The Routledge Handbook of Literary Geographies, 2024
Introduction: The idea of the region When geography was institutionalized as an academic disciple... more Introduction: The idea of the region When geography was institutionalized as an academic disciple at the end of the nineteenth century, one of the most central topics of discussion concerned the connections of systematic geography and regional geography. In 1907, Alfred Hettner argued that, rather than systematic chorological studies, the main core of geography should be the study of regions. In similar vein, H. C. Darby argued in 1948 that 'one of the main features in the development of modern geographical thought has been the increasing importance attached to the idea of the region' (1948, 426). Correspondingly, Fred Schaefer in his classic article 'Exceptionalism in Geography', emphasized that the heart of geography is regional, although he criticised previous regional geographers for methodological inadequacy and argued for more developed quantitative methodologies (1953, 230). 'The idea of the region', the title in E. W. Gilbert's classic article published in Geography, was the dominant perspective through which literary geographers scrutinized the connections between space and text in the 1960s. It was, as Gilbert argued, a difficult and a complicated theme, something that could not be studied through exact science. Instead, Gilbert emphasized how regional literary geography is a form of art comparable to poetry and painting, suggesting that geographers should follow the example of descriptions in regional literature, which, he thought, gets closer to reality than
The forest has long been seen as an integral part of Finnish national identity. At the same time,... more The forest has long been seen as an integral part of Finnish national identity. At the same time, there have emerged new argumentation in the media that rationalize the link between Finnish ”forest culture” with responsible environmental behavior in a national romantic and nationalistic way. This article discusses how the media intertwines the discourse on global warming and the carbon footprint banally around the discourse of nationalism, especially in the context of Finnish forest culture. The research material includes articles published in Helsingin Sanomat newspaper between 31 October 2018 and 31 January 2020. Using the analysis of newspaper material, the article illustrates how old myths about the Finnish forest are transferred to a new context, i.e. the theme of global climate responsibility, ending in an updated narration in where the age-old Finnishness is intertwined with modern Finnishness.
In 2018, the Anchorage Museum released a documentary film that might challenge the geographical i... more In 2018, the Anchorage Museum released a documentary film that might challenge the geographical imagination connected to hip hop culture on the part of Southern (and perhaps some Northern) audiences: WE UP: Indigenous Hip-Hop of the Circumpolar North, directed by Iñupiaq filmmaker Priscilla Naunġaġiaq Hensley and David Holthouse, a journalist and filmmaker from Anchorage. The visual presentation of the film on the museum's website signals the geographical transfer implicit in the very concept of circumpolar hip hop: next to an image of Athabascan rapper Julian Lillie aka Bishop Slice, we read: 'Forty years after hip-hop culture was born in the South Bronx district of New York City, its foundational creative forms, or "four elements," are taking on new life with Indigenous artists of the Circumpolar North.' 1 The text evokes the urban geography associated with the African American origins of hip hop, at the same time gesturing towards the flexibility and mobility of rap as a form of social and political protest against different forms of oppression, including colonial oppression. The image serves a similar function. We see the rapper standing in front of the Chena River in Fairbanks; while the tall buildings evoke the urban geography of 'classic' rap, the river and the greenery around it take hip hop quite literally to new shores. From their inception, rap music and hip hop culture have been about inscribing a community in a space that is both strongly referential and aesthetically produced (Forman 2000). In African American rap, that space is the urban ghetto with its distinct iconography of high rises on the East Coast and precarious residential neighbourhoods on the West Coast, dark alleys, tight living spaces, street crime, and a general sense of containment or immobility. The flipside of these dystopian spaces is hip hop's rendition of the American dream, whereby Black rappers celebrate their financial success by moving from the urban ghetto to the suburban mansion and driving expensive cars. In its portrayal of Indigenous hip hop from the far North,
Calving glaciers, houses tilting into the melting permafrost, polar bears clinging to ice floes: ... more Calving glaciers, houses tilting into the melting permafrost, polar bears clinging to ice floes: the Arctic has become an iconic shorthand for communicating anthropogenic climate change (Manzo 2010; Pincus and Ali 2016). Spectacular images of a changing Arctic not only represent the undeniable reality of global warming but also remediate Arctic landscapes, Arctic inhabitants, and Arctic realities. While Southern media frequently depict the Arctic as a vulnerable region whose fauna and flora are among the first to be significantly impacted by global warming, the focus on nonhuman 'nature' as well as the silencing of Indigenous Arctic voices frame the issue of Arctic climate change as geographically remote and psychologically distant (Lester and Cottle 2009; O'Neill 2013). At the same time, the Arctic is hypervisible in scientific climate and risk scenarios, where the region's development plays a central role in predictions about future global climates, temperatures, and sea levels (ACIA 2005). In public and scientific discourses, the visibly changing Arctic and its melting ice caps are therefore represented as announcing the future to the Southern world and ascribed a warning function. This discourse has also become a common trope in climate change fiction: in Solar (2010), for instance, Ian McEwan has his sceptical protagonist visit the Arctic to ' "see global warming for himself" ' (2010, 46), while authors such as Kim Stanley Robinson (New York 2140, 2017) or John Lanchester (The Wall, 2019) imagine future climate dystopias that result from melted polar ice caps and rising sea levels. Arctic climate fiction, however, is not only influenced by science and media discourses that posit the Arctic as a distant early warning system for what seems to be in store but also shaped by historical literary traditions. Influenced by nineteenth-and twentieth-century expedition accounts and travel narratives, the anglophone cultural imagination is shaped by imperialist notions that frame the polar regions as a blank and empty space waiting to be conquered and 'modernised' by Southern male explorers (Bloom 1993; Hill 2008). Driven by notions of colonial expansion and industrial progress, the Arctic came to be described as a marginalised, underdeveloped 4
This article discusses how news reports attendant to crisis events are used by the media to const... more This article discusses how news reports attendant to crisis events are used by the media to construct the logic of inclusion and exclusion. The focus of the paper is on rampage school shootings, which represent an illustrative example of how emotions and socio-politics become entwined in a spatial manner. The article also discusses how parties involved in the shooting event-the perpetrator, victims and the bereaved-are profiled in news reports as narrative characters through which the logic of inclusion and exclusion is constructed and conveyed, in different ways, and various spatial scales. This article illustrates how the media narratives of school shootings engage readers with the logic of belonging, offering normative understandings of how belonging and non-belonging should be comprehended. This paper contributes to both the geographical studies of belonging and media research.
