Kalasuo - Encounters of local and global in a Finnish village

This thesis aims to study how the local and global are structured in one particular ruralFinnish village, Kalasuo, and how they are placed in people's lives. Village of Kalasuo can beseen as a "remotely" situated village which begs the question what is remote and what isclose. The study intends to question whether remote is always peripheral and outlying. Isthere such a thing as a local village or is today's local always also partly global? How local islocal? I have used an ethnographic method of interviewing and wanted to find out where and howfar the stories and histories of people reach from Kalasuo. Nine villagers were interviewedand through their stories I will draw one picture of today's Finnish countryside and itspeople's social networks and contacts. Since the interviewees differed from each othergreatly, they will be treated as one text that reflects the mentality the villagers hold to andfrom the place. Relevant concepts, transnationalism, globalization, locality and place will be explained anddiscussed, as well as some of the changes that Finnish countryside has encountered in the pastdecades. I will introduce three writers important to the topic, Charles Piot, Doreen Masseyand Arjun Appadurai along with a general introduction to transnational anthropology. This study shows that things are not always what they look like; even though Kalasuo mightlook like a remote, isolated and tranquil place to a random passer-by, it holds a lot more thanmere locality and encloses many different stories and histories that involve various aspects ofthe global and transnational. Rural does not exclude modern