Finnish Colonial Encounters: From Anti-Imperialism to Cultural Colonialism and Complicity
About this ebook
This book explores the concepts of ‘colonial complicity’ and ‘colonialism without colonies’ in relation to Finland, a nation that was oppressed, but also itself complicit in colonialism. It offers insights into European colonialism on the margins of the continent and within a nation that has traditionally declared its innocence and exceptionalism. The book shows that Finns were active participants in various colonial contexts, including Southern Africa and Sápmi in the North. Demonstrating that colonialism was a common practice shared by all European nations, with or without formal colonies, this book provides essential reading for anyone interested in European colonial history.
Chapters 1, 7 and 8 are available open access under a via link.springer.com.>
About the author
Raita Merivirta is an Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of European and World History at the University of Turku, Finland. She is a specialist in postcolonial history, literature and cultural studies, and the author of The Emergency and the Indian English Novel: Memory, Culture and Politics (Routledge, 2019).
Leila Koivunen is a Professor of global history and intercultural interaction in the Department of European and World History at the University of Turku, Finland. She is a specialist in the history of cultural encounters and the processes of intercultural knowledge formation, especially between Africa and Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Timo Särkkä is a Docent in Economic History at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and a Visiting Professor in the Global History Division of the Institute for Open and Transdisciplinary Research Initiatives (OTRI) at Osaka University in Japan. He specialises in global economic history with an emphasis on economic imperialism.
