Allemann
identifies, analyses and contextualises the processes and consequences
of displacement as one of the most profound social transformations of
the twentieth century in the Arctic.
– This work is in many ways a historical anthropology of suffering,
one laying bare mechanisms of scapegoating and social exclusion. Yet
traumatic events are dealt with in ways acknowledging that victims can
be simultaneously agents who accommodate, subvert and resist, Allemann
explains.
The consequences of displacement include a chronic housing shortage,
changed gender relations, skewed dynamics in boarding schools,
self-harming behaviour, and social rifts that persist to this day.
Perspectives characteristic of the state are juxtaposed with
grassroots experiences. The stages and consequences of displacement are
contextualised within the larger frame of social engineering undertaken
by modern nation-states across the circumpolar world, thus relativising
Soviet–Western dichotomies and showing that there were more common
things between “the West” and the Soviet Union than it is usually
believed.
The cruciality of studying experiences
The main methodological principle is that the production and the
analysis of materials should be phenomenologically driven and rooted in a
radically interpretive, non-positivist approach.
Embracing this commitment, the work tries to show that the common –
but mostly unspoken – link between oral history and anthropology lies in
phenomenological philosophy as the study of experience.
– Making this link more explicit is an important and long overdue
task, because experience is the pivot between the universal and the
singular, Allemann underlines.
Conceived as a historical-anthropological inquiry, the study draws on
empirical materials produced and gathered using a combined approach of
open-ended biographical interviewing, participant observation and
archival research. Ethical questions prompted by this co-productive
approach with a long-term commitment to field partners are taken up as
an additional strand of the research.
Information on the defence
M.A. Lukas Allemann will be defending his dissertation “The Experience of Displacement and Social Engineering in Kola Saami Oral Histories”
with the permission of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University
of Lapland in lecture room 11 (Castrén) on 15 October 2020 at 12 noon.
The opponent is Professor Otto Habeck, Social Anthropology, University
of Hamburg. The custos is Professor Florian Stammler, University of
Lapland.
The public defence can also be attended online: https://connect.eoppimispalvelut.fi/vaitos
Information on the candidate
Lukas Allemann has been working for the past seven
years in the anthropology research team at the Arctic Centre, University
of Lapland. He holds a Master’s degree in Eastern European history and
Russian studies from the University of Basel, Switzerland.
Allemann specialises in historical anthropology and indigenous issues
in the Russian North. He has been doing extensive fieldwork on the Kola
Peninsula (Northwest Russia) since 2008 with regular visits to the
field. His main research area is about the consequences of Soviet
policies towards its indigenous minorities, based on oral history
interviewing and participant observation work among indigenous Saami
people as well as non-indigenous local actors.
During the past two years, a second strand of research has been
anthropological inquiry into young peoples’ aspirations and well-being
in Arctic single-industry towns in Russia. In all of his research,
Allemann puts an emphasis on long-term field commitment, including
bringing back research results to the communities they stem from.
Additional information
Lukas Allemann
lukas.allemann(at)ulapland.fi
+358 40 484 4418
Information on the publication
Lukas Allemann: The Experience of Displacement and Social Engineering
in Kola Saami Oral Histories. Acta electronica Universitatis
Lapponiensis 288, ISBN 978-952-337-225-2, ISSN 1796-6310. University of
Lapland 2020, Rovaniemi.
Permanent link to the publication: http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-337-225-2