Gambling Debt: Iceland's Rise and Fall in the Global Economy - Softcover

E. Paul Durrenberger

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1607323346 ISBN 13: 9781607323341

Publisher: University Press of Colorado, 2015

Synopsis

Gambling Debt is a game-changing contribution to the discussion of economic crises and neoliberal financial systems and strategies. Iceland s 2008 financial collapse was the first case in a series of meltdowns, a warning of danger in the global order. This full-scale anthropology of financialization and the economic crisis broadly discusses this momentous bubble and burst, and places it in theoretical, anthropological, and global historical context through descriptions of the complex developments leading to it and the larger social and cultural implications and consequences. Chapters from anthropologists, sociologists, historians, economists, and key local participants focus on the neoliberal policies mainly the privatization of banks and fishery resources that concentrated wealth among a select few, skewed the distribution of capital in a way that Iceland had never experienced before, and plunged the country into a full-scale economic crisis. Gambling Debt significantly raises the level of understanding and debate on the issues relevant to financial crises, painting a portrait of the meltdown from many points of view from bankers to schoolchildren, from fishers in coastal villages to the urban poor and immigrants, and from artists to philosophers and other intellectuals. This book is for anyone interested in financial troubles and neoliberal politics as well as students and scholars of anthropology, sociology, economics, philosophy, political science, business, and ethics.

About this title

About the Author

E. Paul Durrenberger is emeritus professor of anthropology from the University of Iowa and Penn State University. Gisli Palsson is professor of anthropology at the University of Iceland and visiting professor at King s College, London.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Gambling Debt

Iceland's Rise and Fall in the Global Economy

By E. Paul Durrenberger, Gisli Palsson

University Press of Colorado

Copyright © 2015 University Press of Colorado
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-60732-334-1

Contents

Preface E. PAUL DURRENBERGER AND GISLI PALSSON, 
Introduction: The Banality of Financial Evil GISLI PALSSON AND E. PAUL DURRENBERGER, 
Prologue: Some Poetic Thoughts Concerning Meltdowns EINAR MÁR GUDMUNDSSON, 
Before the Beginning, 
1. Vikings Invade Present-Day Iceland KRISTÍN LOFTSDÓTTIR, 
2. Exploiting Icelandic History: 2000 — 2008 GUDNI TH. JÓHANNESSON, 
3. Free Market Ideology, Crony Capitalism, and Social Resilience ÖRN D. JÓNSSON AND RÖGNVALDUR J. SÆMUNDSSON, 
4. A Day in the Life of an Icelandic Banker MÁR WOLFGANG MIXA, 
5. Something Rotten in the State of Iceland: "The Production of Truth" about the Icelandic Banks VILHJÁLMUR ÁRNASON, 
After the Crash, 
6. Overthrowing the Government: A Case Study in Protest JÓN GUNNAR BERNBURG, 
7. "Welcome to the Revolution!" Voting in the Anarcho-Surrealists HULDA PROPPÉ, 
8. Creativity and Crisis TINNA GRÉTARSDÓTTIR, ÁSMUNDUR ÁSMUNDSSON, AND HANNES LÁRUSSON, 
The Magic of "Virtual" Fish, 
9. Groundtruthing Individual Transferable Quotas EVELYN PINKERTON, 
10. Virtual Fish Stink, Too JAMES MAGUIRE, 
11. The Resilience of Rural Iceland MARGARET WILLSON AND BIRNA GUNNLAUGSDÓTTIR, 
12. When Fishing Rights Go Up against Human Rights NÍELS EINARSSON, 
The Crash and Communities, 
13. Schools in Two Communities Weather the Crash GUDNY S. GUDBJÖRNSDÓTTIR AND SIGURLÍNA DAVÍDSDÓTTIR, 
14. What Happened to the Migrant Workers? UNNUR DÍS SKAPTADÓTTIR, 
15. Icelandic Language Schools after the Crash PAMELA JOAN INNES, 
16. Charity in Pre- and Post-Crisis Iceland JAMES G. RICE, 
Summing Up, 
Epilogue: The Neoliberal Con DIMITRA DOUKAS, 
Retrospect JAMES CARRIER, 
References, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Vikings Invade Present-Day Iceland

* * *

Kristín Loftsdóttir is a feminist anthropologist who takes on the use of the "Business Viking" image to promote the neoliberal agenda, showing how twentieth-century schoolbooks helped set the stage and then promulgate the sexist and otherwise inaccurate historical memory of a country.

