Socialities in Motion: Automobility and Car Cruising in Iceland☆

Abstract

Car cruising is a common phenomenon around the globe. In Iceland, the activity is a major assimilative sociocultural phenomenon for young people and especially for novice drivers. This article documents car cruising in Iceland and contextualizes it within discussions of automobility. It is based on semi-structured, ‘on the move’ interviews taken with people during cruising. Participants were also asked to take pictures of their cruising activities. It seems that car cruising is an opportunity for young people to integrate themselves into the systemic regime of automobility. This shows the importance of socialities when it comes to individual practices and expressions of automobility, but also the structuring role of those socialities. The paper also elucidates how that activity impacts upon spaces. It demonstrates that it is intimately connected with human territoriality, or how young drivers appropriate and influence the spaces and places of automobility and ultimately contribute to their production and reproduction, thus sustaining the systemic regime of automobility.     

Difference and equality: Icelandic parents' division of parental leave within the context of a childcare gap

Iceland's parental leave system, granting mothers and fathers equal benefits, may be interpreted as part of the development in the Nordic countries towards a dual-earner/dual-caregiver model. Even though uptake studies show fathers' increased participation in childcare, the use of the entitlement varies and a gendered pattern persists. This paper is based on interviews with 14 Icelandic couples who find themselves in a situation where they have to bridge a care gap between parental leave and state-subsidized childcare. While mothers tend to stretch their part of the leave on the argument that six months is too short a leave, fathers generally find three months to be long enough. The discussion revolves around the question of the relationship between difference and equality, inspired by Andrea Doucet's (2006) concept of strategic essentialism. May we envision a policy system that takes into consideration the way people invest in gender and at the same time develop policy measures that facilitate gender equality?     

Practising Highland Heterotopias: Automobility in the Interior of Iceland

The paper describes the history and current enactments of automobility in the highland interior of Iceland and interprets this phenomenon through the notion of spatial history. We elucidate how the currently widespread practices of automotive travel in the highlands are mediated through the technological assemblage of the ‘jeep’ and its user. We argue that the travelling is done in a double sense; through an ‘inner’ space of the vehicle and an ‘outer’ space of the highland terrain. A heterotopic spatial history emerges, which offers detailed insights into this specific form of automobility. In the final part of the paper, implications of these travel practices for the politics of nature are discussed.     

Polish complementary schools in Iceland and England

Since 2004, the opening of labour markets has spurred a considerable number of Poles to emigrate e.g. to Iceland and England. Families with school age children have had the challenge of adapting to foreign environments and school systems. Polish complementary schools have played an important, albeit ambivalent, role in this process. Through focus group interviews with students in Polish complementary schools in one city in Iceland and one city in England, we gathered information showing common threads between both schools as well as differences in their structure, role, origin and the student motivation to participate. Saturday schools abroad are considered to be less demanding by students than regular schools back in Poland, but more so than regular Icelandic/English schools, which many rate as unsatisfactory in terms of their academic development. The tension between the need for freedom and high expectations for the academic outcome of education influences student opinions, not only about schooling, but also about the host society.     

Anarchy in Iceland? The global left,pirates and socialists in post-crash Icelandic politics

ABSTRACT

The historically stable Icelandic political party system has been uprooted since the 2008 financial crisis. In this paper, we explore to what extent the global left movement of anarchists and socialists has manifested in Icelandic politics in this period. We provide a historical overview, starting with the 2008 financial crisis which brought to power the first entirely left-wing government in the country's history, but also gave birth to numerous new political parties that alternately united and divided socialists, anarchists and reformers. The Pirate Party spearheaded this movement from the 2013 elections, but internal disputes have plagued the party in recent years, and both they and the Left Greens now have a fresh challenge from the left: the Socialist Party. We conclude that the current prospects for a united uprising of these movements are dim, although history suggests that they can work together when focusing on common goals of political reform.     

Demos-Ethos: a framework to study the Icelandic and Basque cases through Critical Social Innovation and Applied Ethics

This article presents a framework informed by two disciplines, Social Innovation and Applied Ethics, to be used in an ongoing analysis of territorial democratic systems. It aims to combine Social Innovation and Applied Ethics analysis to better understand the socio-political regeneration process in Iceland initiated with the 2008 global crisis. This crisis, particularly in Iceland had an economic and political aspect affecting the self-understanding of the territories as a whole, but in the Basque Country at present, it also deals with the current peace process to settle down political violence and its causes. In both cases there are deep underlying value issues. Nevertheless, this article introduces only the results obtained in Iceland. While its democratic system has proven to be able to contest the causes of the crisis, there is no definitive evidence that the re-examination process that was opened in October 2008 is resolved yet.     

Partner relationship,social support and perinatal distress among pregnant Icelandic women

Background

It is inferred that perinatal distress has adverse effects on the prospective mother and the health of the foetus/infant. More knowledge is needed to identify which symptoms of perinatal distress should be assessed during pregnancy and to shed light on the impact of women’s satisfaction with their partner relationship on perinatal distress.

Neoliberal Globalization and Heightened Perceptions of Class Division in Iceland

This article uses the case of Iceland to study how neoliberal globalization impacts class discourse in the political field and broader perceptions of class division. Analyzing a leading newspaper and parliamentary debates from 1986–2012, I show how neoliberal globalization—especially by increasing economic inequality—created a disjuncture between an increasingly differentiated social space and a national habitus cultivated in a small, homogeneous, and egalitarian society. This undermined taken‐for‐granted assumptions of relative classlessness and heightened perceptions of class division during a neoliberal ascendancy period from 1995 to Iceland's economic collapse in September 2008.     

Inspired by Eruptions? Eyjafjallajökull and Icelandic Tourism

Abstract

The paper deals with the complex meaning of risk for tourism mobilities. The impact of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption on tourism in Iceland is outlined, as well as the response of Icelandic tourist authorities. A survey in June and July 2010 among international tourists in the country revealed that for many the eruption had added considerable depth to their travel experiences. The sense of risk affects the relation between mobile travellers and their destination. The paper also analyses how events such as the eruption can facilitate new paths towards being sensitive to the natural world.