Fennia - International Journal of Geography

Topologies of scholasticide in Gaza: education in spaces of elimination

Khalid Dader — 2024-08-02

The Israeli military aggression against Gaza has led to unprecedented destruction. Since October 2023, Israel has cut off water, fuel, and electricity, prevented humanitarian aid and destroyed vital facilities and infrastructure, turning the Gaza Strip into a death space marked by horror and mass devastation. The educational sector has suffered significantly, with thousands of students, teachers and professors killed or injured and 60% of educational facilities destroyed, including all 12 universities. In this editorial, we trace the pattern of systematic attacks on Palestinian education by the Israeli settler state in and beyond the Gaza Strip. We contextualise resilience initiatives that strive to conceive a sense of normalcy during the direst conditions. We acknowledge the role stories of such initiatives can have in lifting morale and resisting oppression. Yet, we draw attention to the harm the glorification of such initiatives may have in skewing the image of hardship that most Gazans face under the most disastrous of circumstances. Instead, we urgently call on the global community to urgently respond to end the genocidal violence, support the rebuilding of Gaza and restore the right to life and education for its people.

Gendered orientalism and the agency of Syrian, Muslim women refugees

Karen Culcasi — 2024-08-02

Orientalist discourses have long recirculated the idea that Muslim women are oppressed victims of Islam; an idea that has denigrated Muslims and positioned white, Christians as superior. For Muslim women refugees specifically, the gendered orientalist discourse of victimization has reappeared on both sides of the debate on Syrian refugee resettlement in the US and Europe. Within anti-resettlement circles, the narrative of Muslim women as oppressed victims has been leveraged as a reason to stop their resettlement, because their lifestyles and values are framed as incompatible with liberal, Western societies. Pro-resettlement circles, on the other hand, often position Muslim women’s victimization as a reason to save them by resettling them. In other words, the same cultural essentialism that positions Muslim women as victims has been used to reject and to support Muslim refugee resettlement. Yet the representations of Syrian Muslim women as oppressed victims of Islam exist in stark contrast to the strong, capable, and resilient Syrian women refugees scattered across SWANA, Europe, the US, and elsewhere. Building from postcolonial, feminist literature, in this paper I first focus on the intersections of the gendered orientalism and refugee resettlement discourses, underscoring the commonality of the victim discourse on both sides of the Syrian refugee resettlement debate. I then shift to highlight the disconnect between the victim representation and the life and experiences of Syrian women refugees. This later point draws from my research on Syrian Muslim women refugees in Jordan who have managed seemingly insurmountable obstacles with strength and determination; and they have done so in part through their faith. I situate my discussion of their strength within literature on Islamic feminism and Muslim women’s agency.

School shootings, the media, and the spatialities of dark belonging

Juha Ridanpää — 2024-08-02

This article discusses how news reports attendant to crisis events are used by the media to construct the logic of inclusion and exclusion. The focus of the paper is on rampage school shootings, which represent an illustrative example of how emotions and socio-politics become entwined in a spatial manner. The article also discusses how parties involved in the shooting event – the perpetrator, victims and the bereaved – are profiled in news reports as narrative characters through which the logic of inclusion and exclusion is constructed and conveyed, in different ways, and various spatial scales. This article illustrates how the media narratives of school shootings engage readers with the logic of belonging, offering normative understandings of how belonging and non-belonging should be comprehended. This paper contributes to both the geographical studies of belonging and media research.

Relying on LEADER? A place-based policy approach to the rural development of Finnish municipalities