This article examines the rationales for language revitalization and their materialization on a l... more This article examines the rationales for language revitalization and their materialization on a local scale. The starting premise is that, due to specific social, cultural, as well as spatial circumstances, there exists a wide variety of rationalizations for why saving endangered languages is important. The complexity of the matter is discussed with regard to Meänkieli, a minority language spoken in northern Sweden, which has a long and unique history of marginalization. The article bases on group discussions conducted with Meänkieli speaking cultural activists in northern Sweden during the fall of 2015 and the spring of 2016. The present examination of the group discussions reveals how the rationales of saving the language are inherently interrelated with questions concerning identity formation, educational principles and the sovereignty of minority groups. The analysis also reveals how, due to the complex nature of local history, there is no consensus on whether the recent progress in language revitalization is unanimously a positive change or not.
Humour is a manifold cultural institution through which society and space become politicised. In ... more Humour is a manifold cultural institution through which society and space become politicised. In this paper, the political nature of humour is discussed by dissecting the IMDb film reviews of Sacha Baron Cohen’s comedy, The Dictator (2012), a parody of democracy in which the topics of racism, political incorrectness and sexism, as well as their relationship to the discourses of Neo-Orientalism and the Global War on Terrorism, are present. The reviews are perceived as speech acts, which establish broader interpretative patterns through which audience may approach the questions related to the serious and political aspects of humour. The analysis focuses on how the ‘humour is serious’ claim and similar arguments are expressed in order to condemn or support the use of ‘immature’ and sophomoric humour within the context of politically sensitive issues. Similarly, the paper scrutinises how IMDb functions as a stage on which opportunity for political participation becomes accessible.
Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, 2016
This paper discusses the complexity and multidimensionality of ethnic representations in tourism ... more This paper discusses the complexity and multidimensionality of ethnic representations in tourism promotion. In existing studies of indigenous tourism it has been emphasized how the representations of ethnicity are created, implemented and filtered through certain cultural and ideological structures, connected to wider political processes of othering and marginalization. This paper analyzes the representations of Sáminess in Finnish Lapland tourism brochures by counter-reading material against the theoretical viewpoints in which Sámi culture and people are perceived as othered discourses within Finnish Lapland tourism promotion. Through the analyses of Sámi representations it is demonstrated how tourism brochures not only promote places but that they can also produce politically loaded discourses and present power issues that reflect the political structures of the surrounding society. The paper also discusses the social aspects of the prevalent media climate in ethnic and indigenous issues from a wider perspective and, furthermore, ponders in what ways these touristic representations reflect the general discourse of minority and indigenous issues.
Humor is a spatially embedded institution in many ways. Although a highly marginal field of study... more Humor is a spatially embedded institution in many ways. Although a highly marginal field of study, the number of geographical studies on humor has been increasing lately. The aim of this article is to introduce the various approaches and also draw connecting links between them. The review shows how practices of popular media are geopolitically charged, how humor is intertwined with issues of social marginalization, how humor operates as an important element in the construction of group cohesion, how humor works as a non-cognitive element of human actions, feelings, and emotions, as well as how it represents a useful tool for educational and economic purposes, and how all of this has been studied by scholars of geography. The review shows the various directions of the geographical studies of humor at the same time emphasizing that the relevance, variety, and multidimensionality of the topic have not been fully recognized.
