This project investigates banishment customs in Sweden and Finland, encompassing both norms and practices. With the time period chosen, 1450–1900, we will point to continuities and changes when it comes to understandings of unwanted persons, exclusionary practices and borders in the Nordic region. Our research task entails 1) to study how laws and regulations on banishment were inaugurated, interpreted and used 2) to investigate which individuals and/or groups became targets of exclusionary practices 3) to uncover the social control and cultural regulation of all these phenomena, i.e. the monitoring practices and procedures for controlling unwanted individuals and settlement.

The purpose of the project is to examine the procedures as well as the agency of both the excluding stratas and those who were banished. We investigate the practices and strategies of authorities and elite groups and strive to unravel the practices and tactics of the targeted individuals and groups. Theoretically, the project follows Michel de Certeau’s (1984) notions of strategies and tactics endorsing an intersectional perspective.

Being both innovative and feasible, the project offers comprehensive analyses through detailed archival studies and surveys of legal and normative texts. The analysis is based on various groups of source materials ranging from normative texts to material casting light upon actual practices and administrative procedures. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods will allow us to range widely over this topic and to explore regulations and discursive practices as well as social practices and experiences.

Researchers:

Ann-Catrin Östman
Johanna Ilmakunnas
Kasper Kepsu
Marko Lamberg
Johanna Wassholm