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Paper short abstract

Stories and songs from the Scottish Studies Archives at Edinburgh University will illustrate the relationship of ordinary Gaels with the lands they inhabited – the people and events that shaped them, the spirits that inhabited them, and the memories taken abroad by those forced to emigrate.

Paper long abstract

James Hilton’s 1933 novel Lost Horizon, set in the mountains of Tibet, created the fictional ‘Shangri-La’ – a place of the spirit, seemingly outside time, where people lived long lives in a fastness far removed from a world beset by war. For most visitors and many Scots, the Highlands of Scotland – the Gàidhealtachd – seem to suggest a similar refuge: a region of misty mountains, with the odd ruined castle perched on the edge of a loch – perfect for a holiday (if the weather holds up), and a blank canvas for the romantic imagination.

Left out of the tour commentaries and the guidebooks are the people who lived in the Gàidhealtachd up to quite recently. In this lecture, stories and songs from the Scottish Studies Archives at Edinburgh University will be used to illustrate the relationship of ordinary Gaels with the lands they inhabited – the people and events that shaped them, the spirits that inhabited them, and the memories of them taken abroad by those forced to emigrate from home.

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This paper examines Icelandic set in 'inhospitable' landscapes, assessing the role of these landscapes, e.g. lava-fields, within legend structure, the frequency of different types of inhabitants within these spaces, and the relationship(s) between rural Icelanders and peripheral unproductive lands.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines Icelandic legends associated with or set in 'inhospitable' or 'unproductive' landscapes, for example, hraun (lava-fields), seen through the lens of Wilhelm Nicolaisen (1987) and Timothy Tangherlini's (1994) adaptations of William Labov's (1967) structural model of legends. My paper represents an offshoot of my previous research on the legend type hefndir huldufólks (revenges of hidden folk). My study assesses whether the negative valences found in preliminary research associated with lava-fields and other deserted land areas are related to the absence of food production, or whether further complexification is needed. I encounter the inhabitants, temporary or otherwise, of these unusable lands: huldufólk (hidden folk), útlagar (outlaws), and so forth. I also explore the role of journeys to (or through) hraun, eyðimörk (deserted lands) within legend structure, that is, whether they represent primarily a complicating action, the strategy to resolve prior conflict, or a heterogenous combination of narrative roles. In doing so, my paper evaluates three queries: the types of legends wherein 'inhospitable' land plays a significant role; what that role is within legend structure; and the frequency of different types of inhabitants within these landscapes. Ultimately, these questions serve to highlight the relationship(s) between rural Icelanders and the unproductive lands peripheral to their dwelling-places.

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A specific logic of a “living” habitat simulating a natural habitat has never been thoroughly analyzed in the context of the Völkerschau. The aim of this presentation is broader inquiry into the relationship between ethnographic shows, the idea of habitat, and the construction of otherness.

Paper long abstract

Various venues (zoos, parks, gardens) were used to organize ethnographic shows, a cultural phenomenon whose reach extended far beyond colonial empires in the latter half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century. A specific logic of public spectacles of non-European otherness as a “living” habitat – first developed by Carl Hagenbeck – was based on “material mobility”, aliveness, and convincing expression of foreign space. Hagenbeck’s habitat accommodated living people, foreign and local fauna and flora, water and other kinds of natural resources in order to recreate “natural habitat” of the Other in European outdoor space. The meaning and role of the idea of (natural and living) habitat, has never been thoroughly analyzed in the context of the Völkerschau.

The aim of this presentation is broader inquiry into the relationship between ethnographic shows, the idea of habitat, and the construction of otherness. With the assumption that the meaning and value of habitat is culturally constructed and contextualized, my research questions focus on how the simulated natural habitat was constructed, narrated and consumed within the framework of ethnographic shows, what was the role of the concept of the habitat in the process of naturalizing the Other, and how this concept was used in the process of (re)producing imperial knowledge about indigenous people and the development of mechanisms of control and dominance.

