Roundtable discussion on ethnology's societal engagements, acknowledging the 100th anniversary of ethnology in Finland. Sponsored by the University of Eastern Finland. Read more here

(...Scroll through the opening half hour to get to keynote)

Slow Activism: Lessons from Citizen Scientists

Kathrine Borland (Ohio State University)

Chair: Lotte Tarkka (assistant moderator Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto)

What lessons might folklorists learn about engaging people across ideological difference from citizen scientists? Drawing on work from a five-year collaborative ethnography project located in Southeastern Ohio, I explore the concepts of slow activism and thinking like a watershed.

Kathrine Borland is the Director and Graduate Studies Advisor at the Ohio State University, Center for Folklore Studies, and Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Studies. She studies and teaches about the artfulness of ordinary life, and the ways in which traditional expressive arenas constitute contested terrain. In 2013, she published International Volunteer Tourism: Critical Reflections on Good Works in Central America (co-edited with Abigail E. Adams, Palgrave). Subsequently, she has published a number of essays on a range of subjects in narrative research, service-learning models, diverse environmentalism, and interrogating race in folklore and in the folklore classroom.

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The multiple worlds of Sámi research

Sanna Valkonen (University of Lapland)

Chair: Coppélie Cocq

Assistant moderator: Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen

Short abstract: In my presentation I will address the ways collaboration between academic research and art can at its best contribute to transgressing academic conventions and mindsets and reveal (dis)ruptures in our established research practices and thinking.

Sanna Valkonen is a Sámi scholar and Professor of Sámi Research at the University of Lapland. Her research fields include the politics of indigeneity and belonging, cultural heritage, gender and religion, and related power relations in the Sámi context. Central to her current work is developing Sámi research concepts and artistic research.

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Log in to conference environment

Rules: pros and cons

Ellen Hertz (University of Neuchâtel)

Chair: Laura Stark

Short abstract: Rules are a basic property of human societies and yet they occupy a historically contested place in the modern narrative about what makes us human. Reframing rules as potentialities helps break this spell. It allows us to ask not what should we do but what can we do, and to take the measure of the limits of our actions, as humans and as social scientists.

Ellen Hertz is professor of anthropology at the University of Neuchâtel. Her background in Chinese studies, law and anthropology has translated into a long-standing interest in the complex and ambiguous mechanisms of bureaucratization and marketization that characterize contemporary modernity, and on the place of gender in these configurations. She has published on diverse topics (financial markets; international organizations; intangible cultural heritage; sex work; corporate social responsibility and environmental anthropology) and maintains an active interest in theoretical developments in the social sciences, with an emphasis on gender, citizenship and normative regimes.

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Exploring environment-community connections in Africa’s nature reserves: Overlaying community cultural values to enhance conservation

Susan Keitumetse (University of Botswana)

Chair: Suzie Thomas (assistant moderator Pia Olsson)

Short abstract: At national level in Botswana, certain communities have had to make way for national ad international resources conservation developments in various geographical areas and landscapes of the country. Examples of these are during the establishment of national parks, game reserves, world heritage sites amongst others. At international level approaches such world heritage site designation have before called for designation of what is termed “core zones” in most African sites.

Susan O. Keitumetse (PhD, Cambridge) is UNESCO Chair holder (African Heritage Studies and Sustainable Development) and a research scholar (Cultural Heritage and Tourism) at the University of Botswana.

She is the author of a book volume titled “African cultural heritage conservation and management: Theory and Practice from Southern Africa” (2016) published by Springer – refer publisher website for book details. She is also a lead editor of a published book volume titled: Sustainability in Developing countries: Case studies from Botswana’s journey towards Sustainable Development (2020) by Springer – refer publisher website for book details. In addition to the two internationally published books, Dr Keitumetse has published journals in international journals and book chapters in numerous international publisher books. Dr Susan O. Keitumetse’s work on heritage conservation and management is well documented in her numerous international, national outputs illustrated in several online scholarly profiles – refer Dr Keitumetse google scholar profile.

Dr Susan O. Keitumetse’s work on heritage conservation and management is well documented in her numerous international, national outputs illustrated in several online scholarly profiles – refer Dr Keitumetse google scholar profile.

Her current research work is on projects that the relevance of cultural heritage in enhancing environmental conservation of African landscapes in a way that will lead to the achievement of sustainable development goals. One such project is identifying cultural indicators of protected nature spaces and overlaying them as a way to enhance environmental conservation.

