Empire, Tourism, Nostalgia: Joseph Brodsky and Travel Writing

Joseph Brodsky, one of the most influential Russian intellectuals of the late Soviet period, was born in Leningrad in 1940, emigrated to the United States in 1972, received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1987, and died in New York City in 1996. Brodsky was one of the leading public figures of Soviet emigration in the Cold War period, and his role as a model for the constructing of Russian cultural identities in the last years of the Soviet Union was, and still is, extremely important. One of Joseph Brodsky’s great contributions to Russian culture of the latter half of the twentieth century is the wide geographical scope of his poetic and prose works. Brodsky was not a travel writer, but he was a traveling writer who wrote a considerable number of poems and essays which relate to his trips and travels in the Soviet empire and outside it. Travel writing offered for Brodsky a discursive space for negotiating his own transculturation, while it also offered him a discursive space for making powerful statements about displacement, culture, history and geography, time and space—all major themes of his poetry. In this study of Joseph Brodsky’s travel writing I focus on his travel texts in poetry and prose, which relate to his post-1972 trips to Mexico, Brazil, Turkey, and Venice. Questions of empire, tourism, and nostalgia are foregrounded in one way or another in Brodsky’s travel writing performed in emigration. I explore these concepts through the study of tropes, strategies of identity construction, and the politics of representation. The theoretical premises of my work draw on the literary and cultural criticism which has evolved around the study of travel and travel writing in recent years. These approaches have gained much from the scholarly experience provided by postcolonial critique. Shifting the focus away from the concept of exile, the traditional framework for scholarly discussions of Brodsky’s works, I propose to review Brodsky’s travel poetry and prose as a response not only to his exilic condition but to the postmodern and postcolonial landscape, which initially shaped the writing of these texts. Discussing Brodsky’s travel writing in this context offers previously unexplored perspectives for analyzing the geopolitical, philosophical, and linguistic premises of his poetic imagination. By situating Brodsky’s travel writing in the geopolitical landscape of postcolonial postmodernity, I attempt to show how Brodsky’s engagement with his contemporary cultural practices in the West was incorporated into his Russian-language travel poetry and prose and how this engagement thus contributed to these texts’ status as exceptional and unique literary events within late Soviet Russian cultural practices.

Pain in juvenile idiopathic arthritis : parents and children as agents of disease management

Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is a severe childhood disease usually characterized by long-term morbidity, unpredictable course, pain, and limitations in daily activities and social participation. The disease affects not only the child but also the whole family. The family is expected to adhere to an often very laborious regimen over a long period of time. However, the parental role is incoherently conceptualized in the research field. Pain in JIA is of somatic origin, but psychosocial factors, such as mood and self-efficacy, are critical in the perception of pain and in its impact on functioning. This study examined the factors correlating and possibly explaining pain in JIA, with a special emphasis on the mutual relations between parent- and patient-driven variables. In this patient series pain was not associated with the disease activity. The degree of pain was on average fairly low in children with JIA. When the children were clustered according to age, anxiety and depression, four distinguishable cluster groups significantly associated with pain emerged. One of the groups was described by concept vulnerability because of unfavorable variable associations. Parental depressive and anxiety symptoms accompanied by illness management had a predictive power in discriminating groups of children with varying distress levels. The parent’s and child’s perception of a child’s functional capability, distress, and somatic self-efficacy had independent explanatory power predicting the child’s pain. Of special interest in the current study was self-efficacy, which refers to the belief of an individual that he/she has the ability to engage in the behavior required for tackling the disease. In children with JIA, strong self-efficacy was related to lower levels of pain, depressive symptoms and trait anxiety. This suggests strengthening a child’s sense of self-efficacy, when helping the child to cope with his or her disease. Pain experienced by a child with JIA needs to be viewed in a multidimensional bio-psycho-social context that covers biological, environmental and cognitive behavioral mechanisms. The relations between the parent-child variables are complex and affect pain both directly and indirectly. Developing pain-treatment modalities that recognize the family as a system is also warranted.

