Beyond Educating the Marginals: Recognizing Life in Northern Rural Finland

Abstract

This paper describes how a research project about educating children and growing up in the rural north became a platform for the participants to contest nationally popular discourses and representations of the rural north and, in doing so, to criticise popular conceptualizations of “progress” and “success.” We found that in order for us to understand the participants' perspectives on education and leading a life in the rural north, we must, in the words of the participants: (1) “stop saying ‘remote village’. We're not remote”; (2) understand that “nobody lives here because they're forced to”; and (3) realize that “the village isn't going anywhere; it changes form, the villagers and their presence changes.” In this paper, those three points are discussed in relation to broader societal issues and, in particular, their implications for education. We end up directing our gaze back to the urban south as the assigner of the contested stereotypes.

Keywords:

• social exclusion
• rural north
• narrative research
• education

Notes

¹ By “Othering,” we refer to a process that identifies those that are different from oneself or the mainstream, potentially reinforcing and reproducing positions of domination and subordination (Johnson et al., 2004). Relegating someone or something to the status of Other is a form of disenfranchising, discounting, or marginalizing that person or process (Bach, 2005). This can also take place through representing the other as Noble Other (Hall, Lehtonen, & Herkman, 1999).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maija Lanas

Maija Lanas, University of Oulu; Pauliina Rautio, Education Department, University of Oulu; Leena Syrjala, Department of Education, University of Oulu. We owe our gratitude to the anonymous reviewers whose constructive comments have contributed immensely to the article. We also owe gratitude to the rest of the research group whose experiences in the field have contributed to the article, as well as to the participants in the research, whose efforts to communicate their perspectives have been patient and constructive.