The topic of our study is “Readers’ perceptions of the encounter with an ethnic minority group member in Living Library setting”. In the study, the readers’ experiences and perceptions play the main role: the informants consist of ten Finnish people who have engaged in a reading situation at the Living Library with a “living book”, who represents one of Finland’s ethnic minorities. Previously there have been no qualitative studies made on the readers’ experiences and perceptions, only quantitative data has been collected from the readers in the form of the feedback forms. Living Library needs constant evaluation in order to develop its functions and efficiency, thus the thesis serves this process of evaluation by processing valuable feedback from the readers, and reflection by the two students.

Ten informants were interviewed during the World Village Festival, in Helsinki in May 2009. The World Village Festival is a cultural festival inviting all the cultures of the world to join together for a weekend. The festival aims at bringing different cultures together to have fun, and it can be assumed that those who participate in the festival are generally open-minded people who are curious to learn more about different cultures. Thus, the study cannot be generalized to describe all the Living Library readers of Finland, but it describes those readers’ perceptions who visited this cultural festival. Living Libraries have also been organised in schools, other festivals, public libraries and exhibitions, where the visitors are different.

In the study, it is been observed how the readers considered issues of personal contact, equality, supported contact, and intercultural contact. These are issues discussed widely by the contact theory. Basically the contact theory suggests that if the intercultural contact takes place under certain conditions, including supported arena for contact, personal nature of the contact, equal setting, and common goal, the contact is likely to reduce prejudice. Through the contact hypothesis, the readers were posed questions that aimed at finding out their experiences and perceptions.

The study was interested in hearing the perceptions of Finns about the intercultural encounter with the ethnic minority. The Living Library acts as a particular type of arena for different cultures to meet and it aims at bringing different kinds of people together to share a dialogue. Through that dialogue, the Library aims at reducing it’s users’ prejudice. By using the contact theory as a frameworkfor the study, we were also interested to see what kinds of outcomes would the encounters have on the perceptions of Finns about ethnic minorities.

The encounters of culturally diverse do not automatically imply, that the prejudices of both parties would automatically decline. Instead, the intercultural encounters create both, intolerance and tolerance, but on their own they might not produce positive outcomes. That is why the intercultural contacts need to be supported –for having positive outcomes and producing understanding of others. The Living Library supports the intercultural encounters by producing a safe, equal arena, which is one of the conditions of the contact theory for reducing prejudice.

The need for mutual supported intercultural contacts is also supported by the Finnish policies. In the Finnish Government’s Child and Youth Policy Programme 2007–2011, the section four includes an aim for creating prerequisites for intercultural dialogue, and enforcing the role of global and diversity education in respect for human rights and preservation of a joint environment (The Finnish Ministry of Education 2008).  Also a research produced by the Employment office of Finland has shown the importance of personal contacts in relation to low prejudices: Magdaleena Jaakkola’s 20-year study about the attitudes of Finns towards immigrants showed that the least prejudiced were those who had personal contacts with immigrants (Jaakkola 2005)

In today’s Finland different cultures and ethnic groups meet every day, but sharing the same environment does not automatically mean having mutual contacts between the diverse groups. Thus, arenas like Living Library are needed, and they need to fulfil the conditions of the contact theory in order to reduce the prejudices the groups have about each other. Our study was made for the Living Library project in Finland to provide valuable information about the readers’ experiences, and through that, to produce discussion about the method’s functioning; does it serve its purposes in the light of the readers’ experiences and perceptions. The purpose of the study was to gather the experiences and perceptions of the Finnish readers of Living Library, who have encountered an ethnic minority group member. The study questions included: “How has the reader experienced the encounter with an ethnic minority group member in Living Library setting” and “What perceptions does the reader have about the Living Library”. These were observed in the light of the contact theory and Living Library’s aims.

The research desing of the study was qualitative, including focused interviews at the World Village Festival, and inductive content analysis for analysing the data. The interviewees varied in age and represented both genders. The findings were divided into four themes: Readers’ perceptions of the living book, readers’ experiences of the Living Library setting, readers’ experience of the encounter in facilitated framework, and the perceptions about the outcomes of the encounter. The findings showed that the reading experience had been positive for all the readers. The readers emphasized the living book’s influence on the reading situation; they stated that the book had been very positive person, smart and pleasant to talk with, and that because of those qualities, the reading situation had been such a nice experience. They also discussed that probably the living books got chosen to be books because of their positive qualities.

