“Hanging Out”: film screening and discussion

“Hanging Out” (19’47) is an ethnographic film, which will be screened at the 47. Migration Seminar, followed by the discussion with its author, Mari Korpela, some of the film participants and the members of Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw, Childhood Studies Unit.

Temporary labour migration of skilled professionals is increasing in various parts of the world. Often, such expatriates are accompanied by their children but very little is known of their views and experiences. In her ethnographic research project, Korpela investigated the views and experiences of such children and youth in Finland. During her fieldwork, she filmed a group of 14-year-old boys on their free time in a Finnish town. The film is a reflexive story of this collaborative film project. The film tells about the boys’ free time activities; the good times they have together and their social interactions with each other and with the researcher. The film also shows the boys’ reflections on their lives and experiences as “foreigners” in a Finnish town.

Bio:
Mari Korpela is a social anthropologist at Tampere University, Finland. Her research interests include lifestyle migration, expatriates, the anthropology of childhood, and ethnographic and visual research methods. She has conducted research among lifestyle migrants in India, including families with young children, and, in Finland, among highly skilled migrants and children in an international school. She has spent a year as a visiting professor at the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester. She has extensive teaching experience in social anthropology and qualitative research methods. She has published widely on people’s transnational mobilities. She is also the PI of the Finnish team investigating Thai berry pickers in Finland in the Horizon-RIA project “Decision making of aspiring (re)migrants to and within the EU”.

Recommended readings:

1. Korpela, Mari. 2024. Having a Laugh and Negotiating the Situation: The Significance of Humor During Fieldwork Among International Teenagers. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 53(3): 351–373.
2. Korpela, Mari. 2023. Under the Radar – Expatriate Children and Integration in Finland. Barn. Forskning om barn og barndom i Norden. 41(2-3): 107-120.
3. Korpela, Mari 2023. International lives and Finnish rhythms: Mobile professionals’ children, time and agency. Global Studies of Childhood 14(2): 171–182.
4. Korpela. Mari 2022. ”Then we decided not to tell the adults.” Fieldwork among children in an international school. Ethnography. Online first: https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381221091916