Paper short abstract:

This poster explores the emotion of wonder in planetariums of the 1920s as a transgressive mode of knowing, feeling and perceiving. Wondering arose by breaking the rules of perception and expanding what is knowable, thus allowing the audience to experience nature, technology and the planetary anew.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing from the material I gathered during researching the planetarium for my PhD project, I will create a bricolage of bits and pieces from the archive, exploring the emotion of wonder in the planetarium and its transgressive, rule-breaking potential.

In the 1920s, projection planetariums opened in cities all over Europe. This new institution resolved around an innovative projection device, which created an immersive, naturalist 360°-panorama of the night sky. The projection, the machine from which it was dwelling, and the scientific knowledge it (re-)presented were sources of wonder. Thus, the Planetarium inspired the spectators to break out of the ordinary and to rethink their place in the universe.

Wonder arises when rules of the world and of the life that we are used to are being transgressed - hence it allows its witnesses a glimpse of the not-yet-to-be-but-likely-possible (Geppert & Kössler 2011) and unfolds a specific epistemic potential (see Daston & Park 2002, Daston 2001). Wondering was one of the planetarium's key emotions: By breaking the rules of perception and narrating astronomical knowledge in a sensual, enchanting yet framed as highly scientific way, the planetarium lead its audience to amazement and allowed a glimpse into the dawning Space Age with its new order of time and space. By employing spectacular machinery to achieve this effect, the planetarium enabled the audience to get into touch with "nature", technology, the universe, and humankind itself in new ways, rendering change imaginable.

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Paper short abstract:

Three years after Hurricane Irma (2017), SXM communities continue to struggle with recovery, attributing this delay to decision-making that favoured non-local interests. This research looks at the power dynamics in the SXM Recovery Plan and their performance on disfavoured groups.

Paper long abstract:

On September 7th, 2017, the Caribbean island of St. Maarten/St. Martin (SXM) experienced an intensely destructive Category 5 hurricane. SXM's recovery from "Irma" has been touted as one of the fastest post-disaster economic recoveries for an island nation on record, however, in post-disaster settings, economic and political power imbalances become increasingly evident.

Local female leaders claim that recovery is far from over for them, and that decisions made by authorities in the SXM Recovery Process were prejudicial and severely impacted the female labor force and the communities in which they live. Three years after Irma, communities away from the tourist eye struggle with social tensions, aggravated by and attributed to unequal treatment of workers and residents (Semple 2019). Initial research leads to power inequalities embedded in both the emergency preparedness and recovery processes, driven by male authorities and economic interests. The political and humanitarian interventions by global powers in Irma's recovery cast aside local leaders, processes, and practices, and operated social and cultural decision frameworks that favoured global actors and international mass tourism interests instead of local resident needs. These actions broke locally understood and accepted rules of behaviour, and denied protection and care sorely needed in a reconstruction environment.

Research on gender and disasters and their power underpinning contributes to the ongoing dialogue around women's economic empowerment in development projects in the Global South. Disaster recovery is as much about rethinking as it is rebuilding.

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Paper short abstract:

Women play a role shaping collective memory among the Jews of Argentina through traditional cuisine. The poster focuses on "Gefilte fish" (stuffed fish). The symbolic dish emphasizes gender roles through folk tales calling to preserve tradition while adapting it to present, thus breaking the rules.

Paper long abstract:

Women of the Jewish community in Argentina play a key role in shaping personal and collective memory while setting boundaries through traditional cuisine. The Poster focuses on a culinary tradition, the "Gefilte fish" dish (Stuffed fish), prepared for ritual meals and its symbolic meaning. Ethnographic fieldwork suggests that the traditional dish is associated with Jewish identity in Argentina and folk tales have been linked to it. The dialogue between preserving tradition, reshaping and adapting it to present times, thus breaking the rules, tells the story of the group in a unique way.

The Jewish community of Argentina has its roots within the great waves of immigration from Eastern Europe that took place from the end of the nineteenth century to mid twentieth century. The Eastern European Jewish cuisine, Jews brought with them, symbolizes what's Jewish in Argentina, for most of the community and for the non-Jewish majority. A close ethnographic look at culinary traditions of a minority group against culinary traditions of the hegemony, suggests that the minority domestic praxis, perceived as feminine holds a permanent dialogue with the national public praxis, perceived as masculine in this culture. In the interpretation of the cultural significance of floodways, paradoxes emerge through gender roles and folk tales, attesting to the complexity of the interrelationship between genders and between the community and the other. Thus, an examination of the dialogue that the community maintains with traditional Jewish cuisine, negotiating and reshaping it reveals aspects of power, participation and even transgression.

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Paper short abstract:

In my poster, I present my PhD. research. The study examines the change in attitudes towards women's baldness in Finland and how women have experienced their hairlessness in the public debate. The poster shows how I will implement my study, and it also presents some preliminary results.

Paper long abstract:

In western culture, women's hairlessness is the desired matter from every part of the women's body except the head. In other words, the idea that a real woman has hair is deeply rooted in our culture. The women's baldness is at the core of my PhD. thesis, in which I study how it has been experienced and understood in Finnish society and culture. I ask, for instance, how hairlessness affect women's daily lives? How has it manifested in our society at different times? How gender define the experience of hairlessness? What stereotypes has our culture and society created for women's hairlessness?

In my poster, I present my on-going PhD. project in more detail. The poster demonstrates how I investigate the changes in attitudes towards women's baldness and how the baldness has been experienced by hairless women and public discussion. It also shows how I will implement my study. In addition to this, the poster presents some of my discoveries and preliminary results.

The poster fits excellently into SIEF2021 theme "Bodies" that studies bodies as arenas of compliance and resistance as well as contemplate, for instance, what "norms" and "rules" pertain and how are they challenged, and by whom?

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Paper short abstract:

Walking tours sit at the intersection of narrative and performance, opening up a discursive, performative space generated through and between its participants. This poster draws on fieldwork from Aberdeen, Scotland and seeks to examine how walking tours function as a means of performing heritage.

Paper long abstract:

In large groups or one-to-one, participants' memory and imagination are recruited to illuminate a multifaceted, multimedia performance drawing on a wide repertoire of genres across the walking route.

Walking tours become a conduit through which past, present and future can be simultaneously navigated and narrated. They hold space, and can often become a vehicle for performing heritage, further transgressing boundaries to challenge 'authorized heritage discourse' (Smith, 2006) by highlighting underrepresented perspectives.

This poster draws on fieldwork on group walks and walking tours in Aberdeen, Scotland and seeks to examine how tour participants (re)define and (re)negotiate physical and discursive boundaries through their walks.

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