Migrant Finns: A Local, Multidisciplinary Overview

Abstract

Marjatta Huhta has selected an ethnologically intriguing subject by researching regional migration and Finns living abroad in the context of regional studies. She is senior lecturer emerita at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, a Doctor of Science (Technology) and a returnee herself: she was an exchange student in the Unites States in 1967–1968 and completed her master ́s degree in Sweden in 1969–1972. During her career, she has studied language and communication challenges in the working world and developed methods to identify communication needs in business (e.g. Huhta et al. 2013). Marjatta Huhta’s father served as a parson of the Konginkangas congregation, in central Finland, in the years 1953–1955. Huhta and her family has also had a summer cottage by Lake Keitele in Konginkangas since 1972. She retired there in 2016. The idea to introduce Konginkangas returnees came from Matti K. Suojanen (1937–2003), professor of Finnish language at the University of Tampere, who himself was born in Konginkangas and active in the local heritage society, Kömin Kilta (est. 1948). He launched a regional newsletter in 1999 and introduced Konginkangas returnees as one of the topics of that newsletter. Kömin Kilta accepted the challenge of conducting migrant research, and the idea matured into an extensive ethnological study led by Marjatta Huhta. With assistance from nine members of Kömin Kilta’s editorial board, Marjatta Huhta became interested in surveying the Finnish expatriate experiences of migrants and returnees in Konginkangas. The main focus of the project, entitled ‘From Konginkangas to the world’, is to understand Finnish migration and Finns living abroad through individual experience between the years 1890 and 1990. Professor of Ethnology Pirjo Korkiakangas, from the University of Jyväskylä, worked as an expert member on the project and also wrote one chapter of the book. The book is a collection of individual stories and explains how local migrants and Finns abroad relate to Finnish migration as an international phenomenon. The book also