Ella Mustakangas — 2024-08-02

In Finnish rural development, the role of municipalities has proven to be modest, even though the place-based policy approach in principle gives them an important position. The main part of municipal rural development involves cooperation with LEADER groups, to which municipalities give priority. In this study I ask: What explains the current status of municipalities in place-based rural development, that is, the dominance of LEADER and the small scale of the municipalities' own rural development? The methodology is based on critical realism, and the analysis draws from semi-structured interviews conducted in three municipalities. The aforementioned state of local rural development is called demi-regularity, which is the starting point of the research. Using a thematic analysis developed by Tom Fryer for critical realist research, the study proposes three causal explanations for this observation, namely the idea of responsible local communities, the development policy of the shrinking municipality, and the challenges of projectification. According to the findings, the increased role of villages in rural development does not necessarily support the involvement of municipalities, but rather the opposite. The study also shows that when municipalities are primarily looking for (economic) growth, they have difficulties in trusting the potential of rural areas, let alone exploiting it. On the other hand, the challenges of projectification do not characterise LEADER projects in the same way as other municipal project work, making it tempting to rely on LEADER in municipal rural development. Overall, the study shows how strongly and differently LEADER is rooted in place-based rural development in Finland. In order to bring municipalities back into the scene, a broader discussion on the actual preconditions of municipalities in place-based rural development is needed.

A world-leading periphery: exploring representations of Northern Sweden in view of its green transition

Hannah Persson — 2024-08-02

In pursuit of the EU’s goal to become the world’s first climate neutral region, Northern Sweden is positioned as a centrepiece to the green transition development. Its innovative industries are hailed as crucial, not only for Sweden but for the sustainable future of Europe. Yet, previous research depicts the cultural region of Norrland as an inner periphery of Sweden, subjected to colonization and marginalization. This article delves into this paradox by examining discursive representations of Norrland in light of the current green transition narratives. Utilizing a qualitative research approach, this study employs critical discourse analysis to systematically examine representations from news media, political opinion, and government institutions, uncovering tensions and contradictions within the discourse. The analysis suggests the prevalence of two main themes, construing Norrland simultaneously as the future and as a struggle. By contextualizing these discourses within the concept of peripheralization, this research suggests that the future-oriented representations dominate the current understanding of Norrland, potentially perpetuating patterns of spatial disparities within the region. Thus, this research contributes with an updated understanding of processes of peripheralization under the guise of a green discourse, suggesting that the development in Norrland seems part of a broader narrative aiming to frame Sweden as the world leader within green transition initiatives.

Gender, sports, and belonging. The role of sports participation in residential preferences among girls and boys living in Norway's rural peripheries

Elisabeth Gulløy — 2024-08-02

The gender gap in residential preferences among rural youth has been documented in several studies – and for the most attributed to educational aspirations, employment, and income opportunities. The hereby study adds to this block of research by addressing the role of sports. Sports has been connected to place belonging. As a traditional masculine arena, sports can also be assumed to contribute to the gender gap in belonging. On this background, the study explores the role of sports participation in rural girls’ and boys’ residential preferences. As theoretical framework, feminist theories of gendered space contrasts feminist theories of sports participation, supplemented by elements from poststructuralist theories. Data consisted of school surveys from pupils aged 13–16 years living in Norway’s most peripheral municipalities (N=11,971). The analyses confirmed a gender gap in residential preferences. Boys more often considered living in their native municipality compared to girls. The role of sports was on the contrary more surprising. Rural girls who participated in sports had higher predicted probabilities for preferring to live in the native municipality compared to non-participants, but this was not the case for boys. Findings indicate that for girls living in rural Norway, organized sports represent arenas for positive place relations. This diverges from prevailing assumptions of gendered rural space. Furthermore, the study questions common representations of sports arenas as local hearths for masculine versions of Northern rural identity. New developments in leisure’s spatial and social organization within the rural periphery are discussed as potential reasons for these results. By combining and contrasting different strands of feminist thinking, the study gains new insights into gender, sports, and place belonging in the digital age.

Urban landscapes as therapeutic landscapes: the transforming conceptions of care environments

Siiri Pyykkönen — 2024-08-02

Psychiatric hospitals are increasingly being built in urban landscapes, in contrast to many of the old hospitals which were located in peripheral areas close to nature. This indicates a change in the conception of therapeutic landscapes: rural natural landscapes have been replaced by a more relational and fluid understanding and practices where therapeutic environments are created in relation to society, communities, networks and everyday urban life. We examine how the conception of therapeutic landscapes was constituted in the planning process of the urban psychiatric hospital in Turku, Finland, by analyzing the arguments and discourses on therapeutic elements in the planning materials. The findings reveal how the shift from inpatient care towards outpatient care has redirected attention away from hospitals. Instead of relying on healing by natural elements in remote locations, everyday environments, artificial landscapes and multifunctional spaces are now expected to create therapeutic atmospheres.

