Constructions of nation, family and gender
The article investigates the collective nature of stories of war and the constructions of nationality embedded in these narratives. The material comes from a larger study, `Gender and Nationality in the Finnish Language Secondary School', and consists of 17 life stories of women who studied in...
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Language: | English |
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468796803003001787 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1468796803003001787 |
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crsagepubl:10.1177/1468796803003001787 2023-05-15T17:00:12+02:00 Constructions of nation, family and gender Collective narratives of war by evacuated Karelians Komulainen, Katri 2003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468796803003001787 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1468796803003001787 en eng SAGE Publications http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license Ethnicities volume 3, issue 1, page 59-83 ISSN 1468-7968 1741-2706 Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) Cultural Studies journal-article 2003 crsagepubl https://doi.org/10.1177/1468796803003001787 2022-04-14T04:38:43Z The article investigates the collective nature of stories of war and the constructions of nationality embedded in these narratives. The material comes from a larger study, `Gender and Nationality in the Finnish Language Secondary School', and consists of 17 life stories of women who studied in secondary school in eastern Finland between 1927 and 1970. For the women, nationality — being a Finn — appears as a self-evident context of living, but stories about Karelia and the war form a theme with the help of which the banal nature of nationality is put to question. Narratives about the war are thus a part of the collective living tradition through which belonging to a (national) community can be constructed. What is crucial, however, is that the women use the concept of the family to reflect on their sense of belonging to a national community. The narrators equate Finns or Karelians with the extended family, a unit based both on familiar sentiments, such as loyalty, and hierarchies of gender and age. The article consequently examines two intertwined themes: 1) the collective nature of stories by Karelian evacuees, of whom there were about 420,000 after the wars between Finland and the Soviet Union in 1939—40 and 1941—44; and 2) the construction of abstract nationality with the help of the image of the family and the gendered construction of family loyalty. The article explores how the boundaries of nationality and the integrity of the community are conveyed and constructed by the metaphors of kinship, family and gender. Article in Journal/Newspaper karelia* karelian karelians SAGE Publications (via Crossref) Finn ENVELOPE(12.739,12.739,65.935,65.935) Ethnicities 3 1 59 83 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
SAGE Publications (via Crossref) |
op_collection_id |
crsagepubl |
language |
English |
topic |
Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) Cultural Studies |
spellingShingle |
Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) Cultural Studies Komulainen, Katri Constructions of nation, family and gender |
topic_facet |
Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) Cultural Studies |
description |
The article investigates the collective nature of stories of war and the constructions of nationality embedded in these narratives. The material comes from a larger study, `Gender and Nationality in the Finnish Language Secondary School', and consists of 17 life stories of women who studied in secondary school in eastern Finland between 1927 and 1970. For the women, nationality — being a Finn — appears as a self-evident context of living, but stories about Karelia and the war form a theme with the help of which the banal nature of nationality is put to question. Narratives about the war are thus a part of the collective living tradition through which belonging to a (national) community can be constructed. What is crucial, however, is that the women use the concept of the family to reflect on their sense of belonging to a national community. The narrators equate Finns or Karelians with the extended family, a unit based both on familiar sentiments, such as loyalty, and hierarchies of gender and age. The article consequently examines two intertwined themes: 1) the collective nature of stories by Karelian evacuees, of whom there were about 420,000 after the wars between Finland and the Soviet Union in 1939—40 and 1941—44; and 2) the construction of abstract nationality with the help of the image of the family and the gendered construction of family loyalty. The article explores how the boundaries of nationality and the integrity of the community are conveyed and constructed by the metaphors of kinship, family and gender. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Komulainen, Katri |
author_facet |
Komulainen, Katri |
author_sort |
Komulainen, Katri |
title |
Constructions of nation, family and gender |
title_short |
Constructions of nation, family and gender |
title_full |
Constructions of nation, family and gender |
title_fullStr |
Constructions of nation, family and gender |
title_full_unstemmed |
Constructions of nation, family and gender |
title_sort |
constructions of nation, family and gender |
publisher |
SAGE Publications |
publishDate |
2003 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468796803003001787 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1468796803003001787 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(12.739,12.739,65.935,65.935) |
geographic |
Finn |
geographic_facet |
Finn |
genre |
karelia* karelian karelians |
genre_facet |
karelia* karelian karelians |
op_source |
Ethnicities volume 3, issue 1, page 59-83 ISSN 1468-7968 1741-2706 |
op_rights |
http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1468796803003001787 |
container_title |
Ethnicities |
container_volume |
3 |
container_issue |
1 |
container_start_page |
59 |
op_container_end_page |
83 |
_version_ |
1766052826206699520 |