The Kemi River is the major watercourse in the Finnish province of Lapland and the »stream of life« for the inhabitants of its banks. Franz Krause examines fishing, transport and hydropower on the Kemi River and analyses the profoundly rhythmic patterns in the river dwellers' activities and the river's dynamics. The course of the seasons and weekly and daily rhythms of discharge, temperature, work and other patterns make the river dwellers' world an ever-transforming phenomenon. The flows of life and the frictions of everyday encounters continually remake the river and its inhabitants, negotiating national strategies, economic power, people's ingenuity, and the currents of the Kemi River.
Price: $60.00
Pages: 294
Publisher: transcript publishing
Imprint: transcript publishing
Publication Date:
19 September 2023
Trim Size: 9.45 X 6.10 in
ISBN: 9783837667370
Format: Paperback
»I recommend this book as an enjoyable read for anybody interested in nature humanrelations, their historical evolution, and prospective futures, in peripheral areas globally and in Northern Europe specifically. It is exceptionally rich in describing the various river practices and their embeddedness in dwellers lifeworlds, and Krause is highly convincing in analysing those within his chosen conceptual framework.
Franz Krause, born in 1979, works at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Cologne, Germany. His previous postdoctoral projects were at the Countryside and Community Research Institute and Tallinn University. His research focuses on the role of water in culture and society. He works with approaches from environmental anthropology, political ecology and environmental history.
Frontmatter 1
Contents 7
Figures 11
Foreword 13
Preface 15
1. Introduction 19
2. River dwellers: Living along the "stream of life" 37
3. A fluvial topology: The river as space-maker 65
4. Shaping and reshaping the river: Towards an environmental history 83
5. Fishing the Kemi River: Engagement and empathy with a flow 113
6. Boating along the Kemi River: Claiming and understanding water through navigation 137
7. Timber floating down the river: Managing flow and friction of people, wood and water 155
8. Roads across the catchment: Acceleration, transformation and the seasonal world 173
9. The power of water: Hydroelectricity, river management and displacement 195
10. Rhythms, regularities and regulation: The temporality of the river 225
11. Conclusion 257
References 271
