Finnish Identity Research Articles

What's left when a language recedes? Belonging and place-making in the linguistic landscape of Hancock, Michigan

Our study examines how meanings related to Finnishness are reflected in the linguistic landscape of Hancock, Michigan, a small town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Centering on Benedict Anderson’s (1983/2003) concept, imagined communities, we investigate how discursive strategies in public spaces index belonging and place-making. The social correlates that underpin this reimagining affect ways of understanding larger sociocultural meanings about identity, place, and language use (Cornips & de Rooij 2015; Blommaert 2013; Bucholtz & Hall 2004; Leeman & Modan 2009). We aim to answer three questions: 1) how is Finnishness discursively indexed in Hancock’s linguistic landscape?; 2) how are meanings represented as recognizable and valued?; and 3) what are the ideological effects of the discursive practices and related meanings? Our analysis demonstrates that both linguistic and metalinguistic practices are abundant in Hancock. The ideological effects of Finnishness in the landscape reinforce values of Finnish identity and language, while simultaneously erasing (Gal & Irvine 2000) languages and identities of other residents, past and present. The collective discursive practices function ideologically to affect belonging and place-making.

MULTICULTURALISM AND ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN THE FACE OF HOMOGENOUS NATIONALISM IN FINLAND

Finland as a country has not been on the receiving end of migration for a long time. However, in the last two decades, there has been an increase in the number of people immigrating to Finland than those emigrating. With the increasing cultural and ethnic diversity, the country’s migration policies have attempted to accommodate immigrants even in the face of homogenous nationalism. This study examines the limits of multiculturalism and ethnic diversity and how it affects the social integration of immigrants into Finnish society. Based on the current population dynamics of Finland, there is tension between increasing multiculturalism and a native approach that informs the homogenous representation of the Finnish identity. There are clearly limits to which immigrants can express their cultural identity and conditions to which a middle ground for social integration between immigrants and Finnish citizens can be reached. With the aid of semi-structured interviews, this study seeks to obtain an empirical evaluation of the experiences of immigrants in the process of settling and socially integrating into Finnish society.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0202/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Fear of the Russian bear? Negotiating Finnish national identity online

AbstractNational identities are an important tool for collective political persuasion and mobilisation among political elites and lay people. Recent research on nationalism has shown that the negotiating of national identities, like any political deliberations and operations, increasingly occur on the Internet. In this study, we contribute to this research by examining the relational construction of Finnish identity online. More specifically, we focus on how the users of the largest discussion forum in Finland constructed Russia as a threat. A massive dataset spanning 12 years enables us to map the recurring patterns and temporal shifts in the discussions. We show that the construction of Russia as a threatening national other was used to both oppose and support Finland's alliance with the West, namely, becoming a member of NATO.

Luontosuhteen katkokset ja jatkuvuudet: maahanmuuttajien kokemuksia pohjoisessa

A close relationship with nature and the exploitation of products provided by nature are an integral part of Finnish identity. In this review article, we study the nature relationships of immigrants in Finnish Lapland, both in the context of their previous life stages and current integration. We apply the ideas of geobiography and lifelong environmental relationship. We ask how the migrants’ nature relationship has taken shape in the course of life, and what kind of discontinuities and continuities exist. We have approached the issue with focus group interviews conducted among immigrants who have residence permits in Finland and live in Lapland. In interviews, photo-elicitation has had an important role. It seems that northern nature has not become familiar during the “formal” integration process. Nature experiences in Finland relate in many ways to experiences in the nature of the country of origin. Refugee camp is the biggest discontinuity in nature relationship. The nature of the original homeland is therefore very distant in time, but still important.

THE FINNISH MODEL OF CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL SPHERES OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE 18th CENTURY

The article deals with the structure of multilingual cultural and educational spheres of Finland in the first half of the XVIII century. The study identifies specific features of the Enlightenment society model. These features originated due to the subordination of Finland to the Kingdom of Sweden, multilingualism in society, common faith and political immaturity of the population. In the description of the social and cultural spheres of Finnish society, the economic situation of each region was taken into account. The study is based on the legislative acts, which regulated the style of life in the society, and life activity of the leading socio-political figures and clerics, who actively tried to arouse the sympathy of those in power to the Finnish people. The article analyses the activity of such supporters of Finnish culture and language as, for example, J. Gezelius the Younger, G. Tuderus, A. Lizelius, priests of the Akrenius family. The paper examines their contribution to the formation of Finnish identity and Finnish culture as a whole. In essence, the work of these very priests and public figures was the forerunner of the fennophilic movement. D. Juslenius is considered to be the father of the movement. The proposed study pays particular attention to the development of the school system in Finland. To establish the Lutheran faith and strengthen the institution of state power, the following actions were made. The state sought to develop a public education system in order to increase the competence of officials and clergy and teach the population literacy. The article describes the difficulties encountered in the implementation of the program to educate the population. The multilingualism of the society at that time was as follows. The majority spoke only Finnish, intellectuals spoke Latin and Swedish, while traders and industrialists communicated in German and other Western European languages. In the first half of the 18th century, the Swedish language became widely used inside the academic community. The reasons for such a transition are presented in the article. The author of the study concludes that during the period under review the language didn’t play a key role in the union of the nation. The main contributors were Lutheran faith and devotion to the Swedish king.