It is August 2007, a year before the economic meltdown. Muscular and half-naked with weapons in their hands and helmets on their heads, Iceland's three main business tycoons, Björgólfur Guðmundsson, Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson, and Hreiðar Már Sigurðsson flicker across my television screen, photoshopped as Vikings. I'm somewhat astonished because these images are airing in the context of an interview I gave earlier in the day. I had given a talk at my university about the similarity between the current icon of the successful Icelandic businessman — or "Business Viking" — and textbook portrayals of Icelanders from the early twentieth century touting the uniqueness of Icelanders. I had noticed this similarity when collecting data on two entirely different projects — one on Icelandic music performance, the other on images of Africa in schoolbooks. The interview decorated with the doctored images was supposed to be about this comparison I had presented at my university earlier that day. The images doctored by the news staff intensify the entertainment value of my results, which, after all, is what the news is about these days. The narrator proclaims: "Image and reality don't always go together, as this comparison was only done for entertainment value." I'm puzzled. Which comparison is the narrator calling entertaining — the one I made in my interview or their visual illustration of it?

I start with this story because it vividly reflects the hegemonic authority of the Business Viking narrative in Iceland prior to the economic crash. The power and pervasiveness of that narrative made it absurd to locate the present-day nationalistic image of the Business Viking within a historical frame of nationalism and masculinity. It must be stressed that these news reporters still wanted to create a space for my critical analysis within the context of news that mainly glorified these men and their business adventures. Perhaps it was difficult to do so at that time without placing it as the last story, reflecting how critical analysis was at the margins of society.

In this chapter I outline this similarity between the early twentieth-century textbook portrayal of the settlement of Iceland and the mid-2000s celebration of the Business Vikings in Iceland. I assert that ideas about Iceland's recent economic expansion were deeply shaped by nationalistic symbols that carry a strong gendered component and touch upon longstanding anxieties regarding Iceland's historical position in the world. In turn, these symbolic self-perceptions were part of intensified neoliberalism in Iceland.

The Icelandic "economic miracle," as it was called at the time, began in the mid-1990s when Iceland adopted strong neoliberal economic policies that promoted the gradual liberalization of banks and capital flows and emphasized global integration as demonstrated by the adoption of the EES [European Economic Space, later changed to European Economic Area — ed.] treaty in 1994 (Ólafsson 2008; Sigurjónsson and Mixa 2011). The October 2008 crash, when the government bailed out three major commercial banks, created a paradigm shift in which this narrative lost its power almost overnight. As if we were in the fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen in which a child suddenly declares, "The emperor has no clothes," the aftermath of the crash caused some Icelanders to suggest that the Business Vikings who had been so celebrated before the crash now could be guilty of treason (Jóhannesson 2009a).

My theoretical perspective is influenced by postcolonial theorists who focus on the interrelationship between past and present (Dirks 1992) and by feminist critical thinkers who emphasize the creation of gender-specific perspectives in the context of nationalism (Yuval-Davis 1997). My work is also influenced by classic anthropology's holistic perspective, which holds that no aspect of human society can be understood without considering its relationship to other aspects, and the importance of investigating phenomena cross-culturally (Durrenberger and Erem 2007, 6). When applied to the Icelandic economic crash, anthropology teaches us the importance of investigating the global and historical context of the crash, and the need to look at economic aspects in relation to other spheres of Icelandic society (Loftsdóttir 2010, 190). In other words, the economics have to be analyzed in the context of larger social and cultural questions (Schwegler 2009) and as integrated into wider webs of meaning and selfhood.

THEORETICAL OVERVIEW

Intensified global processes have led to new questions regarding national identity. When scholars first started to address the effects of globalization, some predicted it would undermine nationalism (Appadurai 1996). Nations, however, seem to remain one of the most important everyday settings in which people imagine themselves (Ginsburg, Abu-Lughod, and Larkin 2002, 11). Furthermore, "culture," once a term used only in the social sciences, has become a global commodity. Globalization has simplified and packaged cultural stereotypes, allowing "culture" to gain wide currency with the increased neoliberalization of the global economy (Lavie and Swedenburg 1996, 6). Branding nations the same way a company trademarks a product also relies on the idea of culture. The prevalence of nationalism in the age of globalization and neoliberalism makes it important to analyze how neoliberalism and nationalism have reconciled with one another. I assert that the strongly nationalistic idea of the Business Viking is in concert with the neoliberal emphasis on flexibility and individualism. Neoliberalism, as scholars have increasingly stressed, is not only about specific policies but also about a particular rationale that is negotiated on a political and uneven field (Schwegler 2008, 686).

