Ethnologia Fennica is an international journal of the Association of Finnish Ethnologists (Ethnos). The journal publishes original scholarly articles, review articles, congress reports, and book reviews from the field of ethnology and other related fields. The research articles undergo double-blind peer review. The language of the journal is English. Ethnologia Fennica is funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture. The journal has received the Label for Peer-reviewed Scholarly Publications by the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies, and is ranked at the level two in the evaluation of the Finnish publication forum (leading publication in its field). Please follow the journal’s guidelines when submitting your manuscript. Online ISSN 2489-4982 Print ISSN 0355-1776
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms: Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. The license of the published metadata is Creative Commons CC0 4.0 Universal (CC BY 4.0) Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Facebook, Ritual and Community – Memorialising in Social Media
Social networking websites and applications have become the defining factor of online social interaction in the 2010s. Their popularity and addictiveness are based on their ability to convey all aspects of human emotions, from love to hate, from envy to happiness, from humour to sadness, from life to death. However, all social networking sites, especially Facebook (abbreviated FB), have been facing the fact that some of their users have been dying and other people want to use the websites to reminisce about and mourn their loved ones. In a study on virtual memorials conducted already more than a decade ago, communication theorists de Vries and Rutherford argued that online memorials are ‘the postmodern opportunity for ritual and remembrance’ (2004, 2). More recent studies have suggested that the internet ‘brings death back into everyday life’ (Walter et al. 2011, 295), since death and mourning cultures have undergone significant changes during the 20th century (Ariès1981 [1977], 1974; Pentikäinen 1990; Walter 1994). In this article, I will examine how commemoration and bereavement rituals (i.e. mourning rituals) are practiced on the Facebook social networking website, and how they build and maintain existential or spontaneous communitas, the transient personal experience of togetherness, at a time of loss (Turner 1995 [1969], 130–133). By mourning rituals, I am referring to the symbolised manner of communicating bereavement, care, love and affection at a time of loss. They are practices that function as socially approved symbols of emotions (Walter 1994, 77), which are intended to keep the community, friends and family of the deceased together at the time of loss (Bell 1992; Sumiala 2010; see also Durkheim 1980 [1912] and van Gennep (1960 [1909]). For example, the Finnish phrase ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ essentially means ‘I take part in your loss’, which symbolically refers to a way of taking on some of the grief and sharing the loss together with the bereaved. Flower wreaths, candles and other mementos are also familiar ways of expressing grief, especially at memorials — both online and offline. Mourning rituals in Web environments, however, are mediated by digital multimedia: images, video and text.
How Not to Forget What We Ought to Remember
Ekrem, Carola, Gustavsson, Pamela, Hakala, Petra & Korhonen, Mikael 2014. Arkiv, minne, glömska. Arkiven vid Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland 1885–2010. Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland. 490 pp. Ill. Maps. ISBN 9789515832580.
Arlander, Anette, Erkkilä, Helena, Riikonen, Taina & Saarikoski, Helena (eds.) 2015. Esitystutkimus. Helsinki: Kulttuuriosuuskunta Partuuna. 412 pp. ISBN 978-952-67777-6-4.
Survo,Vera 2014. Obrazy vyshivki i obryadovaya semantika tekstilya v traditsiyakh Karelii. (English Summary: The Images of Embroidery and Ritual Semantics of Textiles in the Traditions of Karelia). Kansatieteellisiä tutkimuksia Helsingin yliopistossa 18. Helsinki: Helsingin yliopisto. 238 pp. Diss. Ill. ISBN 978-952-10-9715-7 (print). ISBN 978-952-10-9716-4 (electronic). SSN 2341-569X (print). ISSN 2341-5703 (electronic). http://urn.ﬁ /URN:ISBN:978-952-10-9716-4.
Koskinen-Koivisto, Eerika 2014. Her Own Worth. Negotiations of Subjectivity in the Life Narrative of a Female Labourer. Studia Fennica Ethnologica 16. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society. 215 pp. Ill. ISBN 978-952-222-609-9.
Karhunen, Eeva 2014. Porin Kuudennen osan tarinoista rakennettu kulttuuriperintö. (English Summary: Narrating Cultural Heritage in the Sixth District of Pori.) Annales Universitatis Turkuensis C 379. Turku: Turun yliopisto. 302 pp. Diss Ill. ISBN 978-951-29-5697-5 (print). ISBN 978-951-29-5698-2 (electronic). ISSN 00826995. http://urn.ﬁ /URN:ISBN:978-951-29-5698-2.
