Tag: kolonialisme

Graugaard, Naja Dyrendom, & Høgfeldt, Amalie Ambrosius. The silenced genocide: Why the Danish intrauterine device (IUD) enforcement in Kalaallit Nunaat calls for an intersectional decolonial analysis. (2023) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Graugaard, Naja Dyrendom, & Høgfeldt, Amalie Ambrosius. The silenced genocide: Why the Danish intrauterine device (IUD) enforcement in Kalaallit Nunaat calls for an intersectional decolonial analysis. Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, 35(2), 2023, 162–167.

From introduction:

In 2022, it was publicly revealed that Danish authorities have initiated and performed coercive insertions of intrauterine devices (IUDs) in Kalaallit women and adolescents, beginning in the 1960s. This has brought forth public and political calls to action, and an offi cial Danish-Greenlandic commission has been established to investigate this hitherto silenced history (Naalakkersuisut 2023).As feminist scholars of postcolonial and de-colonial studies (one of us Danish/Kalaaleq, one of us non-Kalaaleq), we urge the forthcoming investigations to considerthe colonial, racial, and gendered mechanisms of the IUD enforcement prac-tice, and the narratives around it. We hold that apt analysis of Danish IUD coercion and campaigning, its past workings and present consequences, requires specific attention towards how different modes of power and oppression intersect in Danish colonial strategies in Kalaallit Nunaat. While the gendered and racial dynamics of Danish colo-nization is seldomly analyzed (Loftsdó ttir & Jensen 2012;Petterson 2012; 2014; Andersen, Hvenegård-Lassen & Knobblock 2015; Ambrosius 2020; 2022), we argue that the history (and presence) of reproductive control of Kalaallit indeed points to the intimate relations between colonialism, racism, and patriarchy in Danish colonial practices.

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/KKF/article/view/137309

Hunter, Elizabeth Löwe. Black Racial Isolation: Understanding African Diaspora Subjectivity in Post-Racial Denmark. (2023) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Hunter, Elizabeth Löwe. Black Racial Isolation: Understanding African Diaspora Subjectivity in Post-Racial Denmark, 2023, Dissertation, UC Berkeley.

This is an Afrofeminist Cultural Studies analysis of blackness and belonging in Denmark. The study is situated within African Diaspora Studies, specifically the theoretical branches in and of Europe. Simultaneously constructed as marginal to hegemonic Europeanness and dominant conceptions of blackness, I seek to carve out space for Afropean and European Black perspectives. With attention to genealogical distinctions between European-based Afrofeminisms and Black Feminisms of the USA, this dissertation is a contribution to a grounded theory of blackness in a larger European context. Specifically, this is a step towards writing the much under-theorized conditions of the African diasporas in the Nordics into the archives (McEachrane 2016).The study centers first-person narratives. I focus on first-generation African diaspora Dan-ish people, i.e., those with experiences of being raised and socialized in Denmark while Black as the first in a family. Situation myself as a researcher within this very life experience, I examine how others have navigated that experience before the era of the Internet and with a scarcity of racial mirroring. But particularly, I examine the condition of being racialized as Black in an alleged post-racial European context, dominated by a ‘raceless’ discourse of Denmark and its ‘other’ (El-Tayeb 2011; Boulila 2019). And more precisely within a regional discourse of Nordic Exceptionalism (Habel 2011). Positioned as apparently a paradox within an exclusive nationalist narrative, Afropean existence becomes unspeakable and Black Danish people constructed as always already foreigners, having just arrived. Part of the Black Danish experience, as across the Nordic region, is thus characterized by a lack of language to name one’s reality (Adeniji 2016; Diallo 2022). And importantly, a language to understand and resist racism, and to develop a political consciousness (Essed 1991; Kelekay 2019). I analyze how these circumstances affect Black Danish people’s subjectivity. The study’s first chapter builds on a reading of Crucian-Danish Victor Cornelins’ autobiography From St. Croix to Nakskov from 1976. This is supplemented by material from the Nakskov Local History Archives in Denmark. Here, I offer feminist analyses centered in African diasporic care and consideration of historical representations of blackness in Denmark as well as archival silences. Reading Cornelins as an early theorist of blackness in Denmark, the contours of a primary formative condition emerge: racial isolation. The second and third chapters are based on original data from semi-structured interviews during a seven-month stay in Copenhagen in 2020-2021. The second chapter sketches out the scattered collective of a post-WWII generation of so-called ‘brown babies.’ Being of Black American and white German parentage, thousands of individuals were deemed ‘better off’ outside of Germany due to their blackness and ‘mixedness.’ At the beginning of a post-racial discourse in Europe and a decolonization moment globally, a generation of ‘brown’ children were adopted into the intimate sphere of the post-racial Danish nation-state. An obscured, misrepresented part of Danish history, this chapter seeks to humanize people of this generation and identify their agency in constructing themselves as whole. The final chapter gives context to the current moment and growing up Black in Denmark. Imagined as outside of the Danish nation, yet also outside of dominant immigration discourse, analyzing the particularity of racialization as Black proves highly pertinent. The taxing reality of experiencing racism in a post-racialist culture become clear, especially the fact of being the only one in many social contexts. Yet this chapter also illuminates people’s ambivalence, disidentification, and dissociation from concepts of collective blackness or minoritarian solidarity. There is a complex relationship between assuming one’s own racialized social position as Black and understanding oneself as Danish. Black racial isolation runs through the three chapters as a common condition for African diasporic Danish people who have come of age in Denmark between 1905 and 2021. I therefore of-fer Black racial isolation as a core concept to better understand how Danish Black people make sense of themselves and their relationship to African diasporas and Black (political) collectivity. As a Black experience the Danish is version an articulation of racialization within a Westernized con-text historically shaped through binaries of Black/white. What sets this apart from other theorizations of blackness in the West, is that it experienced alone, rather than in community. My findings suggest that such isolation can results in internalization of binaries and a splitting of the self. In conclusion, I meditate on conditions for creating connection – with self and others – as a path to-ward sustainable, humanizing futures for Danish African diasporic blackness and belonging. As such, this dissertation contributes original, grounded theory of blackness, race, and racialization in Europe with deep appreciation for Afrofeminist and decolonial feminist genealogies from which this study could grow.

PDF: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3qk0z1fm

Groglopo, Adrián & Julia Suárez-Krabbe (Eds.), Coloniality and Decolonisation in the Nordic Region. (2023) [PDF]

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A. Groglopo & J. Suárez-Krabbe (Eds.), Coloniality and Decolonisation in the Nordic Region. 2023. Taylor & Francis.

