Graveyards as Transnational Spaces

The way we handle the deceased reflects the state of society and its changes. We study transnationalism through the study of death in the Finnish-Russian context. We investigate what kind of a transnational deathlandscape is produced by cemeteries in the province of North Karelia, and the Republic of Karelia in Russia. Methodologically, we apply the concepts of transnational subject and the “wrong gaze”, as well as ethnographic drifting/derivé. This helps us to see the ways that a person watches, experiences and understands cemeteries from the perspective of transnational everyday life. Cemeteries are seen as particular and affective combinations of public and private spaces. While functioning in national contexts, they simultaneously deal with the universally common phenomenon of death. The public space of cemeteries can be used for the individualisation or nationalisation of people, or for their separation from one another, but people across the various national borders are also united in the presence of evanescent life and private grief.