Mothers from Rural Areas Discussing Their Wellbeing and Networks
Hämeenaho, Pilvi 2014. Hyvinvoinnin verkostot maaseudulla asuvien äitien arjessa. Etnologinen tutkimus palvelujen käytöstä ja hyvän arjen rakentumisesta. (English Summary: Everyday networks of wellbeing in sparsely populated rural Finland. Ethnological research on mothers’ perceptions regarding public services.) Tutkimus 129. Helsinki: Terveyden ja hyvinvoinnin laitos. 236 pp. Diss. ISBN 978-952-302-221-8 (print). ISBN 978-952-302-222-5 (electronic). http://urn:ﬁ / URN:ISBN: 978-952-302-222-5.
Hytönen, Kirsi-Maria 2014. Ei elämääni lomia mahtunut. Naisten muistelukerrontaa palkkatyöstä, talvi- ja jatkosotien jälleenrakennuksen aikana. (English summary: “There was no time for holidays in my life”: Women’s memories of paid work during the Second World War and in the years of rebuilding in Finland.) Kultaneito XIII. Joensuu: Suomen Kansantietouden Seura. 282 pp. Diss. ISBN 978-951-9451-05-03. ISSN 1239-3843.
Grahn, Maarit 2014. Perheyhtiö ja paikallisuus. A. Ahlström Osakeyhtiön historian perintö Noormarkussa. (English Summary: Family Business and Locality. The historical heritage of A. Ahlström Corporation in Noormarkku.) Annales Universitatis Turkuensis C 374. Turku: Turun yliopisto. 299 pp. Diss. Ill. Maps. ISBN 978-951-29-5600-5 (print). ISBN 978-95129-5601-2 (electronic). ISSN 0082-6995. http://urn. ﬁ /URN:ISBN:978-951-29-5601-2.
Constructing a Protected Area as an Adventurescape: The Case of Slovenia’s Triglav National Park
This article explores perceptions and representations of a protected area as an “adventurescape,” as expressed by various social groups, and analyses how such perceptions are instrumentalized, mostly by the tourism industry, to ease environmental restrictions at a sensitive time when legislation regarding the protection of “natural environments” in Slovenia (ZON 1999), and Triglav National Park (TNP) in particular (TNP Management Plan 2012), is being modified and jointly constructed.
One of the most frequent activities in national parks is walking. For people in a park, whether visitors or residents, walking routes and paths are the only authorized access to many places, and at the same time a way of limiting and channeling human presence in the wildlife sanctuary that a national park is intended to be. Walking activities in national parks vary, as do those walking, who follow different agendas and plans. Walking is movement, and “places in the first case, are actually constituted by the movements to, from and around them” (Ingold & Lee 2006, 76). Much walking takes place in Mount Fruška National Park (Serbian: Nacionalni park Fruška gora) in Vojvodina, Serbia, and many become acquainted with it through walking. The park covers a ninety-kilometer mountain range rising above the flat Vojvodina landscape and extending in a roughly east-west direction along the right bank of the Danube.
Bohinj and Constructions of Common Interest in Triglav National Park
Established in 1924, Triglav National Park (TNP) is one of the oldest parks in Europe. It lies along Slovenia’s northeastern border with Italy and Austria and is named after Mount Triglav, Slovenia’s highest peak, which is also the park’s symbolic center. The park encompasses a significant portion of the Julian Alps, a mountain range that consists primarily of limestone, which has resulted in the formation of very rare high-elevation karst formations. The park is also an area of rich biodiversity, with a significant number of endemic plant and animal species. In addition, the park is home to approximately 2,500 people living in nine different municipalities. The majority of them live in the municipality of Bohinj, which includes the central region of the park with Mount Triglav and Lake Bohinj, two of the premier natural and tourist attractions of the park.
This issue of Ethnologia Fennica is centered on daily life in national parks in Europe and on the varied actors, relationships, activities, and strategies that shape the cultural specificity of the everyday as a social and cultural process. The inspiration for this issue was the panel organized for the SIEF biannual international conference (Société Internationale d´Ethnologie et de Folklore - International Society for Ethnology and Folklore) held in 2013 in Tartu, Estonia. The panel, organized by Jurij Fikfak and Tatiana Bajuk Senčar, was titled “Structures of daily life in national parks: between theory and practice,” and presenters shed light on the culturally significant issues that shape daily life in a number of parks across Europe.
