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The Front Line of Free Speech: Beyond Parrhesia in Finland's Migration Debate

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Englund, HM 

Abstract

A contrast between the “fearless speech” of parrhȇsia and the professional ethics among Finland’s public-service broadcasters reveals some of the diverse forms by which free speech is pursued in contemporary liberal polities. When the so-called migrant crisis dominated its discussions in 2015, the popular “people’s radio” (Kansanradio) became a site for fresh controversies over free speech. Caught up between the parrhȇsia of both public intellectuals and bigoted listeners, Kansanradio’s editors pursued a dialogical approach to truth telling. Where parrhȇsia risks the very relationship between interlocutors, this modality of free speech rests on a carefully cultivated multivocality of viewpoints. It challenges the assumption about voice as the person’s private property in both the scholarship on parrhȇsia and some (but not all) liberal orientations.

Description

Keywords

free speech, parrhesia, truth telling, migrant crisis, radio, voice, Finland

Journal Title

American Ethnologist

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0094-0496
1548-1425

Volume Title

45

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell