Chloe Wells | University of Eastern Finland (original) (raw)

Papers by Chloe Wells

Memory Studies, 2022

Forced border changes and population transfers have affected many nation-states; however, memorie... more Forced border changes and population transfers have affected many nation-states; however, memories of these events are usually described as part of a “unique” national memory of cartographic violence, “lost” territories, and victimhood. In popular representations, often reinforced by the personal memories of the wartime resettled, the territories ceded from Poland (Kresy) and Finland (Karelia) to the Soviet Union after World War II are remembered and imagined as “timeless” places which preserve and encapsulate “Polishness” and “Finnishness.” “Territorial phantom pains” is a central framing idea for us. We understand phantom pains as a social emotion related to memories and postmemories that tells members of a community that the body of their nation is not complete without the detached territories. Phantom pains are nostalgic, romanticizing, but also exclusive keeping memories of the territorial loss as not (only) memories of personal loss of home and heimat, but of a national loss.

Journal of Borderlands Studies, 2020

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes and compares two mental mapping studies – one with young people (age... more ABSTRACT This paper analyzes and compares two mental mapping studies – one with young people (aged 16–19) in Finland and one with Finnish and Russian young people (aged 9–15) in the Finnish-Russian borderland. These studies show that mental mapping is a valuable method which can illuminate crucial aspects of how borders and bordering are related to young people’s territorial identifications. We argue that it is important to pay special attention to the research methodology, including the mapping scale and the complementary data collection methods, as these determine what aspects of borders and bordering in young people’s territorial identifications can be discovered, and how profoundly identification processes can be studied with mental maps. This paper contributes to the theoretical discussion on borders and territorial identity by visualizing the complexity of how borders and territorial identifications are intertwined, and how young people engage in the social, cultural and mental construction of borders and the negotiation of territorial identities. The paper enriches the mental mapping methodology by demonstrating two different ways mental maps can be used for studying young people’s territorial identifications.

Idäntutkimus, 2019

Tämä artikkeli käsittelee ennen tutkimatonta aihetta: Minkälaisia merkityksiä Suomessa asuvat nyk... more Tämä artikkeli käsittelee ennen tutkimatonta aihetta: Minkälaisia merkityksiä Suomessa asuvat nykynuoret liittävät Karjalaan? Kysymykseen vastataan fokusryhmähaastatteluilla vuonna 2017 kerätyn aineiston avulla. Tutkimuksessa haastateltiin lukiolaisia (16–19 vuotta) ympäri Suomen. Tässä artikkelissa ”Karjala” viittaa maantieteelliseen Karjalaan, jonka Suomi luovutti Neuvostoliitolle toisen maailmansodan seurauksena. Aiemmat tutkimukset ovat osoittaneet, että monet Karjalan jättäneistä suomalaisista pitävät sitä ”täydellisenä menetettynä paikkana”. Tulokset osoittavat, että Karjalalla on nuorten elämässä merkitystä, se on heille läsnä, ja he tuntevat olevansa osa ”meitä”, jotka menettivät Karjalan.

Viipurin Suomalaisen Kirjallisuusseuran toimitteita

Young people in Finland’s perceptions of Vyborg in focus group discussions Vyborg can be understo... more Young people in Finland’s perceptions of Vyborg in focus group discussions Vyborg can be understood as ‘lost’ Finnish place, to which certain meanings and memories are attached. This article fills a gap in knowledge by focusing on young people in Finland today, born over 50 years after Vyborg ceased to be a Finnish place, and exploring their perceptions of Vyborg. The results from mixed methods focus groups with 325 16-19 year olds across Finland, conducted by the author in 2017, show several main trends in how young people relate to the memory of Finnish Vyborg. Young people repeated and accepted a certain narrative about the city, acknowledged but rejected the emotional attachment to Vyborg sometimes expressed by other groups in Finland, and justified in various ways ideas about who Vyborg ‘belongs to.’ Overall, results highlighted a generation gap with participants separating themselves from the meanings and memories attached to Vyborg by older people. The concepts of nostalgia a...

UEF DSA Newspaper, 2021

Originally Published 2021 in UEF DSA Newspaper Vol. III No. 1 pp.4-6 As doctoral students at UEF... more Originally Published 2021 in UEF DSA Newspaper Vol. III No. 1 pp.4-6

As doctoral students at UEF we will have to defend our work in order to gain our doctorates. But what exactly does the doctoral defence involve? What are the steps and stages beforehand? And how can you best prepare for the occasion? As someone who has just successfully defended my PhD in Human Geography, I'm here to offer you some insights and advice.

UEF Bulletin, 2014

Interview with UEF Bulletin, 2014

Journal of Borderlands Studies, 2020

This paper analyzes and compares two mental mapping studies – one with young people (aged 16–19) ... more This paper analyzes and compares two mental mapping studies – one with young people (aged 16–19) in Finland and one with Finnish and Russian young people (aged 9–15) in the Finnish-Russian borderland. These studies show that mental mapping is a valuable method which can illuminate crucial aspects of how borders and bordering are related to young people’s territorial identifications. We argue that it is important to pay special attention to the research methodology, including the mapping scale and the complementary data collection methods, as these determine what aspects of borders and bordering in young people’s territorial identifications can be discovered, and how profoundly identification processes can be studied with mental maps. This paper contributes to the theoretical discussion on borders and territorial identity by visualizing the complexity of how borders and territorial identifications are intertwined, and how young people engage in the social, cultural and mental construction of borders and the negotiation of territorial identities. The paper enriches the mental mapping methodology by demonstrating two different ways mental maps can be used for studying young people’s territorial identifications.

Idäntutkimus, 2019

Remembrance and Solidarity Studies, 2019

This article examines how the remembrance of two ‘lost territories’ created by a post-war border ... more This article examines how the remembrance of two ‘lost territories’ created by a post-war border change and forced resettlements, Kresy (a former Polish territory) and Karelia (a former Finnish territory), are framed within the contexts of nostalgia and banal nationalism, and based on post-memories. We examine the similarities between data from two countries and two separate research projects to show that certain nationalist narratives surrounding ‘lost’ or ‘amputated’ territories, which are considered unique to a given country, are in fact present in different parts of Europe.

Our aim is to push forward and expand understandings of history and memory in border areas by comparing two geographically separate ‘lost’ borderland territories, which nevertheless, as we argue, have striking similarities in the way they are remembered in the nation states which ceded them to the Soviet Union (USSR) after World War Two (WWII). Employing a comparative perspective offers valuable new insights into the transnational phenomenon of the lost and longed-for place and adds to understandings of national identity, territorial belonging, and how societies remember. We trace common perspectives and mechanisms of remembering territories which were annexed by the USSR after WWII, including the issues of forced border change and forced migrations and resettlements.

Creating the City. Identity, Memory and Participation. Conference proceedings. Malmö: University of Malmö. pp. 194 – 215. , 2019

Finland lost the now Russian city of Vyborg twice, once in 1940 and again in 1944. Before World W... more Finland lost the now Russian city of Vyborg twice, once in 1940
and again in 1944. Before World War II the medieval fortress situated
on the Gulf of Finland was Finland’s second city and the capital
of Finnish Karelia. It is now a Russian town in the Leningrad
Oblast, 40km from the Finnish border.
Vyborg is remembered in Finland as a golden and perfect 1930s
city and its loss is remembered as unjust and traumatic. This paper
examines how, why, and for whom these collective memories
are formed and circulated. What purposes does the keeping alive of
nostalgic memories of a lost Finnish city serve? Whose memories
and stories are cherished and passed on as postmemories and whose
memories and stories are forgotten and silenced?
Paasi’s theory of spatial socialization is used to place the answers
to these questions into the wider contexts of the trans-border Karelia
region and ideas about the ‘correct’ or ‘natural’ eastern border of
the Finnish nation-state.
I examine tabloid media and online representations of Vyborg to
highlight which buildings, aspects of city life, and historical periods
have formed the dominant collective memory of Vyborg in Finland.
Based on these I will argue that a narrow Finnish popular history
of the city prevails in Finland with any negative aspects of the city’s
Finnish era silenced or forgotten. Presenting the first results of new
research with high school students I explore whether the next generation
of Finns are likely to take on the current collective memory
of Vyborg as postmemories or whether the significance of this lost
city is likely to change within Finland.

Th is paper investigates the geography, history and memory of Karelian pies (karjalan-piirakat = ... more Th is paper investigates the geography, history and memory of Karelian pies (karjalan-piirakat = kalitki) in Finland and beyond. Where exactly does this food come from? How did it spread from the transborder Karelia region to become a stereotypical ‹Finnish› food? How are Karelian pies tied into to intergenerational transmission within Finnish families? Th is paper presents interviews and discussions with Finnish women which demonstrate Karelian pies as Finnish familial inheritance. Th e paper also presents the results of research with North Karelian Finnish teens which indicates that they strongly associate the term ‹Karelia› with Karelian pies. Th is indicates the triumph of food as banal nationalism and the centrality of perceived regional food specialities in shaping local and familial Finnish identities. The paper examines the official and unofficial status and symbolism of this Karelian/Finnish foodstuff and how and why this previously local food was spread throughout Finland and beyond, becoming a staple part of Finnish national cuisine and hence national and cultural identity.

Питание в Карелии:
география и историческая память карельских «калиток»
Хлоя Уэллс
Университет Восточной Финляндии (кампус Йоэнсуу) ,
докторант Института географических и исторических исследований
Аннотация: В статье исследуются география и историческая память о карельских пирогах (karjalanpiirakat = калитках) в Финляндии и за её пределами. Где именно этот род выпечки появился? Как он распространялся из трансграничной Карелии прежде, чем стал стереотипной «финской» пищей? Каким образом карельские пироги связывали финские семьи из поколения в поколение? Представлены интервью и дискуссии с финскими женщинами, которые
демонстрируют карельские пироги как финское семейное достояние. Обсуждаются также результаты опроса подростков в финляндской Северной Карелии, который показал,
что они прямо связывают понятие «Карелия» с карельскими пирогами. Это означает триумф питания как банальный национализм и центральное место предполагаемых региональных
блюд в формировании местной и семейной финской идентичности. Автор рассматривает официальный и неофициальный статус и символизм этого карельского/финского продукта питания и выясняет, как и почему это изначально местное блюдо распространилось по всей Финляндии и за её пределами, став основной частью финской национальной кухни и, следовательно, признаком национальной и культурной самобытности.

Ключевые слова: Северная Карелия, трансграничная Карелия, историческая память, карельские
пироги (калитки), банальный национализм, финская идентичность

The Finnish cities where I conducted focus groups in 2017 to gather data for my PhD thesis.

Research task: My research task is to explore how the past is remembered and used in the present,... more Research task: My research task is to explore how the past is remembered and used in the present, the uses of collective and postmemories 1 of place, and how people form and maintain their national and spatial identities through the construction of physical and mental borders. My research results will contribute to debates about national histories, memories, and senses of belonging and how these often focus on specific, contested, places or sites. My research takes as a case study the borderland city of Vyborg, Russia. Before World War Two (WWII) Vyborg was Viipuri, Finland's second city. My research examines the legacy of the Finns forced to leave Vyborg during WWII when it was ceded to the Soviet Union; the construction of subnational (Vyborgian) and national (Finnish) collective identities; and the different borders drawn between Finland and Russia, seen as borders between the West and the East. In my research I aim to predict the future memory of Vyborg. I want to define the nature of the next generation's memories of the town.

