Authors

Discussion

Death is surrounded by a myriad of socially constructed practices and meanings that exhibit both similarities and variations across cultures. This paper examines the cultural aspects of death within the context of four popular Russian-speaking discussion forums in Finland. What death-related topics stir discussion, and what do these discussions reveal about people navigating their transnational lives between two (or more) cultures and countries, specifically Finland and Russia in the early 2020s?

The prominence of information and communications technologies in contemporary societies has led to increased academic interest in social life within the online sphere, particularly among migration and death studies scholars. However, these studies have only occasionally overlapped. Studying cultural practices without physical encounters in the often opaque online sphere presents practical and ethical challenges. Therefore, in addition to examining death-related discussions, this paper addresses the methodological challenges of studying online discussions in a systematic, meaningful, and ethically sustainable way. Perceptions of publicity in online groups, invisible audiences of posts, and the sensitivity of death-related topics are analysed through discussion conventions and demonstrated media literacy. The applied approach is auto-netnography.

The studied discussions demonstrate how funerals, bureaucracy, and national commemoration often highlight aspects of national, religious, European, and Soviet demarcation, and how people navigating these cultures relate to them. The online groups themselves are based on and construct loose perceptions of shared identities. They provide peer support and the opportunity to hear and share experiences from people with similar Russian or Soviet backgrounds coping with somewhat unfamiliar phenomena, practices, and encounters in Finland. The participants often express a wide range of emotions, including grief, frustration, and nostalgia. On the other hand, friction, belittling, and heated arguments between forum participants are also common, as well as expressions of alienation from the surrounding Finnish society.