The bulk of the sources for this presentation consists of visual and textual material on ethnographic shows. This presentation applies a postcolonial approach and critical visual methodologies.

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The present study asks how storytelling practices related to landscapes, sacred sites, and local lore have changed in post-Soviet Estonia.

Paper long abstract

In 21st-century Estonia, interest in landscapes and landscape lore has grown significantly among both scholars and amateurs. This development is closely tied to the cultural ruptures of the Soviet occupation, which systematically disrupted collective memory and transformed the physical and symbolic landscape through deportations, destruction of heritage sites, militarization, renaming of places, and large-scale agricultural interventions. During the Soviet period, storytelling was structured by censorship and self-censorship, producing distinct layers of narrative: stories silenced for political reasons; stories shared only in restricted circles; and relatively neutral stories deemed safe for wider circulation. These constraints not only limited cultural expression but also reshaped the role of oral tradition in society. The present study asks how storytelling practices related to landscapes, sacred sites, and local lore have changed in post-Soviet Estonia, and what role they play in processes of identity construction. We analyze the ways in which oral history and folk narratives are mobilized as culturally authoritative sources of memory, and how these are linked to contemporary understandings of nature, heritage, and community. Particular attention is paid to the emergence of sacred natural sites and nature-based worldviews as central categories in the redefinition of Estonian self-identity. We argue that the renewed interest in landscape lore serves both as a reaction to past cultural disruptions and as an instrument for negotiating present-day social and environmental change. Local storytelling thus operates simultaneously as a repository of historical memory and as a resource for shaping identity and resistance to unwanted transformations of the landscape.

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The Bhittichitra art is a visual representation on the walls of the homes of the Santals. These paintings depict rituals, harvests from the land and mythological stories. The paintings tell stories of the nature symbolically codified as cosmic forces, fertility, wisdom, community bonding and so on.

Paper long abstract

Painting comes naturally to primitive tribes and communities as evocative representation which have been discovered in cave paintings, utensils, jewellery, and alpona made for ceremonies. The earliest form of indigenous art reflects creativity but also expresses a dialogue between the community and its surrounding. Mooring on such cultural motifs several tribes and communities have been seen to develop their own unique style of engaging with pictographic representation of nature.

The Santhals are one of the most important and largest ethnic groups of India and their population can be traced to the districts of Birbhum and Purulia in West Bengal and in the state of Jharkhand in India. Their primary source of livelihood is in the bordering forests and agricultural land. The Bhittichitra art tradition among the Santhals is a vibrant visual representation on the walls of the homes of the Santhals. These paintings depict seasonal rituals, harvests from the land and mythological stories. The paintings tell stories of the Sun, Moon, birds, trees and forest each symbolically codified as cosmic forces, fertility, wisdom, community bonding and so on.

My paper aims to explore this art form and the cultural codes that are created through these paintings that centralise the importance of nature in the lives of the Santhals. The visual syntax of the paintings brings out the layered and metaphysical meanings that occupy the lives of the people conforming their intimacy with nature.

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In Western culture, walking alone in nature, framed as masculine, was historically denied to women. This paper evokes the feminist potential of solitary forest walks and, through the artistic practices of Eva Vēvere and Anna Maskava, explores the concept of feral intimacy.

Paper long abstract

In Western culture, forests are gendered. They are perceived as feminine, yet simultaneously regarded as spaces unsuitable for women, at least for the culturally constructed femininity associated with domesticity, fragility, softness and passivity. Walking alone, especially in the forest, is a gendered activity too: the experience of “raw” nature has traditionally been framed as masculine and reserved for men.

Women’s walking has long been subject to restriction. Leisure activities performed alone were denied to women, who were encouraged to stay indoors or risk being considered outlaws [1]. Can forest walks be perceived as a feminist act that unsettles traditional notions of domesticated femininity?

