Browsing by Subject "place"

This thesis examines the sociality between mushroom pickers and mushrooms in the Greater Helsinki region of Southern Finland. The focus of the thesis is on interspecies social relations and interaction, and there is an emphasis on the role of place in the material mediation of these relationships. Examining these relationships, a discussion then follows about whether these observations are enough to suggest a “mushroom personhood” in the cultural thought of mushroom enthusiasts. The thesis endeavors to further the understanding of the social interconnections of different lifeforms by examining how mushroomers and mushrooms engage with each other as well as their surroundings in the forest. The thesis is positioned within current debates over the possible causes and fixes for the global environmental crisis. The aim of the thesis is to shed light on the importance of context in mediating relationships between humans and other-than-humans, as well as to consider whether this interspecies sociality might have implications on understandings of personhood in the West. Fungi are a distinct kingdom of organisms, which include mushrooms. In this thesis, the term “mushroom” is used to refer to the visible fruiting bodies of a larger subterranean organism called the mycelium. Mushrooms are picked for sale, consumption, and various other purposes in many countries, and mushroom picking is a common hobby in Finland. The ethnographic data for this thesis was gathered through fieldwork among recreational mushroomers from the Greater Helsinki region over the period of two autumns in 2019 and 2020. This fieldwork comprised of participant observation with sixteen mushroom enthusiasts, supplemented by four recorded unstructured interviews. The ethnographic focus of the thesis is on how humans who engage in mushroom picking express their knowledge of the connections between different lifeforms, and how things like emotion, memory and experience inform their movement and decision-making in the forest. There is a special emphasis on how mushroomers speak about and to mushrooms, and how they describe their appearance and behavior. The primary theoretical framework for the thesis builds on Tim Ingold’s work in environmental anthropology, with a focus on the notion of dwelling. The dwelling perspective is employed to gain a comprehensive understanding of the interconnectedness of different lifeforms within their material environments. Special consideration is given to how the concept of “place” is created by—and conversely mediates—human–mushroom relationships. In this thesis, place is seen as a temporal concept fundamentally emergent in practice, created by an interplay of human and other-than-human activity in a material environment over time. The ethnographic evidence presented in this thesis points to significant sociality, respect, personification, and care between human mushroom pickers and mushrooms. Examples of such sociality range from the use of respectful and caring language in describing mushrooms, to directly speaking to the mushrooms themselves. Furthermore, the ethnographic data include examples of how mushroom pickers perceive mushroom behavior, appearance, and intentionality, and commonly use anthropomorphic language to describe them. The question of other-than-human personhood is discussed in relation to these observations, and the thesis suggests that mushrooms may indeed be considered relational persons within these highly social contexts. Sociality between humans and other species is often overlooked in research on Western societies, especially when it comes to fungi and other non-animals. The thesis presents an example of an attentive and respectful relationship between humans and other lifeforms within a contemporary Western sociocultural context and is thus positioned against the prevalent idea of a hyperseparation between nature and culture in the West.

This thesis deals with how meaningful landscapes are created through experiences in everyday life. As European governments seek to implement the European Landscape Convention into policy, landscapes and their relationships with its inhabitants must be understood on a more fundamental level. In addition to understanding how meaningful landscapes are created, this thesis also sheds light on the relationships between landscapes and social and societal change. Landscape here is then more than a simple scenery or representation; it is temporal and dynamic and the context of our dwelling. Two related but different landscapes in the Southwest Finland archipelago are studied through the application of the phenomenological approach. The first centres around the former ironworks town of Dalsbruk, including the surrounding region of Dragsfjärd. The second centres around Hitis village in the Hitis archipelago. Special attention is also given to the Purunpää nature conservation area in Dragsfjärd as it relates to changing attitudes regarding the landscape. Material collected during two months of fieldwork includes interviews with 11 people, informal discussions, first-person observations, and archival materials in the form of historical photographs and factory magazines from Dalsbruk provided by the town’s ironworks museum. By combining the dwelling perspective at the core of the phenomenological approach to landscapes with a historical, political and environmental context in the form of an environmental history of the region, the process of the landscape’s becoming is revealed and the various meanings that it holds for people are illuminated. Not only has the landscape had an enormous effect on where settlements have been founded, it has also shaped the livelihoods of its inhabitants. At the same time generation after another has left their mark on the landscape, shaping the way people today relate to it. This study covers how the physical landscape embodies the social hierarchies of previous generations as a materialisation of their dwelling. It deals with how stories and place names make landscapes and places meaningful for the local population by evoking a shared history and identity of a place. Additionally, subjective memories and experiences affect how people perceive the landscape and how different people find it to be meaningful. This has an impact on how both the past and future of a place or landscape is imagined, leading to the conclusion that they are always contested. Landscapes in the Archipelago Sea region are revealed to be filled with values and meanings far beyond the aesthetic.