In this article we focus on a remembered and imagined border: the changed border between Finland ... more In this article we focus on a remembered and imagined border: the changed border between Finland and Russia. We take as a case study the formerly Finnish now Russian town of Vyborg and its castle. The centuries-old castle has marked the limits of power in the Karelia region of the Swedish and Russian empires, the Finnish state, the Soviet Union and now Russia. We argue, based on our empirical studies that, for older generations of Finns, the castle can be the “symbol of everything”, whereas for today's Finnish teens the castle is a meaningless image. Thus this article also looks at the boundaries between social generations in their understandings of Finnish history and territory.

Minun nimeni on Chloe Wells ja olen apurahatutkija ja filosofian jatko-opiskelija Itä-Suomen ylio... more Minun nimeni on Chloe Wells ja olen apurahatutkija ja filosofian jatko-opiskelija Itä-Suomen yliopistosta Joensuun kampukselta. Pääaineeni on yhteiskuntamaantiede.

***Paper presented at the conference 'Interactive Borderland? Re-Thinking Networks and Organisati... more ***Paper presented at the conference 'Interactive Borderland? Re-Thinking Networks and Organisations in Europe', the annual conference of the International Research Training Group (IRTG) “Baltic Borderlands: Shifting Boundaries of Mind and Culture in the Borderlands Baltic Sea Region", Goethe Institut, Riga, 25-26 Sept 2015.***

Abstract:
The Karelian pie (karjalanpiirakka) and Karelian stew (karjalanpaisti) hold special places within Finnish food culture as a whole and serve as important markers of Finnish North Karelian cultural identity. Bound up with issues of territorial identity, border changes and forced migration these seemingly mundane food items hold much symbolic meaning. This paper examines the associations these food stuffs hold for Finnish North Karelian youth as well as analysing the history and, crucially, geography of these food items. The paper presents the results of original research by the author into the link between the geographic region of Karelia and the Finnish foodstuffs which bare its name. This research centres upon the way Finnish North Karelian youth conceptualise a geographic region, Karelia, in relation to certain traditional Finnish foods.The research finds that Karelian pies and Karelian stew are often the primary association the youth have with the term 'Karelia' despite its thorny history as a disputed border region. The paper also presents interviews with Finnish women which demonstrate Karelian pies as Finnish familial cultural inheritance. This indicates the triumph of food as banal nationalism or regionalism and the centrality of perceived regional food specialities in shaping local and familial Finnish identities. The paper will also examine the official and unofficial status and symbolism of these Karelian/Finnish foodstuffs and how and why these previously local dishes were spread throughout Finland and beyond, becoming a staple part of Finnish national cuisine and hence national cultural identity.

Key words: Finland, Karelia, food, nationalism, national identity

Memory Studies, 2022

Journal of Borderlands Studies, 2020

Idäntutkimus, 2019

Viipurin Suomalaisen Kirjallisuusseuran toimitteita

UEF DSA Newspaper, 2021

Originally Published 2021 in UEF DSA Newspaper Vol. III No. 1 pp.4-6 As doctoral students at UEF... more Originally Published 2021 in UEF DSA Newspaper Vol. III No. 1 pp.4-6

UEF Bulletin, 2014

Interview with UEF Bulletin, 2014

Journal of Borderlands Studies, 2020

Idäntutkimus, 2019

Remembrance and Solidarity Studies, 2019

Creating the City. Identity, Memory and Participation. Conference proceedings. Malmö: University of Malmö. pp. 194 – 215. , 2019

The Finnish cities where I conducted focus groups in 2017 to gather data for my PhD thesis.