Dr S.O. Keitumetse has a multidisciplinary training; having trained in BA (Archaeology and Environmental science); Post Graduate Diploma in Education (History)- both from the University of Botswana, Botswana. For postgraduate she trained in MPhil in Museums and Archaeological heritage; and a PhD in Sustainable Development and Heritage Management – both from the University of Cambridge, UK

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Closing keynote: "We’ve been talking almost half my life”: Scholarship and Long Conversations in East Germany

Molly Andrews (University of East London)

Chair: Kirsti Salmi-Nikander
Assistant moderator: Ulla Savolainen

Short abstract: This presentation will explore what it means to conduct an in-depth interview-based research project over the course of nearly three decades. My research with East German dissident activists began in 1992. Some of these conversations have continued for 28 years. I will discuss how our relationships have developed, and the ways in which this long-term perspective has impacted upon my scholarship on biography and history.

Molly Andrews is Emerita Professor of Political Psychology at the University of East London and the co-director of the Association of Narrative Research and Practice. In 2019-2020, she was the Jane and Aatos Professor at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. Her research interests include political narratives, the psychological basis of political commitment, political identity, patriotism, and aging. Her books include Lifetimes of Commitment: Aging, Politics, Psychology and Shaping History: Narratives of Political Change (both Cambridge University Press), and Narrative Imagination and Everyday Life (Oxford University Press). She serves on the Editorial Board of five journals which are published in four countries, and her publications have appeared in Chinese, German, Swedish, Spanish, French, Czech and Finnish.

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Introduction-response by Sarah Green
Moderated by Roger Norum

Abstract:
Eating is both a deeply symbolically dense, as well as an essential activity, and is linked to a dazzling array of political, economic, social, environmental and religious meanings, rules and norms. For that reason, food – raw or cooked, slow or fast, processed or unprocessed, plant- or animal-based – has long been the focus of both academic research and political activism. Food sustains us (in life), connects us (to one another) and emplaces us in the world and on the planet. At once essential to human existence and yet often insufficiently or inequitably provisioned, food also differentiates us, sedimenting social groups and defining social hierarchies. Food is also closely linked to our senses and our memories. Thinking critically about food ethnologically broaches fundamental questions about diversity, humanity and the place of people on the planet: foodstuffs and foodways are tools for understanding societies, cultures and the global and environmental connections that bring them together – or set them apart. This closing roundtable session uses eating and food as a trace for considering the dynamics of how to break the rules through collaborative action in and outside the academy. Invited participants are asked to bring to the table one particular culinary index: a particular foodstuff, a memorable recipe or meal, or any link to the edible or drinkable things that nourish and nurture us as terrestrial beings. With this as a simultaneously epicurean and epistemic point of departure, they will reflect upon its links with their own engagements with activism and academia.

Discussants:

Stina Aletta Aikio - Master of Arts and Design, Stina Aletta Aikio is a Deatnu Sámi experimental artist who combines in their artistic work new media expressions and duodji tradition with modern materials, such as waste, metal and glass. They are interested in the tensions in societies and questions of justice. Aikio has worked actively in the Nordic queer Sámi movement and the positions of minorities within minorities are close to their heart.

Eeva Berglund - has long explored issues around environmental politics and transformations in notions of expertise. She has a doctorate in social anthropology and an MSc in urban planning, both from the UK. She is currently Adjunct professor of environmental policy, Department of Design at Aalto University, Finland. A publication worth mentioning is the 2019 volume, Dwelling in Political Landscapes: Contemporary Anthropological Perspectives, which she co-edited with Anu Lounela and Timo Kallinen.

Håkan Jönsson - is associate professor in European Ethnology and senior lecturer in Food technology and nutrition at Lund University (Sweden). His research profile is food, culture and consumption, often conducted in interdisciplinary projects, involving both public and private actors outside academia. He has been Involved in several applied cultural analysis projects encompassing food concept development, retail, regional foresight and culinary tourism. Currently working on Horizon 2020 project NextFOOD- Educating the next generation of professionals in the agrifood system. Co-chair of the European working group for Ethnological food research.

George E. Marcus - is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, and founding Director of its Center for Ethnography. Previously, he was Chair of the Anthropology Department at Rice University for 25 years. He was founding editor of the journal Cultural Anthropology. Primary publications are Writing Culture (1986, co-editor), Anthropology as Cultural Critique (1986, co-author),Lives In Trust (1992), The Late Editions series of annuals (editor, 1992-2000), Ethnography Through Thick and Thin (1998), Ocasiao (co-author, 2005), Anthropology of the Contemporary (co-author, 2008), Fieldwork Is Not What It Used To Be (co-editor, 2009), Ethnography By Design (2019, co-author), Collaborative Anthropology Today: a Collection of Exceptions (2020, co-editor).