A British Anthropologist in Finland

Authors

• Tim Ingold https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6703-6137

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30676/jfas.157597

Abstract

I am a social anthropologist born, raised and educated in the United Kingdom. I have however carried out fieldwork in Finnish Lapland, first in 1971-2, for my doctorate, among Skolt Sámi people, and subsequently, in 1979-80, in the district of Salla, among farmers, forestry workers and reindeer herders of primarily Finnish heritage. I have also taught at the University of Helsinki, in 1973-4 and 1986. In this essay, I offer some personal reflections on my experience as a British anthropologist in Finland, as a fieldworker, teacher and colleague, placing it in the wider context of developments in both Finnish and British anthropology over a period of more than fifty years.