Ethnologia Europaea

In 2023, the SIEF convenors set out the multivalent character of “uncertainty” as at once opening up terrains riddled by catastrophe, reminding us of a quality of everyday being, while also promising alternative paths and possibilities. This talk, presented in Brno as the Congress Keynote, offered one way to engage with this complex field. It proposed to interrogate the notion of uncertainty through another multivalent notion, “relations”. Might our ability to perceive relations – activate them, embody them, and enquire with them – help us acknowledge the role that uncertainty plays in our lives? Might thinking of relations as uncertain in their capacities and effects throw light on what we ask from knowledge practices in order to enlarge and/or shrink the world in which we live? From global crises to fieldwork encounters, presenting certain ways of thinking uncertainty through relations hoped to sketch something of the broader themes of that Congress.

During the nineteenth century, the tradition of metered oral poetry, often referred to as “Kalevalaic” poetry or runo singing, became a fundamental and emblematic part of Finnish cultural heritage. The collections of metered poetry include hundreds of poems that discuss sexual relationships, the female body, and genitals. This article analyses the re-heritagisations of such poems in contemporary Finland. Through an examination of ethnographic interviews, media texts, and folk music recordings, I assert that the use of traditional sexual poetry reflects progressive values, such as the promotion of equality, social change, and diversity. Furthermore, the progressive contextualisation of these sexual poems is situated within transnational body politics, such as the #MeToo movement, and is closely linked to feminist viewpoints.

This article proposes hitchhacking as a way of problematising contemporary mobility and as a practice of what we call “passenger ethnography”. To this end, we review some of the literature on hitchhiking and hosting, offering empirical examples from artistic projects and field vignettes in Estonia, Russia, and Finland. We also reflect on how hitching can be experienced as a means of knowledge production. Accordingly, we discuss how travelling together by car provides a particular type of socialisation. Finally, we refer to hitchhiking as a form of gift-giving in which no direct reciprocation is required. The article's key contributions are thus threefold: (1) to rethink the transgressive and heuristic potential of hitchhiking in the present; (2) to reflect on the methodological implications of doing ethnographic research on/in vehicles; and (3) to reconsider mobility disruptions in a context of extensive digital technology usage and novel forms of datafication and accountability.

Drawing on ethnographic research among European far-right youth movements, my article contributes to our understanding of the transnational dimension of nationalist activism and politics. In order to investigate this phenomenon, I tell a story of an event attended by Polish and Italian activists and analyse different modes of translation of ideas and practices that the studied movements engage in. In connecting the focus on translation with that of transnational networking, my article makes two main claims. First, it demonstrates that a transnational perspective is critical for an understanding of the contemporary far right. Second, it shows the ways in which the study of far-right transnationalism may contribute to broader research on transnationalism in social sciences.

Since Andrew Tate's conversion to Salafism, the emergence of manosphere enthusiasts and influencers in Salafi discourse has sparked considerable debate among Salafis. Questions arise, including whether Andrew Tate and similar figures can be seen as welcome advertising promoting Islam, or if they are perhaps not true Muslims. This snapshot presents the latest field data to explore how these topics are discussed in segments of the Germanophone salafiyya. It shows how far-right, misogynistic, and populist movements like the manosphere reach out to hyperconservative and extremist religious groups and partially successfully fascinate their members – but partially fail to do so: not because of their extreme populist opinions, but rather because they lack theological competence and knowledge of the targeted religious groups.

Patrick Laviolette 2020: Hitchhiking: Cultural Inroads. London: Palgrave Macmillan.