Everyday Covid-19 Nationalism. Exploring everyday nationalism practices in the Swedish-Finnish borderland

The purpose of this project is to investigate nationalism in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The pandemic has transformed the borders in the Nordics from being largely symbolic (pre-pandemic) to clearly demarcated (2020) to practically closed (2021). The twin city Haparanda-Tornio at the Swedish-Finnish border share a joint city center.

When Finland closed its borders, it created a distinct Finnish and Swedish part of the twin city for the first time in modern history. The project focuses on the ‘ordinary citizen’ in Haparanda-Tornio and the construction of nationalism.

The specific aim of this project is to identify how individuals engage with nationalism in their daily lives in the pandemic.

The methods used are a combination of interviews and ethnography online and offline with inhabitants in Haparanda-Tornio.

As the Covid-19 nationalist developments pose a non-negligible threat for the future of close cooperation and relationships between the Nordic countries as well as its citizens the objective is to provide critical and constructive analyses useful for citizens and decision makers to increase the knowledge of how to handle the specific dynamics of Covid-19 nationalism.

However, through the analysis of the case of Haparanda-Tornio, the project also adds to the knowledge of everyday nationalism, digital nationalism, borders, and processes of inclusion and exclusion in a broader sense.