In this article, we discuss Finnish rap music by dissecting its relations to various forms of hum... more In this article, we discuss Finnish rap music by dissecting its relations to various forms of humor and spatiality. While there exists a stereotypical understanding of the rap scene as a continuum of the heritage of a serious, masculine and even aggressive African-American ghetto culture, our purpose is to show how humor and parody have also prevailed within the scene. Through dissecting spatiality, contextuality and humor in Finnish music videos, we first focus on how the tradition of Americanism and African-American hip hop identity is parodied in Finnish rap visualizations. Second, we discuss how rap is localized in humorous ways to fit Finnish conceptual and aesthetic categories. Third, we show how humor allows artists to create temporary hybrid identities for themselves and mix fantasy and foreign cultural influences in their rap videos. The research material consists of Finnish rap videos that were screened at the Oulu Music Video Festival during 2000–2010.
Humour and cartoons are commonly perceived as practices of innocent entertainment, but the crisis... more Humour and cartoons are commonly perceived as practices of innocent entertainment, but the crisis following the publishing of twelve cartoons of the prophet Muhammed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten finally proved what serious matters popular culture, cartoons and humour can be. One repercussion of this notorious cartoon crisis was the publication in Kaltio, a minor cultural journal produced in northern Finland, of a comic strip in which various questions concerning the Muhammed cartoon episode and the political hypocrisy of the Finnish government were discussed satirically. This precipitated another, albeit minor, crisis which was noted widely around the world. Through these two interlinked incidences, the present paper discusses how humour functions as a ‘tool’ giving impetus to various forms of geopolitical processes and discussions in a range of contextual circumstances and at different spatial levels, resulting in both politically affirmative and destructive effects. It also discusses how the geopolitical order, discourses and codes can divert the reception and interpretation of humour.
Although humor is generally associated with innocent amusement, in the case of crisis events it h... more Although humor is generally associated with innocent amusement, in the case of crisis events it has various psychological, social and politically charged effects, both negative and positive. In times of crisis humor functions as a technique for neutralizing emotionally charged areas and by that means provides hope. On the other hand, in contemporary society there exist sensitive socially restricted and culturally dependent boundaries beyond which humor is not permitted to extend. This article discusses how humor becomes politicized when it functions as a part of crisis events, both as a trigger for crises and as a strategic tool to manage them. Specific attention is paid to the impact of spatiality by dissecting how the links between crisis and humor change when the scalar perspective shifts and how different spatial levels interact when humor becomes political. 'Body', 'local', 'regional', 'national' and 'global' are important spatial abstractions across which the socio-political meanings connecting humor and crisis events become produced.
The imagining of space has been an important topic in recent geographical studies. Especially in ... more The imagining of space has been an important topic in recent geographical studies. Especially in the geographical study of literature, ‘literary geography’, the manner of contesting the frames of ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’ has aroused more and more attention during recent years. Metafiction, consciousness of a text’s own imaginativeness and the discourses behind it, has not yet been explicitly discussed in the field of literary geography, although some tangential approaches have been applied. The main purpose of this paper is to discuss how the metafictive reading of literature functions as an alternative way of approaching the imagining of space, offering an original ‘methodological’ viewpoint for perceiving space, culture and society. The specific focus is on how space becomes metafictive through literary ‘means’ such as divergent narrative and textual strategies, exceptional typographies and ironic writing. At the same time the paper considers how the metafictive continuum between the frames of ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’ may function as a tool for delving more deeply into the discursiveness of the human imagination.
This paper examines the role played by literature in constructing regional otherness focusing on ... more This paper examines the role played by literature in constructing regional otherness focusing on a case study of Northern Finland. In the case of the Finnish North the direct connections between literary tradition, cultural imaginativeness and spatial otherness have been distinctive. Literary stereotypes concerning northern exoticism and the romantics have formed an imaginary contrast with the southern culture, a homogeneous region without any contradictions, imagined by the southern culture in a manner that meets its own hegemonic needs. The defining of the North exclusively in terms of a binary opposition between nature and culture has implied a multidimensional exercise of power in which culture and civilization have justified their own existence by excluding their opposites. In this article northern literature is perceived as a ‘tool’ not only for constructing otherness but also for deconstructing and decolonizing it. Northern imagination is viewed from a metafictional perspective, and the focus is on how the postmodern northern irony is self-consciously concerned about its own social discursiveness, i.e. northern marginality. In the present case the metafictive approach also stands for a methodological possibility for geographers to view literary discourses of otherness more from above. Attention is focused on the eccentrically obtrusive northern artist Rosa Liksom, the pseudonym of a novelist/visual artist who has transformed her northern irony into an emancipatory project.
In literary geography there is a relatively long history of studying regional narratives, but les... more In literary geography there is a relatively long history of studying regional narratives, but less focus has been placed on how senses of spatial belonging and identity become actualized through the reception and re-interpretations of regional literatures. This paper discusses how Meänkieli-speaking minorities in northern Sweden narrativize their shifting spatial identities through regional literature, i.e. Mikael Niemi’s successful humorous novel Populärmusik från Vittula (2000). The paper approaches the literary work simultaneously through the critical analysis of the book’s content, readers’ interpretations and the interconnections between the author, the reader and wider social circumstances. The analysis is based on group discussions conducted in northern Sweden between September 2015 and February 2016. As an outcome of these discussions, it emerged how different manners of approaching the irony and dark humor of Niemi’s book divide people’s senses of regional belonging and launch the alternative, confronting conceptions of “who we are”.