Studies on metal complex formation of environmentally friendly aminopolycarboxylate chelating agents

Aminopolykarboksyylaatteja, kuten etyleenidiamiinitetraetikkahappoa (EDTA), on käytetty useiden vuosikymmenien ajan erinomaisen metalli-ionien sitomiskyvyn vuoksi kelatointiaineena lukuisissa sovelluksissa sekä analytiikassa että monilla teollisisuuden aloilla. Näiden yhdisteiden biohajoamattomuus on kuitenkin herättänyt huolta viime aikoina, sillä niiden on havaittu olevan hyvin pysyviä luonnossa. Tämä työ on osa laajempaa tutkimushanketta, jossa on tavoitteena löytää korvaavia kelatointiaineita EDTA:lle. Tutkimuksen aiheena on kuuden kelatointiaineen metalli-ionien sitomiskyvyn kartoitus. EDTA:a paremmin luonnossa hajoavina nämä ovat ympäristöystävällisiä ehdokkaita korvaaviksi kelatointiaineiksi useisiin sovelluksiin. Työssä tutkittiin niiden kompleksinmuodostusta useiden metalli-ionien kanssa potentiometrisella titrauksella. Metalli-ionivalikoima vaihteli hieman kelatointiaineesta riippuen sisältäen magnesium-, kalsium-, mangaani-, rauta-, kupari-, sinkki-, kadmium-, elohopea-, lyijy- ja lantaani-ionit. Tutkittavat metallit oli valittu tähtäimessä olevien sovellusten, synteesissä ilmenneiden ongelmien tai ympäristönäkökohtien perusteella. Tulokset osoittavat näiden yhdisteiden metallinsitomiskyvyn olevan jonkin verran heikompi kuin EDTA:lla, mutta kuitenkin riittävän useisiin sovelluksiin kuten sellunvalkaisuprosessiin. Myrkyllisten raskasmetallien, kadmiumin, elohopen ja lyijyn kohdalla EDTA:a heikompi sitoutuminen on eduksikin, koska se yhdistettynä parempaan biohajoavuuteen saattaa alentaa tutkittujen yhdisteiden kykyä mobilisoida kyseisiä metalleja sedimenteistä. Useimmilla tutkituista yhdisteistä on ympäristönäkökulmasta etuna myös EDTA:a pienempi typpipitoisuus.