This paper develops its theoretical reflection through contemporary art, focusing on how solitary forest walks by women are represented in the works of Latvian artists Eva Vēvere and Anna Maskava. These depictions engender unruly feminine subjects who resist cultural definitions of the “clean and proper” identity. Being alone in the forest fosters a distinctive affective relationship with the environment, which I conceptualize as feral intimacy: a tender, sensual, and immersive attunement to the forest’s atmosphere with disruptive, transformative effects. Feral intimacy destabilizes gendered perceptions and resonates with the role of forests in Latvian culture as spaces of refuge and resistance. The forest walk emerges as a threshold, experienced viscerally and aesthetically, enabling feminist agency grounded in autonomy and self-reflection.

[1] Bannett, Nina. “Embedded Narratives: Female Critics, Autotheory, and Solitary Walking in the Twenty-First Century.” Women’s Studies, vol. 53, no. 7, 2024, pp. 770–82. doi:10.1080/00497878.2024.2381804.

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This paper examines how fin-de-siècle Russian women travelers in the Far East constructed gendered narratives of landscapes and Indigenous peoples, both reinforcing and challenging imperial hierarchies and male scientific authority at the imperial borderlands. (Remotely)

Paper long abstract

This paper examines how Russian women explorers and specialists — Mavra P. Cherskaia (1857-1940), Dina Brodskaia (1864-1943), and Anna Bek (1869-1954)—perceived and narrated the landscapes and Indigenous peoples of Russia’s Far East during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Drawing on diaries, expedition reports, and published materials, I explore how their writings commented on Indigenous communities, employing a gendered gaze and access to women’s quarters to establish their scientific practice, authority, and ethnographic capital at the empire’s borderlands.

Brodskaia’s accounts juxtaposed topographic descriptions of the environment with anthropometric studies of Indigenous women, in which bodies appeared as dissected and scientifically objectified. She produced narratives that orientalized the North Pacific climate and terrain, describing the region as “unfriendly like the weather itself.” Cherskaia and Bek similarly recorded journeys across remote territories, blending environmental observation, personal experience, and encounters with Indigenous communities. Their writings portrayed the Far East as a cultural and climatic ‘other’ to be confronted, civilized, and mastered. For these women, nature itself became a marker of alienation, estrangement, and the anxieties of unfamiliar environments. Their notes filtered the region through “Arcticism,” a discourse in which the North “is imagined as either an icy hell or an inhabitable paradise” (Schimanski, Ryall, and Wærp 2010, x). Together, these narratives demonstrate how Russian women explorers strategically employed their gender at the imperial margins to manipulate the boundaries of science and authority, producing texts in which landscapes, bodies, and Indigenous customs were simultaneously scientific objects and instruments of imperial control.

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Paper short abstract

Folklorists believe in the village nature begins right outside the door. But for the villagers, things are quite different. Based on interviews and personal observations recorded in the Russian North, we will show where the village ends and nature begins—and how locals spend their time "in nature."

Paper long abstract

The material for our report was interviews and personal observations recorded in the Russian North. We are talking about the villages of the Vozhgorsky village сouncil, Leshukonsky district, Arkhangelsk region. Villages in this area are difficult to access. They are located along the banks of the Mezen and Pizhma rivers, surrounded by forest; it is difficult to reach them, especially in summer. Currently, the main occupations of the local residents are hunting, fishing, picking berries and mushrooms, and gardening. This means that villagers spend most of their time outdoors. However, in conversations with us, they often said that they like to spend a day off or relax “in nature.” We became interested in the practices of the local people staying “in nature,” that are not related, or not exclusively related, to seasonal agricultural work. As our materials show, rural outdoor recreation takes place either as a picnic, when locals, along with family or friends, go to a picturesque place (a “beach” on the riverbank, a special clearing in the forest or a hunting hut), or as a symbiosis of economic activities (for example, picking mushrooms or berries, hunting or fishing) and the emotional experience of being in nature (as a rule, our interlocutors talk about spiritual joy). At the same time, some outdoor recreation practices are gender-marked. For example, hunters are most often men. However, women can go to the hunting huts with their husbands, and this already turns out to be a joint marital vacation.