Ethnologia Fennica

In the Tracks of the Reindeer: The Emotional Effects of Digital Information on Raindeer Herders

Kajsa Kuoljok — 2020-12-22

Through a story about a reindeer that wandered off from its grazing area, this article explores the emotional effects mediated by digital technology. It concerns the way in which reindeer movements are made visible through the use of digital tools. As reindeer movements are documented by GPS (Global Positional Systems) technology and transformed into inscriptions, the movements become easier to observe. It makes a difference when herders can follow reindeer movements from above, instead of from the ground. New knowledge emerges with increased amounts of information. As GPS data makes reindeer movement visible, it creates a new, partial relation between seeing and knowing. The strong emotional effects that are induced by this relation on the herder are observed and described through a narrative of the reindeer that wandered into another Sámi community.

In Search of Invisible Cows

Taija Kaarlenkaski — 2020-12-22

The notion of “invisible cows” has become popular in Finnish dairy production. This concept emerges in a very specific historical context: Increasing herd size, changing technological infrastructure in cowsheds, and the transformation of farmer identities all contribute to a need for more intensified forms of collaborative practices between humans and animals. An invisible cow is healthy, corporally compliant, obedient, easy and collaborative both in its body and behaviour. Invisible cows form a uniform herd in which individual animals require minimal care from farmers. In this paper, we explore how this new ideal is manifested on dairy farms, and how it changes the agencies of both farmers and animals and affects human-animal relationships. We examine the notions of collaboration, resistance and human-animal affection and aim to build links between these concepts. Our discussion of everyday work on dairy farms reveals the unattainability of invisibility. In various ways cattle resist their enactment as see-through members of the herd. Furthermore, invisibility can also be resisted by farmers who embrace their relations with specific animals who fail to stay invisible. Our paper contributes to a more complex understanding of the intertwinement of human and animal agency
within dairy husbandry and argues that collaborative and resistant practices are always entangled.

“My Responsibility, My Food”

Andreas Backa — 2020-12-22

This article examines views on meat, slaughter and human-animal relations in the contemporary self-sufficiency trend. The point of departure of the analysis is ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with individuals striving towards becoming more self-sufficient in the region of Ostrobothnia, Finland. The focus is on the interviewees’ narration of their practices and experiences of animal husbandry, and more specifically on the role of affect and body in the killing of animals for human consumption. The material is analysed utilising cultural analysis inspired by phenomenology, and the findings are discussed from the perspective of post-domesticity. The analysis shows how the interviewees negotiate and justify their choices regarding meat, and why they prefer self-sufficiency farming and home slaughter to industrial agriculture and slaughter. This form of small-scale animal husbandry is characterised by affective relationships between bodies, which counteract the processes of post-domestic modernity that generate disconnectedness between animal and human, food and origin, producer and consumer.

Kashubian Lake Calling

Oliwia Murawska — 2020-12-22

This study leads the reader to some remote Kashubian villages, located on the shores of Lake Słupino, Poland. The residents of these villages have witnessed uncanny transformations of their once familiar lake in recent years. Through changes in color, odor and matter, Słupino has obtruded itself to call out the problem of pollution. How does the lake express itself? How does it affect the everyday life of the inhabitants? To approach the specific interaction between the lake and the inhabitants (thus non-human and human), the author conducted sensory ethnography and conversed with residents affected by the problem. The categories call, care and Stimmung are used to analyze the gathered empirical material. These categories enable a variety of perspectives on the phenomenon and, thus, let us approximate what can be characterized as posthuman: First, the lake-problem is viewed from the activity of the calling lake, and then the argumentation is built up from the activity of the caring inhabitants. Finally, both perspectives are integrated with the category Stimmung, into which the lake and the inhabitants are immersed. The present study shows that the posthuman is not merely an artificial category but can be found in the research field by an (European) ethnologist, as intersecting with everydayness, memory and activity and, thus, be perceived from an emic perspective.

Posthumanism and Multispecies Ethnology

Taija Kaarlenkaski — 2020-12-22

Can Methods Do Good?

Linda Tallberg — 2020-12-22

In this conversational essay, three scholars working in the field of human—animal studies discuss the multi—species work that is underway in ethnology. Examples of different methodological approaches are highlighted; multispecies ethnography, crystallization, feminist dog-writing and écriture feminine. By reflecting on the value of such techniques, the authors contend that a renewed enthusiasm for methodological innovation can pave the way for more rounded accounts of social life, bringing animals and their agencies into clearer focus as companions, workers and beings in their own right. This is regarded as both an intellectual and ethical pursuit, with methods placed at the heart of the endeavour.

Extensions of Transnational Death

Olga Davydova-Minguet — 2020-12-22

Navigating Dire Straits in the Archipelago Sea

Rob van Ginkel — 2020-12-22

Ambitious Beginnings for Posthuman Folklore

Taija Kaarlenkaski — 2020-12-22

Affects and Emotions in Cultural Research - Cornucopia or Pandora’s box?

Kirsi-Maria Hytönen — 2020-12-22

The Scent of a Book – The Book and the Environments of Reading

Raine Koskimaa — 2020-12-22

Transnational Marriage among the Kurds in Finland

Marja Tiilikainen — 2020-12-22