Constructing Fair Tourism in Ecuador: The Case of Asoguabo

Tämän pro gradu-tutkielman tarkoitus on tutkia, miten reilun kaupan banaania tuottavan El Guabon pienten banaaninviljelijöiden järjestön Asoguabon reilun turismin projekti on rakennettu. Projektin muotoutumista tutkitaan tässä työssä kahdesta eri näkökulmasta: siitä, miksi ja miten Asoguabo on monipuolistanut viljelystä turismiin, sekä siitä, millainen kuva projektista on rakennettu markkinoinnin kautta ja miten reilun kaupan mainonnasta tuttuja ilmiöitä on hyödynnetty reilun turismin rakentamisessa. Tutkielman teoreettisena taustana on maaseudun muutoksia tarkasteleva uuden ruraliteetin käsite. Turismi on viime vuosikymmenten aikana muuttunut, ja matkailijat etsivät yhä enemmän aitoja ja autenttisia matkailukokemuksia. Samanaikaisesti turismia on tuotteistettu korostamalla sen tiettyjä, kestävän kehityksen mukaisia piirteitä, ja erityisesti kehittyvissä maissa turismia markkinoidaan usein vaihtoehtoisena, yhteisöpohjaisena tai ekoturismina. Reilu turismi on uutena käsitteenä tullut mukaan tähän laajaan kirjoon, ja tämä tutkielma käsitteleekin Asoguabon projektia nimenomaan reilun turismin näkökulmasta. Tämä tutkielma on tapaustutkimus Asoguabon turismiprojektista, ja pohjautuu kuukauden pituiseen kenttätyöhön Ecuadorissa tammikussa 2010 sekä kirjoittajan aiempiin kokemuksiin Asoguabosta. Aineisto koostuu 21 puoli-strukturoidusta laadullisesta haastattelusta kuudentoista informantin kanssa, joista suurin osa oli hyvin läheisesti tekemisissä projektin kanssa. Tämän lisäksi aineistonkeruussa on käytetty havainnointia sekä projektin markkinointimateriaalien sisällönanalyysia. Tutkielma osoittaa reilun turismin projektin sisältävän monia haasteita ennen kuin se voi saavuttaa tavoitteensa tuottaa lisätuloja Asoguabon toimintaan. Tutkimushetkellä projekti hyödytti suoraan pääasiassa muutamia järjestön viljelijöitä, lähinnä niitä, jotka toimivat projektissa oppaina. Nämä oppaat hyötyvät projektista saamalla pieniä lisätuloja, kasvattamalla sosiaalista pääomaansa, sekä saamalla mahdollisuuden oppia muun muassa osallistumalla kursseille. Tutkimuksen keskeiset tulokset osoittavat myös, kuinka vuorovaikutus-ongelmat projektin eri toimijoiden välillä vaikeuttavat tiedonkulkua ja täten reilun turismin toimintaa. Nämä ongelmat myös lisäävät epätietoisuutta Asoguabon muiden viljelijöiden parissa. Lisäksi tutkimus osoittaa, kuinka reilun turismin projektin mainonnassa käytetään osittain samoja keinoja kuin reilun kaupan tuotteiden mainonnassa, joskin tuottajia on kuvattu mainosmateriaaleissa yllättävän vähän ja pääosassa ovat usein eurooppalaiset turistit.

Quest for authenticity - representation of the Sami image in Christmas tourism

Tourism is one of important livelihoods in Lapland. Christmas tourism was launched in the early 1980s and it became a success story - being labelled as the most epochal tourism product in Finland. Hence, today Christmas tourists are one of the most significant foreign groups arriving to Lapland during the winter season and contributing considerably to the economics of the northeastern periphery of the EU. Christmas tourism concentrates around Father Christmas who uses reindeer for transportation. The Sämi are the only indigenous people in the EU. They are all stereotypically perceived to be reindeer herders. Somehow these three, that is, Santa Claus, reindeer and the Sämi, have been incorporated into same fairytale dominion. In practice, this has happened by using the most visible cultural but also significant identity marker of the Sämi, the Sämi costume. This, in turn, has created controversy over authenticity due to manners in which the costume is used in tourism - often in imitational, mismatched forms by non-Sämi. In this thesis, after relevant literature review I intend to establish how the Sâmi are represented in Christmas tourism through visual data consisting of ten images from three foreign sources. Then I clarify why and to whom it matters of how the Sâmi are represented in Christmas tourism with the aid of 65 questionnaires and nineteen expert interviews collected mainly in the Finnish Sâmi Home Region in October 2009. Through the multiplicity of the voices of various interest and ethnic groups and by using critical discourse analysis I attempt to give an overview of the respondents' opinions and look at some preliminary solutions to the controversy. Based on my data, the non-Sami appear to accept the Sami costume usage in Christmas tourism most readily. Consequently, respect and attitudinal changes have become the respondents' propositions in addition to common set of rules of how the Sami image could be appropriated without violating the integrity of the Sami people, or a similar system of S¿m¡ Duodji trademark guaranteeing the authenticity of the tourism products. Additionally, though half of the interviewees explicate Sami presence in Christmas tourism by adding local flavour to otherwise commercial enterprise, the other half see no rationale to connect facts with fiction, that is, the Sami with Santa Claus.

