Journal of Interdisciplinary History, LIII:1 (Été, 2022), 89–115.

Outi Autti and Saara Intonen

The Recognition of War Refugees: Lapland, Love,
and Care In 1944, plus que 50,000 residents of Finnish
Lapland were evacuated to Sweden. This article studies how these
refugees of the Lapland War (1944–1945) experienced their rela-
tions with local people in their host communities. It explores the
evacuees’ reception on individual and social levels, particularly
the processes of recognition in the new communities based on the
application of Honneth’s recognition theory to oral-history data.
According to Honneth, mutual recognition, which is the precondi-
tion for individual autonomy and a just society, divides into three
forms—love in primary relationships, rights in legal relationships,
and solidarity in the community of value. They have three corre-
sponding forms of disrespect—abuse, exclusion, and denigration,
all of which can raise struggles for recognition. An analysis of empir-
ical data within this framework reveals detailed information about
the actual social processes connected to recognition. How did the
evacuees describe their wartime experiences, and which experi-
ences in their narratives were signiﬁcant enough to be remembered
decades after the evacuation event?1

The theoretical aim of studying an exceptional situation of
war and evacuation is to test the explanatory power of Honneth’s
théorie. How can recognition and justice be realized in a situation

Outi Autti is Senior Researcher in Architecture, University of Oulu, and Docent in Cultural
Sociology, University of Lapland. She is the author of “Environmental Trauma in the
Narratives of Postwar Reconstruction: The Loss of Place and Identity in Northern Finland
after World War II,” in Ville Kivimäki and Peter Leese (éd.), Trauma, Experience and Narrative
in Europe after World War II (New York, 2022), 267–298; with Unn-Doris K. Bæck, “Rural
Teachers and Local Curricula: Teaching Should Not Be a Bubble Disconnected from the
Community,” Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, LXV (2021), 71–86.

Saara Intonen is Doctoral Researcher in History, Culture and Communication Studies,

University of Oulu.

Research materials for this article were collected as part of the project “Recognition and
Belonging: Forced Migrations, Troubled Histories and Memory Cultures,” partly funded by
the Academy of Finland, 2017–2021.

© 2022 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary
Histoire, Inc., https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh_a_01799

1 Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conﬂicts (Nouveau
York, 1995).

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90 | O U T I A U T T I AN D S A A R A IN T O NE N

that is exceptional for both the refugees and their temporary hosts?
Our expected ﬁnding is that the war-related evacuation and chaos
during the event increased the threat of disrespect and that the
exceptional nature of the event evinced the most fragile parts of
reconnaissance. This article examines refugees who ﬂed only to
Sweden, because crossing the national border involved practices
that those who ﬂed elsewhere within Finland did not encounter.
The bureaucracy of border formalities together with a foreign cul-
ture and language can reveal interesting situations connected to
recognition theory.

Though our research subject is historical, it connects to a
wider phenomenon that is topical and continuous, even timeless.
People are always leaving home to escape war and seek security
somewhere in the world. In the receiving communities, refugees
often raise mixed feelings, from empathy to concern but also fre-
quently fear. The focus of international refugee studies has been
on contemporary refugees and current salient issues, policies, et
pratiques, not so much on past displacements and the lives of his-
torical refugees. The agency of refugees and oral-history methods,
cependant, provide opportunities to examine refugees as subjects of
histoire. Given the criticism of international refugee studies for
their lack of adequate theoretical grounding in a ﬁeld dominated
by empirical case studies, the demand for theoretically innovative
refugee research is at a premium.2

Honneth’s theory is primarily the province of philosophy. Il
has found empirical application especially in social scientiﬁc
research topics focusing on work, youth and education, health
care, and social work. It has also appeared in studies that examine
the economic conditions, resilience, and identity formation of
forced migrants. Our study complies with the most recent appli-
cations of the recognition theory that discuss the theme of mutual
recognition between parties in unequal positions, interpersonal
recognition in institutional contexts, and care outside primary rela-
tion. What differentiates our study from previous ones, cependant,
is its historical context. Compared to contemporary, ongoing

2 Philip Marﬂeet, “Refugees and History: Why We Must Address the Past,” Refugee Survey
Trimestriel, XXVI (2007), 136–148; Eveliina Lyytinen, Turvapaikanhaku ja Pakolaisuus Suomessa
(Turku, 2019), 24, 26; Dawn Chatty and Marﬂeet, “Conceptual Problems in Forced Migra-
tion,” Refugee Survey Quarterly, XXXII (2013), 1–13.

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| 91

processes, the historical context of World War II provides a more
comprehensive view of the process of recognition.3

The refugee history of Finland has remained relatively invis-
ible in national history and memory. Despite a rich local literature
about the evacuation period, the Lapland War and its conse-
quences has garnered little scientiﬁc and public interest. Research
about the Lapland War tends to present evacuation as a secondary
issue, covered mainly in memoirs and ﬁctional work. According to
the new military history, cependant, war history should encompass
all of its participants, thus accommodating ordinary people, le
agency of individuals and groups, linguistic aspects, and modes
of remembering. Examples of the more inclusive and experiential
approach of the new military history are the studies of civilians and
soldiers in their shared everyday life during the Lapland War, le
material and mental reconstruction of Lapland, and the evacuation
journey of the Saami.4

Salim Chena, “L’asile au maghreb: quelle reconnaissance pour les exilés subsahariens?” Les
3
cahiers du cread, XCVII (2011), 111–145; Cathrine Brun, “Dwelling in the Temporary: Le
Involuntary Mobility of Displaced Georgians in Rented Accommodation,” Cultural Studies,
XXX (2016), 421–440; Flora Gosh and Søren Juul, “Lower Beneﬁts to the Refugees in Den-
mark: Missing Recognition?” Social Work & Society, VI (2008); Fiona C. Thomas et al., “Resil-
ience of Refugees Displaced in the Developing World: A Qualitative Analysis of Strengths
and Struggles of Urban Refugees in Nepal,” Conﬂict and Health, V (2011), available at https://
doi.org/10.1186/1752-1505-5-20; Albena Tcholakova, “Identity Transformation between
Recognition and Maintenance of Biographical Coherence: The Example of Refugees in
France,” Sociologie, VII (2016), 59–76; Sally Robinson et al., “Recognition in Relationships
between Young People with Cognitive Disabilities and Support Worker,” Children and Youth
Services Review, CXVI (2020), available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105177;
Jarkko Salminen, “Contradictions between Individually Needed and Institutionally Offered
Forms of Recognition,” Constellations, XXVII (2020), available at https://doi.org/10.1111
/1467-8675.12476; Toril Borch Terkelsen, Siren Nodeland, and Solveig Thorbjørnsen Tomstad,
“Robert Nozick and Honneth: An Attempt to Shed Light on Mental Health Service in Norway
through Two Diametrical Philosophers,” Nursing Philosophy, XXI (2020), available at https://est ce que je
.org/10.1111/nup.12244; Iida Kauhanen and Mervi Kaukko, “Recognition in the Lives of
Unaccompanied Children and Youth: A Review of the Key European Literature,” Child & Family
Social Work, XXV (2020), 875–883.
Voir, Par exemple, Ulla Savolainen, “The Return: Intertextuality of the Reminiscing of
4
Karelian Evacuees in Finland,” Journal of American Folklore, CXXX (2017), 166–192; Pirkko
Kanervo, Terhi Kivistö, and Olli Kleemola (éd.), Karjalani, Karjalani, Maani Ja Maailmani:
Kirjoituksia Karjalan Menetyksestä Ja Muistamisesta, Evakoiden Asuttamisesta Ja Selviytymisestä
(Turku, 2018); Marja Tuominen, “Where the World Ends? The Places and Challenges of
Northern Cultural History,” in Bruce Johnson and Harri Kiiskinen (éd.), They Do Things
Differently There: Essays on Cultural History (Turku, 2011), 43–80; Veli-Pekka Lehtola, “Second
World War as a Trigger for Transcultural Changes among Sámi People in Finland,” Acta Borealia,
XXXII (2015), 125–147; Sampo Ahto, Aseveljet vastakkain: Lapin sota 1944–1945 (Helsinki, 1980);

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This study of marginalized Lapland War evacuees from the
perspective of recognition theory expands the prevailing narratives
and highlights different interpretations of the past. Unlike studies
of contemporary refugees, our historical perspective takes the long
view to examine transgenerational aspects of the refugee experi-
ence, enhancing previous applications of Honneth’s theory and
refugee studies.

