Forming an anti-imperialist national identity in Republican China: The Finnish interpretation

This article focuses on Finnish national identities because they expressed the shared experiences of newly established Finnish communities, and they were crucial in constructing a new nation. It also explores created images of the Finnish and Finland, as well as community construction in Republican China, especially after Finland gained independence in 1917. Another aim is to examine those Finnish political, cultural and economic activities that supported their identity construction in China. The specific emphasis will be on analysing the largest and sometimes cross-functioning Finnish groups in China: the governmental officials and the commercial community. By using qualitative methods, namely, discourse analysis and historical analysis, this study shows how the Finnish community created alternative, sometimes imaginative and frequently anti-imperialist national identities in the new Republican China. Indeed, by signing the Treaty Principles of Reciprocity and Equal Treatment, it was agreed that Finland and China ‘shall enjoy same rights, privileges, favours, immunities and exemptions which [might] be accorded to similar foreign agents in accordance with the principles of international law’. This article argues that Finnish aspirations were positively regarded by many Chinese, and they respected this quite unique national connection with Finland.     

Computed tomography of mummified human remains in old Finnish churches,a case study: the mummified remains of a 17th-century vicar revisited

Summary: Mummified human remains have been preserved in the cool, well-ventilated crypts of old Finnish churches, which were popular burial sites among the elite of the early modern period. Here, the authors present the results of a computed tomography study of the remains of an early 17th-century vicar of Keminmaa. They examined the preservation of his remains and made several pathological findings; the causes of the latter possibly had a severe impact on his health. He was a large man who achieved relative longevity for his time, although he suffered from conditions related to obesity. There were also potential indications of tuberculosis. Inflammatory changes, for example, had afflicted his spine.     

Children as urbanites: mapping the affordances and behavior settings of urban environments for Finnish and Japanese children

Increasingly, children are residing in urban environments, yet little is known about the urban affordances for children. A place-based approach was employed to map the urban experiences of over 1300 children residing in Helsinki (Finland) and in Tokyo (Japan) in terms of meaningful places (affordances), travel mode and accompaniment to these places. Shared affordances were considered behavior settings, and audited on-site by trained experts for their main function, land use, openness, and communality. Significant differences were found between countries for all affordance categories. Although differences in behavior settings were observed between countries, a number of patterns emerged: outdoor settings and those with shared communality were the most prevalent behavior settings, traffic settings were predominantly evaluated negatively and commercial and indoor settings most positively. Findings suggest that although the context is important, independent mobility and the possibility to actualize environmental affordances seem to be fundamental in both contexts as the key criteria for environmental child-friendliness.     

Coastal Feasts: A Pleistocene Antiquity for Resource Abundance in the Maritime Deserts of North West Australia?

ABSTRACT

Located on the edge of Australia's North West continental shelf, Barrow Island is uniquely located to address a number of research questions, such as the antiquity and changing nature of Indigenous occupation, including shifting uses of regional economic resources in response to post-glacial sea-level rise. These questions are addressed from a range of archaeological, zooarchaeological, and geoarchaeological disciplines. Although only preliminary, results to date indicate the presence of marine resources dating to before sea-level stabilization (～ 7.5 ka) that contain both dietary and utilitarian species, including high-ranked species such as sea turtle. The marine assemblages reflect a variety of habitats and substrates with a 17,000-year record for the presence of a former tidal marsh or estuary. We also note recently obtained ¹⁴C and OSL dates that extend the dietary marine faunas and initial occupation to well before 41 ka. This demonstrates that consumption of coastal resources began prior to the Holocene, when we begin to observe more widespread evidence of marine resource exploitation in the broader Canarvon Bioregion of northwest Australia. This evidence supports arguments for further research to directly test both the productivity of, and human reliance on, marine habitats from initial occupation.     