Constructing Fair Tourism in Ecuador: The Case of Asoguabo

Tämän pro gradu-tutkielman tarkoitus on tutkia, miten reilun kaupan banaania tuottavan El Guabon pienten banaaninviljelijöiden järjestön Asoguabon reilun turismin projekti on rakennettu. Projektin muotoutumista tutkitaan tässä työssä kahdesta eri näkökulmasta: siitä, miksi ja miten Asoguabo on monipuolistanut viljelystä turismiin, sekä siitä, millainen kuva projektista on rakennettu markkinoinnin kautta ja miten reilun kaupan mainonnasta tuttuja ilmiöitä on hyödynnetty reilun turismin rakentamisessa. Tutkielman teoreettisena taustana on maaseudun muutoksia tarkasteleva uuden ruraliteetin käsite. Turismi on viime vuosikymmenten aikana muuttunut, ja matkailijat etsivät yhä enemmän aitoja ja autenttisia matkailukokemuksia. Samanaikaisesti turismia on tuotteistettu korostamalla sen tiettyjä, kestävän kehityksen mukaisia piirteitä, ja erityisesti kehittyvissä maissa turismia markkinoidaan usein vaihtoehtoisena, yhteisöpohjaisena tai ekoturismina. Reilu turismi on uutena käsitteenä tullut mukaan tähän laajaan kirjoon, ja tämä tutkielma käsitteleekin Asoguabon projektia nimenomaan reilun turismin näkökulmasta. Tämä tutkielma on tapaustutkimus Asoguabon turismiprojektista, ja pohjautuu kuukauden pituiseen kenttätyöhön Ecuadorissa tammikussa 2010 sekä kirjoittajan aiempiin kokemuksiin Asoguabosta. Aineisto koostuu 21 puoli-strukturoidusta laadullisesta haastattelusta kuudentoista informantin kanssa, joista suurin osa oli hyvin läheisesti tekemisissä projektin kanssa. Tämän lisäksi aineistonkeruussa on käytetty havainnointia sekä projektin markkinointimateriaalien sisällönanalyysia. Tutkielma osoittaa reilun turismin projektin sisältävän monia haasteita ennen kuin se voi saavuttaa tavoitteensa tuottaa lisätuloja Asoguabon toimintaan. Tutkimushetkellä projekti hyödytti suoraan pääasiassa muutamia järjestön viljelijöitä, lähinnä niitä, jotka toimivat projektissa oppaina. Nämä oppaat hyötyvät projektista saamalla pieniä lisätuloja, kasvattamalla sosiaalista pääomaansa, sekä saamalla mahdollisuuden oppia muun muassa osallistumalla kursseille. Tutkimuksen keskeiset tulokset osoittavat myös, kuinka vuorovaikutus-ongelmat projektin eri toimijoiden välillä vaikeuttavat tiedonkulkua ja täten reilun turismin toimintaa. Nämä ongelmat myös lisäävät epätietoisuutta Asoguabon muiden viljelijöiden parissa. Lisäksi tutkimus osoittaa, kuinka reilun turismin projektin mainonnassa käytetään osittain samoja keinoja kuin reilun kaupan tuotteiden mainonnassa, joskin tuottajia on kuvattu mainosmateriaaleissa yllättävän vähän ja pääosassa ovat usein eurooppalaiset turistit.