Voicing the Subaltern? The Sámi Child Enters Zacharias Topelius's Mid-nineteenth-Century Fairy Tales

Voicing the Subaltern?The Sámi Child Enters Zacharias Topelius's Mid-nineteenth-Century Fairy Tales Olle Widhe (bio) Tales of Lapland The Sámi have constituted an important motif in Nordic children's literature since Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "Snedronningen" ("The Snow Queen," 1845). Andersen's fairy tale unfolds in Lapland, and recently won renewed fame in the Walt Disney Pictures film Frozen (2013). This article, however, is not about Andersen's famous fairy tale. Instead I want to focus on fairy tales portraying the Sámi written and published by the Fenno-Swedish author Zacharias Topelius in the mid-nineteenth century. Besides Andersen, Topelius is the most important writer for children in the Nordic countries during the romantic period. Even though he is seldom read by young people today, his importance to the history of Nordic children's literature is nonetheless comparable to that of Astrid Lindgren's in the second half of the twentieth century (Svensson 76). Topelius is considerably less known internationally than Andersen; however, he is often said to be the creator of Swedish-language children's literature, and his first collection of stories was published in 1847 (Westin; Zipes; Kümmerling-Meibauer). Topelius belonged to the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland and thus contributed to the genre in both Sweden and Finland. In addition to a variety of texts for adults that feature the Sámi, he published a wide range of Sámi stories for children (Widhe, "Trollkarlar och små barn"; Conrad). Portrayals of the Sámi are already present in "Skeppet Rephanut" ("The Ship Rephanut," 1847), which was included in Topelius's first book for children. A Sámi wizard has a crucial function, helping a greedy rich merchant become even richer, before his luck [End Page 302] runs out and he ends up a poor beggar. Another of Topelius's fairy tales for children in which the Sámi play a significant role is "Prinsessan Lindagull" (1848), which recalls the One Thousand and One Nights. These two early fairy tales are followed by a range of others, among which "Sampo Lappelill: En saga från Lappland" ("Sampo Lappelill: A fairy tale from Lapland," 1860) and "Stjernöga" ("Stareye,"1873) are the most distinguished. In both tales, probably for the first time in the history of children's literature, the hero of the story is a Sámi child. The Sámi are one of the largest indigenous groups in Europe, and their ancestral land, Sápmi, or Lapland, spans an area the size of Sweden in the Nordic countries. The Sámi were up till recently known as "Lapps" or "Fenni." In nineteenth-century Finland, the Sámi were largely a repressed people who occupied a silenced, marginalized, and subaltern subject position (Junka-Aikio). The term "subaltern" was promoted by Gayatri Spivak (1988) in her seminal article, "Can the Subaltern Speak?," in which she maintained that the subaltern cannot speak if there is no opportunity for authentic exchange between speaker and listener. The term subaltern is not just another word for the oppressed or the discriminated. The subalterns are refused a space where they can express themselves, and they are silenced through a discursive and structural exclusion from communication. In the case of children's literature, however, it seems like Topelius's romantic appraisal and elevation of the child during the mid-nineteenth century involves, at least to some degree, a countering of the inferior status ascribed to the Sámi. Elaborating on the role of the Sámi in Topelius's thinking and writing, Jens Grandell convincingly argues that he upholds a Eurocentric discourse that regards them as a cultural other. According to this view the Sámi people were important to Topelius only because they helped him to define the Finns, in contrast, as superior, and thus Sámi were vital for his efforts to build a Finnish identity and establish Finland as a nation. In this essay, however, I want to point to a certain ambivalence in the attitude toward the Sámi people in Topelius's writing for children that has yet to be properly discussed. In his fairy tale about the Sámi boy...

