Tale(s) of a forest – re-creation of a primeval forest in three environmental narratives

We analyze three environmentally conscious works that are concerned with the state of Finnish forests: the documentary film Metsän tarina/Tale of a Forest (2012), the book with the same name (2013) and the series of short documentaries Tarinoita metsästä/Tales from the Forest (2013). By combining methods from arts research and ecology, we ask how the narratives adapt material from nature photography. The film and book present mythic stories and old Finnish beliefs about forests. They also contain references to cultural memory. Additionally, the biodiversity on display reflects a conventional practice to exhibit large or charismatic species. However, the ecological message remains only impli…

Mapping the Concept(s) of Belonging

Various epistemological changes – such as the linguistic, narrative, and cultural turns that have influenced humanistic and social scientific studies since the 1980s – have contributed to the increased academic interest in politics, discourses, processes, and practices of belonging. During the recent decades, the idea of belonging or notbelonging have been discussed and theorized in various fields with diverse parallel and/or overlapping conceptualizations. These include, for example, identity, placemaking, displacement, and their representational, intersectional, and fluid nature. In recent years, several scholars have aimed to discuss the topics framed by the above mentioned concepts and …

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