Feminist scholars have demonstrated that nationalism is deeply gendered, for example, in Mary Louise Pratt's (1990) criticism of Benedict Anderson's (1983) nation as an imagined community. Pratt (1990, 50) asserts that concepts such as fraternity and camaraderie reflect the nation as a community of males. Her point reflects the ongoing criticism of how theories of nationalism have tended to ignore gender and articulate ideas of women and men differently according to the ideas of the nation (see also Yuval-Davis 1997). In Iceland, as elsewhere, nationalistic identities have certainly been constructed through deeply gendered ideas. This is clearly demonstrated by Sigríður Matthíasdóttir's (2004) research showing that at the turn of the nineteenth century, when important Icelandic nationalistic ideas were being formed, crucial symbols of "Icelandicness" such as logic, courage, and honor were primarily assigned to males. This notion of maleness constituting crucial Icelandic characteristics is also apparent in Icelandic texts about non-European people (Loftsdóttir 2009; 2010).

Furthermore, this treatment of culture engages with older ideas and creates new forms of subjectivity. Nationalism involves a particular remembering and reconfiguration of the past and has not decreased in the present, as underlined by Andreas Huyssen's (2001) work. The successful marketing of memory creates a framework for understanding the present. In a sense, the past becomes a resource used by different actors in different contexts for understanding the present and making it meaningful.

As postcolonial theories claim, colonialism and imperialism helped shape European identities (Dirks 1992; Gilroy 1993). My research shows how Icelandic identity has been affected by its position as both a dependency of Denmark and as a country that, while not a colonizer itself, has participated in the racist and imperialistic attitudes of other colonizing powers (Loftsdóttir 2009; 2012a). While Iceland was not colonized brutally like many other countries were, it was still a subjugated country. Therefore, analysis of Icelandic identity must be enriched by how Icelanders saw their relationship to Denmark as a Danish dependency within the context of other colonized people (Loftsdóttir 2012a). As I have discussed in other publications, the acceptance of the images and actions of the Business Viking in Icelandic society in the 2000s can be linked to Icelandic anxieties of being classified with the "wrong crowd," a fear dating back to the period when Iceland was forming its consciousness as an independent nation state while still a Danish dependency (ibid.; Loftsdóttir 2012b). Images of the Business Viking were thus made meaningful through a particular social memory of times when Icelanders were under foreign rule, indicating a search for recognition as a legitimate nation deserving independence.

ICELANDIC IDENTITY AND SCHOOLBOOKS

In 1262 Iceland became a subject of Norwegian rule. In 1536, when the Norwegian and Danish kingdoms were unified, Iceland became a part of the Danish kingdom. It remained so until 1944. Throughout this period Icelanders maintained a separate identity (Karlsson 1995), and their strong pride in Icelandic culture created a fertile environment for nationalistic ideas (Hálfdanarson 2000, 90).

By the mid-nineteenth century, Iceland was one of Europe's poorest countries. In spite of being a financial burden on Denmark, it had struggled for independence for a century (Karlsson 1995). The final struggle started in the mid-nineteenth century under the influence of Icelandic students in Copenhagen who were affected by nationalism in Europe (Hálfdanarson 2000). During this time medieval Icelandic literature (the sagas) and the Icelandic language became the most important factors in the creation of an Icelandic national identity. They served as a basis for demanding the nation's independence (Pálsson and Durrenberger 1992) and created continuity between the Icelandic commonwealth's glorious past and the present.

Icelanders' ideas of how they thought others perceived them contributed to Icelanders' developing identity. Denmark may have been reluctant to let go of Iceland because it saw Iceland as preserving the old Nordic culture (Karlsson 1995). Although this belief glorified Icelandic culture, it also presented Iceland as pre-modern (Oslund 2002, 328), a more troubling idea to Icelanders. As Paul Durrenberger and Gisli Palsson have shown, Icelanders have struggled since the Middle Ages to correct what they believe to be misconceptions that foreigners have about their country (Durrenberger and Pálsson 1989b). In 1593 Arngrímur Jónsson published the book Brevis Commentarius de Islandia, and in 1597 Oddur Einarsson published a description of Iceland titled Qualiscunque descriptio Islandiae, both intended to defend against foreigners' misconceptions about Iceland (Benediktsson 1971).

