Deus vult: Images of crusader violence c. 1095-1100.

This study sets out to provide new information about the interaction between abstract religious ideas and actual acts of violence in the early crusading movement. The sources are asked, whether such a concept as religious violence can be sorted out as an independent or distinguishable source of aggression at the moment of actual bloodshed. The analysis concentrates on the practitioners of sacred violence, crusaders and their mental processing of the use of violence, the concept of the violent act, and the set of values and attitudes defining this concept. The scope of the study, the early crusade movement, covers the period from late 1080 s to the crusader conquest of Jerusalem in 15 July 1099. The research has been carried out by contextual reading of relevant sources. Eyewitness reports will be compared with texts that were produced by ecclesiastics in Europe. Critical reading of the texts reveals both connecting ideas and interesting differences between them. The sources share a positive attitude towards crusading, and have principally been written to propagate the crusade institution and find new recruits. The emphasis of the study is on the interpretation of images: the sources are not asked what really happened in chronological order, but what the crusader understanding of the reality was like. Fictional material can be even more crucial for the understanding of the crusading mentality. Crusader sources from around the turn of the twelfth century accept violent encounters with non-Christians on the grounds of external hostility directed towards the Christian community. The enemies of Christendom can be identified with either non-Christians living outside the Christian society (Muslims), non-Christians living within the Christian society (Jews) or Christian heretics. Western Christians are described as both victims and avengers of the surrounding forces of diabolical evil. Although the ideal of universal Christianity and gradual eradication of the non-Christian is present, the practical means of achieving a united Christendom are not discussed. The objective of crusader violence was thus entirely Christian: the punishment of the wicked and the restoration of Christian morals and the divine order. Meanwhile, the means used to achieve these objectives were not. Given the scarcity of written regulations concerning the use of force in bello, perceptions concerning the practical use of violence were drawn from a multitude of notions comprising an adaptable network of secular and ecclesiastical, pre-Christian and Christian traditions. Though essentially ideological and often religious in character, the early crusader concept of the practise of violence was not exclusively rooted in Christian thought. The main conclusion of the study is that there existed a definable crusader ideology of the use of force by 1100. The crusader image of violence involved several levels of thought. Predominantly, violence indicates a means of achieving higher spiritual rewards; eternal salvation and immortal glory.

Archaeology of wings : Birds and people in the Baltic Sea region during the Stone Age

The prominent roles of birds, often mentioned in historical sources, are not well reflected in archaeological research. Absence or scarcity of bird bones in archaeological assemblages has been often seen as indication of a minor role of birds in the prehistoric economy or ideology, or explained by taphonomic loss. Few studies exist where birds form the basis for extensive archaeological interpretation. In this doctoral dissertation bird bone material from various Stone Age sites in the Baltic Sea region is investigated. The study period is approximately 7000-3400 BP, comprising mainly Neolithic cultures. The settlement material comes from Finland, Åland, Gotland, Saaremaa and Hiiumaa. Osteological materials are used for studying the economic and cultural importance of birds, fowling methods and principal fowling seasons. The bones were identified and earlier identifications partially checked with help of a reference material of modern skeletons. Fracture analysis was used in order to study the deposition history of bones at Ajvide settlement site. Birds in burials at two large cemeteries, Ajvide on Gotland and Zvejnieki in northern Latvia were investigated in order to study the roles of birds in burial practices. My study reveals that the economic importance of birds is at least seasonally often more prominent than usually thought, and varies greatly in different areas. Fowling has been most important in coastal areas, and especially during the breeding season. Waterbirds and grouse species were generally the most important groups in Finnish Stone Age economy. The identified species composition shows much resemblance to contemporary hunting with species such as the mallard and capercaillie commonly found. Burial materials and additional archaeological evidence from Gotland, Latvia and some other parts of northern Europe indicate that birds –e.g., jay, whooper swan, ducks – have been socially and ideologically important for the studied groups (indicating a place in the belief system, e.g. clan totemism). The burial finds indicate that some common ideas about waterbirds (perhaps as messengers or spirit helpers) might have existed in the northern European Stone Age.

