Introduction

What does collective civic action look like in the age of individualism? How does individualism change belonging to a collective, the common good it pursues and the kind of politics in which it engages? This chapter will explore these questions through a case study of an urban neighbourhood movement – the Kallio movement – that takes place in a gentrifying neighbourhood in Helsinki. The chapter is based on online and offline ethnography, interviews with ten Kallio movement participants, and a survey conducted during the Kallio Block Party (KBP), an annual street party organized by the movement, in 2019 (n = 327).

Since 2011, the first Saturday in August each year in the Helsinki district of Kallio has witnessed tens of thousands of (mainly) young people enjoying the last summer days by walking and dancing on streets usually occupied by cars, listening to music or sitting on the pavement or standing on top of a tram stop, perhaps having a drink or two (or more) at the KBP. The party is a free, one- day festival that is mostly focused on music with several different stages, ranging from techno to indie rock to punk. For a day, all traffic is closed, in good understanding and cooperation with the City of Helsinki, while people take over the streets to enjoy the drinks and food that is sold in food trucks and a programme that, in addition to music, has included for instance a children's area, a roller derby disco, a photo exhibition, skateboard ramps, spoken word stories about Kallio, poetry, short films, walls to paint graffiti on and so on. The event is organized by the Kallio movement: a loosely structured neighbourhood movement that, especially in contrast to the Finnish tradition of registered associations, wanted to emphasize the freedom of the movement's members and the movement itself. But how does a collective endeavour, such as organizing a block party, work out in practice with these individualistic tendencies?

Individualism is changing the cultural structures of doing society, as was already detailed in Chapter 1. In Finland, it is especially the tradition of (registered) associations that is being challenged by individualism.