This book advances critical discussions about what coloniality, decoloniality, and decolonisation mean and imply in the Nordic region. It brings together analysis of complex realities from the perspectives of the Nordic peoples, a region that is often overlooked in current research, and explores the processes of decolonisation that are taking place in this region. The book offers a variety of perspectives that engage with issues such as Islamic feminism and the progressive left; racialisation and agency among Muslim youths; indigenising distance language education for Sami; extractivism and resistance among the Sami; the Nordic international development endeavour through education; Swedish TV reporting on Venezuela; creolizing subjectivities across Roma and non-Roma worlds and hierarchies; and the whitewashing and sanitisation of decoloniality in the Nordic region. As such, this book extends much of the productive dialogue that has recently occurred internationally in decolonial thinking but also in the areas of critical race theory, whiteness studies, and postcolonial studies to concrete and critical problems in the Nordic region. This should make the book of considerable interest to scholars of history of ideas, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, international development studies, legal sociology, and (intercultural) philosophy with an interest in coloniality and decolonial social change.

Table of contents

Coloniality and Decolonization in the Nordic Region: An Introduction

Adrián Groglopo and Julia Suárez-Krabbe

Chapter 1.

Surviving like Scheherazade. Veiled Women and Liberalism: the Trap of the Progressive Left

Houria Bouteldja.

Chapter 2. Racialisation in a “Raceless” Nation: Muslims Navigating Islamophobia in Denmark’s Everyday Life

Amani Hassani

Chapter 3. Enriching Sami language distance education

Hanna Helander, Satu-Marjut Pieski, and Pigga Keskitalo

Chapter 4. The Virtue of Extraction and Decolonial Recollection in Gállok, Sápmi

Georgia de Leeuw

Chapter 5. Coloniality of Knowledge and the Responsibility to Teach: Nordic Educational Interventions in the “South”

Jelena Vićentić

Chapter 6. Swedish Television Reporting on Venezuela as Damnation

Juan Velázquez Atehortúa

Chapter 7. Creolizing Subjectivities and Relationalities within Roma-gadje Research Collaborations

Ioana Țîștea and Gabriela Băncuță

Chapter 8. Decoloniality: Between a Travelling Concept and a Relational Onto-Epistemic Political Stance

Madina Tlostanova

DOI: https://www.routledge.com/Coloniality-and-Decolonisation-in-the-Nordic-Region/Groglopo-Suarez-Krabbe/p/book/9781032274867?gclid=Cj0KCQiAgqGrBhDtARIsAM5s0_nUuuv6JLXuU1udbn_3Ri4vIdHV8dPSh0a5jeARmBEk-s-Rp6wYy0UaAmTiEALw_wcB

PDF: https://books.google.dk/books?id=anCpEAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&hl=da&pg=PT55#v=onepage&q&f=false

Jensen Smed, Sine, ‘O Pity the Black Man, He Is Slave in Foreign Country’: Danish Performances of Colonialism and Slavery, 1793-1848. (2023)

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Jensen Smed, Sine, ‘O Pity the Black Man, He Is Slave in Foreign Country’: Danish Performances of Colonialism and Slavery, 1793-1848, in Staging Slavery: Performances of Colonial Slavery and Race from International Perspectives, 1770-1850, ed. by Sarah J. Adams, Jenna M. Gibbs, and Wendy Sutherland (Taylor & Francis, 2023)

https://books.google.dk/books?id=WPSnEAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&hl=da&pg=PT215#v=onepage&q&f=false

Thisted, Kirsten, Blame, Shame, and Atonement: Greenlandic Responses to Racialized Discourses about Greenlanders and Danes. (2022) [PDF]

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Thisted, Kirsten, Blame, Shame, and Atonement: Greenlandic Responses to Racialized Discourses about Greenlanders and Danes, Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies, 1.2 (2022)

Outside Greenland, many believe that the Greenlandic name for Greenland means “Land of the People.” However, the Greenlandic word for human being or person is inuk (plural: inuit), and Greenland is called Kalaallit Nunaat not Inuit Nunaat. Kalaallit is the West Greenlandic term for modern-day Greenlanders who trace their ancestry along two lines: to the Inuit in the West and the Scandinavians in the East. During the first half of the twentieth century, this mixed ancestry was an important argument for the Greenlandic claim for recognition and equality. This article examines a literary source, Pavia Petersen’s 1944 novel, Niuvertorutsip pania (The outpost manager’s daughter). The novel’s female protagonist, who is of mixed ancestry, is staged as a national symbol for modern Greenland, a country that appropriates European culture while remaining Greenlandic. After the end of the colonial period, the Inuit legacy and Greenlanders’ status as an Indigenous people became important drivers of the Greenlandic claim for independence. In present-day Greenlandic film and literature, Danes are often left out of the story entirely, delegitimizing much of society’s genetic and cultural legacy. Naturally, this poses a problem for the Greenlanders who not only number Europeans among their remote ancestors but also live with a dual identity, with one Danish and one Greenlandic parent. This article illustrates that the notion of “mixed-breed” or “half” Greenlanders is currently regarded with such ambivalent feelings because it accentuates unresolved tensions among the ethnic groups, including the continued dominance of the outdated (colonial) affective economies in Danish-Greenlandic relations.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.5070/C81258339

Rud, Søren, and Søren Ivarsson, eds., Globale og postkoloniale perspektiver på dansk kolonihistorie. (2021)

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Rud, Søren, and Søren Ivarsson, eds., Globale og postkoloniale perspektiver på dansk kolonihistorie (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2021)

Danmarks fortid som kolonimagt og slavenation er mere aktuel end nogensinde. Det globale opgør med racisme og kontroversielle symboler fra kolonihistorien har bredt sig til Danmark, hvor politiske aktivister malede ”DECOLONIZE” på statuer af grønlandsmissionæren Hans Egede både i Nuuk og København, og kunstgruppen Anonyme Billedkunstnere smed ”slavekongen” Frederik V’s buste i Københavns havn.  Mens aktivisterne og mange indbyggere i tidligere danske kolonier anser Danmarks fortid som arnestedet for nutidens racediskrimination opfatter andre postyret som en selvpinerisk og proportionsløs dyrkelse af Danmarks fortidssynder. Ikke mindst derfor er det vigtigt, at forskere forholder sig kritisk til dansk kolonihistorie og kvalificerer fortidens rolle i aktuelle diskussioner om Danmarks kolonihistorie.  I Globale og postkoloniale perspektiver på dansk kolonihistorie præsenterer ni forskere udvalgte postkoloniale og globalhistoriske strømninger. Hver især tager de udgangspunkt i konkrete eksempler fra enten Dansk Vestindien, Grønland, Indien, Island, København, Sápmi eller Siam. Bogen åbner nye perspektiver på Danmarks fortidige engagement i verden, som trænger sig på i aktuelle debatter om eksempelvis identitetspolitik, rigsfællesskab og racisme.