During the past decades, the ontological and epistemological frameworks of literary geography hav... more During the past decades, the ontological and epistemological frameworks of literary geography have altered remarkably. J. N. L. Baker argued, back in 1931, how fictive literature can be perceived as a container of geographic facts – a viewpoint that prevailed for several decades. The cultural turn of the late 1980s was widely critical of this 'naïve realism', seeing it as an attempt to find 'fact' from 'fiction' while at the same time ignoring the textual constructiveness completely, as if books were somehow 'transparent' (Brosseau 1995: 89-90). Ever since, the focus of geographical studies of literature has turned more towards the questions of how space is constructed, consumed and interpreted through different kinds of textual strategies and semiotic systems. Where this leads is to the primary question of how the concepts and connections of 'fact' and 'fiction' should be comprehended, a topic, which is particularly central and multidimensional in the studies of metafictive geography (see Ridanpää 2010a) and literary GIS. These are two distinct and very different theoretical approaches for understanding the connections of space and literature. In metafictive geography the attention is on how spatial imaginativeness and consciousness of a text's own imaginativeness become merged, while in literary GIS the challenge is on how to make spatial imaginativeness and its literary representations coordinatable. What these two approaches demonstrate, each in their own unique way, is that reading literature is essentially an experimental process in which the categorical distinction between the frames of 'fact' and 'fiction' become blurred.
This article discusses how rap music operates as an emancipatory ‘tool’ in the processes of langu... more This article discusses how rap music operates as an emancipatory ‘tool’ in the processes of language preservation and the deconstruction of ethnic stereotypes. It focuses on Amoc, the first ever rap musician to use the Inari Sami language, a minority language spoken in Northern Finland with only approximately 350 remaining speakers. The case as a whole is understood as a confrontation between two opposite discursive worlds. Rap music is perceived as a representation of urbanity, whereas the ethnic Sami culture is understood as a nationally ‘othered’ discourse based on old subordinating stereotypes of primitive people living in nature, beyond civilisation. In this context Amoc represents a bridge-builder between these two contrary worlds. This article discusses how Sami rap, as a modernised artistic practice, functions as an emancipatory ‘tool’ deconstructing the stereotypical ways of approaching ethnic heritages and thereby helping to sustain and revitalise the minority language of the Inari Sami group.
This article discusses how utopian and anti-utopian literatures offer alternate visions to find c... more This article discusses how utopian and anti-utopian literatures offer alternate visions to find connecting links between the control of space, power and happiness. The focus is on three classics of utopian and dystopian literatures: Thomas More's Utopia (1516), Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932), and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Through the analysis of these works it is pondered how utopian and anti-utopian societies offer freedom or restrict inhabitants moving and acting in their worlds, and how this is portrayed as a means to measure the quality of life. The article contributes to socially critical literary geography by envisioning various options to imagine the relationship of space and power. The starting presumption in the article is that both utopian and anti-utopian imaginations suggest that freedom to use space is a key factor when defining human happiness.
THIS ESSAY DISCUSSES THE INTERCONNECTIONS BETWEEN art, human imagination and postcolonial critiqu... more THIS ESSAY DISCUSSES THE INTERCONNECTIONS BETWEEN art, human imagination and postcolonial critique in the context of northern Finland. The ‘North’ is conceived here as an imaginative region, a myth, characterized by the stereotypes attached to nature and non-civilization, constructed through various socio-cultural institutions, both in art and science. In the case of Finland, the stereotype of the ‘North’ is a cold, snowy wilderness with reindeer herding Saami people and blazing northern lights. For several centuries, various forms and types of art have functioned in order to mystify, exoticize and legitimize the hegemonic understanding about the ‘North’ as a periphery. However, during recent years several northern artists have started to contest prevailing conceptions and challenge the stereotypes and myths attached to northernness. What follows introduces examples from various forms of northern culture – including literature, design, music, paintings and films – through which the ‘North’ as a myth has been constructed, but also contested.
