This book explores how the Danish authorities governed the colonized population in Greenland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Two competing narratives of colonialism dominate in Greenland as well as Denmark. One narrative portrays the Danish colonial project as ruthless and brutal extraction of a vulnerable indigenousness people; the other narrative emphasizes almost exclusively the benevolent aspects of Danish rule in Greenland. Rather than siding with one of these narratives, this book investigates actual practices of colonial governance in Greenland with an outlook to the extensive international scholarship on colonialism and post-colonialism. The chapters address the intimate connections between the establishment of an ethnographic discourse and the colonial techniques of governance in Greenland. Thereby the book provides important nuances to the understanding of the historical relationship between Denmark and Greenland and links this historical trajectory to the present negotiations of Greenlandic identity.
With the Constitution of 1953, the colonial status of Greenland came to an end, and Greenlanders were granted equal rights as citizens within the Danish realm. In 1954 this new arrangement was supported by the UN General Assembly. The decision to change Greenland's status was conditioned both by internal and external circumstances. In the UN context, Danes increasingly felt the strain of being a colonial power, and they feared the possibility of future UN interference in Greenlandic affairs.
This book explores structural changes in Greenland’s economy and labour markets due to the transformative effects of climatic changes and growing international attention. It offers multidisciplinary perspectives from economists, sociologists, and political scientists to demonstrate how the Greenlandic economy works. Due to an increasing focus on the Arctic area and Greenland in particular, the book seeks to understand the functioning and dynamics of Greenland’s labour economy, as well as the challenges that arise from the melting ice and internationalisation. It fills a substantive gap in the existing literature by compiling research on these critical subjects and exploring current and future opportunities for labourers. Today, Greenland is reliant on large financial subsidies from Denmark to provide for a large share of its national budget. This fuels Greenland’s political ambition to gain greater independence from Denmark, which requires more private sector growth to develop a sustainable economy. This book thus contains an exhaustive introduction to important business development themes such as macroeconomics, markets, labour supply, labour market policies, and institutions and considers Greenland’s colonial past, great Inuit heritage, and unique geography and nature to re-shape its economy and labour markets. Informed by a lucid writing style, each chapter casts light on different economic and social issues of Greenland. This is the first international book on Greenland’s economy which discusses its geopolitical importance and prospects for the Arctic region. It will be a valuable point of reference for students and academics of economics, Arctic research and political economy.
Tété-Michel Kpomassie was a teenager in Togo when he discovered a book about Greenland—and knew that he must go there. Working his way north over nearly a decade, Kpomassie finally arrived in the country of his dreams. This brilliantly observed and superbly entertaining record of his adventures among the Inuit is a testament both to the wonderful strangeness of the human species and to the surprising sympathies that bind us all.
Greenland and the International Politics of a Changing Arctic examines the international politics of semi-independent Greenland in a changing and increasingly globalised Arctic. Without sovereign statehood, but with increased geopolitical importance, independent foreign policy ambitions, and a solidified self-image as a trailblazer for Arctic indigenous peoples’ rights, Greenland is making its mark on the Arctic and is in turn affected – and empowered – by Arctic developments. The chapters in this collection analyse how a distinct Greenlandic foreign policy identity shapes political ends and means, how relations to its parent state of Denmark is both a burden and a resource, and how Greenlandic actors use and influence regional institutional settings as well as foreign states and commercial actors to produce an increasingly independent – if not sovereign – entity with aims and ambitions for regional change in the Arctic. This is the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary examination of Greenland’s international relations and how they are connected to wider Arctic politics. It will be essential reading for students and scholars interested in Arctic governance and security, international relations, sovereignty, geopolitics, paradiplomacy, indigenous affairs and anyone concerned with the political future of the Arctic.