MATERIALS AND METHODS Research materials for this article were
collected as part of the project “Recognition and Belonging:
Forced Migrations, Troubled Histories and Memory Cultures.”
The ﬁrst part of the data consists of qualitative interviews con-
ducted from 2013 à 2018 with fourteen people (nine men and
ﬁve women) who experienced the Lapland War and evacuation.
The data also include two written memoirs. The interviews,
which were completed by Autti, were with elderly persons born
in the 1920s and 1930s. At the time of the war, they were children
or youths. The interviews lasted an hour on average, recorded on
audiotape and transcribed verbatim. The interviews are anony-
mous, cited as pseudonyms and codes; the notation of memoir
citations refers to their writers’ names since the memoirs are pub-
lished online.5

Given that seventy years passed between the Lapland War and
the interviews, a search through the archives for additional
research material dated closer to the evacuation was imperative.
The second part of our data consists of the written narratives of
Lapland War evacuation that Intonen collected from the National

Veikko Erkkilä and Pekka Iivari, Jätetyt Kodit, Tuhotut Sillat: Lapin Sodan Monta Historiaa (Helsinki,
2015); Erkki Rautio, Pohjoiset Pakolaiset (Pello, 2004); Susanna Runtti, Naapuriin Evakkoon
(Keuruu, 1994); Onerva Hintikka, Pako Lapin Sodasta (Helsinki, 2016); Mirjam Kälkäjä, Joen
Takana Petsamo (Helsinki, 1991); Joanna Bourke, “Uusi sotahistoria,” in Tiina Kinnunen and Ville
Kivimäki (éd.), Ihminen sodassa: Suomalaisten kokemuksia talvi- ja jatkosodasta (Helsinki, 2006),
21–42; Kivimäki, “Sodan kokemushistoria: Uusi saksalainen sotahistoria ja kokemushistorian sovel-
lusmahdollisuudet Suomessa,” ibid., 69–86; Maria Lähteenmäki, Jänkäjääkäreitä Ja Parakkipiikoja:
Lappilaisten Sotakokemuksia 1939–1945 (Helsinki, 1999); Marianne Junila, Kotirintaman Aseveljeyttä:
Suomalaisen Siviiliväestön ja Saksalaisen Sotaväen Rinnakkainelo Pohjois-Suomessa 1941–1944 (Helsinki,
2000); Tuominen, T. G. Ashplant, and Tiina Harjumaa (éd.), Reconstructing Minds and Landscapes:
Silent Post-war Memory in the Margins of History (New York, 2020); Veli-Pekka Lehtola, Saamelainen
Evakko (Helsinki, 1994); idem, “Second World War.”
5 Autti and Intonen each have a personal connection to evacuation experiences through
their family histories.

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Archives of Finland and two anthologies. These data comprise 726
pages of narratives from 143 writers (97 femmes, 43 men, et 3
undeﬁned), originally submitted to writing competitions, dans
1959, 1968, et 1974, and arranged by local authorities in north-
ern Finland to commemorate the anniversaries of evacuation and
the war. At the time of the evacuation, the majority of the writers
were children, adolescents, or young adults. The length of the
writings varies from one to sixty pages, the average being approxi-
mately ten pages. The data include short poems and stories, fragmen-
tary recollections and chronological narratives, factual reporting, et
highly emotional literary expressions. Archival materials are anony-
mous, cited only as codes, but the published texts carry authors’ name
and page numbers.6

The methodology employed draws from sociological inter-
view research, the anthropology of experience, and oral-history
recherche. The speciﬁc methodological tool is qualitative content
analysis of several readings of the data, using Honneth’s theory
and the research questions as frames of reference. As Bruner stated,
the interpretive process operates on two distinct levels—the
study’s subjects interpreting their own evacuee experiences in
expressive forms and the interviewers interpreting their expres-
sions, both oral and written narratives, through ﬁeldwork and
analyse. Narratives are the most universal means to organize and
articulate experiences. Expressions of personal experience always
refer to the past; hence, these narratives are also oral history.
Encore, narrating transforms experience, reshaping it through

6 The written memoirs are Mem1: Veikko Kerätär, “‘Evakkoreissu’ Yläkemijoen historiaa,»
available at https://ylakemijoenhistoria.wordpress.com/ keratar-veikko-evakkoreissu/;
Mem2: Toivo Saunavaara, ”Muisteluksia evakkomatkasta Ruotsiin 1944–45,” available at
https://ylakemijoenhistoria.wordpress.com/evakkomatka-ruotsiin-ts/ (both accessed January
7, 2021). The writing competition texts are I: Me Olimme Evakossa (Rovaniemi, 1959); II:
KA, Hb:1 Kirjoituskilpailu “Evakkotaival” (1967–1968) Lapin Nuorisoseurain Liitto ry:n
arkisto (fonds)»; III: Jorma Etto (éd.), Pohjoinen Taikapiiri: Lapin Evakkojen Maailma 1944–1945
(Rovaniemi, 1977). The writing competition text code refers to the writer’s gender and to the
competition to which the text was submitted in chronological order: I=competition in 1959;
II=1967–1968; III=1974. The interview code presents information about the age and gender of
interviewees—F1930A: F=female, 1930=birth year, A=ﬁrst of the interviewees born in 1930.
The interviewees were Finnish by ethnicity; the texts do not indicate whether the writers were
ethnically Finnish or Saami. Finland has no register for ethnicity, and the writers were not asked
to state theirs. Based on the evacuation routes described in the writings and the reluctance of
the Saami to participate in writing competitions organized by Finns, we assume that almost all
of the writers were ethnically Finnish.