The Routledge Handbook of Literary Geographies, 2024
Introduction: The idea of the region When geography was institutionalized as an academic disciple... more Introduction: The idea of the region When geography was institutionalized as an academic disciple at the end of the nineteenth century, one of the most central topics of discussion concerned the connections of systematic geography and regional geography. In 1907, Alfred Hettner argued that, rather than systematic chorological studies, the main core of geography should be the study of regions. In similar vein, H. C. Darby argued in 1948 that 'one of the main features in the development of modern geographical thought has been the increasing importance attached to the idea of the region' (1948, 426). Correspondingly, Fred Schaefer in his classic article 'Exceptionalism in Geography', emphasized that the heart of geography is regional, although he criticised previous regional geographers for methodological inadequacy and argued for more developed quantitative methodologies (1953, 230). 'The idea of the region', the title in E. W. Gilbert's classic article published in Geography, was the dominant perspective through which literary geographers scrutinized the connections between space and text in the 1960s. It was, as Gilbert argued, a difficult and a complicated theme, something that could not be studied through exact science. Instead, Gilbert emphasized how regional literary geography is a form of art comparable to poetry and painting, suggesting that geographers should follow the example of descriptions in regional literature, which, he thought, gets closer to reality than
The forest has long been seen as an integral part of Finnish national identity. At the same time,... more The forest has long been seen as an integral part of Finnish national identity. At the same time, there have emerged new argumentation in the media that rationalize the link between Finnish ”forest culture” with responsible environmental behavior in a national romantic and nationalistic way. This article discusses how the media intertwines the discourse on global warming and the carbon footprint banally around the discourse of nationalism, especially in the context of Finnish forest culture. The research material includes articles published in Helsingin Sanomat newspaper between 31 October 2018 and 31 January 2020. Using the analysis of newspaper material, the article illustrates how old myths about the Finnish forest are transferred to a new context, i.e. the theme of global climate responsibility, ending in an updated narration in where the age-old Finnishness is intertwined with modern Finnishness.
In 2018, the Anchorage Museum released a documentary film that might challenge the geographical i... more In 2018, the Anchorage Museum released a documentary film that might challenge the geographical imagination connected to hip hop culture on the part of Southern (and perhaps some Northern) audiences: WE UP: Indigenous Hip-Hop of the Circumpolar North, directed by Iñupiaq filmmaker Priscilla Naunġaġiaq Hensley and David Holthouse, a journalist and filmmaker from Anchorage. The visual presentation of the film on the museum's website signals the geographical transfer implicit in the very concept of circumpolar hip hop: next to an image of Athabascan rapper Julian Lillie aka Bishop Slice, we read: 'Forty years after hip-hop culture was born in the South Bronx district of New York City, its foundational creative forms, or "four elements," are taking on new life with Indigenous artists of the Circumpolar North.' 1 The text evokes the urban geography associated with the African American origins of hip hop, at the same time gesturing towards the flexibility and mobility of rap as a form of social and political protest against different forms of oppression, including colonial oppression. The image serves a similar function. We see the rapper standing in front of the Chena River in Fairbanks; while the tall buildings evoke the urban geography of 'classic' rap, the river and the greenery around it take hip hop quite literally to new shores. From their inception, rap music and hip hop culture have been about inscribing a community in a space that is both strongly referential and aesthetically produced (Forman 2000). In African American rap, that space is the urban ghetto with its distinct iconography of high rises on the East Coast and precarious residential neighbourhoods on the West Coast, dark alleys, tight living spaces, street crime, and a general sense of containment or immobility. The flipside of these dystopian spaces is hip hop's rendition of the American dream, whereby Black rappers celebrate their financial success by moving from the urban ghetto to the suburban mansion and driving expensive cars. In its portrayal of Indigenous hip hop from the far North,
Calving glaciers, houses tilting into the melting permafrost, polar bears clinging to ice floes: ... more Calving glaciers, houses tilting into the melting permafrost, polar bears clinging to ice floes: the Arctic has become an iconic shorthand for communicating anthropogenic climate change (Manzo 2010; Pincus and Ali 2016). Spectacular images of a changing Arctic not only represent the undeniable reality of global warming but also remediate Arctic landscapes, Arctic inhabitants, and Arctic realities. While Southern media frequently depict the Arctic as a vulnerable region whose fauna and flora are among the first to be significantly impacted by global warming, the focus on nonhuman 'nature' as well as the silencing of Indigenous Arctic voices frame the issue of Arctic climate change as geographically remote and psychologically distant (Lester and Cottle 2009; O'Neill 2013). At the same time, the Arctic is hypervisible in scientific climate and risk scenarios, where the region's development plays a central role in predictions about future global climates, temperatures, and sea levels (ACIA 2005). In public and scientific discourses, the visibly changing Arctic and its melting ice caps are therefore represented as announcing the future to the Southern world and ascribed a warning function. This discourse has also become a common trope in climate change fiction: in Solar (2010), for instance, Ian McEwan has his sceptical protagonist visit the Arctic to ' "see global warming for himself" ' (2010, 46), while authors such as Kim Stanley Robinson (New York 2140, 2017) or John Lanchester (The Wall, 2019) imagine future climate dystopias that result from melted polar ice caps and rising sea levels. Arctic climate fiction, however, is not only influenced by science and media discourses that posit the Arctic as a distant early warning system for what seems to be in store but also shaped by historical literary traditions. Influenced by nineteenth-and twentieth-century expedition accounts and travel narratives, the anglophone cultural imagination is shaped by imperialist notions that frame the polar regions as a blank and empty space waiting to be conquered and 'modernised' by Southern male explorers (Bloom 1993; Hill 2008). Driven by notions of colonial expansion and industrial progress, the Arctic came to be described as a marginalised, underdeveloped 4
This article discusses how news reports attendant to crisis events are used by the media to const... more This article discusses how news reports attendant to crisis events are used by the media to construct the logic of inclusion and exclusion. The focus of the paper is on rampage school shootings, which represent an illustrative example of how emotions and socio-politics become entwined in a spatial manner. The article also discusses how parties involved in the shooting event-the perpetrator, victims and the bereaved-are profiled in news reports as narrative characters through which the logic of inclusion and exclusion is constructed and conveyed, in different ways, and various spatial scales. This article illustrates how the media narratives of school shootings engage readers with the logic of belonging, offering normative understandings of how belonging and non-belonging should be comprehended. This paper contributes to both the geographical studies of belonging and media research.
