Research and book project
Very little is known about the history of Africans and other members of the African diaspora in Finland. Ensimmäiset tulijat: Afrikkalaisen diasporan varhaisvaiheet Suomessa (The First Arrivals: The Early History of the African Diaspora in Finland), which I co-authored with Leila Koivunen (University of Turku), is the first scholarly work in Finnish to comprehensively document the history of the African diaspora in Finland up to the 1990s, when African communities in the country began to grow rapidly. It offers the first comprehensive account of the early history of the African diaspora in Finland and sheds new light on a long-overlooked chapter of the country’s past. It highlights the diversity of the African diaspora and examines how Africans and various African diaspora communities have shaped Finnish society and culture over time.
The book focuses on people who came to Finland from Africa or from other parts of the African diaspora and settled in the country from the early nineteenth century onward. It explores stories of love and family life, education and work, and introduces individuals who made their mark in the arts and sports. Through the experiences of these early arrivals, the book reveals the many ways in which the African diaspora has contributed to and transformed Finnish society and culture. At the same time, its presence has challenged Finns to confront and debate questions of racism, identity, and belonging.
The history of the African diaspora in Finland is much longer than is often assumed. Rosa Clay, who arrived in Finland in the late nineteenth century, is known as the first African to obtain Finnish citizenship. Yet even before her, people from Africa and from African diasporic communities elsewhere in the world had settled in Finland. The period covered by the book begins in the early nineteenth century and extends to the 1990s. Today, many African communities in Finland include third-generation Finns.
The purpose of our project is to contribute to scholarly knowledge of the history of the African diaspora in Finland, while also promoting the contemporary documentation of these communities and creating a foundation for future research. Such research can examine diaspora communities both as minority communities and cultures and as integral parts of Finnish society. Our work builds on material collected through previous research projects and is supplemented by interviews, archival sources, and other documentary material. The project involved extensive collaboration with people of African background living in Finland.
”We dedicate this work to the African diaspora in Finland: to all those individuals and communities who identify with it, and whose activities, cultural expressions, and influences have enriched Finnish society while simultaneously becoming part of the fabric of Finnish culture.”
Partners of the project included, for example
Afroeuropeans Net – Network for African European Studies ; Afrofinns ry ; Fest Afrika ; Helinä Rautavaara Museum ; Helsinki City Museum ; The Migration Institute of Finland
