Finnish conscripts’ views on military service, Finland and defense of Finland.

The data is produced for the research project Ethnicity, Finland and Citizen’s Relationship to National Defense conducted at the University of Defence. The aim of the research is to examine how those participating in conscript service view national defense and contemporary Finland. Among themes of interest are perceptions of Finland, sense of belonging to Finland, but also the experiences and views of military service.

The data generation was planned by the PI (Teemu Tallberg) and the researcher working in the project (Elina Paju). Tallberg and Paju conducted the first 6 interviews. The last 6 interviews were conducted by Paju and Iida Kulmala, who worked as a research assistant in the project.

The data consists of altogether 12 group interviews with Finnish conscripts conducted in different garrisons during 2023. Each interview comprises of 6–14 conscripts, with an average of 10 taking part in the interview. All of the interviewees had completed their basic training (6 weeks) and many were on the last part of their service. The staff in the garrisons decided who was selected for the interviews. The topics discussed were experiences in military training and positive and negative aspects of service, where the conscripts felt they belonged, the homes of the conscripts and what consists a home. Discussed themes also revolved around Finland : what in Finland the conscripts thought was worth defending, and possible threats Finland is currently facing. The group interviews ended with discussions about future scenarios: what kind of future the conscripts expected for Finland and for themselves.

As a part of the interviews, the conscripts assembled collages in small groups of 2–3 of images representing Finland. The images (CC0 license) were selected by the researchers mainly from the data archive Finna.fi. Some of the images were photographs taken by the PI of the project.

The interviews (both the group discussions and the discussion in the small groups working on the collages representing Finland were audio-recorded in mp3 format and transcribed and stored in Word format. The collages were photographed and stored in JPEG-format. The data is stored in files indicating the order of the interview.

Access to the data is restricted and only the researchers working in the project have access to it. The PI or the Director of Research at the National Defence University (NDU) may grant permission to parts of the pseudonymized data. The data includes descriptions of military training from several branches, and the access is restricted based on national security. Besides this, the data includes personal information classified as sensitive, such as mentions of religious beliefs and ethnicity. Moreover, the data includes descriptions of the participants’ places of origin, which might make them recognizable from the data.