Indholdsfortegnelse 

søren rud Introduktion Postkoloniale og globale perspektiver på dansk kolonihistorie 

niels brimnes Offer, subjekt, aktør Refleksioner over de koloniseredes position i nyere analyser af dansk kolonihistorie 

johan heinsen Stemme og flugt Tvangsgeografier i koloni og metropol 

kristoffer edelgaard christensen At sammenligne metropol og koloni Problematiseringen af ’despotisk magt’ i Danmark og Vestindien i 1700-tallets sidste årtier 

simon mølholm olesen Kolonial styring i Sydgrønlands Inspektorat, 1782-95 Institutioner, selvledelse og modstand 

kirsten thisted ’En lille Smule til Gavn for Grønland’ Intime relationer og følelser mellem Danmark og Grønland 

mathias danbolt Grænsen går her Metodisk nationalisme og omfordeling af ansvar i historieskrivningen om koloniseringen af Sápmi 

ann-sofie n. gremaud Festtid, krisetid og kolonitid Fortællinger om islandsk selvstændighed 

gunvor simonsen Racisme, slaveri og marked Afrikanere i 1700-tallets København 

søren ivarsson Gendarmer, dokumenter og papirstaten Danske officerer i semikoloniale Siam

https://unipress.dk/udgivelser/g/globale-og-postkoloniale-perspektiver-p%C3%A5-dansk-kolonihistorie/

White, William A., Remembering Queen Mary: Heritage Conservation, Black People, Denmark, and St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. (2022)

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White, William A., Remembering Queen Mary: Heritage Conservation, Black People, Denmark, and St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage, 0.0 (2022), 1–24

On October 1, 1878, Afro-Crucian laborers on the Danish colonial Caribbean island of St. Croix launched a historic protest that resulted in extensive damage to the sugar industry. Known locally as “Fireburn,” this was a formative event in the relationship between Afro-Crucian people and plantation owners, who were mostly of European descent. Histories of Fireburn cite four women, Queen Mary, Queen Agnes, Queen Mathilda, and Susana Abramsen, as the uprising’s leaders. Fireburn, the Queens, and other forms of resistance continue to be sources of pride for Afro-Crucians and are part of Black heritage conservation efforts in St. Croix. Community-based archaeological work conducted by the Society of Black Archaeologists (SBA) dovetails with the ways Afro-Crucian heritage is created, maintained, and discussed by Afro-Crucian people, but contrasts with prevailing Danish narratives of history. This work has also found a home with anticolonialism scholars in Denmark working to create a more reparatory history.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/21619441.2022.2034365

Thisted, Kirsten. Blame, Shame, and Atonement: Greenlandic Responses to Racialized Discourses about Greenlanders and Danes. (2022) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Thisted, Kirsten. (2022). Blame, Shame, and Atonement: Greenlandic Responses to Racialized Discourses about Greenlanders and Danes. Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies, 1(2). https://doi.org/10.5070/C81258339

Outside Greenland, many believe that the Greenlandic name for Greenland means “Land of the People.” However, the Greenlandic word for human being or person is inuk (plural: inuit), and Greenland is called Kalaallit Nunaat not Inuit Nunaat. Kalaallit is the West Greenlandic term for modern-day Greenlanders who trace their ancestry along two lines: to the Inuit in the West and the Scandinavians in the East. During the first half of the twentieth century, this mixed ancestry was an important argument for the Greenlandic claim for recognition and equality. This article examines a literary source, Pavia Petersen’s 1944 novel, Niuvertorutsip pania (The outpost manager’s daughter). The novel’s female protagonist, who is of mixed ancestry, is staged as a national symbol for modern Greenland, a country that appropriates European culture while remaining Greenlandic. After the end of the colonial period, the Inuit legacy and Greenlanders’ status as an Indigenous people became important drivers of the Greenlandic claim for independence. In present-day Greenlandic film and literature, Danes are often left out of the story entirely, delegitimizing much of society’s genetic and cultural legacy. Naturally, this poses a problem for the Greenlanders who not only number Europeans among their remote ancestors but also live with a dual identity, with one Danish and one Greenlandic parent. This article illustrates that the notion of “mixed-breed” or “half” Greenlanders is currently regarded with such ambivalent feelings because it accentuates unresolved tensions among the ethnic groups, including the continued dominance of the outdated (colonial) affective economies in Danish-Greenlandic relations.

PDF: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3f23v2bj

Pushaw, Bart. “Blackness at the Edge of the World. Making Race in the Colonial Arctic: Blackness at the Edge of the World. Making Race in the Colonial Arctic.” (2021) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Pushaw, Bart. “Blackness at the Edge of the World. Making Race in the Colonial Arctic: Blackness at the Edge of the World. Making Race in the Colonial Arctic.” Periskop – Forum for kunsthistorisk debat, no. 25, 25, Aug. 2021, pp. 60–75.

From introduction:

John Savio’s print Hoppla, We’re Alive! is an uncomfortable image [1]. In a lush black-and-white tropical landscape of palm trees and rolling hills, jubilant figures dance, jump, kiss, and flail their arms. Their sharp black profiles evoke silhouettes. Closer inspection reveals insidious forms that are all too familiar. Drawing our attention is the figure on the bottom right corner of the image, the only human given any facial detail. Savio carefully carved the negative space in order to accentuate two features: the lips and the whites of the figure’s eyes. By making visible these two specific details, Savio recalls the pictorial modes of exaggeration specific to blackface imagery: the juxtaposition of bright eyes and teeth with inflated lips and dark skin. Contorting their bodies into jagged, angular poses, these tropical dancers are racist caricatures of Black performance.

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/periskop/article/view/128289

Hunter, Elizabeth Löwe. “Diasporiske perspektiver på racialiseringens kolonialitet i Danmark.” (2021) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Hunter, Elizabeth Löwe. “Diasporiske perspektiver på racialiseringens kolonialitet i Danmark.” Periskop – Forum for kunsthistorisk debat, no. 25, 25, Aug. 2021, pp. 88–111.