The interviews also showed that all the readers were generally open-minded people, who did not consider themselves having a lot of preconceived ideas about the ethnic minority. Instead, the readers were wondering if a racist person would end up coming to the Library and borrowing a living book. The readers had previous contacts with ethnic minorities and information about them, because of which they also chose to borrow that particular book. The readers also highlighted the Living Library setting as a facilitating framework for intercultural encounters, by saying that they would not have otherwise very likely would have ended up in discussion with that particular ethnic minority they had borrowed. The readers were happy that the Living Library had facilitated the “right to ask”, which according to them does not happen in every day life. The readers also higlighted the personal, face-to-face, individual aspects of the encounter, which had given them the possibility to get to know individuals. Outcomes of the encounter were seen to be new information, interesting discussions, nice meeting between individuals, and mainly the readers stated that nothing surprising had come up in the encounters, but the encounter had been as they had expected it to be.

The findings can only be discussed through keeping in mind that the sample of the study was very small, including only ten people, and in the context of the World Village Festival 2009. As said earlier and as the readers also brought up, the ten visitors interviewed were open-minded and curious about other cultures. This is not always the case in Living Library, as for example sometimes the Libraries are organised in schools where all the pupils are expected to participate despite excisting interest or not.

Based on the findings, it can be discussed whether the people, readers, come to the Living Library to challenge their prejudices or just to discuss with interesting, somewhat like-minded people. Do they also borrow the living book of which they have the most prejudices about, or the “easy” book, from whom they already know what to ask because they have previous information? And, despite the question about choosing the right book, do the “right people” end up in Library at all? If the aim of the Library is that the readers challenge their prejudice, at least this study’s findings do not support the idea that prejudiced people would have borrowed a book. Instead, it seems that those people who borrowed, where open-minded and did not come to challenge their prejudice. If this is the case, who is the Library reaching then? Only the open-minded people, who would not actually even need this kind of method as much as those with racist prejudices. The Library undoubtedly provides and arena for contact, that is what the interviewees stated, but is the other important aim of the Library met, reducing prejudice. Again, we should bear in mind that the informants of this study were the visitors of the cultural festival, which attracts open-minded people thus the findings cannot be generalised to tell about the whole method.

One interesting aspect also rose from the findings; are the books really seen as members of their groups, or more like “exceptional individuals”? Some readers stated that they thought that the living books get to be chosen and thus represent the “positive side” of their group. If the readers really see the living book as an exceptional positive member of their group, the encounter does not reduce their prejudices towards the whole group, because the rest of the group is still seen as stereotypical. According to the typicality paradox, the books should be seen as ordinary enough members of the group, so that the experience of meeting him/her could be then reflected to the whole group.

Based on the findings, the method is good and facilitating the encounters in safe and equal setting, but the problem is, whether it is reaching the right people. Now the method attracts the “wrong” type of people; those who do not necessarily come to challenge their prejudices. Thus it would be very important to market the Living Library to a wider audience to reach all kinds of people. A lot has already been done and for example Living Libraries are in growing numbers been organised at schools and public places. Although now discussed that the Library might invite the “wrong type of people”, it should be also remembered that all of us have prejudices and thus it is beneficial for everyone to meet diverse people in supported settings, just to learn more from each other and to understand each other better. Instead of marketing the Library for the audience with the mere “Come to challenge your prejudice”, maybe it could be highlighted that we all have prejudice.

Our future ideas also include that it would be beneficial to have a thorough look at the feedback forms the participants have filled after each Living Library event. They include a massive amount of quantitative data, which was not at all included in this study. Also, it would be very interesting to hear from the living books, how they have experienced the reading situations and being as books. Until those studies are ready… -Have a good reading!

Anu Kotamäki
Student of Laurea University of Applied Sciences

The name of the Bachelor’s thesis:

Readers’ perceptions of the encounter with an ethnic minority group member in living library setting. Laurea University of Applied Sciences, November 2009.

References:

Jaakkola, M. 2005. Suomalaisten suhtautuminen maahanmuuttajiin vuosina 1987-2003. Työministeriö, Opetusministeriö, Sisäasiainministeriö, Helsingin kaupungin tietokeskus & Kuntoutussäätiö. Helsinki: Työministeriö.

The Finnish Ministry of Education
The Finnish Government’s Child and Youth Policy Programme 2007–2011
Publications of the Ministry of Education, Finland 2008:21. Referred 20.10.2009 http://www.minedu.fi/OPM/Julkaisut/2007/Lapsi-_ja_nuorisopolitiikan_kehittamisohjelma_2007-2011?lang=fi&extra_locale=en

The Living Library Organization. What is the Living Library? Referred 10.5.2009. http://living-library.org/what-is-the-living-library.html