Quest for authenticity - representation of the Sami image in Christmas tourism

Tourism is one of important livelihoods in Lapland. Christmas tourism was launched in the early 1980s and it became a success story - being labelled as the most epochal tourism product in Finland. Hence, today Christmas tourists are one of the most significant foreign groups arriving to Lapland during the winter season and contributing considerably to the economics of the northeastern periphery of the EU. Christmas tourism concentrates around Father Christmas who uses reindeer for transportation. The Sämi are the only indigenous people in the EU. They are all stereotypically perceived to be reindeer herders. Somehow these three, that is, Santa Claus, reindeer and the Sämi, have been incorporated into same fairytale dominion. In practice, this has happened by using the most visible cultural but also significant identity marker of the Sämi, the Sämi costume. This, in turn, has created controversy over authenticity due to manners in which the costume is used in tourism - often in imitational, mismatched forms by non-Sämi. In this thesis, after relevant literature review I intend to establish how the Sâmi are represented in Christmas tourism through visual data consisting of ten images from three foreign sources. Then I clarify why and to whom it matters of how the Sâmi are represented in Christmas tourism with the aid of 65 questionnaires and nineteen expert interviews collected mainly in the Finnish Sâmi Home Region in October 2009. Through the multiplicity of the voices of various interest and ethnic groups and by using critical discourse analysis I attempt to give an overview of the respondents' opinions and look at some preliminary solutions to the controversy. Based on my data, the non-Sami appear to accept the Sami costume usage in Christmas tourism most readily. Consequently, respect and attitudinal changes have become the respondents' propositions in addition to common set of rules of how the Sami image could be appropriated without violating the integrity of the Sami people, or a similar system of S¿m¡ Duodji trademark guaranteeing the authenticity of the tourism products. Additionally, though half of the interviewees explicate Sami presence in Christmas tourism by adding local flavour to otherwise commercial enterprise, the other half see no rationale to connect facts with fiction, that is, the Sami with Santa Claus.

The Tourism-Development Nexus in Namibia : A Study on National Tourism Policy and Local Tourism Enterprises' Policy Knowledge

The tourism development nexus in southern Africa involves highly topical issues related to tourism planning, power relations, community participation, and natural resources. Namibia offers a particularly interesting context for the study of these issues due to its colonial legacy, vast tourism potential, recently adopted tourism policy and community-based approaches to tourism and natural resource management. This study is an interdisciplinary endeavour to analyse the role of tourism in Namibia s post-apartheid transformation process by focusing on Namibian tourism policy and local tourism enterprises' policy knowledge. Major attention is paid to how the tourism policy's national development objectives are understood and conceptualised by the representatives of different tourism enterprises and the ways in which they relate to the practical needs of the enterprises. Through such local policy knowledge the study explores various opportunities, challenges and constraints related to the promotion of tourism as a development strategy. The study utilises a political economy approach to tourism and development through three current and interrelated discourses which are relevant in the Namibian context. These are tourism, power and inequality, tourism and sustainable development, and tourism and poverty reduction. The qualitative research material was gathered in Namibia in 2006-2007 and 2008. This material consists of 34 semi-structured interviews in 16 tourism enterprises, including private trophy hunting farms and private lodges, small tour operators and community-based tourism enterprises. In addition, the research material consists of observations in the enterprises, and 37 informal and 23 expert interviews. The findings indicate that in the light of local tourism enterprises the tourism policy objectives appear more complex and ambiguous. Furthermore, they involve multiple meanings and interpretations which reflect the socio-economic stratification of the informants and Namibian society, together with the professional stratification of the tourism enterprises and restrictions on the capacity of tourism to address the development objectives. In the light of such findings it is obvious that aspects of power and inequality affect the tourism development nexus in Namibia. The study concludes that, as in the case of other southern African countries, in order to promote sustainable development and reduce poverty, Namibia should not only target tourism growth but pay attention to who benefits from that growth and how. From a political economy point of view, it is important that prevailing structural challenges are addressed equally in the planning of tourism, development and natural resource management. Such approach would help the Namibian majority to enjoy the benefits of increasing tourism in the country.