Fra indledning:

Da jeg i begyndelsen af 2020 blev opfordret til at bidrage til dette særnummer, kunne ingen af os have forudset, hvad året ville komme til at bringe, og jeg ser det derfor som en mulighed for at stille nogle grundlæggende spørgsmål til teamaet sorthed i en dansk kontekst. Især i kølvandet på George Floyd. Og mordet på Bornholm (Hunter 2020). Hvad og hvem taler vi egentlig om, når vi taler om sorthed? Hudfarve, en racemæssig kategori, en strukturel position, en kulturel identitet, en politisk identitet, levede erfaringer eller ideologi? Den kortvarige og selektive offentlige opmærksomhed usynligjorde måder, hvorpå nævnte mord kan være udtryk for en anti-sort status quo i Vesten rettere end beklagelige særtilfælde. Mediernes/offentlighedens fokus på mordene på disse enkelte mænd tilslører med andre ord, hvordan et samspil af magthierarkier gør sorte personer, der marginaliseres på flere måder, udsatte på andre måder, mens disse samme personer også systematisk ekskluderes fra gængse kritikker af anti-sort vold og død. Jeg rejser dog primært de ovenstående spørgsmål, da sorthed og afrikansk diasporisk baggrund i stigende grad, og med rette, er omdrejningspunkt for politisk organisering og græsrodsaktivisme i Danmark. Der er stor diversitet blandt folk med afrikansk baggrund i Danmark. Og derfor også afgørende forskellige positioner i samfundet inden for den brede gruppe. Fra mit perspektiv er det derfor ikke indlysende, hvilke forståelser af sorthed, og hvilke former for sammenfiltrede magtrelationer, der mobiliseres gennem termer såsom sort, afro eller afrikansk. Jeg er nysgerrig på, hvordan nationalitet, køn, klasse og konkrete, diasporiske historier medtænkes og kontekstualiseres lokalt i danske formuleringer af sorthed. Og på, hvad, om noget, der får sorthedtil at hænge sammen på dansk i organisering på tværs af afrikanske diasporaer i Danmark.

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/periskop/article/view/128472

Birkeli, H. E. ‘Den svarte «barnepiken» og rasismens melankoli: Den svarte «barnepiken» og rasismens melankoli.’ (2021) [PDF]

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Birkeli, H. E. (2021). Den svarte «barnepiken» og rasismens melankoli: Den svarte «barnepiken» og rasismens melankoli. Periskop – Forum for kunsthistorisk debat, 25, 28–45.

Fra indledning:

Inntil ganske nylig var dansk-norsk kolonihistorie lite synlig i det nordiske ordskiftet, og flere har til og med beskrevet det som en kulturell amnesi (Andersen 2013, 57–76). Niels P. Holbechs (1804–89) maleri Lille Marie på Nekys arm utfordrer denne stillheten ved å visualisere kolonialismens nære relasjoner som både konkrete og følbare [1]. Samtidig som det dyrker frem ulikheter, frem-stiller maleriet også «den Andre» som legemliggjort og individualisert. Den malte relasjonen mellom de to uttrykkes i berøring som et spill mellom motsetninger, der overflater møtes som inversjoner av hverandre, og dette har implikasjoner for gullalderens forestilling om Danmark som et «hvitt» og homogent rom.Fra puffermene på Nekys kjole til den krumme ryggen til barnet, fyller figurene nærmest hele rommet i Holbechs komposisjon. Møysommelig jevne fargetoner gjør malingstrøkene usynlige og skaper skarpe, smidige skygger og former som nærmest presser seg frem fra overflaten. Holbechs dobbeltportrett er preget av ambivalens. Begge figurer ser ut til å motstå klar emosjonell tolkning: Neky bærer et forsiktig halvsmil, synlig ved rynkene som strekker seg langs kinnet, mens hun titter usikkert til høyre for bilderammen. Maries hevede øyenbryn og halvåpne munn virker som om hun er på randen til å lage lyd, men tilskueren får allikevel lite innblikk i hennes følelsestilstand.

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/periskop/article/view/128293

Reeploeg, Silke. ‘Women in the Arctic: Gendering Coloniality in Travel Narratives from the Far North, 1907-1930’. (2019)

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Reeploeg, Silke. ‘Women in the Arctic: Gendering Coloniality in Travel Narratives from the Far North, 1907-1930’. Scandinavian Studies, vol. 91, no. 1–2, [Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study, University of Illinois Press], 2019, pp. 182–204.

From introduction:

The Nordic region has a growing body of work that addresses “blind spots” when it comes to understanding its colonial past (Vuorela 2009; Mattson 2014). However, and as noted already in the introduction to this issue, Scandinavian Studies as a scholarly field has been quite resistant to connecting Nordic historiographies with colonialism beyond imagining it as a marginal and altruistic enterprise (Naum and Nordin 2013). Ideas about Nordic exceptionalism in these matters have often been used to deflect and explain away any responsibility or historical complicity with pan-European colonial ideologies and practices, replacing them instead with vague feelings of shame and guilt in what has been defined as a “privilege of innocence” (Körber 2018, 27). These strategies have not only left gaps and disputed memories in contemporary discourses about Nordic histories, but have also forced us to ask how these narratives are created and embraced as part of a variety of ongoing Nordic colonialisms. Recognizing the diverse roles that women have played in the history of the Far North, both as colonizers and colonized, this article uses historical travel writing by women writers to investigate female colonization strategies and responses within this context.

The examples discussed here demonstrate the diversity of colonial practices within the Nordic region, ranging from the more traditional form of Danish North Atlantic territorial expansion in places such as Greenland to the occupation of Sápmi lands by different Scandinavian nations, Finland, and Russia. Inspired by Maria Lugones’s use of the concept of “coloniality of gender” (2008), the article will approach biographical writing from a postcolonial perspective and examine how gendered coloniality is produced and mediated through travel writing about and by women in the Far North. While Lugones’s critique primarily addresses the racism and violence inherent in modern colonial gender systems, the analysis below will utilize her understanding of coloniality as a lived experience of Eurocentric domination in order to illuminate the gendered nature of colonial complicity by White, elite women.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/scanstud.91.1-2.0182. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/scanstud.91.1-2.0182.

Whitmire, Ethelene. ‘Landscapes of the African American Diaspora in Denmark’. (2019) [PDF]

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Whitmire, Ethelene. ‘Landscapes of the African American Diaspora in Denmark’. Nordisk Tidsskrift for Informationsvidenskab Og Kulturformidling, vol. 8, no. 2, 2, Dec. 2019, pp. 84–91.

