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Traumatized Borders

“Traumatized Borders: Reviving Subversive Narratives of B/Order, and Other” (TB) is a multidisciplinary research project which investigates oral and written trauma narratives related to various topographic and symbolic borders in Russian, Finnish, Estonian, Ukrainian, and North-American contexts. In the project, traumas are understood as universal, but yet culturally bound narratives and linguistic constructions. Borders, on the other hand, are understood as political and cultural constructions that create traumas and determines the meaning and significance of border related trauma narratives. Geopolitically, TB focuses on the contemporary EU-Russian border, former Soviet internal borders, and the historical Soviet Union border with the West, whose influence reaches even the North-American context. The study covers time period between the 1920s to the present day including some of the most significant historical events that have defined Russia’s and its neighbors’ topographic and symbolic borders.

In the project, methods provided by cultural studies, folklore research, cultural anthropology, literature research and linguistics are applied.

The project is funded by the Academy of Finland.

Tuulikki Kurki (tuulikki.kurki@uef.fi)

I work as a Professor in cultural studies (specialising in research on cultural change) at the School of Humanities, University of Eastern Finland. My recent research has focused on borders and borderlands from the point of view of culture, literature, and objects, and my latest monograph addresses Finnish language literature in Russian Karelia, ”Rajan kirjailijat: Venäjän Karjalan suomenkieliset kirjailijat tilan ja identiteetin kirjoittajina” (Trans. Writers of the Border: Finnish Speaking Writers of Space and Identity in Russian Karelia, SKS, 2018). My recent research projects include “Traumatized Borders: Reviving Subversive Narratives of B/Order, and Other” (Academy of Finland, 2016-20), and “A Lost Mitten and Other Stories: Experiences of Borders, Mobilities, and New Neighbor Relations” (Kone Foundation, 2018-2022). Visit the virtual exhibition of the project “A Lost Mitten and Other Stories” here: https://www.360panorama.fi/360KadonnutKinnas/.