Field-works in Sweden and Norway
The volunteers were trained to conduct interviews with new migrants from Latvia to Sweden.
Gunta Neimane and Petra Iniņberga, who represented two different flows of Latvian migration to Sweden, conducted fieldwork during which they photographed and interviewed Latvians in the far Northern areas of Sweden.
As a result of this fieldwork, they compiled the photographs and memory stories for the exhibiiton “Why did I leave Latvia?” (photos above). The exhibition, supplemented by lectures, was shown in Riga, in Tartu and also in Stockholm.
Marianna Auliciema and Arta Savdona, seminar in Bergen, Norway, 2019
The fieldwork in Norway (October 3-10, 2019) was organised in cooperation with the Latvians Abroad – Museum and Research Centre. Researchers Marianna Auliciema and Arta Savdona interviewed several Latvian families on the West coast of Norway. A seminar was also organised in Bergen at which the researchers spoke with recent arrivals from Latvia.
Arta Savdona, an experienced interviewer, recorded interviews with people from the older generation of the Latvian exile community in Norway (November 1–6, 2017).
Maruta Pranka and Maija Runcis with the family of Trumars, Sweden, 2017
The experienced researchers Maija Runcis from Sweden and Maruta Pranka as well as cameraman Jānis Ābele from Latvia recorded several video interviews with representatives of the first and second generation of the Latvian exile community in Sweden (November 9–10, 2017).
Interviews recorded in Sweden were used in the lectures by Maija Runcis and Maruta Pranka presented at the seminar in Tartu organised by the Estonian Cultural History Archives of the Estonian Literary Museum (March 26–27, 2018). The interviews were also used in the lectures by Runcis and Pranka presented at the symposium “Postmemory: memory in exile and exiled memory” (Stockholm, August 14–15, 2019).
Estonian carpenter in Norway
Estonian researcher Triinu Ojamaa conducted fieldwork in Norway and presented her results in her talk “Juhan Aavik’s attempt to integrate into Swedish society: Successes and failures” at the conference “On the move: Migration and diasporas” (Estonian Literary Museum in Tartu, Estonia, November 29-December 1, 2018).