Sjálfsmynd í kreppu: Skörun kyns og kynþáttahyggju - verkefni lokið
Fréttatilkynning verkefnisstjóra
The project Icelandic Identity in Crisis critically investigates nationalistic, racial and gendered aspects of identity formation in Iceland in the aftermath of the economic crash in 2008.
Heiti verkefnis: Sjálfsmynd í
kreppu: Skörun kyns og kynþáttahyggju
Verkefnisstjóri: Kristín Loftsdóttir, Háskóla Íslands
Tegund styrks: Verkefnisstyrkur
Styrkár: 2013-2015
Fjárhæð styrks: 19,43 millj. kr. alls
Tilvísunarnúmer Rannís: 130426
Basing on perspectives from anthropological and postcolonial theories, the project stresses how the economic collapse led to new and old questions about Iceland's status as a European country. This project contextualizes Icelandic racial and gendered identities during times of crisis within larger geopolical context of Europe.
The project shows neoliberal transformations of Iceland were made meaningful through engagements with Iceland's past as a Danish dependency. The transformations were manifested in continued anxieties of Iceland's association with groups or nations historically racialized, as well as desires of Iceland serving an important role in the world. Through its focus on crisis, the project contributes to deeper understandings of the articulation of the past in the current economic crisis, and how certain desires and anxieties are mobilized in crisis situations that intersect with nationalism, whiteness and gender. The project´s results show how the salience of crisis in the present reflects the loss of a vision of a predictable future due to increased precariousness. The project shows how crisis brings out and intensifies social memories of the past and the continued importance of the nation state during an era of globalization and international integration. The project, furthermore, shows racialization as being a dynamic and contextual process where its engagement with meaningful historically constituted categories within a localized context has to be recognized, while also rooted in a global imaginary.
The project has resulted in one edited book and monograph (currently in draft format), two articles under review, 15 articles in Icelandic and internationally recognized journals, and six book chapters. In addition, 24 presentations have been given about the results of the project, as well as the project organizing panels at internationally recognized conferences and at a local venue in Iceland. Additionally, the project collaborates with Iceland's National Museum on the exhibition “Iceland in the world and the world in Iceland,” where Iceland will be presented from a transnational perspective, drawing attention to the country's extensive connections to the ‘outside' world.
