ORAL HISTORY: MIGRATION AND LOCAL IDENTITIES - Academia

Migration and Totalitarian Regimeyet (Hinrikus, et al., 2006; Kirss, et al., 2004), although the historicalroots of the problems have become more acknowledged.Second, we should look at who are the narrators or storytellers.The trend in social sciences and in “new cultural geography” is to concentrateon common people, not the elite, and on everyday practicesthat actually change the landscape (under the influence of dominantpower, of course) (Bergmann & Sager, 2008; Birdsall, 1996; Karpiak& Baril, 2008; Setten, 2001; Syse, 2001). Still, the writers tend to bepeople with more “social nerve” and often of the female gender (moreemic information). If one looks at narration rules (Cronon, 1999)as predetermined universally by genes and at language as a culturalexpression (Bourassa, 1991), then people who share their life storiesmake individual choices, giving the “right answer”. This is the questionof truthfulness of representation.The narratives are important for adaptation and for rememberingwho we are and where we came from, in other words, for identitybuilding (Cronon, 1999). The issue of morality deems to be of vitalimportance of (place) identity (Häkli, 2001), as it helps to orientateoneself in space and time (see Jones, 1991, 1993).Third, the rates of national/ethnic clashes belong to the realm ofdistinguishing private and public information that has changed fromthe totalitarian regime to today, also depending on to whom the storyis told and on the researcher’s ethic (Kõresaar, 2004). Estonians do notdifferentiate immigrants; “Russians” themselves make a big difference.The more proper name to some of the immigrants could be “Soviets”(“rootless people”, MK: L 2002) who were swept from their feet whenEstonia became independent again.245Concluding remarksTotalitarian life stories are full of rules of behaviour, how to stayout of trouble. Moral thresholds in the urbanscape of Kohtla-Järvehave shifted in space as well as in time, dependent on socio-economicformations, although tough to delimit. Everyday moral categories and