This imaginary exhibition is based on the archive of items collected to write the book manuscript for Searching for Utopia: African Americans in 20th Century Denmark. Professor Ethelene Whitmire used the method of curatorial dreaming to design this exhibition and was influenced by African American expatriate Walter Williams’s landscape paintings that reflect the themes in the book.

doi:10.7146/ntik.v7i2.118483.

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/ntik/article/view/118483.

Winsnes, Selena Axelrod. A Danish Jew in West Africa. Wulf Joseph Wulff Biography And Letters 1836-1842. (2013)

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Winsnes, Selena Axelrod. A Danish Jew in West Africa. Wulf Joseph Wulff Biography And Letters 1836-1842. Legon-Accra, Ghana: African Books Collective, 2013.

Wulff’s life history is of considerable interest in itself. In her biographical essay (Part I) Selena Axelrod Winsnes portrays him as a ‘marginal man’: being a Jew in Denmark at the beginning of the 19th century was to some extent an uphill struggle for those who sought public recognition, and Wulff did not escape discrimination in his administrative career at Christiansborg either, although special circumstances allowed him to hold important positions, and yet, only for the short term. Paradoxically, on his arrival to the Gold Coast Wulff – as a Jew – was placed in a middle position in the racial hierarchy dominating the mind-set of his superiors in Copenhagen in-between Africans and Europeans. In many respects he shared the fate of Euro-Africans, straddling two worlds and being ‘sealed off’ from the top echelons of the European establishments on the Coast. This book comprises two parts. The first is a biographical presentation of Wulff Joseph Wulff  a Danish Jew. It is an essay concerning the last six years of his life, spent on the Gold Coast of West Africa, based on letters he wrote to his family in Denmark. Those letters were published in 1917 as Da Guinea var Dansk [When Guinea was Danish], by Carl Behrens, a member of his family in Denmark. The second part of the book is an edited translation of the letters from Danish into English.

https://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/a-danish-jew-in-west-africa

Weiss, Holger. ‘The European and Eurafrican Population of the Danish Forts on the Eighteenth-Century Gold Coast’. (2018)

~ mortenstinus

Weiss, Holger. ‘The European and Eurafrican Population of the Danish Forts on the Eighteenth-Century Gold Coast’. African Economic History, vol. 46, no. 1, University of Wisconsin Press, 2018, pp. 36–68,

This essay focuses on the demographic consequences of entanglement in the Danish possessions on the Gold Coast in West Africa. Two sets of data will be analyzed, one on the European composition of the Danish enclaves and discusses demographic trends and ruptures, the other on the Eurafrican population in the Danish enclaves. The first part of the study focusses on the survival of the European personnel in the Danish possessions on the Gold Coast. Similar to the experience of other European trading nations in West Africa, the Guinea Coast was a ‘White Man’s Grave’ for the Danish personnel as about half of the newly arrived staff members died within the first year on the coast. The second part deals with the employment and careers of the Eurafricans, i.e., the children of Danish fathers and local African or Eurafrican women. While the Danish authorities enlisted some of the Eurafrican boys as military staff members, the fate of the Eurafrican girls was unclear. In contrast to the Europeans, the Eurafrican population seldom succumbed to the coastal climate. Instead, demographic data suggests that their life expectancy was relatively high, at least compared to that of the European personnel.

doi:10.1353/aeh.2018.0001.

Weiss, Holger. ‘The Danish Gold Coast as a Multinational and Entangled Space, c. 1700–1850’. (2013) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Weiss, Holger. ‘The Danish Gold Coast as a Multinational and Entangled Space, c. 1700–1850’. Scandinavian Colonialism and the Rise of Modernity, 2013, 243–260,

This chapter gives an outline of the intertwined multiple cultural and social dynamics in the Danish enclaves and their hinterlands on the Gold Coast (Ghana) during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Similar to the other European ports of exchange, the Danish forts had been built next to African settlements. The interaction between the Europeans and the Africans had created a multicultural and transnational space where expressions of early modern proto-globalisation intermingled with local cultures of particular societies. Apart from discussing the multinational composition of the Danish personnel, the chapter highlights the African and Euro-African spaces at Danish Accra, focusing on how foreign cultural artefacts and ideas were combined with local ones.

doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-6202-6_14.

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/288985106_The_Danish_Gold_Coast_as_a_Multinational_and_Entangled_Space_c_1700-1850.

Lunde, Arne, and Anna Westerstahl Stenport. ‘Helga Crane’s Copenhagen: Denmark, Colonialism, and Transnational Identity in Nella Larsen’s “Quicksand”’. (2008) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Lunde, Arne, and Anna Westerstahl Stenport. ‘Helga Crane’s Copenhagen: Denmark, Colonialism, and Transnational Identity in Nella Larsen’s “Quicksand”’. Comparative Literature, vol. 60, no. 3, [Duke University Press, University of Oregon], 2008, pp. 228–243.

PDF: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40279414.

Ipsen, Pernille. ‘“The Christened Mulatresses”: Euro-African Families in a Slave-Trading Town’. (2013) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Ipsen, Pernille. ‘“The Christened Mulatresses”: Euro-African Families in a Slave-Trading Town’. The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 70, no. 2, Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2013, pp. 371–398.

In the 1760s “Mulatresse Lene” was cassaret (married) to Danish interim governor and slave trader Frantz Joachim Kühberg in Osu on the Gold Coast. The local history of Ga-Danish families such as hers in Osu illustrates how Euro-African women on the West African coast could benefit from marrying European slave traders and could use these marriages to expand their room for maneuver in the coastal society. By marrying European men, christening their children, and sending them to the church school at the Danish fort, Euro-African women claimed a powerful intermediary position in the racialized social hierarchy of the Atlantic slave trade, and as they did so they helped reproduce this same racial hierarchy. Yet Euro-African families were not just taking advantage of their position to widen their opportunities; they were also using it as a means of protection in a violent and stressful slave-trading environment. At the height of the slave trade in the second half of the eighteenth century, Africans participating in the slave trade—even elite Euro-Africans such as Kühberg and her family—were under pressure to protect themselves and their families from being sold across the Atlantic.

doi:10.5309/willmaryquar.70.2.0371.

PDF: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5309/willmaryquar.70.2.0371.

Ipsen, Pernille. ‘Sexualizing the Other: From Ethnopornography to Interracial Pornography in European Travel Writing about West African Women’. (2020)

~ mortenstinus

Ipsen, Pernille. ‘Sexualizing the Other: From Ethnopornography to Interracial Pornography in European Travel Writing about West African Women’. Ethno-Pornography: Sexuality, Colonialism, and Archival Knowledge, Eds. Peter Herman Sigal, Zeb Tortorici, and Neil L Whitehead, 2020.

https://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=6133845.

