CROSSROADS IN CULTURAL STUDIES
Fourth International Conference
June 29 - July 2, 2002, Tampere, Finland

Dark Nights, White Spaces: Cultural Imaginations of Northern Landscapes

Organisers: Frank Möller and Samu Pehkonen

Anttonen, Marjut (Institute of Migration, Finland) THE POLITICIZATION OF IDENTITIES OF FINNISH ORIGIN IN NORTHERN NORWAY IN THE 1990S
This paper deals with the identity management of present-day Norwegians of Finnish ancestry, also known as Kvens. The focus is on the current ethnopolitical debate which involves numerous controversial and conflicting arguments concerning language, culture, history, roots and origins of the Kvens. Certain strategies are used in creating the idea of a single, homogenous minority group or even a nation; defining a common ethnonym 'Kven' for all members of the group, creating a common Kven language of their own, and postulating a shared historical background and origin. The ethnopolitical leaders are using a rhetoric which is based on the same kind of ideological ground as nationalism. This kind of ethnic processes must be understood with reference to state structures. As a modern state provides a vast field of public goods, we also see new groups organizing and claiming access and rights within these states.

Väisänen, Jarno (University of Joensuu, Finland) LOCAL LEVEL ARGUMENTS ABOUT THE RIGHTS TO LAND AND WATER IN THE SAAMI AREA
In Finland, Sweden and Norway there is a debate going on about re-arrangement of the rights to land and water in the Saami area. These rights are a special theme of cultural rights, because land and water are a scarce resource. The change will be beneficial to some, but not all inhabitants of the area. Therefore it is quite obvious that there are controversies on the local level. In my dissertation project, I study this local level argumentation. The methodological frame consists of ethnomethodology and 'rhetorical approach'. I have documented argumentative group conversations with local people in northern Sweden. The dilemma of multiculturalism - equal treatment requires different treatment - is attached to antithetical themes of the common-sense, where they are re-created in practical terms. Local level arguments are more than strategic games. The community is facing a change and the survival of community and individuals is tested.

Tyrrell, Martina (University of Aberdeen, Scotland) THE ROLE OF SEA IN THE ENVIRONMENTAL PERCEPTION OF THE INUIT OF ARVIAT, NUNAVUT
This pre-fieldwork paper will focus on an Inuit community on the north-west coast of Hudson Bay. It will deal with their perceptions of the sea, and on perceptions of themselves as individuals and as a community in relation to the sea. I will look at how these perceptions may be changing and ask how the people of Arviat envisage their future as a coastal people. Of particular interest will be the marked seasonality in the arctic, and how perception of and at sea may change throughout the year. I will look at what the sea and its creatures represent to the people, dealing specifically with the economic, social and cultural roles of various marine mammals. While this is a pre-fieldwork paper, I have already spent a year in the community, and will base much of my paper on observations made at that time.

Saarinen, Jarkko (Finnish Forest Research Institute, Finland) THE CHANGING DISCOURSES OF NORTHERN WILDERNESS: TRADITIONAL USE, MODERN CONSERVATION AND TOURISTIC FUTURE
Wilderness is a contested idea, which is constantly transforming. Wilderness accommodates new meanings and values and some of the previous ones may become relicts, traces of a past with thinning connotations to present people. In analytical level, we can understand the conceptual transformation and changing meanings of wilderness as discourses, which are constructed in certain socio-cultural context and historical power relations. The idea of wilderness is presently contested by modernization of the societies and "globalisation" of value structures, meanings and activities related to northern wilderness areas. In Finnish and Nordic context, there can be elaborated at least three different discourses concerning the idea of wilderness: (1) the traditional wilderness, (2) the conserved wilderness and (3) the touristic wilderness. The presentation discusses the nature and context of these wilderness discourses and their relationship to wilderness management. Especially, the rising role of nature-based tourism and its management questions in northern wilderness areas and adjacent lands are debated.

Mackenzie, A. Fiona D. (University of Aberdeen, Scotland) PLACE AND THE ARTS OF BELONGING
This paper traces two stories, the first concerning the creation of the Harris Tapestry, a Millennium project, and the second, Frith-Rathad na Hearadh/Harris Walkway project, as a point of entry into questions of place and identity on the Isle of Harris, Outer Hebrides. It argues, first, that, through the historical signifiers recalled and the micropractices employed in both initiatives, ideas of cultural fixity are disrupted and positionality with respect to place is re-defined. Thus an inclusive sense of belonging rather than an essentialist island identity is envisioned. Second, the paper connects these initiatives to what Edward Said (1993) calls 'a culture of resistance', arguing that they are linked to a contested, but collective, struggle to re-think ideas of sustainability on the island in the aftermath of a public inquiry into a proposal to locate a superquarry in the south of the island.