Ellen Key and Rudolf Kjellén on war,peace, and the future of post-First World War Europe

During the First World War, intellectuals in both combatant and neutral nations engaged in debates on the justification for the bloodshed and in envisioning solutions for a sustainable peace. In the latter regard, the issues of democracy and future forms of government were focal. This article examines two public intellectuals from Sweden, Ellen Key and Rudolf Kjellén, and their conflicting views. A comparative and transnational perspective on their thinking about war and peace sheds light on their political backgrounds and wider worldviews. The article further reveals the international contexts in which their ideas were embedded. Using the concept of ‘the ideas of 1914 versus those of 1789’, the conservative geopolitician Kjellén spoke for the justification of German expansion and Swedish military intervention, whereas the Left-liberal pacifist Key condemned all parties involved, defending the legacy of the French Revolution and Sweden’s neutrality. Based on his geopolitical tenets, Kjellén could not envision a future with peaceful cooperation between nation states, while, for Key, the solution lay in the development of democratic decision-making. In this respect, the granting of political citizenship to women, to whom she accorded a special competence for peace-keeping, based on their maternalism, was crucial.     

Nested assemblages: migrants,war heritage,informal learning and national identities

ABSTRACT

This article examines relations between Anzac heritage and Australian national identity, among migrant visitors to the Australian War Memorial (AWM). What meaning could a story derived from Australian involvement in the First World War have to migrants who moved to Australia after the Second World War? Participants in qualitative interviews were eleven first-generation Australians, whose countries of birth were England, Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, Philippines, Scotland, South Africa and Sri Lanka, with parental countries of birth extending to Austria, Germany, India and Japan. Drawing on sociomaterial assemblage theory, the findings illustrate the concept of nested assemblages. At increasing scalar levels, the migrants form visitor-AWM assemblages, they may (or may not) feel part of a national Anzac heritage assemblage, and as migrants they are entangled in multiple national assemblages concurrently. Assemblages pertaining to family, faith, learning and memorialising were additional networks at play. Mapping interrelations amongst these assemblages showed migrants as actively gathering and interpreting heritage, sometimes as the enactment of national identity and at other times as the performance of informal, lifelong learning. The findings have importance to institutions seeking to be responsive to diverse and changing populations, particularly those wrestling with tensions around national identity.     

Acoustic Measurements and Digital Image Processing Suggest a Link Between Sound Rituals and Sacred Sites in Northern Finland

In northern Finland, near the canyon lakes of Julma-Ölkky, Somerjärvi, and Rotkojärvi, steep rock cliffs produce distinctive acoustic spaces. On these cliffs, prehistoric rock paintings (5200 to 1000 BC) as well as an ancient Sámi offering site (circa 1100 to present) can be found. Ethnographic sources describe that the Sámi used to sing and listen to echoes while making offerings there. This article presents the results of an archaeoacoustic research project that seeks to explore the role of sound in the development and use of these archaeological sites. The innovative set of methods includes multichannel impulse response recording, angle-of-arrival estimation of early reflections, spectrum analysis, digital image processing, and 3D laser scanning. On the basis of the analyses, it is concluded that the cliffs that have been painted or held as sacred are efficient sound reflectors. They create discrete echoes and, accordingly, phantom sound sources. Especially at the Värikallio cliff near Lake Somerjärvi, the sound appears to emanate directly from the painted figures. These results, together with previously unnoticed drumming figures in the Värikallio painting, provide a clue to the significance of the sound rituals at these sacred sites.     

THE SPACES OF NATURE: INTRODUCTION

The articles in this section aim at critical reappraisal of space from the viewpoint of the materiality of human action which is underpinned by a special focus on its dealings with nature. Space is primarily viewed by others than geographers and/or from outside Scandinavian and Anglo‐American research. The role of language and culture, as well as using the possibilities of ecosemiotics grown out of the Tartu–Moscow school, is highlighted in an attempt to enliven discussions of lived space and human relationships with nature.     

Experiencing a Ritual Space – Results of Phosphate Analyses from Four Sámi Offering Places

Sieidis are offering places of Sámi ethnic religion. Between 2008 and 2010 seven sieidi places were studied in Finnish Lapland, revealing mostly bones originating from offerings. Some of the known sieidi sites were nevertheless archaeologically empty. In this article, we use the results of phosphate analyses to study the traces of ritual practices that have left no bone material. Different use of space can be seen in the variation of phosphate levels. Most of the activities seem to be concentrated in the close vicinity of the sieidi. On the contrary, the space consecrated by a sieidi could extend further than the marks of ritual activities provide evidence for. Some parts of ritual activities could be experienced from further away.     

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.