The mobilities of forced displacement: commemorating Karelian evacuation in Finland

In this article I discuss the mobilities of forced displacement. I analyse the politics of mobility by connecting the multiple scales of experienced mobility with the representational and non-representational strategies of sense of place. The aim of this article is twofold: to illustrate the different collective cultural narratives of displacement, and the ontological bodily memories. Three narratives of Karelian displacement are discussed. To capture the bodily memories, I also apply the philosopher Jacques Derrida's (1995) ideas on khora. Khora originates in Plato's Timaeus. Derrida's one interpretation of khora is a half-way-place, which is midway between space and time. I argue that khora as a non-topological concept deepens the understanding of existential place relations and also provides a fresh conceptual basis for the analysis of non-representational aspects of experiential place. Empirically, I focus on the commemoration of Karelian evacuation in Finland. I argue that the festivity called the Trail of the Displaced consists of several culturally representational and embodied non-representational mobilities which explain the complexities of spatial belonging among displaced communities.     

Becoming Modern: Hybrid Foodways in Early Modern Tornio,Northern Finland

This paper focuses on foodways in a small town in northern Finland between 1621 and 1800 CE. Tornio was founded in 1621in northern Finland, at that time a part of the Swedish kingdom. Tornio was a dynamic town where people of different ethnic origins came together, forming a new urban community and new urban foodways. Archaeological remains of the town’s foodways—animal remains, macrofossils, and ceramics—suggest that the food culture of Tornio was a hybrid of local indigenous and rural traditions and international fashions. The foodways underwent significant changes in the 18th century. The changes were related to modernization and changing human-environmental relationships.     

Mixed Livelihood Society in Iin Hamina – a Case Study of Medieval Diet in the Northern Ostrobothnia,Finland

A stable isotope investigation of a large Medieval population buried in Iin Hamina, northern Finland, has been used to reconstruct palaeodiet. Iin Hamina is situated approximately 30?km away from the modern city Oulu, in close proximity to the Bothnian Bay coast and the river Ii. The material used in this study is human skeletal material from an Iin Hamina cemetery dated as 15 to 17th centuries AD and animal bones excavated in Northern Ostrobothnia from pre-industrial contexts. Stable isotope analysis of well-preserved collagen indicate that both freshwater and marine fish was the dominant protein source for the people buried at the Iin Hamina cemetery.     

Bones,buttons and buckles: negotiating class and bodily practices in early modern Oulu

Some of the most prominent characteristics of the early modern period are increasing control over human bodies and the increasing class differences in bodily practices. The rigid class society prevailing in early modern Sweden was reflected in the way people in different classes were expected to behave, dress and eat, amongst other things. This paper discusses how bodily practices — with foodways and dress as case studies — were involved in negotiating class identities in a small town on the northern edge of Europe. It will examine how disciplinary codes of bodily behaviour were played out on the geographical margins of European society.