Women, environmental changes and forestry-related development : Gender-affected roles of rural people in land degradation and environmental rehabilitation in a dry region of Sudan

The purpose of the present study was to increase understanding of the interaction of rural people and, specifically, women with the environment in a dry area in Sudan. The study that included both nomadic pastoralists and farmers aimed at answering two main research questions, namely: What kinds of roles have the local people, and the women in particular, had in land degradation in the study area and what kinds of issues would a gender-sensitive, forestry-related environmental rehabilitation intervention need to consider there? The study adopted the definition of land degradation as proposed by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which describes land degradation as reduction or loss the biological or economic productivity and complexity of land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas. The Convention perceives desertification as land degradation. The dry study area in Sudan, South of the Sahara, has been the subject of land degradation or desertification discussions since the 1970s, and other studies have been also conducted to assess the degradation in the area. Nevertheless, the exact occurrence, scale and local significance of land degradation in the area is still unclear. This study explored how the rural population whose livelihood depended on the area, perceived environmental changes occurring there and compared their conceptions with other sources of information of the area such as research reports. The main fieldwork methods included interviews with open-ended questions and observation of people and the environment. The theoretical framework conceptualised the rural population as land users whose choices of environmental activities are affected by multiple factors in the social and biophysical contexts in which they live. It was emphasised that these factors have their own specific characteristics in different contexts, simultaneously recognising that there are also factors that generally affect environmental practices in various areas such as the land users' environmental literacy (conceptions of the environment), gender and livelihood needs. The people studied described that environmental changes, such as reduced vegetation cover and cropland production, had complicated the maintenance of their livelihoods in the study area. Some degraded sites were also identified through observations during the fieldwork. Whether a large-scale reduction of cropland productivity had occurred in the farmers' croplands remained, however, unclear. The study found that the environmental impact of the rural women's activities varied and was normally limited. The women's most significant environmental impact resulted from their cutting of trees, which was likely to contribute, at least in some places, to land degradation, affecting the environment together with climate and livestock. However, when a wider perspective is taken, it becomes questionable whether the women have really played roles in land degradation, since gender, poverty and the need to maintain livelihood had caused them to conduct environmentally harmful activities. The women have had, however, no power to change the causes of their activities. The findings further suggested that an inadequate availability of food was the most critical problem in the study area. Therefore, an environmental programme in the area was suggested to include technical measures to increase the productivity of croplands, opportunities for income generation and readiness to co-operate with other programmes to improve the local people's abilities to maintain their livelihoods. In order to protect the environment and alleviate the women's work burden, the introduction of fuel-saving stoves was also suggested. Furthermore, it was suggested that increased planting of trees on homesteads would be supported by an easy availability of tree seedlings. Planting trees on common property land was, however, perceived as extremely demanding in the study area, due to scarcity of such land. In addition, it became apparent that the local land users, and women in particular, needed to allocate their labour to maintain the immediate livelihood of their families and were not motivated to allocate their labour solely for environmental rehabilitation. Nonetheless, from the point of view of the existing social structures, women's active participation in a community-based environmental programme would be rather natural, particularly among the farmer women who had already formed a women's group and participated in communal decision making. Forming of a women group or groups was suggested to further support both the farmer women's and pastoral women's active participation within an environmental programme and their general empowerment. An Environmental programme would need to acknowledge that improving rural people's well-being and maintaining their livelihood in the study area requires development and co-operation with various sectors in Sudan.

Petusta pitsaan : Ruokahuollon järjestelyt kriisiaikojen Suomessa

From bark bread to pizza - Food and exceptional circumstances: reactions of Finnish society to crises of food supply This study on the food supply under exceptional circumstances lies within the nutritional, historical and social sciences. The perspective and questions come under nutrition science, but are part of social decision-making. The study focuses on the first and second world wars as well as on contemporary society at the beginning of the 21st century. The main purpose of this study is to explore how Finnish society has responded to crises and what measures it has taken to sustain institutional food services and the food supply of households. The particular study interests include the school catering and food services in hospitals during the world wars. The situation in households is reflected in the counseling work carried out by state-run or civic organisations. Interest also focuses on the action of the scientific community. The decisions made in Finland are projected onto the solutions developed in some other European countries. The study is based primarily on the archive documents and annual reports prepared by food and health care authorities. Major source materials include scientific and professional publications. The evaluation of the situation in contemporary Finnish society is based on corresponding emergency plans and guidelines. The written material is supplemented by discussions with experts. Food rationing during the WWI and WWII differed in extent, details and unity. The food intake of some population groups was occasionally inadequate both in quantity, quality and safety. The counseling of the public focused on promoting self-sufficiency, improving cooking skills and widening food habits. One of the most vulnerable groups in regard to nutrition was long-term patients in institutions. As for future development, the world wars were never-theless important periods for public food services and counseling practices. WWII was also an important period for product development in the food industry. Significant work on food substitutes was carried out by Professor Carl Tigerstedt during WWI. The research of Professors A. I. Virtanen and Paavo Simola during WWII focused on vitamins. Crises threatening societies now differ from those faced a hundred years ago. Finland is bet-ter prepared, but in many ways more vulnerable to and dependent on other actors. Food rationing is a severe means of handling the scarcity of food, which is why contemporary society relies primarily on preparedness planning. Civic organisations played a key role during the world wars, and establishing an emergency food supply remains on their agenda. Although the objective of protecting the population remains the same for nutrition, food production, and food consumption, threat scenarios and the knowledge and skill levels of citizens are constantly changing. Continuous monitoring and evaluation is therefore needed.