White Nights, Dark Spaces: Cultural Abstractions of Northern Landscapes

Tennberg, Monica (University of Lapland, Finland) POLAR REGIONS IN POLITICS OF REPRESENTATION
This paper will discuss representations of polar regions from the late 16th century to the current days in maps, travel diaries and scientific reports. The material for the analysis is collected from various literary sources on polar expeditions and early scientific reports concerning the region covering the early International Polar Years (1882-82 and 1932-33) and International Geophysical Year (1957-58). The article studies the relationship of representing these two regions in relation to its other and changes in the history of representing them. Many writers find comparisons made between the Arctic and the Antarctica problematic and even unjustified, however this tradition continues until today.

Keskitalo, Carina (University of Lapland, Finland) NORTHERNESS AND THE 'ARCTIC': A CONSTRUCTION WITH CONSEQUENCES
As the north has come in vogue, so have new conceptualisations of it. Previous conceptions of the European north largely related to the Nordic Council as a 'better-than-Europe' that, peripheral or not, placed the welfare state and provision of work as central. With the introduction of new northern concepts on a 'circumpolar' scale, this has changed. This paper describes how peripheriality and socioeconomic poverty are becoming defining characteristics of a 'new north', through the dominance of Canadian-based discourse in circumpolar settings such as the Arctic Council. In Canada, the synonymously used terms 'north'/'Arctic' administratively define the area above 60 latitude; an area long kept colonial and with traces, in both description and development, of a colonially related essentialism. In this paper, we ask ourselves how this form of discourse may affect the European North, and caution against the perspective that an international 'north' could indeed be conceptualised as an 'unit'.

Sweeney, Brendan (National University of Ireland, Ireland) DISTORTING MIRRORS AND LOST HORIZONS: FORGING A NEW MYTH OF THE NATION IN SWEDEN
During the early part of the 20th century the Swedish social democratic movement successfully challenged the ‘punch’ patriotism of the right and came to dominate the political system for the next half century. Within a generation royal subjects of a poor, mostly rural, corner of Europe were transformed into the democratic citizens of the most advanced and prosperous welfare state in the world. Sweden was transformed into a symbol of modernity, a country that had outgrown nationalism with an identity based on the ever widening ‘horizon’ of social progress and increasing affluence, and not the nationalist’s ‘mirror of history’. But now economic crises have reduced this belief in the future, the Swedish model has been dismantled and Swedish neutrality compromised by membership of the EU; what is then the basis of their identity? My theory is that beneath the rational surface of Swedish self-identity one finds myth. According to Elizabeth Baeten, based on the work of theoreticians such as Cassirer and Barthes, myth is always based on a paradox and ‘serves…to unite and separate two opposed ontological regions.’ In the Swedish case, the peasant past a site of traditional values and Nordic nativism paradoxically became wedded to the ideals of social democracy and modernism. The idealised workers of the original socialist movement became the idealised ‘folk’ of the welfare state, constantly transforming themselves from peasants into modern urbanites. This myth of national unity however now presents an obstacle to Swedish integration with its Continental neighbours and full integration of its own ethnic minorities.

Lehti, Marko (University of Turku, Finland) THE MINDSCAPE OF THE NORTH ­ NORTHERNIZING AND EUROPEANIZING NARRATIVES ON THE MARGINS OF EUROPE
Edward Said coined the term orientalization to refer to the process by which this marker has been provided with connotations of Europe's other. By the same token, one can point to the existence of varying narratives on the location and meaning of the North. It seems possible to talk of a process of northernization, whereby the cartographic extent of the North was progressively narrowed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Northernization imbued the North with connotations of considerable peripherality somewhere at the margins of Europe. Attempts to give the northern marker greater centrality can be called as Europeanization. The northern image of extreme peripherality has been challenged since the seventeenth century, when the North became a resource in the identity-building processes of realms and nations, in particular in Sweden. Today, the re-imagining of the North has raised a question of its relationship with Nordic and Europe in general. Could the North be northernized and Europeanized simultaneously? Is the new northerness escaping the framework of the Northern Dimension initiative and becomes an identity-narrative of its own? Further is it possible to describe the North as a novel mindscape that yields both a description and prescription of one's relationship to land.

Joenniemi, Pertti (Copenhagen Peace Research Institue, Denmark) FROM KNOWHOW TO SNOWHOW: REFLECTIONS ON THE JUKKASJÄRVI ICEHOTEL
The Jukkasjärvi icehotel, located in northernmost Sweden, is very much in vogue. It is not unique; there are several projects in the European North utilizing successfully previous negativities such as coldness, darkness and ice in attracting attention. However, the icehotel appears to be the ultimate in this field. It has developed into a rather visible brand - as for example evidenced that it has recently opened up a kind of 'representation' in the Old Town of Stockholm. The counter-hegemonic aspects to the icehotel appear rather obvious. But what is the image of the icehotel about, how did it emerge and develop, how is it marketed and what accounts for its evident success? What aspects of northernness does the brand elevate and what is obscured from sight? The aim of the scrutiny is above all to explore factors and dynamics in the layers of culture that provide the option for marginality to aspire for a much more distinct and central standing.