Oula Seitsonen

This open access book investigates human-environment relations in the context of the anthropocenic Arctic. Through an archaeological and anthropological study of landscape, it wields “weirding” – a creative mode of engagement with the world – as a means of coming to terms with the stranger, experiential dimensions of a planet populated by diverse non-human entities often bearing monstrous characteristics. Such entities are exemplified by climate change itself, at once human-induced and a force of its own volition that maintains an elusive “presence” as a co-inhabitant of the Anthropocene. The book focuses on the landscape of Ritnicohkka, a fjell in Sápmi, Finnish Lapland. Ritnicohkka is erstwhile home to a diminutive “glacier”, whose “weird”, anomalous characteristics crowned the fjell until it several years ago melted into history. Taking a broadly autoethnographic approach, it considers perceptions of, and affective experiences in, this rough and relatively remote, “otherworldly” environment, discussing diverse ways of encountering and relating to the Arctic in the context of scientific fieldwork.

This book discusses the archaeology and heritage of the German military presence in Finnish Lapland during the Second World War, framing this northern, overlooked WWII material legacy from the nearly forgotten Arctic front as ‘dark heritage’ – a concrete reminder of Finns siding with the Nazis, often seen as polluting ‘war junk’ that ruins the ‘pristine natural beauty’ of Lapland’s wilderness. The scholarship herein provides fresh perspectives to contemporary discussions on heritage perception and ownership, indigenous rights, community empowerment, relational ontologies and also the ongoing worldwide refugee crisis.

This book discusses the archaeology and heritage of the German military presence in Finnish Lapland during the Second World War, framing this northern, overlooked WWII material legacy from the nearly forgotten Arctic front as ‘dark heritage’ – a concrete reminder of Finns siding with the Nazis, often seen as polluting ‘war junk’ that ruins the ‘pristine natural beauty’ of Lapland’s wilderness. The scholarship herein provides fresh perspectives to contemporary discussions on heritage perception and ownership, indigenous rights, community empowerment, relational ontologies and also the ongoing worldwide refugee crisis.