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imagination and language. De plus, experiences and memories
are never simply individual; they are also social, obtaining their
expression and meaning from the surrounding world. The ability
to forget and reject is also important; contents, gaps, and silences
can reveal the signiﬁcance that narrators ascribe to their experi-
ences and memories. Experiences that deviate from everyday life
and bring new circumstances are particularly in need of explication
and communication. Narration involves negotiating events and
understanding changes; the organization of experience into
expression is also a process of integration. Narration is how indi-
viduals and communities witness and remember; it is also how
they are remembered.7

The inevitable gaps between reality, experience, and expres-
sion constitute a methodological challenge that we acknowledge.
“What the reality of an experience is,” “how consciousness per-
ceives it,” and “how individuals frame and articulate it” never fully
match. The differences between life lived, experienced, and nar-
rated is crucial in the interpretation of a person’s life story. Since
we aim at a deep understanding of evacuation experiences, nous
focus on the construction and interpretation of the meanings of
social reality and the different interpretations of the past.8

Love, the ﬁrst form of recognition and a precondition for all
the other forms, refers to primary relations, like that between a
child and parent and later between peers, as in romantic love
and friendship. Strong emotional attachments formed between a
small number of people support the development of self-
conﬁdence, and the conﬁdence to experience and express needs,
emotions, and desires. The corresponding form of disrespect shows
its effects on the level of physical integrity. Violations of the body,

7
Voir, Par exemple, Norman K. Denzin, Sociological Methods: A Sourcebook (New York,
2006); Victor W. Turner and Edward M. Bruner (éd.), The Anthropology of Experience
(Urbana, 1986); Outi Fingerroos et al. (éd.), Muistitietotutkimus: Metodologisia Kysymyksiä
(Helsinki, 2006); Kimberly A. Neuendorf, The Content Analysis Guidebook (Les anges,
2017; orig. pub. 2002); Bruner, “Experience and Its Expressions,” in Turner and Bruner
(éd.) Anthropology of Experience, 3–31; Fingerroos and Ulla Maija Peltonen, “Muistitieto ja
Tutkimus,” in Fingerroos et al. (éd.), Muistitietotutkimus, 7–24; Tourneur, “Dewey, Dilthey,
and Drama: An Essay in the Anthropology of Experience,” in Turner and Bruner (éd.),
Anthropology of Experience, 35, 37; Bourke, “Uusi sotahistoria,» 39; Marita Eastmond, “Stories
as Lived Experience: Narratives in Forced Migration Research,” Journal of Refugee Studies, XX
(2007), 251.
8 Bruner, “Experience and Its Expressions,” 6–7; Honneth, Struggle for Recognition; idem, Le
I in We: Studies in the Theory of Recognition (Malden, Mass., 2012).

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W A R R E F U G E ES
such as abuse and rape, cause suffering and inﬂict a sense of being
helpless, at the mercy of others, and a lack of control over one’s
own body. They deprive people of self-conﬁdence and conﬁ-
dence in their connection to the social world.9

The second form, droits, refers to respect of others as morally
accountable, free, equal, and autonomous. Legal recognition
enables self-respect and assurance of one’s social values, judgments,
and decisions. Legally responsible people are cognizant of a com-
munity’s social norms and of its members as holders of equal rights
and duties. The forms of legal disrespect are the denial or depriva-
tion of rights, subjugation, and exclusion. The disrespected fail to
receive equal moral responsibility. Disrespect constrains personal
autonomy and interaction with others.10

The third form of recognition, solidarity, refers to respect
given to others for their individuality. Solidarity is possible only
within the framework of a community’s collective goals and
shared values. Each person makes a unique contribution—through
particular traits, abilities, and achievements—that others acknowl-
edge as adding to the common good and that redounds to the
individual as self-esteem. When self-esteem is possible for every-
un, so is societal solidarity, though esteem does not need to be
granted by society as a whole; a smaller community is a sufﬁcient
sphere of recognition. Disrespect at this level takes the form of
degrading, disgracing, and denigrating individual or collective
ways of life, beliefs, abilities, and achievements. Along with social
esteem, self-esteem is also lost when others refuse to view a per-
son’s actions as meaningful.11

For Honneth, the realization of society’s moral development
occurs across the two dimensions of individuation and inclusion
through struggles for recognition. Honneth does not assume that
societal development follows his model, since existing as well
as pursued patterns of interaction are always deﬁned in processes
of social negotiation. The results of such negotiations cannot
be predicted theoretically, only explored empirically. Forced

9 Honneth, Struggle for Recognition.
Joel Anderson and Honneth, “Autonomy, Vulnerability, Recognition, and Justice,” in
10
Anderson and John Christman (éd.), Autonomy and the Challenges to Liberalism: New Essays
(New York, 2005), 127–149; Honneth, Struggle for Recognition.
11 Honneth, Struggle for Recognition; idem, “Recognition or Redistribution? Changing Per-
spectives on the Moral Order of Society,” Theory, Culture & Society, XVIII (2001), 43–55.

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displacement often entails radical breaks with familiar conditions of
everyday life, requiring re-negotiations of self in relation to new
contexts.12

Leaning on Honneth’s view, this article explores the negoti-
ations and processes whereby evacuees seek to build a new foun-
dation for their lives through recognition in their temporary host
communautés. Our analysis of recognition in evacuees’ narratives
about their encounters with local people in the host communities
focuses mainly on immediate, individual experiences but also on
shared memories and long-term effects. After introducing the his-
torical background of the Lapland War and evacuation, we outline
the main features of the evacuees’ reception, describe the asymme-
try of their encounters with their hosts, and highlight the various
processes of negotiation embedded in the data.

THE LAPLAND WAR AND EVACUATION From the summer of 1941
until the autumn of 1944, a large number of German troops were
deployed in northern Finland, ﬁghting with the Finnish Army
against the Soviet Union. The so-called Continuation War
between Finland and the Soviet Union was an integral part of
German war efforts on the eastern front. Finland was allied with
Germany and dependent on German military assistance. When the
Continuation War ended on September 5, 1944, the terms of the
armistice required Finland to deport German troops, à propos
215,000 men, from Finnish territory within two weeks. Peaceful
retreat under a tight timeline, cependant, was impossible. Pour pro-
tect the civilian population from the anticipated conﬂict, the entire
Province of Lapland had to be evacuated. Hostilities between the
Finnish and German armies erupted into the Lapland War on
Septembre 15.13

Dans 1944, Lapland’s population was around 143,500. Approxi-
mately 56,500 persons were evacuated to Sweden and 47,500 à
other parts of Finland, primarily Ostrobothnia. Some evacuees

12 Honneth, “Recognition and Justice: Outline of a Plural Theory of Justice,” Acta Socio-
logica, XLVII (2004), 351–364; idem, Struggle for Recognition; idem, “Rejoinder,” in Danielle
Petherbridge (éd.), Axel Honneth: Critical Essays: With a Reply by Axel Honneth (Boston,
2011), 391–421; Eastmond, “Stories as Lived Experience,» 254.
13 Lehtola, “Second World War”; Tuominen, “Lapin Ajanlasku: Menneisyys, Tulevaisuus
Ja Jälleenrakennus Historian Reunalla,” in Kivimäki and Kirsi-Marja Hytönen (éd.), Rauhaton
Rauha: Suomalaiset Ja Sodan Päättyminen 1944–1950 (Tampere, 2015), 39–70.