Winner of the Danish Golden Lauren Award Winner of the Nordic Council Literature Prize Shortlisted for the International DUBLIN Literary Award An ALA RUSA Notable Book (Fiction) The award-winning, internationally best-selling saga of a Greenlandic community torn apart by the forces of colonialism and the one priest whose wavering guidance will determine its fate. From the swarming streets of Copenhagen to the frozen villages of Greenland, The Prophets of Eternal Fjord is a grand, magisterial story of epic proportion. Earning rave reviews and scores of readers across the world, Kim Leine's masterpiece—sweeping across the sea in a whaler and scurrying, panicked, from the Great Fire of 1795—arrives on American shores erupting with pathos, lust, faith lost and found, and a cast of characters clinging to life amidst persecution and calamity. Idealistic, foolhardy Morten Falck, the hapless hero, is a newly ordained priest sailing to Greenland in 1787 to convert the Inuit to the Danish church. He's rejected the prospect of a sleepy posting in a local parish and instead departs for the forsaken Sukkertoppen colony, where he will endeavor to convert the locals. A town battered by unremittingly harsh winters and simmering with the threat of dissent, it is a far cry from the parish he envisioned; natives from neighboring villages have unified to reject colonial rule and establish their own settlement atop Eternal Fjord. A bumbling and at times terrifically destructive mix of Shakespeare's Falstaff and Nathaniel Hawthorne's Arthur Dimmesdale, he's woefully ill prepared to confront this new sect. Torn between his instinctive compassion for the rebel congregation perched atop Eternal Fjord and his duty to the church, Falck is forced to decide where he belongs. His exploits in this brutal backwater include an accidental explosion after a night curled around a keg, a botched surgery, a love affair with a solitary and fatalistic widow, and an apprenticeship with an eager young scholar that ends in tragedy. Based on authentic events in the 1780s and '90s, The Prophets of Eternal Fjord moves from the quiet rooms of the Copenhagen bourgeoisie to the stark, hardscrabble village of the Fjord where Falck finds himself—surprisingly—at home. Kim Leine's textured, earthy prose evokes the sting of the cold, the itch of the wool, and the burn of the roughest swig of aquavit. In gritty detail, Leine reveals the corrosive effects of colonial rule—both on the colonized, bitterly ground down as they are, and on the colonizers, compromised and corrupted by their baseless power. In rich, Dickensian descriptions, Leine charts the tragic events that intertwine seemingly disparate lives, illuminating the brutal and tender impulses of those seeking redemption and the shifting line between religion and mysticism. The Prophets of Eternal Fjord is a visceral panorama of a fragile colony caught in the throes of history, marking the American debut of a major international writer.
This volume offers a comprehensive account of the cultural history of Greenland's Cape Farewell region in the 19th century. The dominating factor was the immigration of people to the area from southeast Greenland. There are no written sources originating from these immigrants, as they could neither read nor write, so the descriptions presented are primarily based on material from the Danish colonial authorities and the German Moravian mission. Although one-sided and reflecting a European view and conception of the world, the sources contain valuable information which, when pieced together, give a clear picture of immigration to the Cape Farewell area at the time, and of the society which arose in the wake of this immigration, not least of the impending struggle for the souls of the unbaptized East Greenlanders and also for their contribution to colonial trade in the 19th century. The volume includes accounts of the immigrants themselves which have been passed down from generation to ge
This book traces Danish-Greenlandic relations in the period 1900-2000. The main trend is the development from a colonial situation in 1900 with a state owned company runnig nearly all business to an open economy with steadily growing self-government for Greenland short of full independence. The Danish policy can be described as benevolent, but financially the budget was tight until after the second World War, the philosophy being that Denmark should neither lose nor gain. After the war there was heavy investment to bring Greenland nearer to standards of living comparable to Denmark and substantial subsidies were given make that happen. The Greenlanders attitude towards Denmark developed along lines familiar from other examples of decolonisation. The first phase of accepting the coloniser was long over, now seeking equality with the coloniser was the main aim in their endeavours. From 1911 two provincial councils woiced speaking the Greenlanders views and their political influence steadily grew. In 1953 Greenland got representation in the Danish parliament. The third phase of doing without the coloniser began in the early 1970s when Greenlanders sought home rule status, obtained in 1979. In the following twenty years the Home Rule Authority gradually took over nearly all lawmaking and administration and from 2004 a committee has explored ways of giving Greenland a more independent voice in foreign affairs. In 2003 the ultimate goal was declared to be full independence.
In Scandinavian Colonialism and the Rise of Modernity: Small Time Agents in a Global Arena, archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians present case studies that focus on the scope and impact of Scandinavian colonial expansion in the North, Africa, Asia and America as well as within Scandinavia itsself. They discuss early modern thinking and theories made valid and developed in early modern Scandinavia that justified and propagated participation in colonial expansion. The volume demonstrates a broad and comprehensive spectrum of archaeological, anthropological and historical research, which engages with a variation of themes relevant for the understanding of Danish and Swedish colonial history from the early 17th century until today. The aim is to add to the on-going global debates on the context of the rise of the modern society and to revitalize the field of early modern studies in Scandinavia, where methodological nationalism still determines many archaeological and historical studies. Through their theoretical commitment, critical outlook and application of postcolonial theories the contributors to this book shed a new light on the processes of establishing and maintaining colonial rule, hybridization and creolization in the sphere of material culture, politics of resistance, and responses to the colonial claims. This volume is a fantastic resource for graduate students and researchers in historical archaeology, Scandinavia, early modern history and anthropology of colonialism