Ipsen, Pernille. ‘“Plant Ikke Upas-Træet Om Vor Bolig”: Colonial Haunting, Race, and Interracial Marriage in Hans Christian Andersen’s Mulatten (1840)’. (2016) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Ipsen, Pernille. ‘“Plant Ikke Upas-Træet Om Vor Bolig”: Colonial Haunting, Race, and Interracial Marriage in Hans Christian Andersen’s Mulatten (1840)’. Scandinavian Studies, vol. 88, no. 2, Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study, University of Illinois Press, 2016, pp. 129–158.

doi:10.5406/scanstud.88.2.0129.

PDF: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/scanstud.88.2.0129.

Ipsen, Pernille. Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast. (2015)

~ mortenstinus

Ipsen, Pernille. Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.

Severine Brock’s first language was Ga, yet it was not surprising when, in 1842, she married Edward Carstensen. He was the last governor of Christiansborg, the fort that, in the eighteenth century, had been the center of Danish slave trading in West Africa. She was the descendant of Ga-speaking women who had married Danish merchants and traders. Their marriage would have been familiar to Gold Coast traders going back nearly 150 years. In Daughters of the Trade, Pernille Ipsen follows five generations of marriages between African women and Danish men, revealing how interracial marriage created a Euro-African hybrid culture specifically adapted to the Atlantic slave trade. 

Although interracial marriage was prohibited in European colonies throughout the Atlantic world, in Gold Coast slave-trading towns it became a recognized and respected custom. Cassare, or ‘keeping house,’ gave European men the support of African women and their kin, which was essential for their survival and success, while African families made alliances with European traders and secured the legitimacy of their offspring by making the unions official. 

For many years, Euro-African families lived in close proximity to the violence of the slave trade. Sheltered by their Danish names and connections, they grew wealthy and influential. But their powerful position on the Gold Coast did not extend to the broader Atlantic world, where the link between blackness and slavery grew stronger, and where Euro-African descent did not guarantee privilege. By the time Severine Brock married Edward Carstensen, their world had changed. Daughters of the Trade uncovers the vital role interracial marriage played in the coastal slave trade, the production of racial difference, and the increasing stratification of the early modern Atlantic world.

https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15367.html

Dyrendom Graugaard, Naja. Tracing Seal: Unsettling narratives of kalaallit seal relations. (2020) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Dyrendom Graugaard, Naja. Tracing Seal: Unsettling narratives of kalaallit seal relations. Dissertation. Aalborg University, 2020

ENGLISH SUMMARY

Seals have carried  an  essentialrolein  the  unfolding  of Greenland as an Indigenous homeland,  colonized  territory,  and  self-governing  nation.During  the  past  many decades, seals  have  also been  a topicof  controversybetween  international  political actors,  animal  welfare  groups,  and  Inuit  communities.This doctoral thesisexplores Kalaallit[Greenlandic Inuit] relations withsealsas they arisein thesehistorical and contemporary  political  landscapes. By  tracing  ‘the  seal’  through  various  narrative trajectoriesin  Greenland,  the  thesis  engageswith thecomplexprocesses  through which coloniality  and Indigenous lifeways collide  and  interweave.While  dominant narrativesonInuit seal hunting –such as those forwarded in the EU Seal Regime–seem to underminelivedand place-based Kalaallit-seal relations, Kalaallit narratives of sealsalsounsettlethevery same‘seal regimes’.Suggesting thatnarratives encompassand navigaterelations between Kalaallit, Qallunaat[non-Inuit], and seals, the thesis examines  how seal  narratives engageand  unsettleprocesses  of colonizationin Greenland. This  article-based  doctoral  thesis  consists  of  four  academic  articles. Each  article isbased  ona  specific,  focused  study which  has emergedfrom  theresearchprocess  of ‘tracing seal’in Greenland.  Thefour  articlesspan topics  that  relate  tocolonial  and postcolonialsustainabilitynarratives,processes  of  Kalaallit  seal  hunting,  and  the seamstress work ofcreatingGreenlandic regalia. One of the articles, specifically, deals with  the  methodological  process  of  undertaking  this  thesis  research. By  paying attention  to  the  various  ways  in  which  seals  are  engaged,  narrated,  and  part  of Kalaallit “worlding”, the articles destabilize the tendency to reduce diverse Kalaallit-seal relations to simplified narratives within European conceptual vocabularies. Empirically, this research isbased on different materials that are generated from seven months  of  fieldwork  in  Greenland,  from archival  research, and from Greenlandic mediasources. It draws substantially on  interviews  with hunters,  seamstresses,  and other  persons  whose professions  relate  to seal  hunting  or sealskinsin  Greenland. Theoretically, the thesis seeks to elaborate on postcolonial theoretical applications in contemporary  studies  on  Greenland  by engagingdecolonial  and  Indigenous scholarships  from  within  and  outside  of  the  Arctic.The  thesis suggests  that this is a necessary  move in  order to  unsettle colonial  research  relations  in Arctic  scholarship and make way for other modes of thinking, knowing, sensing, and being in knowledge production.This approach transpiresinto the methodological frameworkof the thesis which works,auto-reflexivelyand  practically,to interrogateand  disruptresearcher positionality,academic privileges,  and  borderland  transgressionsin the  claims  to knowledge  on  Greenland. Altogether,  the thesis engageswiththe very process  of “tracing seal” asa way to explore the theoretical and practical tracks for Greenlandic decolonization.