In post-war Finland thousands of children experienced poor upbringing, neglect and abuse, and had to deal with their experiences without social support from adults. In this article we study how difficult and bitter experiences related to childhood crises are remembered, reinterpreted and reframed in later life and in contemporary Finland. As research material we use both oral and written reminiscences of childhood in the post-war years collected in the period 2014–2016. We argue that in the recollections of difficult childhood coping and resilience emerge as major narrative themes. Although informants in their childhood were forced to suffer in silence, they remember themselves as being resilient and capable of surviving in adverse environments. In their late adulthood public collection of childhood memories has offered them a suitable medium to remember and reframe their experiences as meaningful, by exposing the ‘culture of silence’ which prevailed in the post-war Finland.
Copyright (c) 2018 Kirsi-Maria Hytönen, Antti Malinen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Summer life - memories, dreams and materiality
Kerstin Gunnemark (ed.) 2016. Sommarliv. Minnen, drömmar och materialitet. Göteborg: Makadam. 335 pp. Ill. ISBN: 978-91-7061-218-3.
Remembering and Forgetting, Discovering and Cherishing
The events of the Second World War left considerable material remains in Finnish Lapland, ranging from the remnants of structures that were destroyed in the 1944–45 Lapland War, through to small, portable objects connected to soldiers, prisoners of war and civilians. These material remains have variously been saved and cherished by survivors and their families, disregarded as ‘war junk’, ‘discovered’ by hobbyists exploring the landscape, amassed and exchanged by private collectors, and accessioned into official museum collections. These various processes represent transformations of material culture to take on various meanings and embodiments, depending on the different individuals and organizations involved. In this article we present and analyse data collected through ethnographic fieldwork in and around the Lapland village of Vuotso: primarily interviews and observations. We have conducted interviews with history hobbyists and museum professionals who engage with the WWII history of Lapland, and observed the treatment of ‘war material culture’, for example through exhibitions (both public and hidden) and through personal meaning-making practices. These encounters have centred around the material remains of the Second World War, and the ways in which different actors perceive, value and otherwise understand those remains. While some objects are transformed through musealisation, others remain ‘officially’ unknown and unrecognized (although known – even traded and exchanged – through private channels). Furthermore it may be as important for some actors to leave material culture in situ – for example as testimony to the past conflict or trauma – as it is for others to exercise personal ownership. Within this context, we deconstruct the notion of ‘expert’ as it relates to the local and historical knowledge. Being regarded by peers and others as an expert is not necessarily the same thing as having professional authority and status, for example as a museum curator or university-affiliated scholar. We draw upon theories of relational materiality, and suggest different typologies of engagement with the material culture. Different networks of interest and expertise emerge, dependent on the actors involved (including their status – e.g. museum professional, survivor, ‘incomer’, local activist – and how their knowledge is thus accepted, challenged or rejected by others), the context of ownership, situationality and perceived levels of authenticity.
Copyright (c) 2018 Suzie Thomas, Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Kitchen has been one of the most intensively lived spaces at home, yet, its furnishings have often vanished, especially in the 20th-21st centuries. Cooking tools and utensils have been part of museum displays dedicated to historical food culture but the complex materiality of the kitchen related to multiple practices going beyond food production and consumption has rarely attracted curatorial interest. This article examines comparatively how Estonian museums represent and interpret the materiality of kitchens and kitchen culture. Relying on ethnographic sources the analysis considers the aspects related to material culture as well as museum studies: how kitchen materiality and kitchen practices were represented according to curatorial concepts and how kitchen related objects were interpreted and displayed. The primary materials for the study come from four permanent and temporary exhibitions from 2015‒2016 explicitly dedicated to kitchens and cooking. Exhibiting the lived dimension of kitchens was a challenge for all museums, requiring special participatory actions for collecting stories and things. In all cases, the social life of things was evoked, either sheding light on the general and typical of particular periods, or emphasizing the individual choices and subjective experiences through the biographical approach.
New Objects, Old Age. The Material Culture of Growing Old
Ageing and old age has become a phase of life occupied with new, often medical, devices; for instances blood pressure meters, medication, hearing aids, dentures and walking aids. These material objects are intended for surveillance, as well as to compensate or replace parts of the ageing body and its altered abilities. This paper examines the material culture of growing old, using a phenomenological perspective as a point of departure and comprehending materiality as permeated with cultural norms and ideas that affect identity and agency. The paper is based on two studies consisting of interviews and participant observation with persons between 66 and 93 years. The analysis focuses on how to understand the process that occurs when older people are faced with new objects associated with a certain age and with certain health conditions, how the medical materiality of old age is accepted, internalized, questioned or resisted, and how these medical objects fit in with everyday life.