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W A R R E F U G E ES
used personal contacts to ﬁnd their way to relatives or friends;
others deﬁed the evacuation order and hid in the forests and the
wilds. À l'époque, southeastern Finland was also under evacuation
ordres, creating a total of c. 590,000 displaced people within
Finland.14

The existing evacuation plans proved to be deﬁcient, largely
because they anticipated the enemy to be the Soviet Union instead
of Germany. The departure was quick and sudden. The evacua-
tion order and packing instructions arrived mainly through radio,
newspapers, and announcements distributed to homes and
attached to walls. People could bring only what they could carry,
forced to abandon all other property. Transportation was arranged
by train, truck, and boat, but the traveling conditions were poor.
The evacuation from Lapland took approximately two weeks.15
Following a scorched-earth policy, the withdrawing German
troops systematically annihilated their military installations, aussi
as all civilian infrastructure and property within their reach,
destroying almost the entire built environment in their wake
and slaughtering 24,000 domestic animals and 24,000 reindeer in
the process. After the last Germans crossed the border between
Finland and Norway on April 27, 1945, evacuees immediately
began to return home—the majority of them in the spring and
summer 1945. With mixed feelings of sorrow and joy, they found
familiar landscapes but a homeland in ruin. The returnees had to
start their lives again from scratch.16

REFUGEES’ STRUGGLE FOR RECOGNITION

The Crossing of National Borders and the Borders of Privacy
Right after crossing the border between Finland and Sweden,
the evacuees underwent a strict administrative regimen—the

14 Autti, “Environmental Trauma in the Narratives of Post-War Reconstruction,” in
Kivimäki and Peter Leese (éd.), Trauma, Experience and Narrative in Europe after the Second
World War (Londres, 2022); Runtti, Naapuriin Evakkoon; Tuominen, “Lapin Ajanlasku”;
Martti Ursin, Pohjois-Suomen Tuhot Ja Jälleenrakennus Saksalaissodan 1944–1945 Jälkeen (Oulu,
1980), 29–32.
15 Lehtola, Saamelainen Evakko, 78; idem, “Second World War”; Autti, “Environmental
Trauma.”
16 Oula Seitsonen and Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto, “‘Where the F … Is Vuotso?’ Heritage of
Second World War Forced Movement and Destruction in a Sámi Reindeer Herding Com-
munity in Finnish Lapland,” International Journal of Heritage Studies, XXIV (2018), 421–441;
Ursin, Pohjois-Suomen Tuhot.

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98 | O U T I A U T T I AN D S A A R A IN T O NE N

registration of their personal details, delousing in lice saunas, health
checks, vaccinations, and several weeks of quarantine to prevent
the spread of infectious diseases. The quarantine camps were
located near the Finnish border and around the sites where the
evacuees were stationed. The evacuees were placed in ﬁve
Swedish counties; the number of refugees could not total greater
que 10 percent of the population in a single municipality. After the
quarantine, most of the evacuees moved to communal accommo-
dations in public buildings, such as schools, clubhouses, or bar-
racks, and even henhouses. Some stayed in private households.17
The evacuees reported their reception as having been surpris-
ingly friendly and helpful; it increased their self-esteem: “Were we
after all welcome, although we were only war refugees?” Physical
suffering, cependant, was common, especially at the beginning of
the evacuation journey. The traveling conditions were inhumane:
Overcrowding, cold, hunger, and ﬁlth were common companions
in the cattle cars of trains, on the backs of trucks, and on ships.
Children and old people often fell ill with dire results. The death
of children was frequently reported in the material; dans le
Vilhelmina barracks camp, Par exemple, sixteen children were
buried on one wintry Sunday. The deaths of the elderly were
attributed to the language barrier, nurses’ incompetence, or sheer
indifference. From the viewpoint of the recognition theory, loved
ones or fellow evacuees being left to die is an extreme form of
physical violation, as well as a sign of disrespect in a breakdown
of human and individual dignity: “You can guess what kind of
care the sick old people received, when the nurse who spoke only
Swedish didn’t understand them, they themselves tried to help
l'un l'autre. It was depressing to watch when some old people,
when they fell ill, were not taken to a hospital to receive treat-
ment, they were left to die in peace instead.”18

According to Honneth, violation becomes a moral wrong
only when the victims understand it to be intentional, but people
are vulnerable to indirect forms of disrespect, aussi. The unexpected
health checks, lice saunas, and quarantines after the border crossing
are examples of such indirect abuse. They heightened the feeling
of being left helplessly at the mercy of others. Swedish soldiers

17 Hintikka, Pako Lapin Sodasta, 71.
18 Hilma Leinonen FI, 79; FII; MII.

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| 99

whisked children and parents away without explanation to be
washed and vaccinated regardless of resistance. Instead of a sense
of security, the hygiene and health procedures caused anxiety
and panic. The lice sauna felt particularly abusive. Undressing,
standing naked in a queue, running between different rooms,
and washing in the presence of Swedish soldiers was humiliating.
The bathing disrespectfully deprived them of control and exposed
their bodies to unwanted scrutiny. Some of the evacuees described
it as the most terrifying experience of their entire journey, coloring
their memory of the evacuation and the host country: “Anguish
and outcry prevailed in these tent saunas that night. Tired children
cried when they were vaccinated—women looked for clothes or
their children in dark tents. Many of the old people suffered
strokes, and an old man had sat down on a blazing stove and he
was taken to a hospital in an ambulance.”19

The evacuees usually endured the quarantine period, isolated
and under guard, for two weeks or so, but it could drag out for
mois. Information about other evacuees or events in the home-
land did not reach the camps, and evacuees could not leave the
camps without a police escort. The loss of freedom, tantamount
to being in prison, was humiliating: “Law enforcement stood
guard at the gate to stop Finns from getting out to the village
and spreading any viruses or other germs. We were like prisoners.
The threat of diphtheria haunted. If one of the villagers caught a
contagious disease, Finns were to blame.”20

Since falling ill meant returning to quarantine, evacuees
feared and avoided the constant health checks. Guarded patients
could not have visitors without permission, and even then only
through a window, glass door, or fence. The precautions felt
excessive and had a negative impact on the self-respect of the
evacuees despite occasional displays of compassion: “The custodian
lady, who we called mamma, came to see us in the morning, elle
brought a big bag of sweets as if to children, and we truly were
enfants, for we were helpless like little children, entirely con-
trolled by others.”21

19 Honneth, “Recognition or Redistribution?» 48; Anderson and Honneth, “Autonomy,
Vulnerability,» 135; Erkki Vuollo, MIII, 216.
20 FII.
21 Anna-Liisa Töyräs, FI, 30–31.

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| O U T I A U T T I A N D SA A R A I N T O N E N

Nor did the Swedish authorities always respect the needs of
the evacuees. Sometimes food, heating, and/or washing facilities
could be conspicuously absent. At worst, the camp practices were
actually harmful—a case in point being the provision of rotten
food, accompanied by the insult that “it was good enough for
Finns.” A worker in the camp kitchen reported seeing “that
famous Swedish thrift. The same bowl was used for doing the
dishes, mopping the ﬂoors, making sweet dough and washing
kitchen towels.”22

Swedish hosts and hostesses could also abuse their authority by
playing favorites with evacuees and conniving to gain personal ben-
eﬁt, for example by rationing already paid goods or charging for
items that did not require payment. Evacuees’ ignorance of their
rights left them open to violation and exploitation. Veikko Kerätär
recollected that their hosts were friendly, “but sometimes it was
apparent that they considered us Finns a little bit inferior. Once
when the hostess of our accommodation was peeling apples for
her own children, only the skins were given to us.” Furthermore,
the authorities routinely prohibited the locals from arranging coffee
services and clothing charities, conﬁscated Christmas presents, et
withheld snacks from evacuee children on school occasions. Tel
aggravation could have profound consequences: “These kinds of
things that now seem so insigniﬁcant are big issues to a small
sapling, and they stay with you the whole life through.”23

The Asymmetry of Encounters Encounters between evacuees
and locals were hardly on equal terms. The asymmetry, lequel
reﬂected differences in wealth, culture, langue, and social capi-
tal, hindered interaction. De plus, the differing living standards
between countries and regions were materially evident. Having
endured the misery of war for many years, the hastily departed,
dishevelled Finnish refugees, from broken families and communi-
liens, looked downtrodden and poverty-stricken, whereas the hosts,
who had a vastly different experience, were largely unscathed. Le
lack of a common experiential background was an obstacle to cre-
ating relations. Unfamiliarity made some people withdraw from
their environment.24

22 FII; Sonja Puikko, FIII, 232.
23 Veikko Kerätär, Mem1; Marketta Mäkihalvari, FIII, 198.
24

See also Lehtola, Saamelainen Evakko; idem, “Second World War.”

