Browsing by Subject "memory"

The counterintuitive relationship between Finland/Finnishness and coloniality – traces of colonialism in contemporary society and culture – is an expanding area of academic research. This thesis contributes to the field by reflecting on this relationship with a focus particularly on manifestations of issues of coloniality in public debates on social media. On these platforms, contrasting political groups engage in discursive struggles over the construction of memory and identity narratives. The context of the research is the international wave of protests that started in the summer of 2020, which attracted vast popular attention to racism and inequality, and the colonial power structures lying behind them. The social movements began in North America and expanded to Western Europe, where the history of imperialism and colonization is apparent – but the debate also reached Finland, a country that has, until recently, rarely been associated with questions of colonialism and coloniality. This thesis aims to shed light on Finland’s relationship to coloniality as a periphery-of-the-center space, which retains a share of colonial complicity, but also distinct differences vis-à-vis traditional colonial centers. The approach of the study is interdisciplinary, synthesizing features of postcolonial/decolonial theory, discourse theory and memory studies. The research identifies three of the dimensions in which coloniality is involved in discursive struggles in Finland: acknowledgement, reconciliation, and cosmetic decoloniality. In the research, these dimensions are represented, respectively, by three case studies: the Afrikan tähti boardgame, the public apology by MP Pirkka-Pekka Petelius to the indigenous Sámi people, and the rebranding of traditional consumer products exhibiting stereotypical orientalist names and imagery. Each case study includes an analysis of a social media discussion thread related to it. A central analytical framework is provided by Laclau’s discourse theory applied to populist movements, which emphasizes the convergence of attitudes and values within a group following equivalential logic, and the construction of antagonistic frontiers between different groups. By means of qualitative analysis, the thesis reflects on these processes particularly as they pertain to discursive struggles related to coloniality in Finland on social media, where such polarizing features can be identified. Finland is, in its own way, embedded in coloniality, and issues related to coloniality are an increasingly contentious topic in Finnish public debate. Negotiations and struggles over narrative and identity construction can be seen to follow ideological lines to some extent, but there is plenty of nuance in the re-negotiation of Finnish identity in the comparatively novel context of coloniality. Further, more detailed and broader study of discursive struggles related to coloniality and decoloniality is in order, as these issues become ever more prevalent in Finland.

This thesis explores the role of the history of the Gulag in the contemporary mythology surrounding the Great Patriotic War in the Russian Federation, proposing a semiotic consideration to this phenomenon in Russian memory politics. While mythology has surrounded the Soviet victory in the Second World War since its conclusion, the thesis focuses on its most recent iteration during the Putin regime and briefly into the 2022 Russian war on Ukraine. To look more closely into this vast and amorphous mythology, the author narrows in on the historical considerations on the role of the Gulag during the Great Patriotic War. In particular, the thesis delves into the online materials of the Federal Prison Service (FSIN) published between 2009 and 2022 to evaluate how, through symbols and historical narratives, the Federal Prison Service of Russia weaves itself into the mythology of the Great Patriotic War. Utilizing the Roland Barthes seminal work on mythologies, the thesis concludes that FSIN reproduces previously established signifiers of the Great Patriotic War, drawing upon the war’s ‘matrix of signification.’ FSIN’s historical practices are a part of its relationship to the power centre, both to stake out a historical claim, or ‘place identification’ in the broader history of Russia’s modernization, and to signal loyalty to the centre by amplifying its cornerstone narratives on the Great Patriotic War.

Copper mining has characterized the Keweenaw Peninsula, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, from the 1840s. The industry that lasted in the region over 100 years has been profoundly studied, but the industrial heritage has received less attention. This study is interested in the memory of mining and in the future prospects of locals right after the closure of the mines in 1969. This study is data-driven, using the interviews conducted within the Finnish Folklore and Social Change in the Great Lakes Mining Region Oral History Project by the Finlandia University in 1973-1978. The method is thematic analysis, which is used to identify, analyze and report themes related to talk on the mines, mining, the 1913 Strike, and the future. Two main themes are negative and positive talk. Within negative talk, three sub-themes are identified: insecurity, disappointment and loss. There is more negative talk within the data set, especially because of the 1913 Strike and the Italian Hall Disaster, which were still commonly remembered. In addition, insecurity is present with topics like working conditions, copper mining operations and workers’ organization. The theme of disappointment is most clear in parts where the interviewees are talking about the economic heritage of mining and strikes that were organized after 1913 too. Loss is felt with the dying industry itself, with environmental heritage, but also when discussing the many men who died in the mines. The sub-themes of positive talk are paternalism, comfort and communality. Paternalism is mostly seen positively: the mining companies took care of the people and the communities. Keweenaw was a single-industry area and the interviewees found comfort in having the mines operating, as this was all they had. The theme of communality includes talk on achievements outside the mining shafts. Interestingly, the region was able to maintain a stable, yet smaller population. Education in particular became important, and many interviewees saw hope in the future even without the mines. The themes within future talk respond well with the themes identified within the remembrance of mining. The history of mining in the Copper Country has largely followed the grand narrative of mining sites. This study focuses on what happens after mining activities come to an end, which is always the case with boom-and-burst industries. It brings to the forefront the locals that have been recognized as important actors in mining operations. In a broad meaning, industrial heritage can comprise the experiences, beliefs and attitudes of locals. In this case, the regionality of industrialization, modernity and de-industrialization is clear, and it can be taken as an example of the industrial heritage of mining

