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Folklore 79
We are happy to introduce the second part of the special edition of Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore, titled “On the Move: Migration and Diasporas”, with Leena Kurvet-Käosaar and Triinu Ojamaa as guest editors. This issue focuses on current methodological advances in the field, in particular on mixed-methods approaches and methods for studying digital diasporas as well as some related conceptual concerns, for example, the re-emergence and critical revision of the concept of cosmopolitanism.
The article by Eva Toulouze and Nikolai Anisimov, “An Ethno-cultural Portrait of a Diaspora in Central Russia: The Formation and Culture of the Eastern Udmurt”, is based on the authors’ ethnographic fieldwork material and focuses on the formation and development of a small diaspora community that has left their original territory. The authors analyse the relationship between diasporic identity and ethnic or vernacular religion, demonstrating how religion can function as an important axis of one’s group identity.
The article by Irina Belobrovtseva, “Seto People in the Expedition Diaries and Literary Works of a Russian Émigré Leonid Zurov”, discusses some of the lesser-known aspects of Russian migration history through an analysis of Zurov’s activities. Belobrovtseva analyses various aspects of Zurov’s mission, arguing that Zurov believed that the Seto preserved the ancient Slavic rites better than Russians.
Aija Sakova and Marin Laak in their article “Situating Oneself within the Estonian Language and World Literature: Ivar Ivask’s Relational Ways of Self-understanding” analyse the creative choices and their influencing factors of Ivar Ivask, a multilingual writer, who felt himself at home in far more than only two cultures. The authors argue that Ivask was a cosmopolitan, and this view largely coincides with his own self-image.
In the article “Literary Biographies without a Fixed Linguistic Abode”, Elina Mikkilä takes under observation migration writers’ language choices and migration literature in its historical development, defining migration literature as “a genre on the move” due to the writers’ nomadic lifestyle. Mikkilä’s article focuses on the literature created by culturally bilingual authors and it has a strong autoethnographic value as Mikkilä herself is one of them.
The article by Kari Korolainen, “Graphic Aspects of Mobility: Folkloristic-Ethnological Drawings as a Starting Point for Discussing Mobility and Borders”, introduces the reader to the folkloristic material collected from the eastern part of Finland and Finnish and Russian Karelia in 1936–1939. Korolainen examines the handwritten texts of ordinary people, which describe an object, activity or situation; the documents also include hand-made drawings. The article contains multi-layered discussions on mobility in the context of folklore, but the author also exemplifies mobility with his own original drawings.
Tanya Matanova’s contribution to the special issue, “German Migrants in Bulgaria and Their Social Networks”, presents the results of a pilot study, the focus of which is on immigrants’ various communication practices. It is an internet-based research of the communication activities in sixteen German-language Facebook groups, complemented by ethnographic interviews.
The issue is complemented by three articles from the editorial board. The article by Anastasiya Fiadotava, “Where the Structural Meets the Personal: Mother-In-Law Humor between a Joke Cycle and Joking Relationships in Belarus”, discusses the status of mother-in-law humour in the context of humorous family communication in contemporary Belarusian families. The humorous communication is represented by widespread canned jokes that portray the wife’s mother as an ill-natured and imperious character, and by personal humorous stories and other personal forms of humorous communication.
Alexey Britvin, Irina Britvina, Liudmila Starostova, and Marc Compte-Pujol in their article “Symbolic Capital as a Resource of Promotion of Provincial Cities: An Analysis of Place Branding Strategies of Ural Urban Destinations” analyse the concept of the symbolic capital of a territory and substantiate the importance of its identification and its use for the promotion of three provincial cities in Russia: Shadrinsk, Chebarkul, and Chelyabinsk. The authors of the article propose to group the resources of the symbolic capital of a territory by using signs or symbols, images of the territory, and archetypes.
Ulrika Wolf-Knuts in her article “’Still, I Can Hardly Believe It’: Reactions, Resources, and Religion in Conversations about Sexual Abuse of Children among Laestadians in Finland“ analyses people’s reactions to a case of paedophilia, presenting three types of narrators – the reluctant accepter, the disappointed accepter, and the explaining accepter – and showing what resources they applied to overcome their frustration.
The articles are followed by an overview of an international scientific colloquium on trauma issues, an overview of a thesis defence, and two book reviews.
The issue is accessible online at http://folklore.ee/folklore/vol79/.
