Paper short abstract:

In my paper my aim is to focus on the relationship between a person and her/his landscape. I am interested especially on the narratives of those who are living in Diasporas outside their home territory. On what senses and methods is she/he constructing the narratives of landscape?

Paper long abstract:

People who earn their living from natural resources are not always able to explain their knowledge concerning their use of the environment in words, because it is based on other senses as smells, tastes, touch and, also on intuition. It is an important part of their tacit knowledge, which is essential e.g. in reindeer herding. In this paper I am not, however, focusing on the relationship between reindeer herders and their landscape, but on the relationship of those outside reindeer herding. They can belong to the younger generation of reindeer herders and might have left the area or the profession, and are returning to the same landscape, sometimes using the landscape in other purposes, sometimes only during their holidays.

A landscape or a site is experienced in different ways depending on whether it is looked at by a local or visitor. As a consequence, places have become multivocal and this multivocality often involves multilocality. According to Margaret C. Rodman (2002: 214-215), polysemic places bespeak people's practices, their history, their conflicts and their accomplishments. Narratives of places are not mediated with words only; in addition to speech and hearing they can be told and heard with other senses as well. Such narratives deploy, e.g. an image of a rock that was situated near the place, smells, like the smell of spring in Lapland, brawling of home rapids or murmur of trees in the wind. My aim is to focus on these narratives and their sense of landscape.