The “secularization” and ethnicization of migration discourse: the Ingrian Finnish Right to Return in Finnish politics

ABSTRACTFinland’s Right to Return policy for Ingrian Finns (1990–2010) presented Russian and Estonian citizens who qualified as having Finnish ancestry the legal means to resettle in Finland. The policy was initially driven by Finnish President Mauno Koivisto, who spoke publicly of his belief that the Ingrian Finnish minority in Russia was Finnish because it was Lutheran rather than Orthodox. However, Finnish politicians increasingly abandoned the view of a common Lutheran identity between Ingrian Finns and Finland, and shifted the discussion to language, ancestry and historical memory, which were used to both endorse and disendorse Ingrian Finns’ Finnishness. We argue that the disappearance of religion from the Right to Return discourse was a strategic – if not necessarily conscious – choice that emphasized the more primordial aspects of Finnish identity (and the Ingrian Finns’ lack of those), which in turn enabled stricter restrictions and, ultimately, the discontinuation of the policy.

Establishment of Finnish identity

Th e paper considers historical and geographical preconditions for establishment of Finnish identity on the basis of cultural analysis. It is shown that in diff erent historical periods, establishment of Finnish identity developed in a number of ways. When Finland merged in the Russian Empire, the main focus was on establishing language and cultural identity. Aft er declaring independence, most attention was paid to economic and political aspects, which form Finnish identity. Establishment of Finnish identity in the 20th century can be divided into seven periods. In the modern context the main focus is on the so-called “Finnish model of information society”, which provides for the existing features of Finnish ethnic identity. Th e References include 12 items. Refs 12.

The Shadow of Colonialism on Europe’s Modern Past ed. by Róisín Healy, Enrico Dal Lago, and: Europe, Migration and Identity: Connecting Migration Experiences and Europeanness by Jan Logemann, Donna Gabaccia, Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, and: Europe Entrapped by Claus Offe, and: The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century by David Reynolds, and: Goodbye to All

Reviewed by: The Shadow of Colonialism on Europe’s Modern Past ed. by Róisín Healy, Enrico Dal Lago, and: Europe, Migration and Identity: Connecting Migration Experiences and Europeanness by Jan Logemann, Donna Gabaccia, Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, and: Europe Entrapped by Claus Offe, and: The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century by David Reynolds, and: Goodbye to All That? The Story of Europe since 1945 by Dan Stone, and: The Oxford Handbook of Postwar European History ed. by Dan Stone Benjamin Lapp The Shadow of Colonialism on Europe’s Modern Past. Edited by Róisín Healy and Enrico Dal Lago. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 255pp. $90 (cloth). Europe, Migration and Identity: Connecting Migration Experiences and Europeanness. By Jan Logemann, Donna Gabaccia, and Sally Gregory Kohlstedt. London and New York: Routledge, 2014. 104pp. $160 (cloth). Europe Entrapped. By Claus Offe. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press, 2015. 136pp. $19.95 (cloth). The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century. By David Reynolds. New York and London: W. W. Norton, 2014. 514pp. $32.50 (cloth). Goodbye to All That? The Story of Europe since 1945. By Dan Stone. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. 379pp. $39.95 (cloth). The Oxford Handbook of Postwar European History. Edited by Dan Stone. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. 767pp. $185 (cloth); $49.95 (paper). Standard textbooks on European history have generally divided the twentieth century into two halves: the first dominated by upheaval, turmoil, war, and genocide, and the second, characterized by peace and stability culminating in European unity. The books discussed in this review suggest the emergence of an alternative historical consensus, one that stresses certain continuities such as the continued significance of the memory of the First World War, combined with an emphasis on the fraught and complex nature of post-1945 Europe and the lack of any closure or resolution to historical change in contemporary Europe. To what extent can one refer to a “European” identity in today’s world? The contributions contained in the volume Europe, Migration and Identity: Connecting Migration Experiences and Europeanness offer some important insights into what “Europeanness” is, and to what extent one can discuss, in the wake of the postwar drive towards European unity, a common European identity. As the editors point out, transnational migration has always been a “constitutive element of European societies” despite a traditional historical emphasis on national demarcations (pp. 2–3). Following historian Konrad Jarausch, the contributors [End Page 429] problematize any notion of a homogenous European identity, instead emphasizing “multiple, shifting, and hybrid identities . . . transmigrants who oscillate between countries and between national, ethnic and cosmopolitan affiliations”(p. 2). In her essay, Saara Koikkalainen shows in the case of highly educated Finns who have shifted their residence within the European Union, 60 percent of these (internal) migrants saw themselves as “European,” thereby making their mobility that much easier. Nevertheless, she points out that “Europeanness” does not substitute for a Finnish identity (p. 97). It remains a “secondary identity marker” (p. 26). A European identity, concludes Kiran Klaus Patel, is a surprisingly “recent and fragile phenomenon” (p. 29). The rise of a xenophobic populism in response to mass migration from the Middle East and Africa also suggests the limits of a transnational identity. While the victims of imperialism have generally been viewed as non-European, the collection The Shadow of Colonialism on Europe’s Modern Past raises the issue of to what extent imperialism and the “reverberations of the colonial experience across the European continent in the modern period” have impacted the internal politics of Europe itself in the modern era (p. 3). The volume reformulates cases of national expansion (for instance, Germany’s annexation of Schleswig-Holstein in 1864 and Alsace-Lorraine in 1871, Austria-Hungary’s annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina) as forms of Continental imperialism and also looks at such neglected historical phenomena as the return of former settlers from Algeria and their impact on France. The book contains a number of case studies concerning colonial practice within Europe itself during the process of national expansion in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, making nuanced distinctions among the various examples...