This thesis concerns the Polish institution of the dom kultury (house of culture). A dom kultury is an arts centre housing activity ranging from music clubs to film screenings. Under Poland’s state socialist regime, it was envisioned as a space for the implementation of socialist ideals, although such goals were not always realised in practice. Since the end of state socialism, houses of culture have been less defined by such programmatic socialising content; nonetheless they continue to occupy a key part in Poland’s cultural landscape. This thesis explores local people’s memories and perceptions of the institution, tracing the different frameworks people use to make sense of the world around them. It also uses the theoretical frameworks of culture, temporality and postsocialism to explore people’s opinions. The study utilises an oral history methodology, with the source material consisting of ten interviews conducted with inhabitants of one town in Poland, Chodzież. The research builds on the growing interest in narrations of the everyday rather than trauma in the oral history of ex-socialist countries. A thematic analysis of the material was conducted according to the research focus of ideal roles and lived experiences of the house of culture. Remote methods had to be adopted due to the ongoing pandemic, which impacted on the data collection process by slowing down participant recruitment, while also enabling greater flexibility in the research process. The first main finding of the study pertains to the role played by the house of culture over time. While the dispersion of cultural activity since socialism means that it no longer provides the novelty that it once did, the house of culture plays a growing role in the community in accommodating local organisations’ activity. Secondly, the study found that while reference to socialism has its place in people’s narrations of the past, it is not necessarily the dominant framework, with reminiscences about individual life biographies intersecting with macro-level periodisations. Finally, the importance of the local community that houses of culture are situated in was underscored in participant’s narrations, surfacing in the themes of cultural loyalty and rivalry. The study supports the findings in previous studies of houses of culture concerning the normative ideal of culture. Discussions surrounding cultural authenticity defined perceptions about degrees to which culture is performed ‘correctly’, whether it concerns the institution’s role as provider or people’s role as consumers (and co-creators). Even for those who engage with the institution sporadically, it remains an important part of the Polish cultural landscape, providing locals with access to artistic culture and beyond. This underscores the main theme that runs throughout the findings, concerning the interplay between importance for the individual and the collective.

Memory has become one of the most vibrant areas of research within the field of media studies. Due to the technological advancements of the past two decades, our media consumption has developed globally. Collective memory and media memory scholars argue that our memories are increasingly influenced by media as well as our surrounding social groups. This study focuses on the media memories of the Lebanese diaspora in North America concerning two significant Lebanese political events. The main research questions are: What do the Lebanese living in North America remember about the two events? What is the role of media in the way they remember the events? This thesis also explores two sub-research questions: How do the participants’ social groups influence the way the individuals remember the events? How does their media consumption affect their memories? The data for this study was collected through semi-structured interviews with participants from two different age groups in the Lebanese diaspora in North America. The data was analyzed with thematic analysis, and the findings showed that participants remembered very specific details about the events from what they remembered seeing on the TV news. There were some noticeable differences between the memories of the two age groups. This could be contributed to the fact that for the younger participants, their families and other social groups affected their memories of the events. This pointed in the direction that their memories were influenced by the traumatic significance of these events for their social groups. There were types of memories evident throughout the analysis, which were categorized under the concepts of postmemory and flashbulb memories. Essentially, these memories also had influences rooted in social groups and/or media sources for the participants.