This article examines the rationales for language revitalization and their materialization on a l... more This article examines the rationales for language revitalization and their materialization on a local scale. The starting premise is that, due to specific social, cultural, as well as spatial circumstances, there exists a wide variety of rationalizations for why saving endangered languages is important. The complexity of the matter is discussed with regard to Meänkieli, a minority language spoken in northern Sweden, which has a long and unique history of marginalization. The article bases on group discussions conducted with Meänkieli speaking cultural activists in northern Sweden during the fall of 2015 and the spring of 2016. The present examination of the group discussions reveals how the rationales of saving the language are inherently interrelated with questions concerning identity formation, educational principles and the sovereignty of minority groups. The analysis also reveals how, due to the complex nature of local history, there is no consensus on whether the recent progress in language revitalization is unanimously a positive change or not.
Humour is a manifold cultural institution through which society and space become politicised. In ... more Humour is a manifold cultural institution through which society and space become politicised. In this paper, the political nature of humour is discussed by dissecting the IMDb film reviews of Sacha Baron Cohen’s comedy, The Dictator (2012), a parody of democracy in which the topics of racism, political incorrectness and sexism, as well as their relationship to the discourses of Neo-Orientalism and the Global War on Terrorism, are present. The reviews are perceived as speech acts, which establish broader interpretative patterns through which audience may approach the questions related to the serious and political aspects of humour. The analysis focuses on how the ‘humour is serious’ claim and similar arguments are expressed in order to condemn or support the use of ‘immature’ and sophomoric humour within the context of politically sensitive issues. Similarly, the paper scrutinises how IMDb functions as a stage on which opportunity for political participation becomes accessible.
Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, 2016
This paper discusses the complexity and multidimensionality of ethnic representations in tourism ... more This paper discusses the complexity and multidimensionality of ethnic representations in tourism promotion. In existing studies of indigenous tourism it has been emphasized how the representations of ethnicity are created, implemented and filtered through certain cultural and ideological structures, connected to wider political processes of othering and marginalization. This paper analyzes the representations of Sáminess in Finnish Lapland tourism brochures by counter-reading material against the theoretical viewpoints in which Sámi culture and people are perceived as othered discourses within Finnish Lapland tourism promotion. Through the analyses of Sámi representations it is demonstrated how tourism brochures not only promote places but that they can also produce politically loaded discourses and present power issues that reflect the political structures of the surrounding society. The paper also discusses the social aspects of the prevalent media climate in ethnic and indigenous issues from a wider perspective and, furthermore, ponders in what ways these touristic representations reflect the general discourse of minority and indigenous issues.
Humor is a spatially embedded institution in many ways. Although a highly marginal field of study... more Humor is a spatially embedded institution in many ways. Although a highly marginal field of study, the number of geographical studies on humor has been increasing lately. The aim of this article is to introduce the various approaches and also draw connecting links between them. The review shows how practices of popular media are geopolitically charged, how humor is intertwined with issues of social marginalization, how humor operates as an important element in the construction of group cohesion, how humor works as a non-cognitive element of human actions, feelings, and emotions, as well as how it represents a useful tool for educational and economic purposes, and how all of this has been studied by scholars of geography. The review shows the various directions of the geographical studies of humor at the same time emphasizing that the relevance, variety, and multidimensionality of the topic have not been fully recognized.
In this article, we discuss Finnish rap music by dissecting its relations to various forms of hum... more In this article, we discuss Finnish rap music by dissecting its relations to various forms of humor and spatiality. While there exists a stereotypical understanding of the rap scene as a continuum of the heritage of a serious, masculine and even aggressive African-American ghetto culture, our purpose is to show how humor and parody have also prevailed within the scene. Through dissecting spatiality, contextuality and humor in Finnish music videos, we first focus on how the tradition of Americanism and African-American hip hop identity is parodied in Finnish rap visualizations. Second, we discuss how rap is localized in humorous ways to fit Finnish conceptual and aesthetic categories. Third, we show how humor allows artists to create temporary hybrid identities for themselves and mix fantasy and foreign cultural influences in their rap videos. The research material consists of Finnish rap videos that were screened at the Oulu Music Video Festival during 2000–2010.
