A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
“They played it on Saturday nights in a barn”. – Gramophone practices and self-made modernity in Finland from the 1920s to the 1940s.
Subtitle: Gramophone practices and self-made modernity in Finland from the 1920s to the 1940s.
Authors: Tiina Männistö-Funk
Publisher: Department for History & Art History
Publishing place: Utrecht
Publication year: 2013
Journal: International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity
Journal acronym: HCM
Article number: 1
Number in series: 2
Volume: 1
Issue: 2
First page : 101
Last page: 127
Number of pages: 27
ISSN: 2213-0624
eISSN: 2213-0624
Web address : http://history-culture-modernity.org/index.php/HCM/article/view/286/375#.UvM0rRCPSRE(external)
Abstract
This article studies rural gramophone use in Finland from the 1920s to the 1940s, based on source material of written memories related to the long Nordic tradition of folklore surveys. The characteristic rurality of the Finnish pre-war and war-time society offers an opportunity to study the non-urban appropriation of modern technology and to approach rural modernity as locally produced on the one hand, but crucial to the societal and cultural modernisation processes on the other. The article uses a practice theoretical approach and argues for an understanding of grass-root modernity as a dynamic system of practices combining old and new elements. By scrutinising the material elements, meanings and competencies linked together in rural gramophone practices, the article describes and analyses diverse forms of rural activity and innovativeness around the gramophone, peaking in the popular phenomenon of secret dances during the Second World War.
This article studies rural gramophone use in Finland from the 1920s to the 1940s, based on source material of written memories related to the long Nordic tradition of folklore surveys. The characteristic rurality of the Finnish pre-war and war-time society offers an opportunity to study the non-urban appropriation of modern technology and to approach rural modernity as locally produced on the one hand, but crucial to the societal and cultural modernisation processes on the other. The article uses a practice theoretical approach and argues for an understanding of grass-root modernity as a dynamic system of practices combining old and new elements. By scrutinising the material elements, meanings and competencies linked together in rural gramophone practices, the article describes and analyses diverse forms of rural activity and innovativeness around the gramophone, peaking in the popular phenomenon of secret dances during the Second World War.
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