Schizophrenia (SZ) is a neurodevelopmental psychiatric disorder with high heritability. Patients with SZ commonly suffer from sleep problems of different types, some of them with potential underlying abnormalities in sleep oscillations. These changes in sleep are usually accompanied by deficits in cognitive performance. However, the relationship between sleep, cognitive performance and genetic risk factors are not well known in SZ. In this study, patients were selected from a nation-wide SUPER -cohort. Sleep and circadian rhythm of patients with SZ (n = 26) and age-matched healthy controls (n = 11) were followed for a week with actigraphy and sleep diary, combined with word-pair -memory task and polysomnography at the end of the week. The results showed that patients spend more time in lighter sleep and awake during the night than controls. As expected, patients had impaired sleep spindle density compared to controls. Additionally, patient had worse overnight memory consolidation. However, sleep spindle density was not associated with memory performance. Lastly, polygenic risk score (PRS) for long sleep, but not PRS for SZ, predicted lower spindle density in patients, which could be indirect evidence for deviated neurophysiological processes of sleep behind the observed deviations in EEG oscillations among the patients. These results show that, as compared to controls, patients with SZ demonstrate abnormalities in their sleep, which can be seen both in macro- and microstructures of sleep. Further analyses of the interplay between sleep oscillations and genetic risk factors are likely needed to link sleep problems with overnight memory consolidation.

Objectives: The mismatch negativity (MMN) is a component of event-related potential reflecting a process where violations of regularities in auditory input are detected pre-attentively. In commonly used oddball- paradigm a repetitive standard stimulus is infrequently replaced by a deviant stimulus. Auditory deviance elicits MMN even in the absence of focused attention to stimuli. Automaticity of the MMN process has been an object of controversy due to limitations in methods used in most studies. Object of this study was to examine if potential attentional effects (suppression / enhancement) on MMN are similar or different to auditory stimuli violating regularities either physically or abstractly. Another goal was to examine if commonly used video-watching task can sufficiently keep attention directed away from the stimuli. Methods: Auditory stimuli was presented in an oddball paradigm. In physical stimuli blocks the deviant stimuli were higher in frequency compared to that of the standards. In abstract stimuli blocks the standard stimuli were tone pairs ascending in frequency, and deviant stimuli were descending tone pairs. Direction of attention was modulated by three conditions where subject’s task was to a) play a computer game (Tetris) b) watch a silent movie or c) focus on listening the stimuli and press a button to softer target deviants. Physical and abstract stimuli blocks were presented in each condition. Results: Both physical and abstract deviants elicited significant MMN in all three conditions. Direction of attention modulated by different tasks didn’t have a significant effect on amplitude of MMN elicited by physical and abstract deviants. Attention didn’t have any different effect on MMN regardless if it was elicited by stimuli violating regularities either physically or abstractly. Conclusions: The results of this study support the interpretation of MMN reflecting an automatic, attention- independent process where violations of regularities in auditory input are detected. Watching a silent movie seemed to sufficiently direct attention away from stimuli. Therefore video condition can be used as a primary task in future studies as well. Sometimes using a computer game similar to Tetris can be preferable since it might better uphold the arousal level of the subject.

Language impairments affect the development of children’s communication skills. Early identification of children that may later face a diagnosis of language disorder is challenging, but early language development is a good indicator of later language skills. The fundamental structures of language are typically mastered by the age of five. Memory skills, which are essential for language development, are also well developed in five-year-old children. Pre-reading skills, such as rapid automatized naming and letter knowledge, develop throughout childhood and have been linked to concurrent language skills. There is, however, little knowledge regarding early development of pre-reading skills in children under the age of five. In this longitudinal study, the relationship between early pre-reading skills at ages 3;6 and 5;0 and language and memory skills at age 5;0 is studied. By increasing the knowledge regarding the development of and the relationship between early pre-reading and language skills more sensitive methods to identify children at risk for language impairment may be developed. In this study, the LUKIVA-test, a method for assessing early pre-reading skills in preschool children, was used. In addition, the language and memory domains of the Five to Fifteen-questionnaire, a parental questionnaire evaluating the development and behavior of 5–15-year-old children, was used. The LUKIVA-test was administered at ages 3;6 and 5;0, the Five to Fifteen-questionnaire filled out when the children were 5;0-years old. The study sample included 40 Finnish-speaking children. This study showed, that age 3;6 and 5;0 LUKIVA-test variables correlated significantly with each other and with age 5;0 language skills. It was also shown, that pre-reading skills at age 3;6, together with gender and maternal education, explain 17% of the variability in language skills at age 5;0. Pre-reading skills in 3;6-year-old children may thus yield important information regarding future language development. In addition, memory skills (sri2 = 43%) markedly added to the explanation of age 5;0 language skills by concurrent pre-reading skills (sri2 = 28%). Pre-reading skills may possibly be used to identify children with weak language skills, whose language development may benefit from additional support.