Nordic Perspectives on Encountering Foreignness

Histories 1 NORDIC PERSPECTIVES ON ENCOUNTERING FOREIGNNESS Edited by Anne Folke Henningsen, Leila Koivunen and Taina Syrjämaa NORDIC PERSPECTIVES ON ENCOUNTERING FOREIGNNESS Edited by Anne Folke Henningsen, Leila Koivunen and Taina Syrjämaa Histories 1 General History University of Turku © 2009 authors Printed by Wasa Graphics Oy, Vaasa Layout: Akseli Salmi English proof reading: Robert Collis Cover image: The Indian Village at Copenhagen Zoo 1901. Archives of the Zoological Garden, Copenhagen. ISBN 978-951-29-4161-2 (print) ISBN 978-951-29-4162-9 (PDF) Histories 1 General History, University of Turku ISSN 1798-6508 Introduction 7 Christina Folke Ax The Stranger You Know: Icelandic Perceptions of Danes in the Twentieth Century 13 Taina Syrjämaa Making Difference, Seeking Sameness Negotiating Finnishness and Foreignness in an Exhibition 27 Leila Koivunen Exemplary Foreignness Foreign Material Cultures in the Service of Finnish Taste and Industry in the 1870s 41 Anne Folke Henningsen Producing and Consuming Foreignness “Anthropological-Zoological Exhibitions” in Copenhagen 55 Dag Hundstad Foreign or Homegrown? The Creation of Coastal Leisure Culture in the South of Norway 71 Laura Boxberg At the Crossroads of Finnishness and Foreignness Finnish Participation in the Venice Biennale in 1954 and 1956 89 Íris Ellenberger Somewhere Between “Self” and “Other” Colonialism in Icelandic Historical Research 99 List of Authors 115 conception, the idea of attachment to that which is Introduction abroad. We see foreignness as a subcategory of the more generic and widely used concept of otherness. Our approach is in many ways based on earlier studies on otherness; yet as a more restricted concept “foreignness” can help to explore cultural processes from a new angle. Our research will contribute to The foreign can be revered, produced, reproduced, deconstructing the dichotomy of foreign versus in- submerged, feared or suppressed, but it has never digenous by showing the subjectivity of foreignness failed to engage one way or the other. In this vol- and its liability to shifting meanings. ume, a multidisciplinary research network Enfore In this volume we will experiment by elaborat- (Encountering Foreignness – Nordic Perspectives ing the concept of foreignness and adapting it to a since the Eighteenth Century) will focus on the cul- series of Nordic case studies. By focusing on Nordic tural dynamics of “foreignness”. We will explore the experiences of foreignness we want to contribute complex phenomenon of the continuous negotia- to a more nuanced understanding of the complex tion between “ours” and “theirs” and the making of phenomenon of cultural interaction that took place “our” place in the context of the wider world. We are during the age of imperialism and nationalism. The using the concept of foreignness as an analytical theoretical framework of colonialism and globaliza- tool for making visible this heterogeneous, variable tion has been developed to explain cultural interac- and diverse phenomenon. tion from the perspective of the main colonizers, Foreignness is a relatively new concept, used and has subsequently been questioned and remod- only occasionally in disparate manners. For us for- eled from the perspective of the formerly colonized eignness is essentially an imagined quality, some- peoples. In this debate, the Nordic countries have thing which is considered to be related with that remained somewhat marginal. Only recently has which is abroad. It can be actively produced in order an interest awoken in Scandinavia to assess its role to be consumed or exhibited, or to be kept at a dis- in these global processes. Its apparent detachment tance. Foreignness can also be strategically claimed from the mainstream of imperialism and colonial- or actively dissolved as a significant element of ism actually transpires to be a complicated entan- identities. It can coincide with a physical, “real”, glement of participation, (re)appropriation and connection with foreign countries, but it may also agency. exist separate of any such link. What matters is the Introduction - 7 We wish to study the much-debated questions in which all participants worked together to elabo- of cultural interaction from the semi-peripheral po- rate the key concept of foreignness. This working sition of the Nordic countries. The Nordic countries, method has proved very efficient in developing which share many cultural aspects, but are not a and deepening ideas. Different research cases and monolithic entity, serve as a fruitful basis for analyz- scholarly perspectives represented in the group ing such phenomena. Firstly, by analyzing foreign- have been of crucial help in grasping the nuanced, ness as an element of national identity we will make multifaceted