Keynote lecture by Reetta Humalajoki

Reetta Humalajoki gave a keynote lecture at an event titled ‘Historical Knowledge and the World’s Problems: A Two-Part Workshop on Historical Research and Teaching Facing Today’s Politics’, held at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, 9-10 November 2024. Her lecture, ‘Settler Memory and Indigenous Solidarity’, examined a recent controversy surrounding cultural appropriation in Finland to raise the question of how Native Americans are represented and their imagery used in Finnish political discourse. She argued that looking back to solidarity efforts from the 1970s can disrupt present inaccurate narratives around cultural appropriation and offer ways for more productive forms of engagement from a distance.