Dwelling in Ice: A Relational Approach to the Finnish Seal-Hunting Tradition on the Bothnian Bay

Abstract

Seal hunting has been practiced on the coast of Finland since the Stone Age. Locally, it is conceived of as a tradition, yet beyond the local context, it is frequently framed in other—often reductionist—terms such as sustainable marine resource management or economic activity. In this article, I study how the Finnish seal-hunting tradition practiced on the Bothnian Bay unfolds locally and how it is perceived, portrayed, and shaped by national, European, international, and global actors. The relational understanding of the tradition presented here is based on the experiences and knowledge of one fur seamstress and eight seal hunters from the region. The data consist of semistructured interviews and review workshops that are analyzed using situational analysis. The results suggest that the practice of the seal-hunting tradition on the Bothnian Bay engages with place-based onto-epistemology, which is—often unwittingly—influenced by regulating acts.