Boot Throwographer

 

In my research work I am currently engaged in a research titled ‘Development and utilization of cultural events in the countryside’.  The aim of the research is to analyze the cultural, economical, social and psychological meanings of rural events in the local, regional, national and international contexts.  The practical aim is to bring out good practices in the cultural, social, economical and regional utilization of rural events. The research case events have been selected so that five cases are from Finland, one from Norway, two from Scotland and one from New Zealand. As part of the research project I am happy to visit and investigate – together with my Finnish and German boot-thrower friends Anita, Eeva, Eckehard, Jari and Pirjo – the Gumboot Day, organized on the 20^th of March 2010 in Taihape, New Zealand.

 

Since the 1990s boot throwing has been successfully ‘exported’ from Finland abroad, and the main event is the Boot Throwing World Championships which is annually organized in different countries. New Zealand has its own tradition of gumboot throwing, which, so far, has developed largely unconnected with that of the Finnish origin. The town of Taihape in the North Island of New Zealand has even declared itself the ‘Gumboot Capital of the World’, and it organizes annually a Gumboot Day which is a promotional community festival the aim of which is to stop the travellers to see what Taihape has to offer. The comparison of two rubber boot cultures that have dissimilar histories and that are located at opposite sides of the globe, will be an interesting case from viewpoint of the idea of global countryside (see Woods 2007: 503) .

 

Litterature

 

Woods, M. (2007). Engaging the global countryside: globalization, hybridity and the reconstitution of rural place. Progress in Human Geography 31: 4, 485–507.