Objectives. Communication is a basic human activity, and one that is also crucial for business. For those communicating with international audiences, lack of knowledge regarding how people communicate across cultures might create misunderstandings and in the worst case, conflicts. The research purpose of this thesis was to identify cultural discourses about nature and the environment that would illustrate deeply held values and beliefs about nature. The theoretical approach utilised in the thesis was Cultural Discourse Theory. This approach originates from the Ethnography of Communication tradition and contemplates not only the linguistic aspects of discourse, but also the context in which discourse is produced, utilised and maintained. Previous research has shown that communication is cultural and that both culture and communication can influence the way nature is constructed. The research question is aimed to identify beliefs and values about nature, personhood, and relationships hold by seven Finnish professionals of the environment working in the forest company UPM. Methods. The research material was collected through seven semi-structured interviews conducted in Finnish language and translated to English. The interviews were recorded digitally and lasted approximately one hour. To ensure confidentiality, the participants were given aliases and their real names were not disclosed publicly. The research participants reviewed the excerpts of text in the original language (vernacular Finnish) and also reviewed the translations to English language. The material was displayed in both Finnish and English language and analysed applying the Cultural Discourse Analysis (CuDA) method. The CuDa method proposed five analytical tools through which the research data could be analysed: dwelling, relations, feelings, action and identity. In this thesis the data was examined in light of the tools or themes of dwelling, relations, identity, and in some cases that of action. Results and conclusions. The research results indicate that three main discourses are present in the discourse of environmental professionals about nature. For the participants nature was a place to relax and calm down, to be with themselves and to maintain a sense of continuity. The values related to these discourses were peace, privacy, autonomy, identity, spirituality, and continuity as a way to preserve what is valued. The main value hold by the participants is that of continuation or sustainability. Further research could build upon the notion of sustainability as a cultural discourse. Research related to other business areas could be useful to understand how a deeply held value about nature like sustainability is common across businesses/industries.

This thesis is not an analysis of trekking as an activity; rather it is about a specific form of tourism as a type of relationship in the world, which can affect modes being in the world. That is ethnic tourism in Pai village Mae Hong Son province Thailand. By examining so called “Hill Tribe” trekking tours as a point of inquiry into forms of touristic interaction I hope to expand on the notion that the ability to enact and manipulate various social roles opens up new channels for being in the world. The overall focus on guides who lead such tours is intended to help elaborate on the fluid nature of social roles and relations. Being at once local actors and conduits to the outside world, through their interaction with tourists, guides fill a unique role in the specialized network of relations that is modern tourism. The approach this study has towards tourism as a specialized type of encounter offers us the potential to better understand why people actively seek out encounters with other cultures, in other places This thesis attempts to develop the argument that through interaction with tourists trekking guides operating out of Pai village in Thailand sell experiences of place and people where in guides themselves come to be symbolic representations of place for their clients. As a type of commodity these experiences are the manifestations of idealized states of being which become subjectively real through interaction; when actors create one another. Through the mediation of experience and encounters trekking guides develop and enact their social role; during the physical act of guiding they come to embody a local setting as they guide tourists through space and interactions to create a local picture of reality under a foreign gaze. Tourism is approached here as a behavior or activity about forging relations between discreet groups of actors as they encounter one another in places for tourism. It is in this line of thought that I try to move away from such an analytical sphere wherein all social acts are ultimately acts of destruction, to one where we instead view human action as being about the social production of other human beings in relation to the self. The physical activity of “Hill Tribe” trekking tourism from the perspective of the tourists is seen here as a specialized type of behavior which actively produces persons through movement in space and time, and interaction with and relation to idealized others. More than anything tourism must be what it results in, a type of relationship defined by new encounters. What the tourist seeks to gain from any given encounter is an essential building block in the relational process of being which we call tourism. People acting in relation to other people with the goal of effecting particular outcomes creates shared realities, in which persons come to understand the self through its relation to others. Therefore the experiences gained through entering into the relational state of being we call tourism hold higher potentials for the active social production of relations rather than a destructive potential for social consumption when tourists and local actors become engaged in the mutual act of inter-personal creation of the other.

