M.A. Lukas Allemann examines in his thesis people’s experiences of Soviet-time, state-initiated displacement and (re)emplacement on the Kola Peninsula as well as the consequences of these developments. Sources show that Saami communities bore the brunt of these processes. The work seeks to draw – for the first time – a holistic picture of the social transformation among the Kola Saami, while nevertheless respecting the reality of mixed and multiple ethnic belongings as well as other categories of identity in the region.

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 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 will take place online at: 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