In Summer 2018, I set out to find the feel of the places I have long studied as a historian, resulting in an expansion of my research process and ‘archive’. This article introduces and reflects on key moments and ideas from this research journey through historic strongholds of Finnish settlement in the U.S. Midwest. I discuss how following community leads and engaging with local knowledge-carriers made clear that my search for the past was intimately entangled with the present realities and future implications of demographic and economic change. I reflect on moments of being in place that allowed me to think through the inter-workings of historical memory and sensory imagination. This resulted in the integration of a photographic practice that serves as both a source and a tool for (re-)articulating feelings of particular moments in the field. I conclude by analyzing the fluid and multiple processes at play in the creation of research and archives. As a whole, this exploration aims to further embolden qualitative researchers to engage in sensitive research that makes space for feeling – both through emotions and senses – the productive and powerful pulls of time and place operating within our sites of research.

2018 年夏天，我开始寻找我作为历史学家长期研究过的地方的感觉，从而扩展了我的研究过程和“档案”。本文通过美国中西部芬兰定居点的历史据点介绍并反思了这次研究之旅中的关键时刻和想法。我讨论了跟随社区领导和与当地知识载体的接触如何清楚地表明我对过去的探索与人口和经济变化的当前现实和未来影响密切相关。我反思在原地的时刻这让我能够思考历史记忆和感官想象的相互作用。这导致了摄影实践的整合，该实践既是（重新）表达现场特定时刻感受的来源和工具。最后，我分析了研究和档案创建过程中的流动和多重过程。总的来说，这项探索旨在进一步鼓励定性研究人员从事敏感研究，通过情感和感官为我们的研究场所内运作的富有成效的时间和地点的感觉留出空间。