Humour and cartoons are commonly perceived as practices of innocent entertainment, but the crisis... more Humour and cartoons are commonly perceived as practices of innocent entertainment, but the crisis following the publishing of twelve cartoons of the prophet Muhammed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten finally proved what serious matters popular culture, cartoons and humour can be. One repercussion of this notorious cartoon crisis was the publication in Kaltio, a minor cultural journal produced in northern Finland, of a comic strip in which various questions concerning the Muhammed cartoon episode and the political hypocrisy of the Finnish government were discussed satirically. This precipitated another, albeit minor, crisis which was noted widely around the world. Through these two interlinked incidences, the present paper discusses how humour functions as a ‘tool’ giving impetus to various forms of geopolitical processes and discussions in a range of contextual circumstances and at different spatial levels, resulting in both politically affirmative and destructive effects. It also discusses how the geopolitical order, discourses and codes can divert the reception and interpretation of humour.
Although humor is generally associated with innocent amusement, in the case of crisis events it h... more Although humor is generally associated with innocent amusement, in the case of crisis events it has various psychological, social and politically charged effects, both negative and positive. In times of crisis humor functions as a technique for neutralizing emotionally charged areas and by that means provides hope. On the other hand, in contemporary society there exist sensitive socially restricted and culturally dependent boundaries beyond which humor is not permitted to extend. This article discusses how humor becomes politicized when it functions as a part of crisis events, both as a trigger for crises and as a strategic tool to manage them. Specific attention is paid to the impact of spatiality by dissecting how the links between crisis and humor change when the scalar perspective shifts and how different spatial levels interact when humor becomes political. 'Body', 'local', 'regional', 'national' and 'global' are important spatial abstractions across which the socio-political meanings connecting humor and crisis events become produced.
The imagining of space has been an important topic in recent geographical studies. Especially in ... more The imagining of space has been an important topic in recent geographical studies. Especially in the geographical study of literature, ‘literary geography’, the manner of contesting the frames of ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’ has aroused more and more attention during recent years. Metafiction, consciousness of a text’s own imaginativeness and the discourses behind it, has not yet been explicitly discussed in the field of literary geography, although some tangential approaches have been applied. The main purpose of this paper is to discuss how the metafictive reading of literature functions as an alternative way of approaching the imagining of space, offering an original ‘methodological’ viewpoint for perceiving space, culture and society. The specific focus is on how space becomes metafictive through literary ‘means’ such as divergent narrative and textual strategies, exceptional typographies and ironic writing. At the same time the paper considers how the metafictive continuum between the frames of ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’ may function as a tool for delving more deeply into the discursiveness of the human imagination.
This paper examines the role played by literature in constructing regional otherness focusing on ... more This paper examines the role played by literature in constructing regional otherness focusing on a case study of Northern Finland. In the case of the Finnish North the direct connections between literary tradition, cultural imaginativeness and spatial otherness have been distinctive. Literary stereotypes concerning northern exoticism and the romantics have formed an imaginary contrast with the southern culture, a homogeneous region without any contradictions, imagined by the southern culture in a manner that meets its own hegemonic needs. The defining of the North exclusively in terms of a binary opposition between nature and culture has implied a multidimensional exercise of power in which culture and civilization have justified their own existence by excluding their opposites. In this article northern literature is perceived as a ‘tool’ not only for constructing otherness but also for deconstructing and decolonizing it. Northern imagination is viewed from a metafictional perspective, and the focus is on how the postmodern northern irony is self-consciously concerned about its own social discursiveness, i.e. northern marginality. In the present case the metafictive approach also stands for a methodological possibility for geographers to view literary discourses of otherness more from above. Attention is focused on the eccentrically obtrusive northern artist Rosa Liksom, the pseudonym of a novelist/visual artist who has transformed her northern irony into an emancipatory project.
In literary geography there is a relatively long history of studying regional narratives, but les... more In literary geography there is a relatively long history of studying regional narratives, but less focus has been placed on how senses of spatial belonging and identity become actualized through the reception and re-interpretations of regional literatures. This paper discusses how Meänkieli-speaking minorities in northern Sweden narrativize their shifting spatial identities through regional literature, i.e. Mikael Niemi’s successful humorous novel Populärmusik från Vittula (2000). The paper approaches the literary work simultaneously through the critical analysis of the book’s content, readers’ interpretations and the interconnections between the author, the reader and wider social circumstances. The analysis is based on group discussions conducted in northern Sweden between September 2015 and February 2016. As an outcome of these discussions, it emerged how different manners of approaching the irony and dark humor of Niemi’s book divide people’s senses of regional belonging and launch the alternative, confronting conceptions of “who we are”.
