The immigrant “Other” and artistic expression: (de)bordering via festivals and social activism in Finland

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

This paper analyses how cultural production and artistic activities can explain the social (de)construction of borders. The study looks at the soft, cultural aspects of bordering, encounters between the immigrants and their host societies, and the conscious and unintentional ways of altering their mental frames. The analysis focuses on the World Village Festival organised annually in Helsinki, and a young literary project titled “Sidelight – is this Finnish literature?” Based on these two case studies, associations between the concepts of bordering, liminality and translation are developed to enable a deeper understanding of the encounters between immigrant cultures and their host societies.