Fences, Neighbours and Greener Grass : The sense of border(s) in Pykeijä

• Main Author: Kanniainen-Anttila, Piia
• Other Authors: Helsingin yliopisto, Valtiotieteellinen tiedekunta, Sosiaalitieteiden laitos, University of Helsinki, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Social Research, Helsingfors universitet, Statsvetenskapliga fakulteten, Institutionen för socialvetenskaper
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Helsingin yliopisto 2018
• Subjects: Kvens; Pykeijä; Bugøynes; Anthropology; Anthropology of borders; Border; State borders; Norwegian-Russian border; Norwegian-Finnish border; Border land; Border region; Border people; Border logic; Border tourism; European borders; Finnmark; Ethnography; Fieldwork; borderness; Sosiaali- ja kulttuuriantropologia; Social and Cultural Anthropology; Social- och kulturantropologi
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10138/235927

Tiivistelmä – Referat – Abstract This study aims to ”sense the sense of border(s) in Pykeijä”, a small fishery on the northeast boundary of Europe, through exploring how its inhabitants experience, narrate, confront, and sense the Norwegian-Russian and Norwegian-Finnish borders lying nearby their village. This work thus, contributes to the anthropology of borders in seeking to unravel the processual character of the idea of a border and to enhance the conceptual reflections about the symbolic functions and material impacts of borders on the everyday lives of the people living near and across them. Borders are understood here as parts of the wider historical, cultural, political, and epistemological entirety unfolding on a given border land at any given time. Thus, the development of Pykeijän sense of border(s) is followed through three distinct border logics, dominating the life on the border land in succession from the mid-19th century onwards. The Imperial border logic allowed for the current Pykeijän’s Finnish ancestors to move across the northern periphery and to settle on the cape of Pykeijä. The National border logic placed Pykeijäns under the intense Norwegianization policy, by which the forming Norwegian state strived to achieve a homogenous nation within its borders. In conclusion, Pykeijäns are also presented as people whose history is so inalienably entwined with the emergence and development of the nearby borders, that they could indicate if there was something happening with the border logics again – as is widely suggested across border studies. Methodologically this study adheres to the anthropology of borders, which emphasizes the importance of time-consuming fieldwork amongst border people and delving into their experiences and understandings. The data was gathered during three months of fieldwork in Pykeijä in summer 2017. It consists of 56 interviews with 39 Pykeijäns, as well as the understandings attained through extensive participant observation of the everyday life in Pykeijä. This data is ...