Tidens tecken, fältets tillstånd: tre fall och den finlandssvenska minoritetslitteraturens fält på 2020-talet

Abstract

In this article, I ask how the effects of macro-level developments – digitalization, globalization and the new market economy – can be studied within a local literary field, given that such macro-level processes are not directly observable but become evident through their effects. 
Following a description of the symbolic economy of the Finland-Swedish minority literary field, I analyze three cases: the self-representation of two established female authors as they promote their writing school; how a popular author’s disappointment over being denied membership in a writers’ association becomes news on the culture pages; and how readers have taken on the role of literary judges by selecting the winner of the Finnish Broadcasting Company’s Finland-Swedish literary prize. 
Together, these cases reveal key effects of ongoing macro-processes within this small minority literature: popular genres and intermediality play a central role in writing and authorial self-representation; the attention economy and social media logics influence which topics are featured on the culture pages; and literary experts have become marginal in a context where their expertise was previously essential. All examples point in the same direction: a profound restructuring is taking place within the Finland-Swedish literary field, with changes that mirror developments in larger literary fields. These effects suggest that the field is no longer immune to market forces, and literary value is no longer its guiding principle. A literature long defined by its aesthetic and political mission to preserve the language and identity of the Finland-Swedish minority population is now rapidly losing its (relative) literary autonomy to emerging technological and economic pressures.