Key words: Finland, Karelia, food, nationalism, national identity

Paper presented at the European Association of Urban History XIV Conference: Urban renewal and r... more Paper presented at the European Association of Urban History XIV Conference:
Urban renewal and resilience: cities in comparative perspective, August 29th to September 1st, 2018, Department of Business Studies, Roma Tre University,
Via Silvio d’Amico 77, 00145 Roma

Vyborg, Russia (formerly Viipuri, Finland) is a border city which has 'switched sides' several times during its history marking the edge of Swedish power in the territory known as Karelia, which is nowadays divided by the Finnish-Russian border. This paper examines how Vyborg's long history as a defensive outpost on the border 'between East and West' is told in Finland. In this paper Vyborg's history from the beginning of the twentieth century until the present is in focus. In 1917 Vyborg became part of the newborn nation-state of Finland after 105 years within the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland. As a result of World War II the Finnish-Russian border was redrawn with Vyborg on the Russian side. The entire Finnish population of the city (c. 80,000 people) left, to be re-settled within Finland. This paper looks at how different groups within Finland remember and tell the history of Vyborg and how this history-telling is framed within the contexts of nostalgia and nationalism, and based on postmemories. Three groups are examined. Via their representation in Finnish media the memories of Finnish ex-Vyborgians, those who lived in the Finnish city, are examined. Second, another group is identified; dubbed the 'vicarious Vyborgians' this group are the wholehearted inheritors of collective and familial memories and postmemories of the Finnish city; they feel that the stories, images and memories circulating about Vyborg belong to them. They are the group catered to and represented in Finnish media portrayals of Vyborg, portrayals saturated with nostalgia and which can easily be turned towards nationalist ends and included within wider revanchist narratives about the 'correct' borders of Finland. The third group, and the main focus of this paper, are Finnish youth. The paper presents the results of new research with this cohort. Focus groups with High School students across Finland have been used to uncover what Vyborg means to them. The paper explores what those coming of age in Finland today, over 70 years after Vyborg ceased to be a Finnish place in reality if not in imagination, make of the circulating collective postmemory of Vyborg. Results from the focus groups are analysed to trace a sense of injustice regarding Vyborg's 'ownership.' The paper draws on Marianne Hirsch's concept of postmemory, as well as the concept of 'collective memory.' As the author works within the discipline of Human Geography theories of bordering, othering and Anssi Paasi's theory of spatial socialisation are also employed in the analysis. The result is an innovative blend of previously uncombined theories of human geography, bordering, and memory which gives a valuable new perspective on the global phenomenon of the lost and longed for place as well as adding to understandings of national identity, territorial belonging, and how societies remember.

Post)Memories at the Margins: Finnish borderlands youth remember a lost Finnish city This paper p... more Post)Memories at the Margins: Finnish borderlands youth remember a lost Finnish city This paper presents the results of my doctoral research project. The object of study is the ways in which the formerly Finnish borderland city of Viipuri (since World War II Vyborg, Russia) is collectively remembered in Finland.

Paper presented at the Memory Studies Association 2nd Annual Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, Dec... more Paper presented at the Memory Studies Association 2nd Annual Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, December 14-16 2017

Paper presented at: Perception of Russia in Contemporary World: Memory, Identity, Conflicts Unive... more Paper presented at: Perception of Russia in Contemporary World:
Memory, Identity, Conflicts
University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, 27-28 November 2017

This event is viewed as a capstone of the international research project "Perception of Russia Across Eurasia: Memory, Identity, Conflicts" which is being implemented by the international team of scholars within the framework of EU-Russia scientific cooperation program - ERA.NetRUSPlus 2016-2017.

The changes to Finland's national borders as a result of World War II was a traumatic event which... more The changes to Finland's national borders as a result of World War II was a traumatic event which had a profound effect on Finnish national identity. Despite the Finnish (EU)-Russian border having been relatively open for the last 25 years the mental borders in Finland towards Russia and Russians remain high and strong. This paper examines how processes of bordering and imaginaries of the Finnish nation state shape Finnish national identity and the 'othering' of Russia and Russians. The paper also argues that forced political border change amounts to an extreme geographical event especially when, as in the Finnish case, such border change also entails mass, forced population movement. The paper takes the case study of the lost Finnish city of Viipuri (now Vyborg, Russia) as emblematic of the traumatic loss of Finnish territory to the Soviet Union, an event which still resonates over 70 years later. The study uses theories from Human Geography, Border Studies and Memory Studies as well as being grounded in Finnish History.

