Ethnologia Europaea

SILENCES, OLD AGE AND INSTITUTIONALISED CARE

Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in the ethnically divided capital of Estonia, this article1 suggests that the tacit norm of reciprocity and neighbourliness in Tallinn is to silence rather than amplify ethnicity. Silencing ethnicity is a continuous, context-dependent interactional process that includes linguistic strategies, as well as spatial orderings. The article discusses how residents of Tallinn negotiate and sustain distinctions between “Estonian” and “Russian” spheres by replicating particular trajectories and ways of doing things on a day-to-day basis. The ensuing separateness of Estonians and Russian-speakers is part of the local culture more than an expression of antagonism, though the two are not mutually exclusive. The article also reflects on the (im)possibilities of studying ethnic interactions at home.

Uttering certain words with certain intention is understood as having performative power to produce desired outcomes in social life. However, a deliberate silence as well as words spoken out loud can function as an objectification of reality. With the help of Gregory Bateson’s concept of noncommunication, silences are approached in personal narratives in the Word of Life congregation. Whereas explicit communication would alter the nature of ideas, noncommunication works by “keeping up sacredness”, the unchangeable or untouchable. For believers, avoiding particular topics is an attempt to control the surrounding world and strengthen the feeling of safety and success in the spiritual as well as material life. The article studies four aspects of Neo-charismatic rhetoric as noncommunication: avoided topics, confirming, protection and meta-speech.

Becoming an Evangelical Christian has much to do with mastering Evangelical rhetoric, but there are also non-verbal aspects that are substantial in constituting the Evangelical self. Focusing on a rural Evangelical community in the Komi Republic of Russia, this article discusses ways in which participation in distinctive Evangelical verbal practices can be challenging or even undesirable in a pro-Orthodox environment. By looking at how, when and what Evangelicals leave unsaid or convey by means of emotions and embodied practices, I analyse different silences that are created and employed by group members and also used as proselytising tools. I propose that the intertwining of emotional and embodied features of faith and the specific environment that is unwelcoming tonon-Orthodox believers produce a kind of Evangelical silence.

Family history can be seen to be comprised of both told and untold stories and sentiments related to them, all of which affect family members. Drawing on interviews conducted with immigrants from the former Soviet Union living in Finland and their family members living in the country of origin (in Russian Karelia and Estonia), this article explores the silenced aspects of family storytelling and analyses how the absence of narration can serve as a protector and maintainer of family as a set of relationships, or an enabler of “normal” family life. The focus of the article is on family past, and the continuum from tellable to silenced experiences will be analysed. However, the methodological side of studying unsaid or unsayable things is also touched upon.

Growing reflexivity within folklore studies has established an understanding of tradition as a keyword of Western modernity, and of folklore studies as part of the modernisation processes. The article explores this field by examining how processes that produced a modern idea of history also gave birth to the notion of tradition. The contention is that as twin products of a uniquely modern temporality, history and tradition are mutually constitutive concepts. A temporalised notion of History as an overall process, and as a “collective singular”, had its parallel in the understanding of Tradition as a separate but related mode of temporality with its own processes of change and transformation. The discussion is based on British and Nordic examples.