During the past decades, the ontological and epistemological frameworks of literary geography hav... more During the past decades, the ontological and epistemological frameworks of literary geography have altered remarkably. J. N. L. Baker argued, back in 1931, how fictive literature can be perceived as a container of geographic facts – a viewpoint that prevailed for several decades. The cultural turn of the late 1980s was widely critical of this 'naïve realism', seeing it as an attempt to find 'fact' from 'fiction' while at the same time ignoring the textual constructiveness completely, as if books were somehow 'transparent' (Brosseau 1995: 89-90). Ever since, the focus of geographical studies of literature has turned more towards the questions of how space is constructed, consumed and interpreted through different kinds of textual strategies and semiotic systems. Where this leads is to the primary question of how the concepts and connections of 'fact' and 'fiction' should be comprehended, a topic, which is particularly central and multidimensional in the studies of metafictive geography (see Ridanpää 2010a) and literary GIS. These are two distinct and very different theoretical approaches for understanding the connections of space and literature. In metafictive geography the attention is on how spatial imaginativeness and consciousness of a text's own imaginativeness become merged, while in literary GIS the challenge is on how to make spatial imaginativeness and its literary representations coordinatable. What these two approaches demonstrate, each in their own unique way, is that reading literature is essentially an experimental process in which the categorical distinction between the frames of 'fact' and 'fiction' become blurred.
This article discusses how rap music operates as an emancipatory ‘tool’ in the processes of langu... more This article discusses how rap music operates as an emancipatory ‘tool’ in the processes of language preservation and the deconstruction of ethnic stereotypes. It focuses on Amoc, the first ever rap musician to use the Inari Sami language, a minority language spoken in Northern Finland with only approximately 350 remaining speakers. The case as a whole is understood as a confrontation between two opposite discursive worlds. Rap music is perceived as a representation of urbanity, whereas the ethnic Sami culture is understood as a nationally ‘othered’ discourse based on old subordinating stereotypes of primitive people living in nature, beyond civilisation. In this context Amoc represents a bridge-builder between these two contrary worlds. This article discusses how Sami rap, as a modernised artistic practice, functions as an emancipatory ‘tool’ deconstructing the stereotypical ways of approaching ethnic heritages and thereby helping to sustain and revitalise the minority language of the Inari Sami group.
This article discusses how utopian and anti-utopian literatures offer alternate visions to find c... more This article discusses how utopian and anti-utopian literatures offer alternate visions to find connecting links between the control of space, power and happiness. The focus is on three classics of utopian and dystopian literatures: Thomas More's Utopia (1516), Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932), and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Through the analysis of these works it is pondered how utopian and anti-utopian societies offer freedom or restrict inhabitants moving and acting in their worlds, and how this is portrayed as a means to measure the quality of life. The article contributes to socially critical literary geography by envisioning various options to imagine the relationship of space and power. The starting presumption in the article is that both utopian and anti-utopian imaginations suggest that freedom to use space is a key factor when defining human happiness.
THIS ESSAY DISCUSSES THE INTERCONNECTIONS BETWEEN art, human imagination and postcolonial critiqu... more THIS ESSAY DISCUSSES THE INTERCONNECTIONS BETWEEN art, human imagination and postcolonial critique in the context of northern Finland. The ‘North’ is conceived here as an imaginative region, a myth, characterized by the stereotypes attached to nature and non-civilization, constructed through various socio-cultural institutions, both in art and science. In the case of Finland, the stereotype of the ‘North’ is a cold, snowy wilderness with reindeer herding Saami people and blazing northern lights. For several centuries, various forms and types of art have functioned in order to mystify, exoticize and legitimize the hegemonic understanding about the ‘North’ as a periphery. However, during recent years several northern artists have started to contest prevailing conceptions and challenge the stereotypes and myths attached to northernness. What follows introduces examples from various forms of northern culture – including literature, design, music, paintings and films – through which the ‘North’ as a myth has been constructed, but also contested.
toim.), Lintukodon rannoilta. Saarikertomukset suomalaisessa kirjallisuudessa. Helsinki, SKS 2016... more toim.), Lintukodon rannoilta. Saarikertomukset suomalaisessa kirjallisuudessa. Helsinki, SKS 2016, 385 s.
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Papers by Juha Ridanpää
region, a myth, characterized by the stereotypes attached to nature and non-civilization, constructed through various socio-cultural institutions, both in art and science. In the case of Finland, the stereotype of the ‘North’ is a cold, snowy wilderness with reindeer herding Saami people and blazing northern lights. For several centuries, various forms and types of art have functioned in order to mystify, exoticize and legitimize the hegemonic understanding about the ‘North’ as a periphery. However, during recent years several northern artists have started to contest prevailing conceptions and challenge the stereotypes and myths attached to northernness. What follows introduces examples from various forms of northern culture – including literature, design, music, paintings and films – through which the ‘North’ as a myth has been constructed, but also contested.
region, a myth, characterized by the stereotypes attached to nature and non-civilization, constructed through various socio-cultural institutions, both in art and science. In the case of Finland, the stereotype of the ‘North’ is a cold, snowy wilderness with reindeer herding Saami people and blazing northern lights. For several centuries, various forms and types of art have functioned in order to mystify, exoticize and legitimize the hegemonic understanding about the ‘North’ as a periphery. However, during recent years several northern artists have started to contest prevailing conceptions and challenge the stereotypes and myths attached to northernness. What follows introduces examples from various forms of northern culture – including literature, design, music, paintings and films – through which the ‘North’ as a myth has been constructed, but also contested.