In 1915 two textbooks were published under the title Íslandssaga (Iceland's History). One was intended for young children and written by Jónas Jónsson, usually identified by his origin at the farm Hrifla in northern Iceland. The other was by Jón Jónsson Aðils and was intended for older students. Both of these men were extremely influential in Iceland's history. Both were authors of many books. Jónas from Hrifla was also a member of the Icelandic Parliament, while Jón Aðils is sometimes identified as one of the most important people to shape Icelandic nationalistic sentiments (Matthísardóttir 2004,). The book by Jónas from Hrifla was used for the next seventy to eighty years and Jón Aðils' book for half a century, indicating their striking influence over several generations of Icelanders (Þorsteinn Helgason 2008).

Jón Aðils proclaims in his text that 84 percent of Icelandic settlers came from excellent stock (úrvalsættum) (Jónsson Aðils [1915] 1946, 22). In his widely read book Íslenskt þjóðerni (Jónsson Aðils 1903), he had already elaborated on this idea by emphasizing that Icelanders possessed a mixture of Celtic intelligence and the inner strength of Norwegians, which gave birth to "national culture which is hardly similar to anything in history" (ibid., 22–23). He claims furthermore in his educational text that during the Viking period, many good men and rich chiefs had been unable to tolerate the ruling of the Norwegian kings and thus sought to settle elsewhere (ibid., 22–23, 7). Jónas from Hrifla presents a similar narrative in his book, that of Icelandic history as a story of hardworking men who built the country. He mentions women occasionally. When discussing the settlement of Iceland, Jónas states that those who settled Iceland were the best part of the Norwegian population but also the most stubborn (óbilgjarnastur) and most difficult to control (Jónsson [1915–16] 1966, 15).

Even though these two schoolbooks would be used for decades to come, other books were also published that perpetuated a similar view of Icelandic nationality. Stefán Jónsson's Eitt er landið (The Country Is One), published several decades later in 1967, claims that Icelanders originated from the best Norwegian stock and that the country itself has shaped Icelandic nationality. This fact, the author claims, makes Icelandic nationality different from the "nationality of related nations" (Jónsson 1967, 76). For Jónsson, the courage required to settle Iceland became ingrained in Icelandic heritage and serves as a light shining on the lives of future generations (ibid., 4). This idea of Icelandic nationality being shaped by hardship was not new. It can be seen, for example, nearly seventy years earlier in the book Lýsing Íslands (Description of Iceland), published in 1900, which states that the nature of the landscape shaped Icelandic nationalism as well as the physical body of Icelanders (Thoroddsen 1900, 76).

It is interesting to compare these views of the Icelandic nation to world history textbooks of the early twentieth century. Instead of emphasizing the unique origin of Icelanders, the world history books include Icelanders as part of other civilized Europeans and thus as a part of the inevitable progress of European males. Usually these texts do not address Iceland in particular but more indirectly refer to the collective "us" in which Iceland is woven into the birth of the modernity story. In this story colonized peoples are not seen generally as deserving much attention or sympathy but rather are characterized as natural subjects of European control (see Loftsdóttir 2009). Men and masculine qualities are highlighted, just as in books about Iceland's history, by positioning world explorers as the key players of history (ibid.), for example. This viewpoint is similar to that of other writings in Iceland at that time. For example, in the annual journal Skírnir, Icelandic men are invited to imagine themselves as part of progressive, civilized Europeans exploring and subjecting the rest of the world to their power. An issue of Skírnir from 1890, for example, focuses on the famous explorer Henry Morton Stanley and describes one of his most controversial trips to Africa. Stanley is presented as a heroic figure, masculine and resilient (Stefánsson 1890; see discussion in Loftsdóttir 2009). Icelandic authors seem not to have been primarily interested in constructing images of Africans and other colonized people but in positioning Icelanders as part of civilized Europe (Loftsdóttir 2009).

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of Colorado
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1607323346
• ISBN 13: 9781607323341
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 312
• Editor: E. Paul Durrenberger, Gisli Palsson