The Handwork of Folkloristic-Ethnological Knowledge
Drawing is discussed here, both from the historical and from the contemporary folklore and material culture stance. Folklore collector Samuli Paulaharju’s (1875–1944) drawings serve as a point of departure; again, cultural studies constitute the background, as the notion of representation and the construction of folkloristic-ethnologic knowledge are stressed. Material and visual culture comprises yet other central viewpoints. The research material consists of Paulaharju’s folkloristic descriptions (at the SKS) of the interlacements, as knots and lattices. The materials are discussed in the context of magic and belief, at first, and of folk games and plays further back. The research question is: how Paulaharju constructs the meanings of the interlacements by means of drawings? The method of membership categorization analysis (MCA) is combined with multimodal analysis, since the drawing–texts relations are analysed in detail. Thus, the examination demonstrates, that not only several drawing methods are utilised, but also the contexts, as agrarian life, appear diversified when the drawings are concerned. Then, by applying drawing innovatively and experimenting with it, Paulaharju operated between distinct viewpoints, and also challenged the established folkloristic practises. Accordingly, wide interestedness and learning-by-drawing are emphasised more than drawing as a restricted – or restrictive – orientation.
33rd Nordic Ethnology and Folklore Conference in Copenhagen
Packing and Unpacking Utopia, Reality and Heritage SIEF Congress in Zagreb 21.-25.6.2015
Internet Ethnography: The Past, the Present and the Future
At the beginning of the 20th century, an anthropologist travelled to a distant location in a foreign country to observe, study and analyse different cultural behaviours. This was a fairly new type of fieldwork, since previously anthropologists had not travelled themselves, but had read accounts and stories written by missionaries and other travellers from the comfort of their armchairs. Now, however, anthropologists observed in situ and learned a new language or used a translator during the course of their ethnographic fieldwork. They transcribed field notes and interviews by hand, maybe taking some photographs or doing sketches of their surroundings and the people they observed. They used their bodies, eyes and minds to understand why people do what they do. They spent several months, often even years, in a foreign country, only to return home to publish an ethnography about that location and the people living there. Today, the story is a little bit different. Today, an ethnographer can open her or his portable computer anywhere that a (wireless) internet connection exists and enter a realm known as the internet — even from the comfort of an armchair. Such ethnographers engage in several social networks, observing behaviour, interactions and even various cultures within those digital surroundings. They collect and analyse digitalised data with the aid of different technologies, programs and applications. They can also use devices other than a computer, such as a smartphone — which is also usually connected to the internet — to take pictures, make notes and record audio and video material both online and offline. They use technology to study the use of technology in a world of networked relationships mediated by the internet.
Studying E-books and Reading Experiences in Ethnology
E-books and new reading practices have recently been scrutinised from several new perspectives, which are also interesting from the standpoint of ethnological research. In particular, studies that focus on readers and their everyday reading habits come close to traditional ethnological interests. Scholars have viewed reading as a corporeal experience and also as a social and interactive activity. Virtual communication is now being combined with private reading, and literary experiences are being shared now more than ever before. New digital technologies are at the core of these changes. This article introduces ideas and viewpoints that are the basis for my ongoing doctoral project, in which I study digitally-related changes in book culture as experienced by readers themselves. The research material consists of reminiscences in written form that were collected in 2014 by the Finnish Literature Society for the project ‘Elämää lukijana’ [Life as a Reader]. By using this particular material, which deals with reading experiences at different stages of life, I will study how the informants viewed books, reading and the recent changes at the time of writing and reveal the meanings attached to them. This article discusses previous studies that deal with important aspects of my research as well as the place of ethnology in the research field of e-books and new reading habits.
