The interplay of memory and matter : narratives of former Finnish Karelian child evacuees

Abstract

After the Second World War Finland had to cede territories to the Soviet Union, and Finnish people from those areas were evacuated. In this article we analyse the narrated memories of former Karelian child evacuees. We focus on the sites of memory and the materiality of memory practices as they are reflected in these narratives. In the article we examine how narrated memories, both written and oral, are formed in the interplay of embodied recollections of the childhood evacuation, with the intra-action of matter such as sources and mementos, and immaterial things such as affects and emotions. We conclude that things and matter are agential in six ways in narrated memories. Article is accepted for publication in the special issue of Oral History 44(2): ”Oral History on the Move: Multiple Sites and Sources of Memory” (eds. Anne Heimo & Anna- Kaisa Kuusisto-Arponen & Ulla Savolainen) 2016. www.ohs.org.uk/journal