VOLUME 26, 1-2009

 

Editorial

 

Aspects of the Contruction of Prehistoric Stállo-Foundations and Stállo-Buildings

Lars Liedgren & Ingela Bergman

The so-called stállo-foundations are the most prominent ancient monuments in the mountain areas of Sweden. On the basis of archaeological, historical and ethnological evidence, this paper discusses the type of construction likely to be associated with stállo-foundations dating to the Viking Age. It is argued, in contrast to most accepted ideas, tha the stállo-foundations represents the remains of permanent hut dwellings. It is suggested that these huts were built from mountain birch and birch bark, on a bow-pole framework. The surrounding embankments and sunken floors, typical features of the foundations, allowed the construction of low-angled ceilings. This structural design would have enabled the buildings to withstand strong winds and the weight of lying snow, as well as increasing heat retention. In contrast to previous suggestions, that the stállo-sites were inhabited during the summer, we suggest that they were used during the winter. We also suggest that the stállo-foundations represent a system of reindeer herding in which the mountain ridges in the west and areas in Norway were used throughout the year. Key Words: Stállo-foundation, Reconstructed building, Sami, Viking Age, Alpine area

Roadlessness and the Person: Modes of Travel in the Reindeer Herding Part of the Kola Peninsula

Yulian Konstantinov

The article brings into focus the existing state of roadlessness in the reindeer herding part of the Kola Peninsula and the ways in which the local community relates to this feature of the environment. Two primary modes of travel are contrasted: Mechanized travel by snowmobiles and all-purpose-track vehicles, on the one hand, and reindeer-drawn sleds on the other. These are related to constrasting perspectives on engaging with the tundra environment: As overcoming an alien and menacing terrain in contrast to accommodating in a place to which one belongs. The influences of a surrounding urban environment, characterized by a post-WW2 period of intensive labour migration, are seen as making the mater-trope of "overcoming" the increasingly dominant one. Personhood, constituted on such a basis, is seen to reflect global influences in the local scene. It is concluded that such influences are motivated rather than deterred by a state of roadlessness, thereby highlighting the subtlety of relations between global forces and local outcomes.

Key Words: Travel, Personhood, Reindeer pastoralism, Snowmobiles, Kola Peninsula

 

Explorer's Bodies in Arctic Mediascapes: Celebrating the Return of the Austro-Hungarian Polar Expedition in 1874

Johan Schimanski & Ulrike Spring

The article investigates the welcoming receptions held on the return of the Austro-Hungarian Polar Expedition (1872-1874) as a part of a Scandinavian and Central European discourse of the Arctic and the Arctic exploration. Also called the Payer-Weyprect or Tegetthoff Expedition, it was subjected to a long series of such public celebrations on its way home to Austria-Hungary via Norway, Sweden and Germany. Wgile our access to these celebrations is through written sources as newspaper reports, the celebrations themselves are here seen as constituting a dicourse primarily made up of performative and material elements. This discource is formed by values such as heroism, national identities, local identities, class and gender, and is regulated by the mediascape of the time, which gives a central role to the explorers' bodies. The article focuses on welcoming receptions in Bergen and in Vienna. Differences between dominant topoi such as those of science and gendered attraction in Bergen and those of spectacular simularca and exhaustion in Vienna can be ascribed to a combination of factors, but especially to the differences in the development of mass culture in the two contexts.

Key Words: Arctic explorers, Bodies, Spectacles, Festivities, Media history, Arctic discourses

 

Tracks that Matter: On Space, Place and Hare Indian Ethnobiology with special reference to the Marten (Martes americana)

Harald Beyer Broch

The empirical settings and context for this contribution is the Hare Indian land in the Northwest Territories in Canada. The author opposes a purely taxonomic approach to ethnobiology. The main focus id on the Hare Indian trapper's knowledge about prey animals, most notably the marten. This knowledge is based on experiences involving both practical and emotional engagement as well as narrative communication. It is argued that this knowledge is converted to actual trapping strategies. The same knowledge also has implications for identity management, because it is regarded as a prerequsite in order to feel at home in an Hare Indian Space, and it is also linked to how places are invested with emotion. Thus the trappers' behavior and action is not only invested with, but also motivated by, emotion. Based on empirical information, it is suggested that feelings about the nature of nature and what it contains are generated by how associations are tied to clusters of significant observations and ideas.

Key Words: Hare Indians, Trapping, Meaning, Knowledge, Perception of the environment, Emotions

 

Effecting Equality: Norwegian Health Policy in Finnmark, 1945-70s

Teemu Ryymin & Astri Andresen

At the heart of "the Nordic model of Welfare" is a strong will for national integration and social equality between citizens and regions. It is commonly held that "ethnic homogeneity" is one explanatory factor behind the Nordic model of welfare. On the contrary, we claim that it is the political will to treat the population as homogeneous that influenced the creation of the model, not any factual ethnic homogeneity (which is, after all, a historical fiction, also in the Nordic context). Thus, the pursuit of integration and the strive for regional equality have challenged local autonomy and cultural diversity while at the same time underpinned arguments for a regionalization of politics and, to some extent, for ethnic particularization. Drawn between a strong state and local authority, universialism and particularization, welfare and health policies have reshaped the relationship between center and peripheries and between the majority and ethnic minorites.

The integration of the county of Finnmark into the national system of institutionalized welfare in Norway after World War II constitutes a good case to investigate not only will, but also the ability, for national integration and equalization along the dimensions of centre-periphery and majority-minority relations, not only because of the country's position furthest to the north, but also because it held the largest minority populations. This articles examines Norwegian policies to establish and effect equality between Finnmark and other regions in the field of health care facilities from 1945 until the 1970s, and the attempts to establish equal access to health services between Sámi minority and the Norwegian majority population in Finnmark. It sheds light upon how immanent conflict between the ideals of a national, universal welfare policy and particular measures in favor of the Sámi was conceived in the period. (The authors expected multi-culturality to be clearly visible in the sources. It was, but only with regard to one minority group, the Sámi. The Kvens were not discussed by the policy-makers in the period). Furthermore, it has been argued that in the shaping and implementation of Norwegian health policies in the first years after World War II, primacy was given to expert knowledge. A particular point of interest in this article is to show this primacy manifested itself in the choices of political strategies of universialism and particularism within the field of health policy in this particular geographical setting.

Key Words: Norway, Sami, Hospitals, Higher education, Minority policy, Welfare

 

Book Review