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This article examines a series of unsettling images from the Finnish Continuation War (1941–1944) and the memories of the war that these photographs construct for contemporary Finns. We argue that these images can be viewed through Alison Landsberg's (2004) notion of 'prosthetic memory', which underlines how visual media enable the acquisition of vivid memories of past events. The paper outlines how these long-ignored photographs narrate unexamined dimensions of World War II in ways that transform how Finns in particular remember the war. The images illustrate a neglected Finnish occupation of Soviet territories and the treatment of Russian civilians under Finnish rule. We argue that the images can provoke empathy for their experiences and therefor challenge traditional and nationalist Finnish war interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Finland, the vocational education and training (VET) qualifications lead into work. Also, active citizenship is one of its aims, and qualification enables application to tertiary study. In terms of these aims, literacies are central. In the context of competency-based VET, we analyse how a curriculum of literacy is realized during literacy lessons. The theoretical background lies on sociocultural understanding of literacies as social practices, and this article discusses the school subject of literacy representing theoretical knowledge in competency-based education. Methodologically, the paper draws from feminist ethnography, and the analysis focuses on examining language use in recurring classroom events. We analyse ethnographic data from the literacy lessons for the car mechanics and building construction programmes (2018–2020). These are programmes with an overrepresentation of male and working-class-based youth. The analysis highlights that during the lessons, the value of literacy manifested as market-oriented and work-relevant 'usefulness', and the literacy curriculum was realized as delimited to labour contexts and topics. There was an imperative of motivation for conducting literacy schoolwork which draws on stereotyped notions of students who are seen as not interested in literacy but in longing to labour. Based on this analysis, the literacy curriculum was realized as 'literacy for labour'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the experiential reality surrounding the Divine Liturgy, a Byzantine rite in Orthodox Christianity that has remained central to Eastern practice globally since Late Antiquity. The article draws on multi-sited ethnography in the glocal context of the Orthodox Church of Finland (OCF), a national church of minority and a site of multicultural interaction. Our analysis shows participants articulate their experiences with the Liturgy in an epistemology of interiority by which (1) they constantly, if unevenly, and agentically engage with the Liturgy in a form of individual, vernacular artistry. This interiority is (2) both sensorial and interpretative, and (3) ambivalently grounded in motifs of being "at home" and, at the same time, "on a journey." That is, participants from different backgrounds make a connection to the Liturgy both as a spiritual and a literal home, relating to different elements—Finnish, Karelian, Byzantine, and Church Slavonic—in its ritualistic aesthetics. At the same time, Liturgy emerges as a perpetual journey of new openings and glimpses, informed by past experiences and life trajectories, and participants relate to these two aspects simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Nordic Institute of Folklore, internationally well known by its abbreviation NIF, left a lasting imprint on the history of Nordic and international folkloristics despite its relatively short operation period of less than four decades. The present article, first in a series of forthcoming articles on NIF, examines Lauri Honko's directorship in the 1970s and 1980s and focuses on the changing of the institute's field of operation from folkloristics to 'tradition science'. The term 'tradition science' (traditionsvetenskap in Swedish, perinnetiede in Finnish) was never clearly defined in NIF, but was used – and it has continued to be used in folkloristics and ethnology in Finland – in three meanings: an approximate synonym for folkloristics, a joint term for folkloristics and ethnology, and (in plural) an umbrella term for an unspecified number of fields in the study of history, vernacular religion, and culture. The possible earlier history of the term is beyond the scope of this research, but there are indications that the term came into use in both Finnish-language and Swedish-language folklore research in the early 1970s, while the similar term 'tradition research' (traditionsforskning in Swedish, perinteentutkimus in Finnish) has a longer history. The term 'tradition science' was adopted into NIF's statutes around the same time as the Nordic Council of Ministers – through which the inter-governmental funding of NIF was administered – initiated the expansion of NIF's profile to cover folk culture "in its entirety", suggesting specifically the extension of NIF's field of operation to include ethnology. Whether NIF implemented this expansion or not, and to what extent, is a matter of debate, and the topic of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a synthesis of two PhD studies of Support Family Intervention (SFI) in Finland. This is a service in which volunteer families provide support and respite care to children and parents who are coping with a range of psycho-social challenges by looking after the children for one weekend a month. The aim of this article is to develop a child-centred programme theory (CCPT) of SFI that combines a meta-ethnography-based theory underpinning the use of SFI with evidence of participating children's lived experiences. The CCPT that emerged is grounded on three elaborations of the programme theory currently informing SFI: a more nuanced description of the child as a stakeholder in the intervention, an investigation into the supportive properties of the environment and the activities provided by the support family to the child and clarification of the function of relationships as a central element of the intervention. Plain language summary: Support Family Intervention is a social work service provided to children and parents in Finland and other Nordic countries. The child receives a voluntary 'extra' family whom they visit on a regular basis one weekend every month. At the same time, the parents get time for recovery and rest. In this article we present the results of two doctoral theses. Our focus is on how the support family can be understood from the child's point of view. We summarise our results in a programme theory that can be used, for example, when the social worker introduces the service to the family. For the child, the home, the support family and the surroundings provide opportunities for many activities. The most important element is the relationship(s) to which the child gets access in the support family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To better understand current conflicts related to human–wolf interactions in Finland, this article undertakes a longue‐durée examination of societal structural transformations and how they have influenced ways of relating to nature in the country. Through a world‐ecological perspective, we weave together a historical review and results of ethnographic fieldwork to explain how and why human–wolf relations in Finland transformed from indifferent coexistence to purposeful eradication in the late 19th century and ultimately to contemporary contested protection. We argue that the nature‐making capacities of capitalist development are an integral part of the historical circumstances that led to the eradication of wolves, which was not only the result of animosity towards wolves but also fuelled by the interests of elite hunters. The resulting negative perceptions, coupled with changes in practices and landscapes during the wolf‐less era, are central in current contestations, illustrating the deep ideological, emotional, and practical nature relations that capitalism creates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]