Paper short abstract:

By attending to the changing roles, representations, and receptions of Ingrian folklore and historical memories of Ingrians in Finland the paper analyzes how ideologies concerning folklore and memory connect to highly selective and exclusive processes behind cultural relevance and solidarity.

Paper long abstract:

Ingria was a historically multicultural region surrounding the present day city of Saint Petersburg in Russia, inhabited by various ethnic groups including Izhorians, Votes, Finns, Russians, Germans, and Estonians. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, Ingria and Ingrians (typically understood as Finns or Izhorians), were ascribed a role in constructing the Finnish nation through folklore. At the time, members of the emerging Finnish intelligentsia wrote down oral folk poetry sang by rural people in Finland but also from Ingria and Karelia, areas located outside of Finnish borders. This folklore was imagined to represent and testify to the existence of the ancient unified Finnish culture and nation. Later in the 20th century, Ingrians suffered from Stalinist repression and multiple displacements leading to the dispersion of Ingrian communities. In Finland, the public acknowledgement, societal and political relevance, as well as perceived significance of these experiences has fluctuated several times over the course of decades. This paper analyzes the changing roles, representations, and receptions of Ingrian folklore and historical memories of Ingrians in Finland from the perspective of relatability and memorability. By drawing from my research on Ingrian literary testimonies and their reception in Finland as well as on the recent museum exhibition on the persecution history of Ingrians, I will show how understandings and ideologies concerning folklore and memory connect to highly selective and exclusive processes behind cultural and aesthetic relevance as well as sense of solidarity.

Paper short abstract:

The paper examines and explores research that addresses linguistic and cultural norms of society in crisis. Drawing upon specific examples of artistic, racial, linguistic, and cultural discord in the U.S., the paper attempts to articulate and unveil sources of racial and cultural antagonism.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines and explores research that addresses the linguistic and cultural norms of society in the contemporary time of crisis. Drawing upon specific examples of artistic, racial, linguistic, and cultural discord in the U.S., this paper attempts to articulate and unveil sources of contemporary racial and cultural antagonism. Focusing primarily on the work of African American artists and authors, this paper focuses particularly on North American racism and the rhetoric of the “Black Lives Matter” movement as well as the history of racial/race boundary and linguistic dispute. This paper will examine the ways in which tradition folkloric attitudes cope with the uncertainty of race and racism concepts in the demands in everyday life and practices.

Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the multiple ambiguous ways Portuguese political parties approach the subject of racism, a topic of particular political and social discord in the Portuguese context, and how this discussion relates to the construction of a national norm and a national rhetoric.

Paper long abstract:

This paper discusses the multiple ambiguous ways Portuguese political parties, across the political spectrum, approach the subject of racism, a topic of particular political and social discord in the Portuguese context. It's based on an ongoing ethnography about Portuguese political parties views on immigration and racial and ethnic discrimination in articulation with the legal and symbolic boundaries of national belonging. On a local level, we focus on the political life of Loures, a multicultural town in the Lisbon district, where issues about migrant integration and interculturality are commonly present in local politics.

In 2020, a Portuguese citizen of African descent was murdered in Loures in a crime of racist nature, an event of national impact and media coverage, leading to an anti-racist rally and reopening the divisive discussion about racism. Although the legal system considered it a hate crime, our interviews with local politicians from different parties revealed an unexpected consensus: that it wasn't a racist crime. Considering this case, we propose discussing the meaning of the negation of racism, how it relates to the ways a national norm and a national rhetoric are constructed in the practices and speeches of political agents, and which categories of exclusion and belonging it implies. Moreover, we ponder how the cultural discussion of racism unveils a field of political division that doesn't exactly reflect the division between the left and right political fields. This discussion takes place in a context of conflicting demands regarding political representation and political uncertainty before a growing far-right.

Paper short abstract:

The paper examines a village community in the historical border zone of Hungary and Romania, focusing on the turbulent changes of the 20th century (e.g. redrawn borders, religious conversions) and the parallel processes of drawing and redrawing religious and ethnic boundaries within the community.

Paper long abstract:

The paper examines a village community located in the religious, linguistic and ethnic contact zone on the historical border of Hungary and Romania. Due to long-term acculturation and assimilation processes among the Romanian and Hungarian populations settling here, a specific “intermediate”, mixed culture and identity came into being. To this day the most important element of the identification of the locals is that of in-between-ness, a distinctive characteristic that is almost ethnic in quality. In the place of this rather uncertain quality, ecclesiastic and secular elites in the second half of the 20th century have sought to establish clear-cut, homogeneous religious and national affiliations. However, the majority of locals still cannot fully identify with either Hungarians or Romanians.

The religious and ethnic attachments of the locals were influenced by the turbulent historical-political processes of the 20th century (including redrawn state borders, changing political regimes, new linguistic norms, forced or voluntary religious conversions). Political changes and the attendant physical redrawing of borders in each case created new situations for the locals. The combination of the transformations of secular and ecclesiastic power relations, and of independent demographic, linguistic and social changes played an important role in another process: drawing and redrawing boundaries within the community. The latter – creation, strengthening, reinterpretation and reproduction of boundaries – continues to take place in the present. I intend to present these two processes in tandem, thus highlighting their interconnections.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on fieldwork in Tallinn, this paper asks how the war in Ukraine, Russian propaganda, and the arrival of thousands of refugees from Ukraine are affecting the delicate coexistence between Estonians and Russophones and, moreover, challenging folkloristic thinking about community and folk.

Paper long abstract:

Combining Facebook observations with long-term ethnographic fieldwork in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, this presentation asks how the war in Ukraine, Russian propaganda, and the arrival of thousands of refugees from Ukraine are affecting the always already delicate coexistence between Estonians and Russophones and, and, moreover, challenging folkloristic thinking about community and folk.

On the one hand, Russian aggression in Ukraine has prompted Estonia to speed up the transition of Russian-language schools to Estonian-language instruction and to remove from the public space any remaining “red monuments” commemorating World War II and the Soviet regime. On the other hand, the lingua franca between Estonians and refugees from Ukraine is Russian, turning language into a less reliable touchstone of one’s identity and habitus. These centripetal and centrifugal processes meet in Tallinn, a bilingual city with its own ingrained and embodied practices and patterns of coexistence. One can no longer take for granted these prior modes of coexistence, which have aimed at accommodation and avoidance of conflicts springing from ethnicity and must learn to cope with new kinds of uncertainties.

Ethnic interactions in places like Tallinn provide opportunities for rethinking central concepts of folklore studies. While there must be shared, common conceptions of what it means to coexist in an urban space, these do not amount to a community. Aimed at intervening in these fragile, yet tangible shared understandings is heavy Russian propaganda. Parading as vernacular communication, it fuses boundaries between here and there, between those who do and do not belong.