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| 101

Many refugee families splintered on departure. The intention
was to move people, cattle, and property from the same area to the
same destination, but in practice this outcome was more the
exception than the rule. Children sometimes left home earlier
with friends or relatives, and young men and women often left
early to drive the cattle. Even if families had departed together,
they easily became separated in the crowds and chaos. Not all cases
of missing older adults and children had a happy ending: “We
heard that someone had lost a little boy, and soldiers were walking
in a chain and calling for him. We did not know yet that he was
our cousin—3–4 years old boy Teuvo. The boy was not found
alors, but later in the autumn he had been found dead and buried
in Tornio.”25

Tuulikki Soini, who left from Pechenga at the age of four-
teen, wrote in her diary that her family of eight was scattered in
as many as seven different places. Two little brothers had been sent
to southern Finland to their grandmother; a sister was somewhere
in Sweden; her mother was in quarantine; and her father’s was
nowhere to be found. The men and women, enfants, and elderly
of the same family were frequently placed in different barracks
despite their wishes. After many decades, evacuees still considered
the separation of family members a terrible injustice. The further
disintegration of village communities only added to the anguish
and insecurity of the evacuees.26

According to Honneth, the love and care emanating from
primary relations builds self-conﬁdence and alleviates anxiety
and homesickness, constituting an important precondition for
adjusting to the demands of a new environment. This fundamental
form of recognition is a precondition for all other forms of recog-
nition. The disruption of the evacuees’ families and communities
intensiﬁed the inherent asymmetry between the evacuees and their
hosts. The absence of such safety nets weakened self-conﬁdence
and eroded agency; it often made the encounter with unfamiliarity
debilitating, thereby weakening negotiations for recognition.27

Notwithstanding the reassurance that knowledge of a rela-
tive’s whereabouts could bring, many people had to endure

25 Toivo Saunavaara, Mem2.
26 Tuulikki Soini, FIII, 16.
27 Honneth, Struggle for Recognition.

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| O U T I A U T T I A N D SA A R A I N T O N E N
102
figue. 1 Arttu Nevala’s Postcard to His Wife

SOURCE Home archive of Risto Merkkiniemi.

lengthy periods when they had no idea where their relatives and
friends were or whether they were alive. Even when the location
was ﬁnally known, re-uniting was not always easy. The move-
ments of evacuees were subject to control after quarantine, et
traveling required a special pass. Contact by letter or through
the mediation of authorities and other evacuees was often the only
way to maintain primary relations. Par exemple, when Arttu
Nevala learned that his wife Hiinu was in Råneå, he sent a post-
card to inform her that he was in quarantine (voir la figure 1). Olavi,
a teenager at the time, had driven cattle in September 1944 across
the Swedish border before being lodged in an old henhouse in
Sikeå with strangers from elsewhere in Lapland. Not until
November did he learn where his parents, brothers, and other rel-
atives were. He ﬁnally was able to reach his mother and younger
brother after Christmas, but his father and other brother were
somewhere else.28

The evacuees’ position as subjects of a rescue operation, not as
independent actors, meant that they immediately forfeited their
independence. This loss of agency undermined legal recognition
of their abilities and general circumstances. Their complete loss
of control was reﬂected in the passive, often brutal, expressions
with which they described their situation: “We were loaded,»
“crammed,” or “thrown from the car to the ground like barrels
of herring.” The Swedish army’s reception of them was hierarchi-
cal, systematic, and impersonal. The evacuees were treated “like
sheep” or “rounded up like reindeer” in isolated rope corrals.

28 Olavi, M1928.

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| 103

They likened the manner of their feeding to that of the cows that
the soldiers took to pasture for hay, or to that of little babies. Le
narrative of the evacuees as passive, commodity-like objects reveals
a loss of agency, authority, equality, and legal standing. The com-
parison to animals shows a loss of human and individual dignity.
Although the evacuees understood the reception practices as nec-
essary in some ofﬁcial capacity, they felt that it was personally
humiliating. The practices violated the norms of respect and
esteem.29

The suffering caused by the health-care measures, though not
intentional, was disrespectful at all levels of recognition. The evac-
uees washed and locked in quarantine forfeited all freedom and
self-determination; they saw their treatment as an abuse of rights
and human dignity. The inﬂiction of bodily suffering and humil-
iation made their own needs seem worthless in the eyes of others.
The authorities also removed the possibility of care in the face of
these indignities by separating family members from each other,
damaging both individual and collective self-esteem. The health
precautions tended to disparage the people from “war-infected
Finland” with their “Finnish bacilli” threatening the locals. Le
upshot was a detrimental cultural distinction and an interlacing
of different levels of disrespect: “The sauna thing, so rudely and
coarsely organized, raised a high barrier between us and the
Swedes. The Swedes were hygienic and exemplary people in
every way. Nous, by contrast, were ﬁlthy and dirty evacuees, whom
Sweden could treat however they wanted.”30

The treatment of evacuees as a depersonalized, manipulable
throng was inevitably reﬂected in encounters with locals. Le
experience wounded the self-esteem and self-respect of the evac-
uees and hampered their ability to negotiate for recognition and
establish a position in the new community. Care produced shame:
“Somehow it felt so bad…. We had to leave home and seek cus-
tody from strange people, eat their charity bread.” Needing the
help of others was difﬁcult for formerly active, self-sufﬁcient peo-
ple; it made them feel like children: “This is the easy life then, Non
need to even cook for ourselves. Just sit down at a prepared table.

29 Matti Nieminen, MI, 98.
30 Honneth, “Recognition and Moral Obligation,” Social Research, LXIV (1997), 26;
MII; FII.

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| O U T I A U T T I A N D SA A R A I N T O N E N

104
I’m not used to having it so easy.” The absence of any particular
bond with the place exacerbated the inequality. Hosts encoun-
tered evacuees under familiar conditions, but evacuees had to deal
with new people, lieux, and customs that sometimes changed
more than once, as well as a debilitating language barrier. Unfa-
miliarity had a negative effect on agency.31

The relationship of the Lapland evacuees to Sweden was at
least ambivalent. The new place meant peace and material secu-
rity, not just dependence on a foreign system. But a lack of prop-
erty enhances the feeling of estrangement and causes shame,
because aid received as a gift feels undeserved. Especially at the
beginning of the evacuation journey, the aid was tantamount to
charity because the evacuees had no way to reciprocate. A gift
can also be a means of exercising power and a threat to equality.
The shame of the evacuees reﬂected their inability to pay back
their rescuers for their help.32

The evacuees could take only a small number of possessions
on their journey, many of which were often lost along the way.
When possible, property was used as leverage in negotiations for
reconnaissance, because it was a visible sign of the evacuees’ worth.
By the same token, a lack of property was a ready excuse for den-
igration. Evacuees often had no other clothes with them than the
ones that they were wearing. In the destitution of war, they wore
the same outﬁt many times, patched and soiled during the evacu-
ation journey, causing embarrassment in front of their more pros-
perous hosts: “A public health nurse came here and gave the order
to undress. I have never been so ashamed when she stood next to
me and looked at my clothes like they were vomit. Ils étaient
clean now, but so ugly. Shirt and trousers made of father’s old
ﬂannel shirt and mother’s old petticoat and trimmed, self-knitted
garters.” Welcome as the clothing from the authorities might be, it
tended to produce hard feelings rather than reduce them. Le
resort to the old clothes of others was yet another indication of
a loss of agency and unworthiness. In Armstrong’s research,
Karelian evacuees associated borrowed clothes with laziness, a trait

31 Einari Hihnala, MIII, 117; Anna-Liisa Töyräs, FI, 33.
32
See also Laura Huttunen, Kotona, Maanpaossa, Matkalla: Kodin Merkitykset
Maahanmuuttajien Omaelämäkerroissa (Helsinki, 2002); Marcel Mauss, The Gift: Forms and Func-
tions of Exchange in Archaic Societies (Londres, 1970).