How agriculture performs urbanity: connecting urbanization and socio-practical shifts in farming cultures

Ernst Michael Preininger — 2024-08-02

Agriculture and farming practices are often at the center of idealized imaginaries and characterizations of rurality. At the same time, agriculture is in flux, undergoing rapid change through globalized economic restructuring and new globalized cultural paradigms. Agriculture is thus a venue where farmers put into practice the latest technological advances to remain competitive economically, a process which simultaneously challenges farmers’ (self-)perceptions and the characterizations of rural communities. Scholars of urbanization theory propose exploring rural transformations through the everyday, as performed through practices and reflected in the habitus. Building on such scholarship, this article connects insights from urbanization studies with a qualitative assessment of practice shifts in farming by situating digitally-assisted farming practices as indicators of rural transformation. Using the participatory visual method of photovoice, the article follows how farmers from south-eastern Austria outline contexts in which digitization has led to transforming their farming practices. The conceptual framework of habitual urbanity (Dirksmeier 2006, 2007, 2009) is used to analyze the resulting material. The main qualitative results highlight how digital technologies led to the reordering, reassessment, and at times, discontinuation, of everyday farm tasks. These disruptions potentially lead to a growing variety of business modes and at the same time, mark cornerstones of rural transformation in thought and behavior.

Ethnicity and gentrification. Exploring the real estate's perspective on the revaluation of a "dangerous" street in Leipzig (Germany)

Marcus Hübscher — 2024-08-02

The relationship between ethnicity and gentrification is understudied. However, it is a highly relevant albeit paradoxical relationship where upgrading due to “multiculturalism” and “authenticity” might be paralleled by discrimination and displacement. This paper takes up the case of Leipzig’s Eisenbahnstrasse as an arrival space with one of the highest shares of foreigners in East Germany. The media has labeled Eisenbahnstrasse as “Germany’s most dangerous street”. Simultaneously, considerable dynamics on the housing market are observed that add to the juxtaposition between medial perception and real estate. Our paper takes up this paradoxical situation and investigates the role of ethnicity on Leipzig’s Eisenbahnstrasse, seen from the supply side of real estate, which is an often neglected perspective. By means of qualitative interviews with local stakeholders, our aim is to understand their role in the revaluation process, and how ethnicity is linked to this process.

Our findings reveal a gap between the predominantly negative news coverage and the neighborhood’s actual values from the real estate perspective. According to the interviewees, the image of the Eisenbahnstrasse prevents families from moving to the area but attracts students and artists who cherish the international atmosphere in the area. In this context, ethnicity plays a crucial but ambiguous role in the revaluation process. This paper also reveals how discrimination on the housing market takes place, and how real estate stakeholders construct ethnicity and apply strategies to promote a revaluation, which they consider as social mixing. Therefore, we present further evidence of the ongoing processes on Leipzig’s Eisenbahnstrasse and provide insights into the complex relationship between gentrification and ethnicity.

Developing a cultural geomorphology of hazards for heritage conservation: reflections from Majuli Island of India

Avijit Sahay — 2024-08-02

Cultural Geomorphology attempts to find the relationships between cultural elements and geomorphological features of a region. Such studies have proven invaluable to understanding the interactions between culture and geomorphology and have formed an important part of the epistemology of nature-society studies. Using concepts of Cultural Geomorphology, the current study argues for the need to develop a Cultural Geomorphology of hazards. The study shows that such a work will be invaluable in preserving the knowledge of cultural heritage sites that are at risk of being permanently lost because of the changing landscape brought about by natural hazards or climate change related events.