This master’s thesis explores spatial and aesthetic experiences and placemaking in two public spaces in Malmi and Malminkartano in Helsinki. It focuses on two case studies through ethnographic fieldwork in order to evaluate the added value of placemaking in the urban planning practices of the City of Helsinki from the citizens’ perspective. The case studies shed light on the possibilities and risks of placemaking, especially in the context of Helsinki neighbourhoods that are subject to densification and suburban regeneration projects. This research was commissioned by the Strategic Urban Planning Department of the Urban Environment Division of the City of Helsinki. This thesis explores three research questions. It aims to understand how the observed placemaking projects affected the spatial and aesthetic experiences in the public spaces in question. It also examines what kind of attitudes arose among informants regarding public space, placemaking, densification and urban planning in the context of the studied neighbourhoods. Lastly, it assesses the potential of placemaking to improve the spatial and aesthetic experience of public spaces in neighbourhoods undergoing suburban regeneration projects. The theoretical framework of this research utilises theories and viewpoints of human geography and philosophy of urban aesthetics. Building on the study of place and space, it employs the concepts of spatial and aesthetic experience to examine sensory perceptions in public spaces. Additionally, it continues the culture and tradition of qualitative urban planning research. The data was gathered through ethnographic fieldwork during the span of the studied placemaking projects between July and October 2021. The fieldwork entailed participant observation, informal interviews and conversations with informants and autoethnographic observations of sensory, spatial and aesthetic experiences in public space. In addition to the ethnographic data, placemaking theory was utilised to formulate the analyses and results. Based on the data, the observed placemaking case studies had a moderate effect on the spatial and aesthetic experiences in the public spaces in question. However, they raised valuable discussions about local viewpoints and provided important place-based knowledge for urban planners. The ethnographic process revealed both accepting and antagonistic narratives within the local communities regarding densification and the urban planning practices of the City of Helsinki. The latter attitudes did not, however, seem to negatively affect the informants’ conceptions of the studied projects or placemaking generally. Instead, place-driven attempts at making public spaces greener, livelier and more engaging were almost unanimously accepted and welcomed. Consequently, placemaking is proposed here as a viable method to develop and improve the experience of public spaces among citizens in neighbourhoods undergoing suburban regeneration projects. Based on the gathered data and theoretical reasoning, this thesis argues that placemaking is an urban development approach, method and philosophy that can create added value to conventional urban planning practices in Helsinki. Placemaking can improve the experience of public space by vitalising its experiential and sensory qualities, and thus complement technocratic urban planning and construction processes. Placemaking can provide planners with place-based knowledge about local conditions and aspirations that is useful for long-term planning goals. Placemaking can be utilised as a participation method that gives citizens more agency and shows faster impact than other means of participation, further empowering them to reclaim public spaces for communal uses. Placemaking can make public spaces safer and more pluralistic by broadening their usership and increasing vulnerable groups’ presence. By engaging in community-driven placemaking, the City of Helsinki can improve its public spaces in multiple ways and develop its current participatory and urban design practices in alignment with its strategic goals of enhancing the quality of life for its citizens.

Tiivistelmä – Referat – Abstract This partly autoethnographical study of homelessness within highly mobile people asks if the meaning of home changes and how it changes when people do not have a fixed point of dwelling. It aims to shed light onto the question of space and place within social studies. This thesis combines personal narrative with semi-structured interviews in order to provide better understanding of the seemingly simple concept of ‘home’. The fieldwork was conducted in multiple locations around the world, following the mobile lifestyles of people working within the yachting industry. As the thesis focuses on the lifestyles of elites, it provides a different perspective to homelessness as the studies that focus on forced homelessness do. The ‘spatial turn’, which started in the late 1980’s, has changed the perception of space and place not only within anthropology but in other fields of academia as well. This thesis looks at how this theoretical approach has affected the way that space and place is reflected in everyday life. Utilising discourses from mobility and transnationalism studies, the aim is not to present highly mobile people as disconnected from place but, instead, to show how place and space are still meaningful. The analysis of different spatial perspectives concentrates on three different aspects: home as a dwelling place, home as a community and home as a nation. Through these approaches, the thesis makes the concept of home easier to understand. Another important element that this thesis reveals is how anthropologists should not forget the temporal aspect of life while putting more emphasis on spatiality. The thesis argues that only by combining these two elements, we can fully comprehend the implications of mobile lifestyle. Without the temporal aspect, the understanding of homelessness remains partial. Drawing from previous ethnographic studies of lifestyle migration, this thesis contributes to the discourse of rootedness and the implications of leaving one’s homeland. Identity and nomadic lifestyle are in a constant dialogue with each other, affecting the life trajectories of the “elite homeless”. This thesis looks at how time changes its shape, when life consists of short periods of time in multiple different locations. The interview material amplifies the paradox of the need for a permanent home and the urge to keep travelling. The thesis aims to show how once uprooted, the ability to relocate and return to location bound lifestyle becomes problematic. This thesis also aspires to show how autoethnography can be a useful tool for anthropologists. The writer’s personal experiences act as the structure around which other ethnographic material and the theory build on. As autoethnography is not widely used method in anthropology, the thesis looks into the history and two main branches of autoethnography.