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| 105

much reviled in the Finnish community, and an obstacle to recog-
nized membership in a community.33

Asymmetrical encounters were also manifest in the compas-
sionate but condescending reception given to the evacuees. Le
helper/helped setting fostered prejudice toward individual evac-
uees and their predicament. Some hosts were surprised to discover
that their guests had money or property, or wary of those with a
healthy and prosperous appearance, suspicious that their plight was
a ruse and their arrival in Sweden unjustiﬁed. Evacuees noticed
other prejudices besides ones related to the refugee status that
had a negative effect on their position. The locals questioned
the cleanliness, health, and manners of the incomers. At ﬁrst, quelques
hosts did not give them forks and knives at meals, only spoons.
According to Olavi, “They explained that they understood that
you cannot use them. They thought that evacuees have, ha ha,
come from the east.” They structured the social order by segregat-
ing Finnish refugees, thus strengthening the social cohesion of
their own group to the detriment of the evacuees’ need for recip-
rocal recognition and admittance to the community.34

Liisa’s brother had gone to work at a nearby farm everyday.
The people on the farm had grown fond of him, but they checked
the brother’s hair for lice every morning nonetheless. Tuulikki
Soini told of a farmer who couched his approval of evacuees
working in Sweden with an insult: “Now we can have good
housemaids from Finland in every house in Sweden when they
are ﬁrst washed and scrubbed clean.” The farmer’s words reveal
his prejudices about the evacuees by conﬁning them to servant’s
travail, by stating that they require washing, and by implying that
they could not do this washing themselves.35

Experiences of shame indicate that recognition as care given
without respect and esteem falls short. Failing to see evacuees as
equals had negative effects on the self-understanding of the evac-
uees and their perception of belonging in the new community.
Our material points out that rights are an irreplaceable basis for

33 Tuulikki Soini, FIII, 14; Karen Armstrong, Remembering Karelia: A Family’s Story of Dis-
placement during and after the Finnish Wars (New York, 2004).
34 Olavi, M1928. Voir, Par exemple, Natalia Moen-Larsen, “Brothers and Barbarians:
Discursive Constructions of ‘Refugees’ in Russian Media,” Acta Sociologica, LXIII (2020),
226–241.
35 Alice, F1929A; Tuulikki Soini, FIII, 14.

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the recognition of refugees. Compassion does not compensate for
a loss of autonomy; charity is not a proxy for reciprocal solidarity;
and care without respect cannot redeem lost agency.

The Means and Objectives of Negotiation We identiﬁed the dif-
ferent modes of negotiation that the refugees employed to enable
recognition and to build a relationship with the locals. They tried
to balance the asymmetry of the encounters and to disprove the
prejudices of their hosts. Negotiations could vary depending on
situation and the form of recognition sought. If the refugees were
with their families, Par exemple, they did not need to build a rec-
ognition relationship based on care or love. Refugees who had
become separated from their families tried to recover primary rela-
tions by searching for their relatives independently if authorities
were not helpful. Anna lost track of her family after driving their
cattle to Sweden. She went daily to the Öjeby station to check
trains from the north, but only by chance did she learn where
her mother was. Sometimes notices in newspapers about missing
family members could help with searches: “We sent addresses to
newspapers Kotimaanviesti, Haaparanta, etc.. Little by little we did
get the addresses of our relatives. And ﬁnally, after a two-month
pause, I received a letter from my husband. Now afterward I
cannot quite realize how it relieved my mind. He was alive after
all.”36

Relying on the authorities to re-unite families was slow, if not
impossible. Family reasons alone were often not enough to secure
a pass to travel. The fact that some evacuees had relatively better
luck obtaining a pass because of their occupation indicates that
evacuees and hosts had different priorities of recognition—primary
relations paramount for the evacuees and skilled labor for the
hosts. Labor was successful as leverage for recovering primary rela-
tions only rarely, cependant. Breaking the rules was a better
bet—say, fabricating a letter about a sick relative. If that ploy
failed, evacuees commonly attempted to escape or to receive rel-
atives without permission. Men who had remained in Finland to
perform war duties sometimes broke protocol to visit Sweden to
see evacuees. Toivo Saunavaara told of men who came to see their
families without permission: “Father came suddenly with (deux

36 Anna, F1930A; Rauha Niiranen FI, 10.

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| 107

other men). The visit was short, cependant, because they had trav-
eled without permission, and already the next day a police car
drove to the yard, où (one of the men) was already sitting som-
berly. The policemen fetched the escapees from the inside and
pushed them into the car.”37

Evacuees who were separated from their primary relations
often sought solace and recognition from fellow evacuees instead
because of their shared experience. They also tried to establish new
relations with the accommodation hosts, hostesses, et autre
locals. The refugee situation from war turned the primacy of pri-
mary relations described by Honneth upside down when care and
friendship had to come from the community rather than family,
friends, etc.. In the new relations created during evacuation, le
different dimensions of the recognition theory—that is, love and
solidarity as well as primary and community relations—are difﬁcult
to distinguish from each other. The interviews feature numerous
stories about care and aid offered by strangers, which was often a
good basis for further negotiations toward recognition. In time,
such care and aid could develop into a primary relation: “Our stay
in Sweden was good. We received a great deal of compassion, et
our relationship with them strengthened into friendship.”38

The language barrier slowed communication but did not pre-
vent it completely. Some of the hosts were Finnish speakers, et
gradually many evacuees learned Swedish, the most accomplished
ones becoming interpreters. Learning the language was a means to
demonstrate capability and stand out from the mass of refugees
within the community and to bridge the asymmetry of encoun-
ters, thus paving the way to recognition. Travail, aussi, was a multi-
dimensional promoter of welfare and autonomy, offering both a
source of income and a meaningful way to pass the time, aussi
as an opportunity to negotiate for legal recognition and respect
and to alleviate social asymmetry. Evacuees’ labor was welcome
in farming, housekeeping, and child care. The division of labor
often followed the traditional peasant gender system. Women’s
tasks varied from child care to housework; men were likely to
work the farms and forests. Many evacuees were self-employed
artisans, cobblers, or love-letter clerks (people who could write,

37 Toivo Saunavaara, Mem2.
38 MII.

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often with beautiful script). Volunteer work included cooking in
camp kitchens and teaching evacuee children.

Travail, when available, was the principal means to retrieve
and maintain lost agency and individuality. Through work and
other talents, like playing music or singing, evacuees proved that
they were not a mere faceless burden on the community but indi-
vidually skilled contributors to it. The diligence and competence
of the evacuees often evoked admiration and wonder in the locals,
especially when contrasted with the negative preconceptions
about them. Wages and spending money promoted economic
independence, equality, and self-worth; the ability to make one’s
own consumer choices is a different matter from being the recipi-
ent of charity. Even without ﬁnancial compensation, work was a
way to reciprocate. Work and related activities familiarized the ref-
ugees with their adopted environment and helped them to
develop new primary relations.