"Köyhyydestä ei puhuttu, sitä vaan elettiin." : Köyhyyden kokemus ja selviytyminen 1930-luvun pulan oloissa Suomen maaseudulla

On the material level of poverty, the work shows how the Great Depression forced rural women and children to enhance their work input and find new ways of coping. The most serious impact of the Depression was poor nutrition, as well as scarcity of food and clothes. Women's and men's ways to make a living started to resemble each other; men had also to consent to wages in form of foodstuff. The research also focuses on immaterial poverty by means of exploring experiences of otherness: shame, hatred and expressions of protest. Substantial humiliation was induced by poor relief and begging. A clear gap prevailed between the poor and the better off people in school, work and at leisure. The economic crisis deepened this gap even further. The dissertation specifies the poor people s every day experiences by taking into account the different worlds of men and women. The analysis of four different memory-based sources is the core in the micro-historical research design. The narrators of the research were survivors, unlike many others, who experienced the Great Depression. Moralization and humiliation of the poor have not ceased in contemporary society. Therefore, the historical perspective of both the material and the immaterial side of poverty could increase the understanding of the multifaceted phenomenon of today s poverty.

Effects of large-scale human land use on Capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus L.) populations in Finland

The Capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus L.) is often used as a focal species for landscape ecological studies: the minimum size for its lekking area is 300 ha, and the annual home range for an individual may cover 30 80 km2. In Finland, Capercaillie populations have decreased by approximately 40 85%, with the declines likely to have started in the 1940s. Although the declines have partly stabilized from the 1990s onwards, it is obvious that the negative population trend was at least partly caused by changes in human land use. The aim of this thesis was to study the connections between human land use and Capercaillie populations in Finland, using several spatial and temporal scales. First, the effect of forest age structure on Capercaillie population trends was studied in 18 forestry board districts in Finland, during 1965 1988. Second, the abundances of Capercaillie and Moose (Alces alces L.) were compared in terms of several land-use variables on a scale of 50 × 50 km grids and in five regions in Finland. Third, the effects of forest cover and fine-grain forest fragmentation on Capercaillie lekking area persistence were studied in three study locations in Finland, on 1000 and 3000 m spatial scales surrounding the leks. The analyses considering lekking areas were performed with two definitions for forest: > 60 and > 152 m3ha 1 of timber volume. The results show that patterns and processes at large spatial scales strongly influence Capercaillie in Finland. In particular, in southwestern and eastern Finland, high forest cover and low human impact were found to be beneficial for this species. Forest cover (> 60 m3ha 1 of timber) surrounding the lekking sites positively affected lekking area persistence only at the larger landscape scale (3000 m radius). The effects of older forest classes were hard to assess due to scarcity of older forests in several study areas. Young and middle-aged forest classes were common in the vicinity of areas with high Capercaillie abundances especially in northern Finland. The increase in the amount of younger forest classes did not provide a good explanation for Capercaillie population decline in 1965 1988. In addition, there was no significant connection between mature forests (> 152 m3ha 1 of timber) and lekking area persistence in Finland. It seems that in present-day Finnish landscapes, area covered with old forest is either too scarce to efficiently explain the abundance of Capercaillie and the persistence of the lekking areas, or the effect of forest age is only important when considering smaller spatial scales than the ones studied in this thesis. In conclusion, larger spatial scales should be considered for assessing the future Capercaillie management. According to the proposed multi-level planning, the first priority should be to secure the large, regional-scale forest cover, and the second priority should be to maintain fine-grained, heterogeneous structure within the separate forest patches. A management unit covering hundreds of hectares, or even tens or hundreds of square kilometers, should be covered, which requires regional-level land-use planning and co-operation between forest owners.

