Geographies of Irony: Mikael Niemi’s literature and the renegotiation of regional identities in the Tornio Valley

The project will examine the relationships between irony in literature and the questions of linguistic minorities and regional identities. The topic belongs to the field of literary geography, a subfield of human geography in which literature is approached as a resource through which spatial and regional meanings can be discussed and interpreted. The object of research is Mikael Niemi’s novel Popularmusik Från Vittula (2000) and its position in the context of marginality, stereotypes and otherness in the Tornio Valley in Sweden. In addition the purpose of study is to develop a new methodology within the international context of human geography, i.e. new methodological ‘tools’ for understanding the multi-faceted relationships between irony and wider social and geographical questions.