stabilized and expanded through scientific practice. Paradoxical scientization describes a process in which efforts to render cultural values scientifically legitimate depend on and reproduce claims to cultural specificity. The recent scientization of sisu—a historically mutable Finnish concept and cultural value that is typically translated as grit or resilience while cast as ‘impossible to translate’—has occurred in three steps: the datafying of affect, the creation of a measurement scale, and its extension through machine-learning methods. Through this process, what was previously seen as a mutable cultural value has been transformed into a measurable affective capacity. Paradoxical scientization relies on sisu being both cultivatable and universal to all humans, yet unique to the Finnish culture, language, and people. It also lays the ground for sisu’s commercialization as a neoliberal self-help product. Scientization does not occur in isolation, but must be analysed in context. In the case of sisu, scientization is taking place alongside neoliberal restructuring and ethnonationalist mobilization—contexts in which appeals to sisu are made to advance ideological agendas. By leaving unresolved the paradox at its heart, the scientization of a cultural value can reinforce racialised, ableist and classist exclusions.