*** Paper presented at the European Association for Urban History 13th International Conference, ... more *** Paper presented at the European Association for Urban History 13th International Conference, Helsinki, Finland, August 24-27, 2016. ***

Before World War II the medieval fortress town of Vyborg (then Viipuri) situated on the Gulf of Finland was Finland's second city and the capital of Finnish Karelia. It is now a Russian town in the Leningrad Oblast 40km from the Finnish border. The town has a twofold identity as a current lived Russian place and as a past Finnish place, a 'ghost town' of memory. This paper examines how the town is represented and remembered in Finland today as a 'lost' and 'perfect' past Finnish place. This paper examines current tabloid media and online representations of Vyborg in Finland. Using Paasi's theory of spatial socialization the constructed collective memory of Vyborg in Finland is placed into the wider contexts of the trans-border Karelia region and ideas about the 'correct' or 'natural' eastern border of the Finnish nation state. This paper traces the formation and circulation of an homogenised, simplistic collective memory of Vyborg in Finland shaped by the idealised memories of Finnish Vyborger evacuees. Using ideas of collective trauma and how this can be transmitted within and between generations the paper ponders how and why Vyborg remains such an importance place of memory in Finland and whether it will remain so in the minds of the next generation.

This paper examines how the history of the now Russian once Finnish borderland town of Vyborg is ... more This paper examines how the history of the now Russian once Finnish borderland town of Vyborg is told in Finland. Vyborg was the eastern outpost of the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland from 1812-1917 and then of the Republic of Finland from 1917 until World War Two (WWII). Vyborg was ceded to the Soviet Union in 1940, reoccupied by the Finns in 1941, taken by the Red Army in 1944 and again ceded to the Soviet Union as per the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947. This paper will argue that Vyborg is remembered in Finland as a perfect place, frozen in collective memory as a golden, prospering 1930s city. And that this remembering entails a concurrent forgetting. This paper argues that there is a 'double amnesia' at work in the remembering and forgetting of Vyborg in Finland. It's post WWII history is forgotten as is any negative aspect of pre-WWII life in the Finnish city. Through this wilful double amnesia Vyborg is kept and held in collective memory as a firmly Finnish place. The paper will examine popular media artefacts (including social media) and the stories they tell about Vyborg, and attempts to 'recreate' Finnish Vyborg in the virtual realm, to illuminate the uses and abuses of the collective memory of the city in Finland and how this selective memory is passed on via postmemory (Hirsch, 1999). The paper argues that media narratives adhere to a very narrow, Finland-centric, view of Vyborg conceiving of it as a lost place of the past and ignoring its complex history as a borderland town. The paper contrasts the stories of Vyborg's history told in popular media in Finland with 'silenced' and forgotten aspects of Vyborg's Finnish history. The paper shows, using Paasi's theory of spatial socialization, how closely ideas about the 'correct' eastern border of the Finnish nation-state, are bound up with the memory of Vyborg in Finland. The key question which this paper, and my PhD research, sets out to explore is why do those who lived or (more commonly nowadays) those whose parents lived in Finnish Vyborg " continue to maintain and [to try] to transmit " to the next generation " such strong, positive, nostalgic memories of a city and culture that had long disappeared in reality, if not in the realm of remembrance, image, and recreation. " 1 A related question is what purposes do these memories of a perfect, lost Finnish place serve in the contexts of Finnish identity and ideas of nation.

Opening lecture/statement on the occasion of the public examination of my doctoral dissertation. ... more Opening lecture/statement on the occasion of the
public examination of my doctoral dissertation. Delivered at the
University of Eastern Finland, 13 November 2020