Preliminary Programme

Wed 12 April
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    11.00 - 13.00
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Thu 13 April
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Fri 14 April
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Sat 15 April
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Thursday 13 April 2023 08.30 - 10.30
T-5 CUL05 Colonial Knowledges in the Baltic Sea Region
Victoriagatan 13, Victoriasalen
Network: Culture Chair: John Hennessey
Organizers: Johanna Skurnik, Mikko Toivanen Discussant: John Hennessey
Marta Grzechnik : Colonial Knowledge in Interwar Poland: the Case of the Maritime and Colonial League
This paper discusses the spreading of colonial knowledge in interwar Poland in the context of the colonial programme of an organisation called the Maritime and Colonial League.

Poland had little direct experience of the non-European and no direct experience of governing colonies. Therefore, knowledge about colonialism, colonial rule, race, Europeans ... (Show more)
This paper discusses the spreading of colonial knowledge in interwar Poland in the context of the colonial programme of an organisation called the Maritime and Colonial League.

Poland had little direct experience of the non-European and no direct experience of governing colonies. Therefore, knowledge about colonialism, colonial rule, race, Europeans in the non-European world came to Poland mostly by way of other nations, in other words it was downloaded from the “imperial cloud.” In the case of actors who had a colonial agenda, such as the Maritime and Colonial League, it was downloaded rather uncritically: they did not seek to question the colonial system, but to modify it so that it would include countries which hitherto did not possess colonies, but also spread colonial knowledge and mindset among the Poles.

The Maritime and Colonial League had very active propaganda: several journals, lectures, exhibitions, public events etc. It was mostly directed to the Polish citizens themselves, aiming to persuade the readers and viewers that Poland should pursue the colonial programme, what benefits it could reap from it, but also to spread knowledge about the non-European world. By “downloading” the colonial knowledge from the imperial cloud, they were meant not only to present the non-European, but also Poles in relation to it, and to Europe itself: that is, to construct Poles as white and European. This was the main difference from how the same knowledge was used in the established colonial powers of Western Europe.

In this paper I discuss the forms in which the colonial knowledge was spread by the League. Firstly, there were texts presenting the arguments why Poland should pursue a colonial policy. These arguments ranged from emotional to rational; the texts often gave the examples of the established colonial powers to support the arguments, as well as ideas developed in Western Europe, e.g. that of Eurafrica. Secondly, there were reports from colonial activists traveling to non-European spaces (mostly Africa and South America) and presenting the situation there, in a way that was meant to show what role Poland could take in those situations. Thirdly, there were travelogues of private people traveling to non-European spaces, presenting their impressions from there. These were less systematised and goal-oriented than the former, but they also presented how their authors adapted stereotypes about the non-European, and they normalised the idea of Poles as people with global presence, feeling at home in the colonies. Fourthly, there were the visual representations of the non-European, whether in the form of photographs printed in the League’s journals, items shown during colonial exhibitions or stereotypical representations of the exotic during the League’s parades and other events (e.g. models of palms and camels). (Show less)

Johanna Skurnik : Publishing Global Knowledges and Popularizing Colonial Geographies in Finland in the 1920s
This presentation examines the coloniality of the popular geographical knowledges that were circulated to Finnish audiences in the early 20th century. I base my examination on a case study of a ten-volume book series on global geography, entitled Maapallo which appeared from the printing presses during the 1920s. The volumes ... (Show more)
This presentation examines the coloniality of the popular geographical knowledges that were circulated to Finnish audiences in the early 20th century. I base my examination on a case study of a ten-volume book series on global geography, entitled Maapallo which appeared from the printing presses during the 1920s. The volumes were the work of professor of geography Johan E. Rosberg and geographer Viljo Tolvanen, who oversaw their completion with the help of almost 70 informants. Maapallo presented for the first time in Finnish language and in a popularized form comprehensive and detailed geographical knowledges about environmental and human variation across the globe. In total the volumes added up to 3,500 pages and 3,500 images, mostly photographs of different parts of the world, in addition to dozens of maps.

Even though the editors were dealing with global knowledge, the volumes had a national aim: they presented knowledges that were communicated by mainly by Finnish authors, many of whom had direct experiences of the places they wrote about. The volumes, thus, were also a testimonial for the global mobilities of Finns during the first decades of Finland’s independence and in Finland Maapallo was presented as the work of the “best national forces”. Consequently, the volumes were a means to position Finns and Finland alongside other “civilized” nations. In this context, it is of interest to unpack in what ways the global knowledges communicated in Maapallo – a publication produced in a country without colonies of its own – tapped into the “imperial cloud” of shared colonial knowledges and practices of European empires. Therefore, in this presentation, I question to what extent the global knowledges that Rosberg’s and Tolvanen’s Maapallo manifested colonial forms of geographical knowledge. By colonial forms of knowledge, I refer to knowledges that constituted and justified European expansion and epistemology and the colonial world order. The presentation shows the multifaceted ways that colonial ways of knowing underpinned the production of popularized geographical knowledges in the Finnish society. In addition, it discusses how conceptualizations of the global and the colonial mattered in the Finnish nation-building project. (Show less)

Mikko Toivanen, Lisa Hellman : Coerced Circulation of Knowledge: 18th-century Swedish Prisoners of War in Russia and Central Asia
This paper uses the strategies and practices of prisoners of war to question the relationship between mobility, agency, and intellectual history. In the history of science, scholarship is so wedded to the idea of freedom to such a degree that it has even been considered a necessary working condition (Shapin ... (Show more)
This paper uses the strategies and practices of prisoners of war to question the relationship between mobility, agency, and intellectual history. In the history of science, scholarship is so wedded to the idea of freedom to such a degree that it has even been considered a necessary working condition (Shapin 1994). This paper explores not people in asymmetric power relationships were affected by developments in science, technology or crafts – but how they acted as driving forces, and helped shape these developments. Prisoners took part in the intellectual history of slavery in the sense that they were part of the development of the circulation of ideas and terms of freedom and slavery, but their coerced labour also underpinned the circulation of a wide range of knowledge.

As a case study, I will use Swedish prisoners of war in Russia and Central Asia. As an effect of the Great Northern War (1700–1721), at least 25 000 Swedes (here meaning men and women in the Swedish army, regardless of birthplace) were taken prisoner by the Russian army. They were moved further eastwards, and eventually placed in camps across Siberia, prison camps that in different ways were part of the Russian imperial expansion. The prisoners were used as coerced labour, sold into slavery, and taken captive anew and ending up in Central Asian systems of coercion, supporting imperial projects far from the Baltic. The prisoners were active in a wide range of activities, including mapping, translation and making music, but also beer brewing, cannon casting, and weaving. This paper traces the ways in which prisoners of war were forced into carrying out intellectual labour within various polities in Russia, Qing China, and various Central Asian polities.

In doing so, it becomes possible to explore not only the ways in which prisoners took part—voluntarily and under coercion—in various forms of intellectual labour, carried out by men and women alike, thereby keeping a broad view of what forms of knowledge we as historians study. What is more, it allows an discussion of the connection between the circulation of knowledge, strategy, and notions of agency. This highlights friction in global circulation, that is: both times when and the mobility of knowledge and people was hindered, and when it was forced (Tsing 2005; Finn 2010). (Show less)



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