Crisis and Belonging: Protest Voices and Empathic Solidarity in Post-Economic Collapse Iceland

Timothy Heffernan

doi:10.3390/rel11010022

Abstract

This article explores the politics of belonging in Iceland in the context of an ethico-political project focused around increased transparency following the country’s 2008 banking collapse. By employing literature on autochthony (i.e., a return to, and interpretation of, “the local”), it examines the tensions that are reignited within and between nation-states during economic crisis. Through ethnography with ordinary Icelanders and the members of two protest movements, this research shows how Icelanders are cultivating a public voice to navigate the political constraints of crisis and reshaping Icelanders’ international identity from below in the wake of the collapse. To this end, the article accounts for the role of populist politics in re-embedding Iceland into the European social imaginary as an economically responsible and egalitarian nation. It then turns to highlight the push for meaningful democratic reform through collaborative, legislative exchange between the government and the people that resulted in a new—if not actually implemented—constitution. By exploring protest culture in Iceland, the article highlights the importance of public witnessing and empathic solidarity in building intercultural relations in an era of globalized finance and politics.

Highlights

IntroductionHow might the sudden flash of catastrophe illuminate the meaning of borders and the politics of belonging? And to what extent are these two things . . . morphing . . . in this, the neoliberal age, one often associated with states of emergency?
How might the sudden flash of catastrophe illuminate the meaning of borders and the politics of belonging? And to what extent are these two things . . . morphing . . . in this, the neoliberal age, one often associated with states of emergency?(Comaroff and Comaroff 2012, pp. 92–93)This article examines the politics of belonging in Iceland amid shifting economic horizons brought about by the global financial crisis (2008–11) (GFC)
I have charted the politics of belonging in the context of an ethico-political project against protracted economic and political crisis that has affected Icelanders’ sense ofnational belonging

Summary

Introduction

How might the sudden flash of catastrophe illuminate the meaning of borders and the politics of belonging? And to what extent are these two things . . . morphing . . . in this, the neoliberal age, one often associated with states of emergency?. Iceland as a responsible European nation (Loftsdóttir and Björnsdóttir 2018), three vignettes of public protest are used to show how collective action is contributing to an everyday geopolitics of belonging from below This involves an ethico-political project championing equality as the essence of community in Iceland and pushing for the nation’s draft constitution to be legislated. As Yuval-Davis (2012b) argues, a double crisis of attending to constituent concerns and global forces is faced by the nation-state In this context, public mobilization has undergone a period of international resurgence since the onset of the GFC, especially in response to confounding conditions of economic austerity, labour precarity and revelations of political and institutional corruption (della Porta 2015). Autochthony operates both horizontally, to distinguish between citizens, and vertically, to demarcate “the public” from “the elite,” especially when elites are viewed as globally oriented, corrupt, or inept (see Brubaker 2017)

Contending with a Crisis in Iceland

Defining and Defending the Icelandic Nation

Building a Collective Voice from within

Conclusions