Even though there is a strong individualist ethos in ethnology, from the outset I have preferred to do my research work in a multidisciplinary setting. I found natural collaborators for my research on Swedish-Finnish culture in history. More recently I have been increasingly interested in working with linguists.

In my article ‘Everyday Language Policies: Embodiment of Language-Related Experiences of Finnish Women in Sweden’, I draw on Scollon & Scollon’s concept of the ‘historical body’ in my interview data from Västerås. The article analysed how Finnish women emigrants found their way around their new cultural environment, one in which the language and cultural choreography were unfamiliar. How to give birth in Swedish? How did you go shopping in Sweden in a time when there were no self-service shops and you had to be able to refer to the object to be purchased by name or at very least point to it? How could you convince the employer that you were skilled, when you didn’t even manage the language yet?

The article has examples of holdups in daily routines but also how the macro-level policy gave immigrants new opportunities. Before the universal provision of school education, young Finnish women hadn’t necessarily been given the chance to study beyond elementary schooling. The move to Sweden gave many a route into adult education. In times of particularly poor employment prospects Finnish emigrés were directed towards study. Nearly all of them studied the language and many passed exams at basic school and undergraduate level as well as in professional examinations. Emigration could also have been a way into university studies at a time when it would have proved nigh impossible back in the home country.

Source

• Mia Halonen, Pasi Ihalainen, Taina Saarinen eds. Language Policies in Finland and Sweden. Interdisciplinary and Multi-sited Comparisons, Multilingual Matters 2015