Comments on Anna-Maria Åström's paper at the seminar: Helsinki and it s deep cities
Abstract
Docent Anna-Maria Åström is one of the few Finnish ethnologists who have, for several years now, been interested in urban life as a cultural phenomenon (i.e. Kaskinen, Tammisaari, Helsinki). As Finnish urban ethnology, also known by some traditionalists as "degenerate ethnology", became more and more of a "normal science" in the 1980s, some thought that the whole city theme would become just one category in the positivistic research theme. The former rebel lost much of its value, but we may also ask whether urban ethnology ever in fact reached its target. For there is always room on the margins of the paradigm for new discourses, questions and negotiations. This is also true of urban landscapes and mindscapes. We need not bury or lose urban ethnology; instead we should combine it with parallel urban discourses for wider purposes. Nowadays the urban invention perspective is successfully expanding to take in more interpretative nuances.
