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This collection deals with cultural studies in the humanities and the methods it uses. Its authors include scholars of ethnology, anthropology, folkloristics, digital culture research, and study of religions. Its chapters address topics of discussion and debate in humanistic culture research and indicate what tools are currently being used to study cultural phenomena. Various phases of the research process are covered, including epistemology, research ethics, techniques of data collection and analysis, the writing process of research plans, and the process of writing up the analysis. The book's authors contribute to our knowledge of changes in research paradigms and agendas, scientific philosophies, ethnographic fieldwork, different modes of writing, materiality, reflexivity, observation, researchers' use of the five senses, digital research, audiovisual techniques of observation, and selected textual methodologies. The book is intended as a textbook and methods guide for students in the fields of cultural research, for postdoctoral researchers, and for more senior researchers.

The theme and title of the 100th Yearbook of the Kalevala Society is "Paradigm". Paradigm is a framework of prevalent principles, beliefs, values, and norms, and incorporates ideas about what is correct in terms of theory and methodology. Accordingly, paradigm always leads to struggles of authority in relation to other trends and ways of thinking. This book grapples with the historical, contemporary, and ever-shifting paradigms and methods of cultural research. What was being researched in the early 20th century and how was the research conducted? What happened in the 1960s–1980s in this field of research? What methods do our peers use? What kinds of affiliations and antagonisms emerge with the changing paradigms? And how do the different 'turns' direct research?

Mitä väliä on historialla ("What good is history?") is edited by Dr. Tiina Miettinen and Dr. Raisa Maria Toivo. Can history be useful and if so, what is it useful for? This book explores the impact of history and historical research. It gives a general introduction and various case studies – together with a piece of fiction – on how different parts of society can benefit, or have used, the study of history. - Mitä väliä on historialla? – kirja kartoittaa historian ja historiantutkimuksen mahdollista impaktia, merkitystä ja yhteiskunnallista tai tieteellistä relevanssia. Toimittajien (Tiina Miettisen ja Raisa Maria Toivon) yleistajuisen johdannon jälkeen kirja tarkastelee erilaisten tapausesimerkkien kautta, mitä hyötyä erilaisista historiantutkimuksista voi olla erilaisille historian käyttäjille. Kirja on poleeminen keskustelunaloitus: pikemmin kuin kattamaan kaikki mahdolliset historian alat se pyrki tarjoamaan odottamattomia näkökulmia ja uhkarohkeita vertailuja.

This edited volume is a handbook of research methodologies for the history of childhood. The history of childhood is a vibrant, multidisciplinary field that incorporates a rich variety of methodological approaches developed in disciplines across the social sciences and humanities, including archaeology, education, ethnology, literature, and history. The volume presents a collection of chapters that engage a range of different research traditions and employ different research material, conceptual tools, and methods of analysis for the historical study of childhood. In doing so, the volume attends to issues specific to the study of children and childhood, such as those related to research ethics and the theoretical complexities of defining 'the child' and 'childhood'. While the central focus is on the history of childhood in Finland, the volume also includes international and transnational cases, contexts, and perspectives.

This book deals with approaches, sources, and methods in health history from the middle ages to the twentieth century. Individual chapters demonstrate how historians of medicine and health choose their methodological approaches and form interpretations from primary sources. They discuss the practices of writing and show how obstacles in the research process can be overcome. Practical examples of source materials, used methods and research challenges give tools to students for carrying out projects independently and help them to understand different possibilities in the field of health history. In this book, history of health includes but is not limited to medical science. Emphasising medical pluralism, it places (public) health in a cultural and social field encompassing official and unofficial practitioners, medical institutions, and patients. Individual case studies highlight themes in Finnish, European, and African history.

The book presents the biographies and work lists of 126 Finnish women composers born between 1784 and 1909. Based on large-scale archival research, it is the first comprehensive historical account of Finnish women composers and their cultural heritage. The authors draw on feminist music history and the sociohistorical approach to find out who these women were, what kind of music they wrote, and how their careers reflected European cultural and social history. The treatise highlights the influence of girls' schools, women's suffrage movements and other socio-political developments on the musical culture of women. Concepts such as "composer", "woman" and "Finnish" were assumed to be open and inclusive throughout the research, in terms of both musical style and diversity in cultural background. In concentrating on music-making by women, the book opens up radically new vistas on Finland's music and cultural history, and it rectifies previous erroneous conceptions about women's composership and their artistic work. In short, it exposes the richness in the sonic and intellectual heritage of Finnish women composers, as well as its significance in society today.

Finland was an autonomous Grand Duchy in the Russian Empire during the years 1808–1917. At this time nationalism as well as other ideologies reached Finland from Europe, which strengthened the willingness to change both in society and on a governmental level. The Fennoman movement, which was a movement focusing both on language and on nationalism, became the core of the Finnish self-perception. The goal was to define Finland as a coherent and separate country in relation to its neighbouring countries. Collecting folk poems and learning to know one's home country became essential. People saw the Kalevala poems as a way to understand and define the Finnish identity and the history of the Finnish people. Especially young people with a background in academia were intrigued by these ideas. University students collected poems all over the Grand Duchy of Finland as well as in the Russian part of Carelia, in Sweden, Norway and in Ingria. Students who collected these folk poems also wrote travelogues about their travels and all this material was handed over to The Finnish Literature Society. These documents are unique and there has not been much research done on them, especially with the focus on how the young academic generation during the age of autonomy defined their home country, their national self-perception, themselves and the commoners living in the rural parts of the country. This book reviews travelogues written by one hundred university students who travelled in the country collecting folk poems during 1836–1917. The book offers insight into how the students described Finland and what it meant to be Finnish. Travelogues can be defined as a sort of hybrid of texts. They consist of a mixture of letters, journals, biographical texts and travel books. Consequently, the image that the students depict of Finland is in this study based upon research perspectives and methods used in textual research, oral history and travel literature. The travelogues written by students previously evoked the interest of researchers who mainly studied certain traits of poem collectors, tradition bearers or poems. However, the travelogues contain plenty of information about the lives of the people who lived in the areas where the poems were collected. The descriptions of Finland in the travelogues do not represent the "real" 19th century Finland, but instead it is a story written and created by university students. The characteristics that are presented in The Land of Hope are based on how the intelligentsia perceived "real" Finnishness as opposed to the uneducated commoners living in the rural parts of the country. The most notable themes in the travelogues are the state and the future of the society and of being Finnish. Another theme is the otherization of those who were uneducated commoners. These themes describe the fears and hopes that university students had about Finland. They also show us that the travelogues were ideological texts about Finland and Finnishness that united the collectors of folk poetry. This book studies the collection of folk poetry in the context of the ideologies during the age of autonomy and it explains what the collection of poems meant and who were involved in it. Furthermore, the book gives an insight into the possibilities to pursue academic studies and it also presents the most essential sources of students' knowledge about Finland at that point of time.