Insights about the publicness of public space from the Kamppi area of Helsinki

Žieda Tamašauskaitė — 2024-08-02

Undergoing dramatic changes in its form, structure and purpose, public space has recently drawn sharp criticisms from its investigators and its theorists. At the same time, for the public who use it, public space has continued to be meaningful and attractive. To understand what public space is and what constitutes its publicness in the city of today, I conducted a multiple-case study and prepared a doctoral dissertation Publicness of Public Space in the Contemporary City: Insights from Helsinki (Tamašauskaitė 2024). On March 1st, 2024, during the public defence of my dissertation, I gave a lectio praecursoria, which this short article is based on. In my lectio, I overviewed contestations over the concepts public space and publicness, suggesting that the publicness of contemporary public space shall be conceived through use and treated as a phenomenon that comprises three dimensions, namely activities, users and control. The focus of the lectio was on my main findings from the three publicly usable spaces within the Kamppi area of Helsinki: Narinkka Square, Tennispalatsi Square and Kamppi Shopping Centre. First, I highlighted that from my study, I learnt that the publicness of the three spaces is primarily activity-based, whereby their publicness is strikingly similar when the spaces are used in comparable ways. Next, I suggested that even if the diversity of user groups is highly important in ensuring a wide variety of activities, it is all those activities that intermix and combine with one another that produces an ecosystem out of activities and that reveal the dynamics of activity-based publicness to be situational. Finally, I argued that various means of control are but some of the matters that affect the actual and the possible use of public space, for the publicness of adjacent public spaces may also complement each other.

Navigating the ‘grey zone’: academic collaboration and research on/in Russia during geopolitical crisis

Henrik Dorf Nielsen — 2024-08-02

Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and attack on Ukraine in 2022 have led to widespread sanctions being placed on Russia by the European Union, including sanctions related to academic cooperation. National governments, supranational bodies, science academies and research institutions as well as publishers have likewise formed policies suspending and restricting collaboration regarding Russia-related research. These policies are, however, not straight forward and there are many practical and ethical questions that individual researchers must ask themselves. At Finnish Geography Days 2023 in Joensuu, a panel was dedicated to discussing some of these questions. This article summarizes main themes discussed during the panel and sheds light on the multiple ways researchers experience and navigate the ‘grey zone’ of academic collaboration and research on/in Russia in the current geopolitical context. The article emphasizes the necessity of further discussing the effectiveness and impact of the sanctions and restrictions: Are they reasonable? Who benefits from them, and who suffers?

The Extinction Rebellion and going beyond politics: can deliberation be the answer in climate mitigation?

Janette Huttunen — 2024-08-02

The United Nations (UN) has characterized the climate crisis as ‘the defining crisis of our time’ (United Nations 2023). To address the crisis in the 2020s, the so-called new climate movement has emerged to protest the inadequate climate action taken by political power holders and to demand real political action on climate issues. One of the movement’s branches is Extinction Rebellion, which has three central demands: demand for the government to ‘act now’ (to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to net zero by 2025), to ‘tell the truth (by declaring climate emergency) and to ‘go beyond politics’ by introducing a Citizens Assembly on climate and environmental justice. The question, however, is how impactful these demands, and by extension, actions, can be to address the issue of the climate crisis. This Reflection takes a critical view of Extinction Rebellion’s third goal, going beyond politics, and discusses the potential issues with the impact of the proposed Climate Assembly.

To relocate, or not? The future of small and remote communities in the Nordic Countries facing natural hazards

Nina Baron — 2024-08-02

Remote communities are often particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the form of increased risk of hazards such as avalanches, storms, flooding, or landslides. This is due to, for example, nature-dependent livelihoods, large distances from emergency services as well as limited resources and expertise for climate adaptation work. Still, most remote communities are dependent on support from wider society if they are to successfully address the increased challenges that a changing climate entails.

This commentary aims to spark a discussion on the controversial issue of relocation of remote communities living in high-risk areas. In the Nordic context, relocation is often avoided (and not discussed) due to many valid reasons, such as the right of each citizen to get state services regardless of where they live, the value of having dispersed settlements, and strong place attachment of remote communities. Nonetheless, we argue that researchers, policymakers and broader society should discuss if living in high-risk areas is still reasonable in the light of climate change? While raising this question often leads to a simplified debate about forced relocation, we aim to contribute to a more nuanced debate. Maybe relocation might indeed be a more resilient and sustainable long-term solution for (some) remote communities.