Laura Hirvi

Laura Hirvi (née Schwöbel, born July 16, 1980 in Mannheim ) is a German ethnologist and has been the director of the Finland Institute in Germany since 2015 .

Career

Laura Hirvi was born in Mannheim in 1980. She grew up bilingually in a Finnish-German family. In 2000 she graduated from the Carl-Benz-Gymnasium in Ladenburg and then studied for a year at the Heimvolkshochschule Työvänen Akatemia Kauniainen in Finland “Studies in international relations”. Then she began studying ethnology at the Free University of Berlin , with a minor in Indology . After a 9 month stay in India, where she a. volunteered to teach English at an Indian school, Hirvi went to Jyväskylä , Finland, to finish her ethnology degree in 2007 with a master’s degree. In her master's thesis, she examined the Gothic scene in Finland.

She then began her PhD thesis dealing with Sikhs in Finland and California. As a PhD student, she also spent a year (2009–2010) as an ASLA Fulbright Graduate Guest Researcher at UC Santa Barbara in the USA. In 2013 Hirvi received his PhD from Jyväskylä University . The title of her doctoral thesis was Identities in Practice. A Trans-Atlantic Ethnography of Sikhs in Finland and California .

Hirvi then worked as a postdoc researcher at the University of Helsinki. In a research project funded by the Kone Foundation in Finland, she examined the mobility of contemporary Finnish artists. Hirvi has been the director of the Finland Institute in Germany since 2015.

Publications

Articles in academic anthologies

• Young Sikhs in Finland: Feeling at Home Nowhere, Everywhere, in Between and Beyond. In: K. Myrvold and K. Jacobsen (Eds.): Young Sikhs in a Global World. Negotiating Traditions, Identities and Authorities. Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate 2015.
• Jacobsen, KA, K. Myrvold, R. Kaur and. Hirvi: Contesting and Confirming Religious Authority in the Diaspora: Transnational Communication and the Dasam Granth Controversy in the Nordic Countries . In: K. Myrvold and KA Jacobsen (eds.) Sikhs Across Borders: Transnational Practices of European Sikhs , London, New York: Continuum 2012.
• With H. Snellman: Nine Tales of the Field In: Laura Hirvi and H. Snellman (Eds.) Where is the Field? Exploring Migration Studies Through the Lenses of Fieldwork , Studia Fennica Ethnologica. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society 2012.
• Multi-local Fieldwork amongst Sikhs with an Immigrant Background: Reaching the Offline via the Online . In: L. Hirvi and H. Snellman (Eds.): Where is the Field? Exploring Migration Studies Through the Lenses of Fieldwork , Studia Fennica Ethnologica, Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society 2012.
• Sikhs in Finland: Migration Histories and Work in the Restaurant Sector . In: KA Jacobsen and K. Myrvold (eds.) Sikhs in Europe. Migration, Identities and Representations , Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate 2011.

Scientific work

• Laura Hirvi: Oapen.org/download?type=document&docid=617164|Identities in Practice. A Trans-Atlantic Ethnography of Sikhs in Finland and California. Studia Fennica Ethnologica, Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society 2013.
• L. Schwöbel, L .: Gothic Subculture in Finland. History, fashion and lifestyle . Saarbrücken: Mueller 2008.

Editing

• Laura Hirvi and H. Snellman: Where is the Field? Exploring Migration Studies Through the Lenses of Fieldwork . Studia Fennica Ethnologica, Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society 2012.