'South-South' Remittance - Poverty reduction nexus. The Case of 'Hadiya' immigrants in South Africa, as Agents of 'Constituence development' in Ethiopia, and the policy implications of their 'remittance instrument'

This thesis explores the link between South-South remittance and development. It attempts to establish improved understanding about the role of immigrants as agents of constituency growth and development. By doing so, it illuminates the dark corners of the policy implications that the unconventional development agency of immigrants might have for countries in the Organization ft Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The thesis problematises the existence of state-centric international cooperation as providing the recipe for failed Aid in the face of global poverty menace. In the last half a century, the relative shi' of focus to non-state actors brought about the proliferation of NGOs. That, intrun, helped improve international access to crisis situations; however, their long-term remedial impacts on poverty and development have been contested. Major misgivings for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are, on one hand, low level goal-bound expenditures and lack of independence from influence of the state, on the other. Therefore, the thesis enterprises to empirically verify its fundamental question whether remitting immigrants constitute an alternative development agency to the traditional players: the State and NGOs. Its main arguments are: due to state's failures in bringing sustainable development in many countries of the South, the future of poverty reduction and development also rests in immigrants' remittances. Nonetheless, in the last decade, remittance security-nexus dominated its discourse. Because of that remittance was viewed as something requiring global regime and restrictions. These temptations to tightly regulate remittance flows carry the danger of overlooking its trans-boundary nature and its strong link with livelihood of the poor. Therefore, to avoid unintended consequences of interventions, there need to be clear policy that bases itself on a discursive knowledge on the issues of North-South and South-South remittances The study involved both literature based and empirical research. It employed Discourse Analysis (C as main method for the former and snow-balling as its approach for the latter. For the first part the thesis constructed three conceptual models, these are: metrological model, police model and ecological model on remittance development-nexus. Through this modeling, the thesis achieved better deconstruction on the concepts remittance, immigrants and development agency. The protagonists of each model, the values and interests they represent, and their main arguments along various lines of dichotomies have been discussed. For instance, the main treats of meteorological model include: it sees remittance as transitional economic variable which require constant speculations and global management; it acts as meteorological station for following up or predicting the level, direction, flow and movement of global remittance. It focuses on official lines and considers the state as legitimate recipient of advic and positive consequence of remittance. On the other hand, police model views remittance as beir at best, development neutral or as an illicit activity requiring global regulations and tight control. Both immigrants and remittance viewed as subversive to establishments. It gives primacy to state stable agent of development and a partner for international cooperation. The anti-thesis to the police model is supplied by ecological model, which this thesis is a part. Ecological model on remittance and immigrants argues that, tight global regulations alone cannot be a panacea for possible abuse of informal remittance system. Ecological model, not only links remittance to poverty reduction, the main trust of development, but also considers the development agency of immigrants as critical factor for 21st century north-south development intervention. It sees immigrants as development conscious and their remittance instrument as most stable flow of finance to the developing countries. Besides, it sees remittance as effective poverty solutions than Foreign Direct Investment and international AID. This thesis focuses on the significance of South-South remittance and investigates the South Africa - Ethiopia remittance corridor, as case study; and empirically verifies the role of Ethiopian (Kembata and Hadiya) immigrants in South Africa as agents of local development back home. The study involved techniques of interview, group discussions, observations and investigative study. It also looked into the determinants of their migration to South Africa, and their remittance to Ethiopia. The theoretical models in the first part of the thesis have been operationalised throughout the empirical part to verify if the Kembata and Hadiya immigrants played the crucial role in their household poverty and local development in comparison with the Ethiopian state and the NGOs involved in the system. As evidenced by the research the thesis has made three distinct contributions to the discourse of remittance development-nexus. Fist, it systematized the debate about linkages between remittance, immigrants, development agency and policy of international cooperation by creating three conceptual models (school of thoughts); second, it singled out remitting immigrants as new agents of development in the South; third, it deconstructed concept of remittance and established South¬South remittance as additional sphere of academic investigation. In addition to the above contributions, the thesis finds that Kembata and Hadiya immigrants have engaged in various developmental activities in their locality than usually anticipated. Hence, it concludes that Ethiopian immigrants constitute an alternative development agency to the state and other non-state actors in their country, and the lesson can be applied to poverty reduction strategies in most developing countries.