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.
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