Survival in the Rainforest : Change and Resilience among the Punan Vuhang of Eastern Sarawak, Malaysia

This dissertation concerns the Punan Vuhang, former hunter-gatherers who are now part-time farmers living in an area of remote rainforest in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. It covers two themes: first, examining their methods of securing a livelihood in the rainforest, and second looking at their adaptation to a settled life and agriculture, and their response to rapid and large-scale commercial logging. This study engages the long-running debates among anthropologists and ecologists on whether recent hunting-gathering societies were able to survive in the tropical rainforest without dependence on farming societies for food resources. In the search for evidence, the study poses three questions: What food resources were available to rainforest hunter-gatherers? How did they hunt and gather these foods? How did they cope with periodic food shortages? In fashioning a life in the rainforest, the Punan Vuhang survived resource scarcity by developing adaptive strategies through intensive use of their knowledge of the forest and its resources. They also adopted social practices such as sharing and reciprocity, and resource tenure to sustain themselves without recourse to external sources of food. In the 1960s, the Punan Vuhang settled down in response to external influences arising in part from the Indonesian-Malaysian Confrontation. This, in turn, initiated a series of processes with political, economic and religious implications. However, elements of the traditional economy have remained resilient as the people continue to hunt, fish and gather, and are able to farm on an individual basis, unlike neighboring shifting cultivators who need to cooperate with each other. At the beginning of the 21st century, the Punan Vuhang face a new challenge arising from the issue of rights in the context of the state and national law and large-scale commercial logging in their forest habitat. The future seems bleak as they face the social problems of alcoholism, declining leadership, and dependence on cash income and commodities from the market.

Keskiluokkainen kulutuseetos 1920–1950-luvuilla syntyneiden suomalaisten kulutuskerronnassa

Tutkielmassa tarkastellaan suomalaista kulutuskulttuuria ja sen muuttumista kulutuskerronnan kautta. Aineisto koostuu 39 iäkkään, 1920–1950-luvuilla syntyneen, suomalaisen kuluttajaelämäkerroista, jotka kerättiin kirjoituskilpailulla. Tutkielmassa analysoidaan informanttien kulutukseen ja rahankäyttöön liittämiä hyveitä sekä sitä, millaisista kulutuseetoksista hyveet kertovat. Elämäkertojen erittelyyn ja tulkintaan on sovellettu lähiluentaa. Analyysin avulla on rakennettu tulkinta keskiluokkaisesta kulutuseetoksesta. Tutkimuksen teoreettinen viitekehys pohjautuu kulutuksen normatiivisia merkityksiä, kulutuseetoksia ja keskiluokkaisuutta käsitteleviin tutkimuksiin. Tulkintaa ohjaa lisäksi ymmärrys tutkittavan sukupolven elämänkulusta suomalaisen kulutusyhteiskunnan kehityksen näkökulmasta. Tutkittavan sukupolven elämän aikana kotitalous on kehittynyt agraarisen yhteiskunnan omavaraisesta tuotantoyksiköstä vauraan yhteiskunnan kulutukseen ja sosiaaliseen uusintamiseen keskittyväksi instituutioksi. Palkkatyöläisyys, vapaa-aika ja kulutusmahdollisuudet ovat lisääntyneet, ja yhteiskuntaa leimaa keskiluokkaistuminen. Elämäkerroista löytyvät säästäväisyyden ja vaatimattomuuden hyveet kertovat talonpoikaisen kulutueetoksen olevan edelleen keskeinen kulutuseetos, mutta niukkuuden hyveellistämisen lisäksi kulutuskerronnasta löytyy myös modernimpia tapoja suhtautua kulutukseen. Tulkitsen kuluttajaelämäkerroista löytyvien järkevyyden, tavallisuuden ja työnteon hyveiden kertovan keskiluokkaisuudesta. Hyveellinen kuluttaminen on keskiluokkaisessa kulutuseetoksessa talonpoikaista kulutuseetosta sallivampaa. Se määrittyy niukan kuluttamisen sijaan kohtuullisen ja tavallisen kuluttamisen hyveellistämiseksi. Keskiluokkaisessa kulutuseetoksessa on hyväksyttävää nauttia kohtuudella ja järkevästi omalla työllä ansaitusta vaurastumisesta. Talonpoikaisesta kulutuseetoksesta poiketen keskiluokkainen kulutuseetos hyväksyy kulutuksesta saatavan nautinnon. Sanonta ”ensin työ, sitten huvi” kuvaa keskiluokkaisen kulutuseetoksen tapaa suhtautua vaurastumisen mukanaan tuomaan kulutuskulttuuriin ja sen nautintoihin.