nature of foreignness, which otherwise visible the heterogeneity of the apparently homo- easily eludes analysis. The working papers published geneous Nordic nation states. Secondly, by drawing in this volume are the result of these considerations on our findings within the Nordic context, we wish and discussions. to contribute to an understanding of the general The core group of the network consists of six- processional and dynamic character of foreignness teen historians, anthropologists and ethnologists and of the relationship between metropolitan cen- from all five Nordic countries and at various stages ters and peripheral areas elsewhere in Europe and in of their academic careers. In addition to the Nordic the wider world. members, the network has had the pleasure of invit- Our co-operation as a network dates back to ing prominent keynote speakers. Professors Annie E. 2006, when the founding members of the group Coombes, Benjamin Schmidt and Amanda Vickery prepared a joint full-day session entitled “Encoun- have very generously shared their expertise and tering Foreign Worlds – Experiences at Home and ideas with the group. The time span covered in the Abroad” for the 26th Nordic Congress of Historians research of members stretches from the early mod- in Reykjavik. The conference took place in August ern period up to the present day and the research 2007 and the proceedings of the session were pub- topics touch manifold fields, from missionary work, lished in the same year.1 The funding received from exhibitions and international tourism to port towns, the NOS-HS, Joint Committee for Nordic Research minorities, immigration and consumer culture. For- Councils for the Humanities and Social Sciences, eignness is studied as a phenomenon that is encoun- made it possible to have a series of further meet- tered and experienced both at home and abroad. In ings and discussions with an extended group in the their studies, the participants use theoretical and form of three exploratory workshops, which were methodological approaches derived from their own organized during 2008 and 2009 at the University disciplines, as well as from other fields, such as mu- of Turku in Finland. The format of the workshop se- seum and tourism studies, humanistic geography, ries has facilitated deep and intensive co-operation, art history and post-colonial studies. There is also a 8 strong interest among the members in the history and influence of foreign worlds at home as experi- of senses, performance studies, gender studies and enced in the form of flavours, food stuff, advertising, material culture studies. popular culture, museum collections and touristic Foreignness is not an established research con- themes.6 The practices of constructing and main- cept but the term has occasionally been used in taining the home in foreign environments have also previous studies of various disciplines – albeit often been studied, as well as the responses of local peo- without exact definitions. In a recent article on Brit- ple to the presence of foreigners.7 In addition, group ish culinary practices and the assimilation of other members have focused on the manners and mecha- cuisines into the traditional diet, for example, Delia nisms of representing things that are considered Chiaro discusses foreignness as manifested by exot- foreign.8 Particular attention has also been given to ic foods.2 The concept has also been used in the con- mission studies, and the ways in which ideas about text of consumer culture, for instance to refer to the foreignness, difference, and sameness have been allure and impact of imported goods.3 What is more, employed in missionary encounters.9 the assumed foreignness of international avant- This anthology consists of seven articles written garde movements – as seen from the perspective by members of the research network, thus present- of national artistic circles – has been studied.4 The ing the work of approximately half the participants term foreignness has also been used by Yael Ben-Zvi in the workshops. The topics under examination in analyzing eighteenth-century Native American cover a broad scope with a great variety in terms captivity narratives and their construction of a sense of time period, geographical location and analytic of being foreign within the broader culture of the strategies. A feature running through the volume is United States.5 Besides these specific examples, the the un-fixed character of foreignness, which all the topic of foreignness has been approached in recent articles address, along with the mobile and nego- decades in a number of other studies, without being tiable aspects of the concept. Likewise, its produc- articulated with this precise concept. Many inspir- tive qualities, in

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