“Is this an advertisement or a personal account?” – Commercialisation of lifestyle blogs in Finland
When blogging first appeared on the map of social media in the mid-1990s, the majority of bloggers were male writing for example about the developments of the online world, or if they were political reporters, looking for a new platform to publish their perhaps more controversial work. Today many blogs fall into the category of lifestyle blogs, which have thousands, sometimes even tens of thousands of individual readers per month throughout the world. In fact, professional blogging is one of the fastest growing phenomena online. It is driven mostly by relatively young women and promoted by the commercialisation of the blogging world, also known by bloggers as “the blogosphere”. During the past few years, lifestyle blogs have reached a point where one’s hobby has become – if not a full-time job – then at least a relevant part of professional lifestyle bloggers’ monthly income. The changes Finnish lifestyle bloggers have encountered as they have moved from personal diary-like entries towards corporate models of marketing and advertising have not taken place without their difficulties. Some blog readers criticise lifestyle blogs for becoming inauthentic market places without real content or integrity. There are also problems with the legislation that governs advertising in the blogosphere. The regulations have proven vague or difficult to carry out in social media, forcing professional lifestyle bloggers to defend their new trade not only against some of their readers but also in the eyes of the law. In this article I examine the contradictions between bloggers and advertising: why is it that while many bloggers promote an open relationship towards advertising in their blogs, they do not fully appreciate the existence of some of the regulations or guidelines that control advertising in their blogs? I am interested especially in the intimate relationship bloggers have developed with their readers, which has been greatly underplayed in the previous studies on lifestyle blogging, as well as with the commercial world of marketing in the context of advertising. My ethnographic description also adds to the understanding of the commercial aspects of lifestyle blogging and of the professionalisation of the blogosphere. The research data include the blog posts of 20 professional lifestyle bloggers as well as an ethnographic description of the Finnish blogosphere online. The research materials are analysed by using contextualised thematic analysis.
To Blog Oneself Free, to Lock Oneself Up: (Re)negotiations of Blogs as Spaces for Power Structures, Social Relations and Eating Disordered Girlhood
In research concerning blogging, blogs have been viewed as spaces in which people can be themselves, free of constraints, and able to say what they think and feel about everyone around them (Reed, 2005). In this article, I aim to problematize this view by discussing blogs as spaces that affect to power structures and social relations. I ask, how can girls who blog about eating disorders construct a space as their own, while they at the same time operate within given frameworks set by the moderators of an online community? I argue that girls who blog about eating disorders challenge questions concerning public and private space. While the topic can be considered private, the space can be considered public. The private and public dichotomy is, however, blurry. Space and agency have been discussed to a great extent in feminist studies on girlhood, and the focus has often been on a girl’s need for a room of her own, within certain limits, and away from the critical gaze of the public space (see, e.g. McRobbie & Garber 1976; Oinas & Colliander 2007; Björk 2013). Studies have focused in particular on what kinds of cultural spaces are constructed by and for girls, what kinds of meanings girls give to these spaces and how girls are perceived or given space within a specific culture. In this article, I argue that eating disordered girlhood is constructed in a specific space and as a specific culture, one which consequently also uses a blog as a social space. The blog, as a space, facilitates and restricts the construction of eating disordered girlhood, and the construction is socio-spatial.
The Grinders: Making Meaning in the Online and Offline Lives of Internet Poker Players
Problem gambling affects only 1–3 percent of the gambling population but still most research on gambling is problem-oriented (Raento 2011, 76). Thus, the negative “cover story” (Gubrium 2008, 512) of gambling needs to be unsettled and complemented, because it obscures the complexities of the lived reality of mainstream gambling culture (Reith & Dobbie 2011; Matilainen & Raento 2014, 433; Jouhki 2011a, 79). Most gamblers are not the marginalized, addicted persons so often envisioned in both research and the media (Vuorento 2011; Binde 2007, 152–157): the mainstream of gambling is about entertainment, excitement, mental challenge and social value. To some it is also a profession. This article seeks to give an account of the everyday reality of active online poker players. It is about the “grinders” – the amateurs, semi-professionals and professionals who earn relatively small amounts of money over a long period of consistent, conservative play. Thus my research question is: How do active online poker players negotiate the meaning of the game and its position in their social surroundings? More specifically, I am interested in how they become poker players, what kind of routines they develop, and how they perceive the meaning of money and work in the context of poker. I want to explore the meaning of poker outside of the actual game itself, in the wider social context. The research question is wide but this seems to me to be quite justified because the field is so little studied by culturally oriented scholars (Raento 2011), and wide questions help to bring about the holistic view that is needed when examining a less familiar phenomenon. Hence, I will present some basic facts about online poker, contextualize the game briefly with some reference to the academic literature about gambling and, most importantly, bring the matter empirically closer to the reader by exploring the views of my interviewees.
Social Networks, Communication and the Internet
The internet has changed our lives within just a few decades: we watch TV, pay our bills and ﬁll in our tax forms, book appointments and hotel rooms, look for recipes, communicate, form networks and share our everyday lives on the internet. It would actually be easier to list what we cannot do on the internet rather than list what we do or could do on it. For example, sociologist Christine Hine (2015) has noted that the internet is embedded in our daily lives, cultures, social interactions and economies to the extent that it should no longer be considered a curiosity. The call for papers in Ethnologia Fennica 2015, volume 42, asked writers to discuss how internetrelated communication and social networks are studied and discussed in contemporary ethnological research.