Accounting for a planned migration through ethnic identity talk

Previous discursive research on ethnic identity has suggested the complex and multi-faceted nature of accomplishing membership in an ethnic group. In this paper, we explore how ethnic identity claims may be used as a resource in accounting for behavior seen as open to the group, namely a planned migration to one's ancestral homeland. A discursive psychological approach is used to analyze focus group data with potential ethnic return migrants, specifically, adults with Finnish roots who intend to migrate to Finland. Ethnic identity was accomplished in subtle ways by drawing on one's roots and a familiarity with Finnish culture, as well as by accomplishing a preference for Finland. Working up Finnish ethnic identity in these ways allowed participants to account for the planned migration, which was typically constructed as a natural, inevitable and/or long- and highly-desired action. The findings highlight the importance of considering the social action of ethnic identity talk, particularly in light of previous studies that have found ethnic return migrants' pre-migration ethnic identities to be pronounced.

Still a Physician rather than a Judge? The Post‐Cold War Foreign and Security Policy of Finland

AbstractThis article seeks to explain some of the key changes in Finnish foreign and security policy since the end of the Cold War. Finland's peace policy during the Cold War built on a self‐image of a neutral bridge‐builder between East and West, that is a ‘peacekeeping superpower’ and a ‘physician not judge’ in world politics. Since that Finland's neutrality has been replaced with a peculiar combination of military non‐alignment and commitment to the European Union's common security and defence policy. A change has taken place from traditional peacekeeping to military crisis management led by the EU and NATO. Lately, Finland has started to build a profile in the field of peace mediation. This article argues that these changes have been enabled by a recalibrated understanding of small stateness, as Finnish identity has been adjusted from small‐state neutrality towards ‘member‐state alignment’ and ‘small‐EU‐member‐stateness’. Consequently, the Finnish physician approach has been reconstructed for the post‐Cold War world.

‘We’re Finns here, and Russians there’: A longitudinal study on ethnic identity construction in the context of ethnic migration

In this article, we examine how ethnic Finnish migrants construct their ethnic identities before and after migrating from Russia to Finland. We use a discursive psychological (DP) approach to analyse our longitudinal focus group data. In the analysis, we focus on the ways in which the participants use category labels, rhetorical devices, interpretative repertoires and other discursive resources in accounting for their identities. We also consider the social functions these identity constructions have over the course of migration. In the pre-migration data, participants mostly presented themselves as Finns. In the post-migration data, a larger variety of self-labels was used and the Finnish identity was explicitly problematized. The three main interpretative repertoires used when constructing identities both in Russia and in Finland were the biological repertoire, the repertoire of socialization and the repertoire of intergroup relations.

Hypää Järveen!

At an immersion language camp in the woods of Minnesota, a “Fourth” has two weeks to find her Finnish identity in saunas, viili , and pesapallo . And maybe a boyfriend, too.

To Be or to Become ‘European’? ‘Westernizing’ Narratives in Post-Cold War Finland

