Network for the Folklore Fellows

FFFF NETWORK FOR THE FOLKLORE FELLOWS No. 27 December 2004 In this issue: Anna-Leena Siikala The many faces of contemporary folklore studies 2 Aili Nenola On power and violence in patriarchal households 3–6 Sinikka Vakimo Gender in Finnish folkloristics – outlines of broadening fields 7–11, 14–19 Recent publications of the Finnish Literature Society 12–13 Reviews by Outi Lehtipuro Karl Reichl 19–23 FF Communications in print 23 A new volume in the FF Communications 24 Publisher: The Folklore Fellows by courtesy of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters The tale of Ivan the Tsar’s Son, the Firebird and the Crey Wolf. Painter: Ivan Bilibin (1899). From a Russian picture book. (Bildarchiv Uther, Göttingen.) www.folklorefellows.fi ISSN 0789-0249 The many faces of contemporary folklore studies by Anna-Leena Siikala, Professor Folklore Fellows Network, Chair The last few decades have finally divorced European without history or community as the only subject of folkloristics from national state projects by focusing folklore research is however as one-sided a starting attention on individuals and small communities point as a narrow state project. Investigation of indi- which produce tradition in their own lives, instead vidual phenomena of tradition and the activity of of on Tradition as a suitable common denominator of preserving them attains significance only when national culture. It is in fact a question of a deep and related to wider social and historical processes. From broadly derived direction in cultural and social re- the point of view of settling the task of folkloristics search, whose representative uniting trends Sherry it is important that many practice-theories setting out B. Ortner has called the orientations of history and from people’s functionality have viewed culture/ practice. A history which in the first place examined community or their institutions as an entity in which state structures and wielders of power, and which the most important forms of activity and exchange was felt to be ossified, was thoroughly renewed in are asymmetrical, of unequal value and subject to the 1980s and 1990s. The history trend in cultural power relationships. research has had an effect on many fronts: time, The trends outlined here have signified an em- process, duration, reproduction, change, development, phasis upon the emancipatory aspect. The right to transformation have been key concepts. Statistical, cultural existence is sought primarily by peripheral- synchronistic analyses have changed over to the ised groups. The gender question, represented in observation of processes, diachronic development Finland by Aili Nenola, Satu Apo and Senni Timonen paths and changes occurring in the course of the among others, has, in this connection, been in the moment. In Nordic folkloristics this is evident in the position of a forerunner and motor. In recent times form of discussions over, for example, folklore pro- age-specific viewpoints have risen to the fore more cesses or transformations of tradition. Even more powerfully than ever. Today’s Finnish folkloristics central has been the examination of oral history, the seeks its object from behind and beyond the struc- consciousness of people’s own history. tures of public society, from orally mediated thoughts Instead of cultural structures and forms of tradi- and experiences. It asks what people’s values and tion, concern with glimpsing the action that pro- beliefs, the communally shared experiences and duces and maintains it, and that also brings about the emotions, are like. Together with other sciences historical processes of culture on both a micro- and which examine cultures and society, folkloristics macro-level, has been essential. In folklore research interprets and lends meaning to the historical stages the important concepts from the point of view of of culture and practices of life of the present moment. practice are praxis, experience and performance and the The gender aspect has opened a channel for a reap- closely related terms self, emotion and subject which praisal of the gathering, recording and interpretation point to the individual at work and his or her mental of tradition. The image of the earlier folk culture has activity. moreover undergone complete revision in recent Most research methods which examine the per- years. This issue of FF Network is devoted to wom- formance, experiences and activity of a person creat- en’s studies. It should be mentioned that in 2004 two ing and producing tradition represent, broadly theses investigating Kalevalaic poetry from a gender speaking, the concept of practice. An individual perspective have been examined and published. - 2 - On power and violence in patriarchal households by Aili Nenola, Professor of Women’s Studies University of Helsinki Prof. Aili Nenola is a specialist on laments and a pioneer words, at least some features of present-day couple in gender research in Finnish folkloristics. She was head relations and family traditions which seem to repro- of the many-faceted Christina Institute for Women’s duce violence in gender relationships can be proved Studies in 1995–2003. At present she is full-time dean of to be a cultural lag from earlier times. By cultural lag the Humanities Faculty of Helsinki University. The fac- I refer to mentalities, notions, attitudes, habits and ulty has 9000 students, and is a site of higher research ways of behaviour which have lived on and been larger than many Finnish universities. transmitted from generation to generation in spite of Aili Nenola was recently elected member of the Finnish the changes in official thinking or laws. In trying to Academy of Science and Letters and of the Folklore Fel- find out how matters were in earlier times I want to lows’ Network executive committee. Amongst her works first look at how people talked about power in rela- are Studies in Ingrian Laments (FFC 234, Helsinki tions between woman and man, husband and wife 1982, 303 pp.) and Inkerin itkuvirret / Ingrian Lam- or other family relations, and especially whether and ents, discussed in this issue of FF Network. The theme of how they talked about conflicts and violence within her most recent research project is violence and folklore. the family. My material consists of both oral and lit- erary sources and what I do in this paper is just to The existence of patriarchy or male dominance is not point out some issues connected with the violence in admitted by many today in Finland – or other Nordic families or couple relationships. countries. We live in an illusory equality paradise for My first point is that research into family laws, women and every problem we raise is met with “but family history and the history of violence in Finland think how good your situation is compared to other and Europe so far seems to say that in Finland as parts of the world” and “you are complaining over elsewhere in Europe the public or official thinking such small matters”. And, of course, that is how it and attitudes about the use of direct force and vio- looks if we compare our situation with countries or lence in human relations, esp. in families, have societies where women are still the property of men changed from acceptance towards non-acceptance and treated as such (but let us not forget that rem- since the sixteenth century, i.e. during the modern nants of this thinking can be detected here, too), or if era, and – under certain conditions – made a crime to we compare the present situation with Finnish or be punished by the state (meaning also that the state Nordic society in so-called pre- or early modern appropriated the use of violence and made it its pri- times when patriarchy and male dominance in fam- vilege only). On the other hand, the outspoken and ily and society were openly recognised as natural or strict male dominance of the Western (esp. Protest- God-ordained. However, one of the big problems ant) family seems to be a product of the same period. Finnish society (along with other societies) faces This has meant that (at least) in Protestant Europe even today is men’s violence towards women. In a there were two processes going on at the same time: statistical survey called “Faith, Hope and Battering” on the one hand men were given the status as the published in 1998 (in English 2001, Statistics Finland) head of the patriarchal (nuclear) family under whose the authors Markku Heiskanen and Minna Piispa power both wife, children and servants were subject- state that 40 per cent of Finnish women have at some ed (as in Luther’s House Rules). On the other, direct point of their adult lives been victims of male phys- force and violence as discipline or punishment in ical or sexual violence or threats – and the violence family or other personal relations were no more re- experienced by women is concentrated in families commended. According to religious and later also and couple relationships. A similar survey done in secular authorities, men were supposed to subjugate Sweden a couple of years later showed the same their wives by the power of their mental superiority kind of results. and authority only and without resorting to the use As a student of culture I cannot be content with of direct force. A man’s right to physically punish his the explanations of gendered violence given by soci- erring wife (right to house discipline, kotikuri) exist- ologists or psychologists alone. I think that the pre- ed, however, in the law since the Middle Ages, and sent situation of and attitudes towards violence was mentioned indirectly again in the 1734 Swedish against women must have some roots in the past, (which was also Finnish) law.

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