Gränsfolkets musik. Mellan ankdamm och avantgarde

Abstract

Music of ”Border-people”. Between Duck-pond and Avantgarde

The concept of “border people” is often associated with the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, the Finland- Swedes. In this text I argue that the concept should be viewed upon as a metaphorical one, used above all to construct a mixed history and cultural genealogy for the Finland-Swedes, a genealogy of transgressions and people situated at cultural borders and contact zones. By looking at four popular songs with a Finland-Swedish connection I try to show that the concept of border people becomes more problematic when backed up by two other metaphors, the duck-pond and the avantgarde. Both these positions have a temporal quality and they situate the Finland-Swedish experience in either a position of backwardness and intimacy (the duck-pond) or, on the contrary, in an avantgarde position, that is a privileged position for the Finland-Swedes as “movers & shakers”, cultural harbingers of new popular music in Finland. The two temporally oriented concepts are instrumental in destabilizing the whole concept of border people. Seen through the lenses of these temporal positionings, the concept begins to oscillate and an anachronistic effect will start to inform our views of the Finland-Swedes.