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Not Necessarily the Best in the World: the economic boom and crisis in Iceland

Beschreibung

Vortragende: Kristín Loftsdóttir, University of Iceland, Reykjavík

After a brief period of extensive prosperity during the turn of the millennium, the economic crash in Iceland in 2008 created a sense of social and political collapse that extended far beyond the economic realm. My presentation focuses on the construction of Icelandic subjectivity during the boom period and the first years of the crisis, emphasizing their involvement with Iceland's past and creation of intimacy. In the presentation I focus on how the economic collapse initiated a sense of abjection from being fully European, showing close relationships with older discourses from the time when Iceland was a Danish dependency (until 1944), basing its claims of independence that it was a 'true' nation, belonging with civilized 'white' Europe. Nationalistic rhetoric in the boom mobilized this social memory, emphasizing Iceland as finally gaining the status it deserved as being on pair with Europe. During the economic crash, the notions of Icelanders as a European subject were for limited time disrupted and questioned. I will show how they were reinstated through various social discourses concerning Iceland's position as a nation among nations. Simultaneously, Iceland seemed to become a site for optimistic political aspirations in Europe through glorification of the Icelandic economic recovery. It is suggested that Iceland’s marginal status politically in Europe made it more feasible to imprint on it existing desires of positive outcome from an economic crash even though in stark contrast to unfolding of various political developments the years after the crash.

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