Although work was not always available—and when not
properly valued or compensated, it could be degrading—it often
allowed evacuees to live much as they did at home; the rustic way
of life in Sweden did not differ signiﬁcantly from that in Finland.
The practices and values learned at home enabled continuity in
otherwise exceptional conditions. When possible, the evacuees
cooked recipes from home and built temporary saunas like the
ones that they had left behind, which even the Swedes learned
to appreciate. Maintaining the remnants of home life supported
the identity of the evacuees; it helped to relieve their homesick-
ness. Continuity and regularity encouraged feelings of belonging
and strengthened reciprocal recognition. These factors decreased
the feeling of estrangement and changed the impression of the ref-
ugees from passive and needy to active and capable.39

The desire for continuity was apparent also in evacuees’ ten-
dency to name camps, lieux, and routes after regions in Finland.
Martta mentioned the Lindå camp in the Västerbotten province,
which the Finns called Little-Rovaniemi, named after the capital
of Lapland. Evacuees called the canteens in the camp by the names
of restaurants in Rovaniemi: “We lived in barracks there, et
there were canteens like Lapinmaa and Pohjanhovi, and there
were streets like Koskikatu and all such things.” In camp

39 Anna-Liisa Töyräs, FI 33. See also Huttunen, Kotona, Maanpaossa, Matkalla.

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| 109

accommodations, evacuees also kept connections with home alive
by emphasizing the old social hierarchy. Par exemple, plus
prosperous evacuees from the townships might let it be known
that they had a higher position than others. Lice saunas, quaran-
tines, and camp conditions broke down these social hierarchies at
ﬁrst, but the prejudices gradually re-emerged in social situations.40
Complaining about the situation and dissociating from the
Swedes was another strategy to preserve self-esteem. Complaints
did not involve direct communication with the locals so much
as personal communications in-house between evacuees, primarily
concerned with overcoming awkward situations. Evacuees, pour
example, were liable to criticize the customs, cleanliness, et
peculiar food culture of the hosts. The motive was to elevate their
own status at the expense of the uncouth Swedes, who had no
saunas or washing rooms, whose foods were too sweet for Finnish
tastes, etc..

Crossing the Asymmetries The lack of symmetry was most eas-
ily overcome slowly in private encounters, leisure activities, ou
workplaces, permitting individual evacuees to stand out from
the crowd and show their strengths. At best, negotiations pro-
ceeded through recognition to new primary relations. The deep-
ening of new relations into primary relations was evident in the
use of kinship terms. Par exemple, the Swedes would sometimes
refer to, and treat, Lapland evacuees as their own daughters or
sons, and the Finns, for their part, might call their accommodation
places their new village or new home. When the time came for
the evacuees to return to Finland, many of their new families
asked the children or youths to stay in Sweden, and some did.
Veikko Kerätär, who had become friends with the people on a
nearby farm, is a case in point: “The folks on the farm where I
was working began to ask me not to go away, to stay here; nous
take you in as our own son. I would have stayed, but mother
started to cry desperately that she would not leave me.”41

The friendships that developed between evacuees and locals
permitted everyday social practices, visits, and other leisure activi-
ties to continue and people to integrate with the local community.

40 Martta, F1937C.
41 Veikko Kerätär, Mem1.

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110
Leisure activities signiﬁed the resumption of a normal social life
after the long years of war. Many recollections mentioned the relief
that accompanied the change from war conditions to better mate-
rial and social circumstances. People recalled going to movies,
dances, concerts, and other events. Apparently, the St. Lucia’s
Day feast in December was unforgettable: “It was a pleasant time
for me, wartime at home was not quite so, looking and listening to
those airplanes and covering windows; evacuees from Posio were
still in our small (cottage) through the winter. You really came alive
when you got to Sweden.”42

Friendship and communication continued after homecoming,
even to the time of writing or interviewing. Maija and Erkki,
reﬂecting on the meaning of friendship, regarded their evacuee
background as one reason for the compassionate reception in their
new community:

Maija: “You made friends during the evacuation time, nice and
long-lasting. I was terribly grateful that I was taken into that com-
munity not as a stranger or someone to hate; I was treated like any-
one else. Maybe because I was an evacuee, being away from home,
was something like positive that you have to be nice to her.”
Erkki: “And it had importance, in relation to local people.”
Maija: “But that kind of friendship, or an atmosphere that I’m
accepted to the group, which is important, of course.”43

Romance—originating at gatherings of young people, à
travail, or at family get-togethers—also crossed social and national
boundaries: “First we cried over German soldiers when we left
home and now we cry over Swedes. There was also romance—
there was life although there was no home.” Many romances
resulted in marriages and settlement in the evacuation place. Court-
ship, infatuation, and admiration brought joy and fun, encouraging
a sense of inclusion and a glimmer of normalcy under exceptional
circonstances. Cross-boundary romances left amusing anecdotes,
smiles, and fond memories in their wake, though they could also
arouse disapproval and jealousy. En général, cependant, they helped
to compensate for the humiliation of lice saunas and health checks,

42 Anja, F1929B.
43 Maija (F1930B); Erkki (M1927).

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| 111

W A R R E F U G E ES
et, together with love and care, inﬂuenced the refugees’ feeling of
recognition and promoted basic self-conﬁdence.44

The conditions of evacuees and attitudes of hosts did not
always allow asymmetry to be overcome. Evacuees did not get
to remain in their ﬁrst accommodation place; they constantly
had to move from one place to another. Continuous movement
interrupted negotiations and made it difﬁcult to build social rela-
tion; every forced relocation meant new asymmetrical encounters
and negotiations. Even in the more permanent accommodations,
reaching a position of negotiation at the level of personal encoun-
ter could be difﬁcult. Interaction with locals was scarce in large
evacuation camps, remote places, and quarantine. With few
opportunities to stand out individually or resist, the evacuees were
subjected to local prejudice and arbitrary mistreatment from the
camp management. At worst, the direct and indirect forms of dis-
respect experienced by the evacuees continued throughout their
sojourn, preventing the start, progress, or success of negotiations.
Ainsi, the asymmetry deﬁned by refugee status persisted.

RECOGNITION AND THE DIFFERING EXPERIENCES OF DISPLACEMENT
Forced displacement is distressing, to say the least. Leaving homes,
families, and communities for a foreign environment can be men-
tally and socially traumatic. Uncertainty, insecurity, and alienation
all add to refugees’ burden. These difﬁcult experiences further
complicate and challenge the refugees’ encounters with their hosts.
The relations between refugees and hosts in this study varied
depending on the context of the encounters and personal situa-
tion. If all the preconditions were in order, the refugee journey
could be favorable. Apart from security, the refugees beneﬁted
from a regular social life of their own and from all three forms
of recognition. The presence of relatives—or at least information
about their situation—the ability to work, and inclusion in the
local community afforded them a more equal status. Active agency
and support from the family and community helped evacuees to
attach themselves to a place and to live comfortably in exceptional
circonstances. Recognition relations maintained or created in the
evacuation place alleviated the experience of refuge and
unfamiliarity.

