The largest newspaper in Finland pays attention to a newly published report (in Finnish) by Historians without borders in Finland on how colonialism is regarded in the subject matter of university courses. It also studies how minorities and people with diverse historical backgrounds, who might or might not share milestones in Finnish history, are included in history teaching in schools.
Results show that there is still a lot of work to be done in both how colonialism and its legacy is being taught at university level and in the way schoolbooks could include the increasing multicultural backgrounds of today’s Finns. The report committee was led by Holger Weiss and GHL is also mentioned in the report as one of several platforms where these issues can be discussed and influenced towards the better.
Finnish article below:
Recently, at a conference, I presented on the history of Finnish folk medicine. After the talk, I got a question from the audience about the peculiarities of folk healing in Finland. Having spent a number of years studying African medical systems, I could only point to the similarities between Finnish and African folk remedies – the use of cupping horns, herbalism, and bone setting. However, someone suggested that sauna perhaps presents a Finnish specialty, and many in the audience seemed to accept this idea. I immediately started thinking about Amerindian sweat lodges and Turkish hammams. Steam cabinets were also used in precolonial Africa as a standard treatment for syphilis, as documented by Rømer on the Gold Coast in the mid-eighteenth century. In this blog post, I want to briefly touch upon the global history of sauna and bathing, which remains to be written in English. Continue reading “Sauna and bathing in global history”
