Saqqummersitaq

Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands have in common their history as Danish dependencies within a historically and geographically coherent region. The complex aftermaths of Denmark’s sovereignty over its North Atlantic territories and their ongoing nation building processes lie at the core of this book. Today, we are witnessing region building processes beyond bilateral links to Denmark. How do the countries position themselves, individually and collectively, vis-à-vis the European metropolitan centres, a larger transcontinental North Atlantic region, the 'hot' Arctic, and global histories of colonialism and decolonisation? By examining the region from cultural, literary, historical, political, anthropological and linguistic perspectives, the articles in this book shed light on Nordic colonialism and its understanding as 'exceptional', and challenge and modify established notions of postcolonialism. Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands are shown to be both the (former) subjects as well as the producers of cultural hierarchisations in an entangled world.

The Shetland Islands are a good example of what island cultures and societies can tell us about the construction and maintenance of national identities, as well as the way in which historical perspectives and internalised ideas influence how we locate parts of Britain. How do these - other islands become part of the national mental map? And how do islanders themselves incorporate - Britishness into their cultural identity?

For the ―Northern Isles‖ of Orkney and Shetland, their geographical position has historically meant being an outpost of the British Isles, at its Northern ―edge,‖ as noted by Sandy Cluness, Convenor of the Shetland Islands Council, in an interview with The Journal: ―We are on the periphery and have all the higher costs that come with that and not many of the advantages. This chapter demonstates that the cultural heritage of the Scottish Northern Islands actually insists on being ―other, often resisting, and sometimes opposing, the dominant, national historical and political narratives. The Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland are therefore of real interest in terms of exploring the complex and adaptable nature of representing ―otherness‖ within British identity, and the way islanders actively utilise their economic, political and cultural-historical environment to create a multiplicity of localised island identities within the national narrative.

Grönland Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts: Ein koloniales und von Machtasymmetrien geprägtes Land. Zeitgleich mit den ersten Ausbildungsreisen junger Grönländer nach Dänemark kann sich in der bis nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg abgeriegelten dänischen Kolonie eine eigene Romanliteratur herausbilden. Ebbe Volquardsen begibt sich auf die Spur der Vertreter einer frühen grönländischen Bildungselite, der die Autoren angehören. Er fragt: Wie kann literarisches Schreiben und Publizieren in dieser Konstellation gelingen? Welche Machtmechanismen müssen Grönländer umgehen, um sich als Akteure im literarischen Diskurs zu etablieren? Der Autor analysiert die ersten vier zwischen 1914 und 1938 erschienenen Romane grönländischer Autoren und stellt sie in einen kulturhistorischen Kontext. Welche Bedeutung kommt diesen Romanen im Diskurs um Nationsbildung und Identitätsfindung zu?