44 MII; FII.

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| O U T I A U T T I A N D SA A R A I N T O N E N

Yet a generally good evacuation experience was possible only
for a few refugees. Under ordinary conditions, war tends to ﬂatten
experience: Society concentrates and simpliﬁes during war. Class
and social background, which otherwise create differing experi-
ences, lose some of their importance. Class and wealth differences,
cependant, differentiated the experiences of the Finnish refugees
severely. Wealthy families managed to evade cattle-car transporta-
tion, collective health-care measures, and evacuee camps because
they had the wherewithal to rent an apartment in the south of
Finlande, drive there by car (only the most wealthy), and spend a
comfortable winter where few other evacuees could go. They suf-
fered no asymmetry in their encounters with locals.45

The forms of primary relations and communality varied
between and within cultures, time periods, and contexts, as our
study demonstrates. In refugee situations, when relatives were scat-
tered, the boundaries of family and community became porous
and inexact, and relations became mixed. The fundamental human
need for love—recognition transmitted as care—is the most signif-
icant factor in kinship. Kinship practices, cependant, do not belong
only to primary relations as deﬁned in Honneth’s model. In the
absence of family, refugees sought love and care from other
sources. Encounters in the context of a war refuge could bypass
love as the fundamental form of recognition; the ﬁrst negotiations
were about equal membership in the community and the kind of
social viability that carried rights and respect. These recognitions
served as precusors to the recognition of love and care.46

The actual process of recognition transpired between evac-
uees and locals, but evacuees’ personal, internal negotiations to
bolster individual and collective self-respect and to cope with
estrangement were just as important to their identities. The result-
ing nature of recognition was complicated. Par exemple, the act
by which the hosts showed compassion to the evacuees while sub-
jecting them to charity caused a riptide of gratitude and shame.
Autonomy required all forms of recognition, but the process of
recognition in all its forms embodied contradictions.

45 Kivimäki, “Sodan kokemushistoria,» 83.
46
and Sexuality,” International Social Science Journal, XLIX (1997), 573–584.

John Borneman, “Caring and Being Cared for: Displacing Marriage, Kinship, Gender

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| 113

W A R R E F U G E ES
This study demonstrates the signiﬁcance of being recognized and
being disrespected. Injustice, denied recognition, disintegrated pri-
mary relations, or direct or indirect forms of disrespect inﬂuenced
the basic elements of autonomy, such as physical integrity. Ils
also inﬂuenced cultural self-understanding, which had to confront
Swedish prejudices. Experiences of disrespect were breaches of
normative expectation largely derived from the context of war ref-
uge and refugee status. De Beauvoir states that actions in a time of
crisis should be distinguished from actions in a time of stability.
The crisis situation, cependant, does not explain all the disrespect
experienced by refugees; Swedes harbored prejudices about Finns
before they were refugees. Despite instability, the motives of indi-
viduals and communities are attached to earlier experiences and
events and their future horizons. De Beauvoir does not point to
the deed alone but also to the situation—communal or historical
circumstances as well as the historical community as a structural
factor per se.47

When violence is seen as the main progenitor of wartime sub-
jectivity, agency, and social process and as the sole determinant of
thought and action, the analytical eye focuses only on how people
survive it. For Lapland evacuees, the ﬂight from war meant vio-
lence, perte, and violation to be sure, but the departure was also a
great adventure, especially for children and young people. Evacu-
ation enabled new social relations and forms of agency, which por-
tended a permanent effect on subsequent activity. The traces of
the evacuation time that the narrators described in this study are
redolent of recognition relations that often convey a feeling of
gaining another home. Sometimes new family relations persisted
through the rest of life and friendships into the next generations.
Even if contact and communication had ended, cependant, the rec-
ognition obtained during evacuation time could still sustain and
support. The evacuation experience discussed herein, lequel
opened the Finns to the nature of Swedish society, resonates with
the greatest migration in Finnish history during the 1960s when
hundreds of thousands of Finns migrated to Sweden mostly for
industrial work. Even the migrants from Lapland, where structural
change had caused mass unemployment, were able to to move

Simone de Beauvoir, Moniselitteisyyden Etiikka (Helsinki, 2011; orig. pub., in French,

47
Paris, 1947), 23–24.

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more easily to a foreign country which had a personal or family
history of hospitality and a language that was not totally foreign.48
The narratives of wartime are selective, changing, and unﬁn-
ished. They are also pathways to personal history and other
people’s experiences. The struggle between remembering and
forgetting has social and cultural signiﬁcance, because community
deﬁnes the circumstances and events that are worth remembering.
In our data, the timespan between the events and expressions var-
ies from ﬁfteen to seventy years. The temporal distance further
shapes the memories and narratives. Collective reminiscences,
written memoirs, and discussions of the Lapland War and its mass
evacuation in media have produced a certain way of remembering,
in which all our informants participated in one way or another.
They had to decide which recollections were suitable for the col-
lective narrative and which were not. The modes of remembering
are constructed socially; they inﬂuence what we want or can
remember about the evacuation, and what remains obscure. Le
interviewees felt safe reminiscing about the humiliating lice saunas,
Par exemple, because they shared the experience with many others
at the time and because the lice saunas belong essentially to the
model narrative of the Finns evacuated to Sweden.49

Another central component in the model narrative is the
Finns’ gratitude to Sweden for receiving refugees and offering
them security. Gradually gratitude began to work as the currency
of reciprocal recognition, a means for the evacuees to give a gift in
return to the Swedes. This kind of collective gratitude easily hides
unpleasant events. Par exemple, some people refused to be inter-
viewed at all because they did not want to talk about uncomfort-
able memories, and some people contacted us after their interview
to talk about sexual harassment or violence that they had been
reluctant to mention earlier. These unpleasant themes did not ﬁt
with their initial or the collective evacuation narrative based on
gratitude. Individual expressions draw from collective memory
but also deviate from it to challenge it.50

Stephen Lubkemann, Culture in Chaos: An Anthropology of the Social Condition in War

48
(Chicago, 2010).
49 For collective memory, see James V. Wertsch and Henry L. Roediger, “Collective
Mémoire: Conceptual Foundations and Theoretical Approaches,” Memory, XVI (2008),
318–326.
50 Eastmond, “Stories as Lived Experience.”

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W A R R E F U G E ES

| 115

Our informants described dramatic events and changes in
their physical, cultural, and social environment. Their narratives
can help to illuminate the radical disruptions in the lives of
displaced people and their struggles to cope and make sense.
Narratives and narrating itself can be a means for individuals and
communities to create continuity and coherence in their life his-
tories and identities. Although contemporary refugees are often in
the middle of their unﬁnished story, narratives can help refugees in
the past and present comprehend uncertainties, ﬁnd ways forward,
and give meaning to their predicaments. They can support indi-
vidual and collective self-esteem, especially as framed within a
shared survival story. Most of the written evacuation narratives
in our study end in optimism, highlighting the persistence of the
people in Lapland, and look to the future: “Lapland rising from
the ashes” has already developed into an idiomatic expression.
Unpleasant memories made cracks in the image of the evacuation
journey as a survival story, but narratives of experienced disrespect
can be a way to elicit justice. Refugee narratives can create a sense
of belonging and promote self-afﬁrmation in the face of the
demeaning and stereotypical images of receiving societies. Above
tous, narratives can depict refugees not merely as helpless victims but
also as people with voice and agency. Narratives are attempts to
bring recognition to individual and shared memories.51

The use of the recognition theory in material about war ref-
ugees demonstrates the theory’s explanatory power in a situation
when everyday life and recognition relations have collapsed, et
people have to create new recognition relations in all three forms
from different sources. The perseverance and creativity of the
Finns as they worked toward this goal reveals the importance of
reconnaissance. How people can become seen and loved, how they
can earn rights and respect, and how they can each evolve into
contributing members of a community are much in evidence
among the evacuees of the Lapland War.

Ibid..

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3 Journal of Interdisciplinary History, LIII:1 (Été, 2022), 89–115. image

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