KALAALLISUT EQIKKAANEQ

Puisit,  Kalaallit  Nunaata  nunap  inooqqaavinut  nunagisatut,  nunasiaatitut  aamma nunatut namminersortutut ineriartornerata ingerlaneranut pingaaruteqarluinnarsimapput. Ukiut qulikkaat amerlasuut kingulliit ingerlaneranni, nunat assigiinngitsut akornanni politikikkut ingerlatsisut, uumasut atugarissaarnerannut  eqimattakkaat  aamma  inuiaqatigiit  Inuit  akornanni,  puisit akerleriinnermi aamma sammineqartarsimapput. Ph.d.-mut ilisimatuunngorniarnermi  ilisimatuutut  allaaserisap  matuma,  Kalaallit  [Kalaallit Nunaanni  Inuit]  aamma  puisit  imminut  atassuteqarnerat,  oqaluttuarisaanermi aamma  nalitsinni  politikikkut  isummat  inissisimaneranni  pilertarnerat  malillugu misissuiffigineqarput. Kalaallit Nunaanni oqaluttuarisaanermi aqqutit assigiinngitsut aqqutigalugit `Puisip ́ malinneratigut, ilisimatuutut allaaserisaq allanngoriartornernik katitigaasunik  sammisaqarpoq,  tassani  nunasiaaneq  aamma  nunap  inoqqaavisa inuusaasaat aporaapput imminullu ikaartiterneqarlutik. Massa inuit puisinniartarneri pillugit    oqaluttuat    saqquminerpaat –soorlu    taakku    EU-p    `puisit    pillugit aqutseriaasaanni ́ saqqummiunneqartut –Kalaallit puisillu akornanni atassuteqarnernik inuunermi aqqusaakkanik aamma sumiiffimmut tunngaveqartunik tunngaviannik  aserorterisut,  Kalaallit  puisinikoqaluttuaasa  aamma  `puisit  pillugit aqutseriaaseq ́  taannarpiaq  apeqquserpaat.  Aallaavigigaanni  oqaluttuat,  Kalaallit, Qallunaat  [Inuit  ilaginngisai],  aamma  puisit  akornanni  atassuteqarnermi  ilaqartut aamma  aqqutissiuisuusut,  ilisimatuutut  allaaserisami  misissorneqarpoq  qanoq  puisit pillugit, Kalaallit Nunaanni nunasiaateqarniarnerup ingerlaneranik sammisaqarnersut aamma apeqqusiinersut.Allaaserisanik    tunngaveqartumik    ph.d.-mik    ilisimatuutut    allaaserisaq    una, ilisimatusarnermi allaaserisanik sisamanik ilaqarpoq. Allaaserisat immikkut tamarmik misissuinermik aalajangersimasumik aamma ukkataqartumik tunngaveqarput, taakku Kalaallit  Nunaanni  `puisimik  malittarinninnermi ́  ilisimatusarnermi  suleriaatsimit saqqummersimapput. Allaaserisani sisamani, nunasiaataanermut aamma nunasiaataanerup kingorna piujuartitsinermik oqaluttuanut, Kalaallit puisinniartarnerani pisut ingerlasarneranut, aamma mersortartut kalaallisuuliortarneranut attuumassuteqartunik sammisat imaqarput. Allaaserisat ilaat ataaseq,  immikkut,  ilisimatuutut  allaaserisap  matuma  suliarineqarnerani  periaatsip ingerlaneranik sammisaqarpoq. Kalaallit nunarsuarmioqataallutik inuuneranni puisit assigiinngitsumik atorneqartarnerannik, oqaluttuarineqartarnerannik aamma ilaanerannik  maluginiagaqarnikkut,  allaaserisat  Kalaallit  puisinut  atassuteqarnerat katitigaasut,    Europamiut    paasinnittarnikkut  oqaatsit  inuit  atortagaasa    iluani oqaluttuanik oqilisaalluni nassuiaasarnikkut annikillisitseqqajaasarnerannik, qajannarsisitsipput.Misilittakkat  misissuinikkullu  paasisat  tunngavigalugit,  ilisimatusarneq  una  Kalaallit Nunaanni  qaammatit  arfineq-marluk  ornigulluni  sulinermit,  allagaataasivinni  7ilisimatusarnermit  aamma  Kalaallit  Nunaanni  tusagassiutitsigut  pissarsiffinnit najoqqutassanik assigiinngitsunik katersorneqarsimasunik tunngaveqarpoq. Piniartunik,    mersortartunik    aamma    inunnik    allanik    Kalaallit    Nunaanni puisinniarnermik imaluunniit puisit amiinik attuumassuteqartunik inuussutissarsiortunik apeqqarissaarfiginninnernik annertuumik atuivoq. Ilisimasaqarfigisat  aallaavigigaanni,  ilisimatuutut  allaaserisap,  maannakkut  Kalaallit Nunaanni    ilisimatusarnermi    nunasiaataanerup    kingorna    ilisimasaqarfigisanik atuilluni  itisiliinissaq  anguniarneqarpoq,  Issittumit  avataanilu  nunasiaateqarnermi aamma  nunap  inoqqaavinik  ilisimatusarnerit,  ilanngunnerisigut.  Ilisimatuutut allaaserisap  matuma  tikkuarpaa,  Issittumi  ilisimatusarnermi  nunasiaateqarnermi ilisimatusarnermut atassuteqarnerit qajannarsisinniarlugit ingerlariarnissaq, allatullu eqqarsartariaatsinut, ilisimasanut, malugisanullu aqqutissiuinissaq aamma ilisimasanik  pilersitsinermiinnissaq  pisariaqartoq.  Suleriaaseq  taanna,  ilisimatuutut allaaserisap pilersinneqarnerani periaatsimut tunngaviuvoq, nammineq inissisimanermut tikkuartumik eqqarsaatersorneq aamma ajornaatsumik, ilisimatuutut-inissisimanermik,  ilisimatuutut  immikkut  pisinnaatitaanernik  aamma Kalaallit  Nunaat  pillugu  ilisimasanik  peqarnerarnermi  killigititanik  qaangiinernik, unammillernissaq  aamma  akornusersuinissaq –tassani  sammineqarput.  Ataatsimut isigalugu,  ilisimatuutut  allaaserisap  matuma,  `puisimik ́  malittarinnilluni  suliap ingerlanerpiaa, Kalaallit Nunaata nunasiaajunnaarsinneqarnerani ilisimasaqarfigisat aallaavigalugit aamma aqqutinik piviusunik misissueriaatsitut sammisaqarpoq.