The Finnish ‘westernizing’ narrative emphasizes Finland’s ‘westernness’, i.e. the idea that Finland and Finns have always been western and part of the ‘European family’. The recent past is not seen as an obstacle for this interpretation. Thus, according to this type of discourse, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and ‘liberated’ from the constraints of the Cold War, Finland could finally ‘return’ to the West, to Europe, to its ‘natural’ origins. This article examines in short what might be called the post-Cold War narrative of Finnish westernness as it appears in the English language sources. It argues that the westernizing narrative is very important in justifying Finland’s post-Cold War position in the international politics, especially its position in the European politics. The article is divided in two parts. The first one examines the narrative of the westernness of Finland, Finns or Finnish ‘identity’ as it appears in some scientific writings, press materials and political texts. Within this narrative an important element is the re-evaluation of Finland’s international position during the Cold War. Therefore, the Finnish security ‘solution’ – by some called ‘Nordic and neutral identity’ – is either criticized, attacked and characterized as an aberration and betrayal of the ‘Finnish western identity’, or accepted as the only possible ‘instrument for pursuing national security interests’ in those times. The second part of the article advances some explanations for this narrative and addresses questions such as: why was it developed, by whom, and how successful was it? The article shows how highly political is the (re)presentation of Finnish history and how much its ‘western character’ is related to Finland’s current political situation and goals in Europe. It also reveals how important the ideology is in backing a political choice.

Regions, networks and fluidity in the Finnish nation-state

In this article, the author applies the topological conception of space to the building of the Finnish nation-state. The process is approached from the vantage point of the unconformable, yet related spatial types of regions, networks and fluids. An understanding of the Finnish identity as an ever-changing and contradictory field of core narratives and meanings, and as an international accomplishment, helps avoiding the ‘territorial trap’ (world seen exclusively in terms of nation-state territories) as well as the ‘teleological trap’ (endpoint taken as explanation of the historical trajectory leading to state formation) in the analysis of the history of the Finnish nation-state.

Beyond East–West: Marginality and National Dignity in Finnish Identity Construction

Since the end of the Cold War it has become common for Finnish academics and politicians alike to frame debates about Finnish national identity in terms of locating Finland somewhere along a continuum between East and West. Indeed, for politicians, properly locating oneself (and therefore Finland) along this continuum has often been seen as central to the winning and losing of elections. For example, the 1994 referendum on EU membership was largely interpreted precisely as an opportunity to relocate Finland further to the West. Indeed, the tendency to depict Finnish history in terms of a series of “Westernizing” moves has been notable, but has also betrayed some of the politicized elements of this view. However, this framing of Finnish national identity discourse is not only sometimes politicized but arguably is also too simplified and results in blindness towards other identity narratives that have also been important through Finnish history, and that are also evident (but rarely recognized) today as well. In this article we aim to highlight one of these that we argue has played a key role in locating Finland in the world and in formulating notions of what Finland is about, what historical role and mission it has been understood as destined to play, and what futures for the nation have been conceptualized as possible and as providing a source of subjectivity and national dignity.

Cardinal Markers of Finland's Identity Politics and National Identity

This paper analyzes geopolitical themes prevailing in dominant sectors of the Finnish government and society that have shaped Finland's national identity from the early 19th century to the present. The focus is on the ways cardinal markers (compass directions) have become geopolitical and identity markers. Notions of "West," "Between East and West," "Neither West nor East," and "North" have been used both to position Finland on the world political map and to forge a Finnish national identity. The influence of Russia and Karelians are examined at some length as part of the eastern dimension of Finnish identity. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O52, Z13. 1 figure, 1 table, 94 references.

Content and predictors of the ethnic identity of Russian-speaking immigrant adolescents in Finland.

The content and predictors of the ethnic identity of Russian-speaking immigrant adolescents (N = 170) in Finland were investigated. The ethnic identity of immigrants was found to be composed of two dimensions, one reflecting the cognitive, evaluative and emotional components of their Russian identity and the other reflecting those of their Finnish identity. The ethnic and linguistic self-identifications of adolescents were strongly related to the extent of and the value given to the Russian and Finnish identity, but neither to the frequency of using nor to their proficiency in the respective languages. The immigrants' perceptions of the relationships with parents were strongly related to their Russian identity. This association was, however, very different for girls and boys. In addition, the Russian contact orientation and Russian language use were strong predictors of the adolescents' Russian identity, whereas their Finnish contact orientation and Finnish language use strongly predicted their Finnish identity.

Geographical perspectives on Finnish national identity

National identity has become a catchword in discussions of the relations between culture and nation-states during recent decades. Narratives of nation have become crucial in the definition of the individual, so that other identities are usually understood only as slightly modifying it. The present paper starts from the fact that nation, national identity and nationalism are contextual and co ntested categories, and suggests a critical approach, labelled as the institutionalization of territories, which should evaluate the practices and ideological mechanisms involved in the production and reproduction of territories and their identities. The institutionalization of the Finnish territory and the representations of Finnish national identity are analysed as concrete examples. It is argued that national identities develop and change continually, so that each generation modifies it according to existing socio-cultural situations. Certain critical historical periods and specific natural and cultural elements seem to be crucial in the narration of Finnish identity.

Finnish Identity in America.

Finnish Identity in America.