Paper short abstract:

In this paper notions of the ordinary in archive material are discussed via aspects of mobility. Questioning the perceptions of the everyday in ethnographic work is not only an opportunity to gain a greater understanding of older archival material but also to open up for new interpretations.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I want to discuss notions about the ordinary in tradition archive material through different aspects of mobility.

From the outset, documentation of everyday life in the tradition archives favoured the image of stability and, correspondingly, place was interpreted in terms of contained units such as the farmstead or the village. On the other hand, mobility was connected with modernity and perceived as a threat to traditional culture. Mobility was understood as an anomaly and not as something representing the ordinary.

Despite the early ethnographic emphasis on the static, movement has been part of the everyday in both 19th and 20th century life. Nevertheless, everyday patterns of movement such as walking have often been taken for granted (being too common) and have therefore been overlooked. Moreover, the introduction of new mobility technologies, such as the bicycle and the automobile, had an immense effect on everyday life and on how people related to place. In Swedish-speaking Finland, mass migration was decidedly part of everyday life in the decades around the turn of 19th century. The fact that migration was an out-of-the-ordinary experience for the individual but a common phenomenon in many communities reminds us of the multifaceted nature of everyday life and the complexity involved in documented the ordinary. Questioning the perceptions of the common and the everyday in ethnographic work is not only an opportunity to gain a greater understanding of the material in question but also to open up to new interpretations.