DANSK RESUME

Sælen har haft en afgørende betydning for den måde Grønland har manifesteret sig som hjemland for et oprindeligt folk, et koloniseret område og en selvstyrende nation. Gennem de sidste mange årtier har sælen også været genstand for konflikter mellem internationalepolitiske aktører, dyrevelfærdsgrupper og Inuit-samfund. Denne ph.d. -afhandling  undersøgerrelationerne  mellem  sælen  og  Kalaallit [grønlandske  Inuit], som de udfolder sig historisk og i det moderne politiske landskab. Ved at følge ’sælen’ gennem  en  lang  række  narrative  spor i  Grønland,  beskæftiger  afhandlingen sig med de komplekse processer hvori kolonialitet og oprindelige livsformer kolliderer og væver sig  sammen.  Mens  de  dominerende  narrativer  om  inuitisk  sælfangst–fx  i  EU’s ’sælregime’–underminerer delokaleog levede relationer mellem Kalaallit og sælen, så anfægterKalaallit narrativer de selvsamme ’sælregimer’. Med det udgangspunkt at narrativer omfatter og manøvrererrelationer mellem Kalaallit, Qallunaat [ikke-Inuit] og  sælen,  undersøger afhandlingen  hvordan  sælnarrativer  adresserer og  forstyrrer koloniseringsprocesser i Grønland.Denne artikelbaserede ph.d.-afhandlingbestår af fire akademiske artikler. Hver artikel er  baseret  på  et  specifikt,  fokuseret  studie,  som  er  opstået igennem denne forskningsprocesmed at ’følge’ sælen i Grønland. De fire artikler spænder over emner, der  beskæftiger  sig  med  koloniale  og  postkoloniale bæredygtigheds-narrativer, processer  vedrørende  Kalaallit  sæljagt,  og  syerskersarbejde  med  at  skabe  den grønlandske nationaldragt. En af artiklerne behandler specifikt den metodiske proces, som  har  fulgt  med  afhandlingens  tilblivelse. Ved  at kaste  opmærksomhed  på  de forskellige  måder  som  sæler  fortælles og  engageres  i Kalaallit livsverdener, destabiliserer artiklerne tendensen til at reducere komplekse Kalaallit-sæl relationer til forenklede narrativer ieuropæiske konceptuelle vokabularer. Empirisk er denne forskning baseret på forskelligartet materiale som hidrører fra syv måneders feltarbejde i Grønland,fra arkivforskning og fra grønlandske mediekilder. Den trækker i væsentlig grad på interviews med fangere, syersker og andre personer, hvis erhverv berører sæljagteller sælskind i Grønland. Teoretisk søger afhandlingenat elaborere den postkoloniale teorirammei den nuværendeGrønlandsforskning ved at inddrage  dekolonialogIndigenousforskningfra såvel  Arktis,  som  udenfor. Afhandlingen peger på, at dette er et nødvendigt skridt i retningen mod at destabilisere kolonialerelationer i Arktisk forskning og skaffe plads til andre måder at tænke, vide, føle  og  være  i  vidensproduktion. Denne  tilgang  er  grundlaget  for tilblivelsen  af afhandlingens metodiske ramme, som arbejder med–selv-refleksivt og praktisk–at udfordre og forstyrre forsker-positionalitet, akademiske privilegier, og ’grænselande’i forskningen om  Grønland. Samlet  set,  beskæftiger  afhandlingen  sig  med  selve processen at følge’sælen’ som en måde at udforske de teoretiske og praktiske spor for grønlandsk afkolonisering.

PDF: https://vbn.aau.dk/ws/portalfiles/portal/332493608/PHD_Naja_Dyrendom_Graugaard_E_pdf.pdf

Holle, Marie-Louise. The Forced Relocation of Indigenous Peoples in Greenland – Repercussions in Tort Law and Beyond. (2019) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Holle, Marie-Louise. The Forced Relocation of Indigenous Peoples in Greenland – Repercussions in Tort Law and Beyond. CBS Law Research Paper, 1940, Copenhagen Business School, 24 Nov. 2019.

In 1953, the US wished to establish a military base in the Dundas area of Greenland. Greenland was at the time a Danish colony. The Danish authorities granted the American request. The establishment of the military base meant that the over 100 members of the Thule tribe was forcibly relocated to another areas in a matter of very few days. Until then, the Thule tribe had been seminomadic catchers in that specific area for millennials. Only decades later, the Thule Tribe’s claim for damages was tried before the Courts of Denmark. The Thule tribe especially claimed damages for serious interference with their rights as well as loss of hunting opportunities. Stating it was a law measure of legal and valid expropriation, the Supreme Court did award damages, but only amounting to a fraction of the amount claimed by the Thule Tribe. The motivation for the judgment is not quite clear, and seemingly national expropriation rules are at the core of both the lower and the higher courts’ reasoning, perhaps at the expense of international law. Another overlooked aspect is that the courts in several (at least European) countries may seem biased, when the defendant in a tort case is a public authority; in certain legal areas one may even talk of a lenient standard of negligence. Relocation is a removal of a people from their home to another place. It may not always involve violence, direct threats or force, but coercion or other tactics against the removed people, who are not in a position to challenge the relocation. Forced relocations of tribal and indigenous peoples may seem a thing of the past as few still defend colonialism and it is therefore generally seen as a historical trait that has reached its conclusion. Nevertheless, forced relocations of peoples may happen again; in the Arctic for instance several superpowers of this world express much interest in a strategic presence in this specific area. There has been a number of examples of forced relocations of indigenous peoples all over the world, not only in the Artic with the Thule tribe, but also the Canadian First Nations, Native Americans in the US, black citizens of South Africa.

PDF: https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3492655.

Sørensen, Bo Wagner. ‘Når kulturen går i kroppen: „Halve grønlændere” som begreb og fænomen’. (1997) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Sørensen, Bo Wagner. ‘Når kulturen går i kroppen: „Halve grønlændere” som begreb og fænomen’. Tidsskriftet Antropologi, no. 35–36, 35–36, Sept. 1997.

Bo Wagner Sørensen: When Culture Gets Embodied: The Notion and Phenomenon of Greenlandic “Halfies’’ The article tries to make sense of the notion of Greenlandic “halfies” by showing how the notion is part of a cultural discourse which is expressed in terms of “between two cultures”. This discourse points both to people being split between cultures and to the cultures having materialized themselves in individual bodies. In light of recent critique of the concept of culture in anthropology it is reasonable to question the essentialism underlying the expression “between two cultures”, and also to imagine that individuals who invoke it are suffering from “false consciousness”. However, it seems that the discourse causes real pain in actual bodies, and therefore it needs to be taken seriously. In the article, the discourse is put in a larger historical, social and political perspective, showing how the idea has been established that Greenlandic and Danish culture and identity are rather incompatible entities. The Greenlandic struggle for political independence has been fought to a large degree in the field of culture, which implies that people in general are informed by dichotomy thinking. Individuals who do not match up with the acknowledged criteria for Greenlandic culture and identity are inclined to be caught between cultures and loyalities, the result being that the political cultural war is reproduced and reflected in individual bodies. Due to the widespread identityhealth model according to which the ideal identity is a clear-cut and fixed ethnic identity, these individuals are often believed to experience identity crises. The article suggests that the “problem” may not be one of incompatible cultural essences, though it is widely thought so, but rather that culture and identity get politicized.

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/tidsskriftetantropologi/article/view/115316.