DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Research in General History

Global history, cultural encounters and images

Global history can, first be understood as a historical development towards a more and more integrated world order and its cultural forms. Secondly,
global history means studying local phenomena from a global perspective. One of the most important focuses of research in global history is
cultural encounters.

In a rapidly integrating world it is very important that we know the mentalities that affect to the way human beings, peoples, and cultures
have reacted (and react) to each others. Both positive and negative cultural encounters are sometimes crucially influenced by the images the
partners have of each other. These images are affecting the political, economic as well as cultural decisions we make.

The emphasis on image research, done at the Department of History in Oulu university since the 1970's, is a broad theme of interaction
between cultures which covers many different areas of history. The approach of the image research has been applied in several research projects, such as
Japanese society and culture from its own points of view and from a Western perspective, Estonian image of Finland, Finnish missionaries' image
of West African bushmen, and Finnish image of Soviet Union during the II World War.

Special focus is on bringing to light the critical points of cultural interaction and in this way adding to mutual understanding between peoples and cultures.