Friday 15:00, 1 November. Aalbygging 220.
"The Language is the Dog Whistle": Early Reflections on Migration and Boundary-Making in the Icelandic Writing Scene
This year, I presented some early reflections on my time here in Iceland, specifically focused on issues of migration, creative scenes and practices, language, and national identity. I presented this at Þjóðarspegillinn, an annual conference at Háskóli Íslands for the social sciences. Find out more here.
Since this is an early draft of my reflections, I don't want to make the full presentation available. But here's a few sections, in case you're interested. If you'd like to discuss this further, please email me at christopher.marcatili@anu.edu.au
Abstract
This paper examines how Iceland's significant demographic changes, with migrant population growth from 2% to 16% since the 1990s, intersect with language policies and national identity in the literary scene. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Reykjavík, the research reveals how the Icelandic language (islensku) serves a dual role: as a "treasure to be protected" and as a "key" to social integration. This creates a paradox where migrants must master Icelandic for acceptance while facing significant barriers to achieving required fluency levels. While linguistic gatekeeping has historically limited migrant authors' participation in mainstream publishing, the establishment of multilingual literary collectives has begun challenging these practices. The paper concludes that although language remains a crucial marker of national identity, growing multilingual literary spaces suggest a shift in how linguistic "purity" is valued relative to creative expression.
Keywords: Migration, Iceland, Literary Studies, Language Policy, Integration
Introduction
In recent decades, Iceland has experienced significant social changes driven by migration, with the proportion of migrants rising from 2% in the 1990s to 16% by 2022. This paper explores the complex interplay between migration, language, and national identity in contemporary Iceland, focusing on how these dynamics manifest in the country's literary scene. Drawing on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork with both Icelandic and migrant authors, I have been examining the dual role of the Icelandic language (islensku) as both a "treasure to be protected" and a "key" to social integration. This duality creates a paradoxical situation where migrants are expected to master the language to be accepted as truly Icelandic, yet face significant barriers in doing so.
So, when it comes to migrants in the literary sphere, change was perhaps either quite slow or quite fast, depending on perspective. Broadly speaking, as migrants increasingly settled in Iceland, in the 2000s and 2010s they found very few—if any—mainstream options for getting published. In at least one case I’m aware of, a collective of authors—all women, mostly migrants—decided that rather than push against the barriers and gatekeepers that already existed in the Icelandic literary scene, they would create their own spaces for publishing and presenting their works to an audience. By the end of this paper, I will look at the consequences of this different approach.
Because this fieldwork is ongoing and the field is small, I’ve chosen to present the conversations I’ve had primarily through two invented personas. This is a little different from simply making up pseudonyms for my interlocutors. Instead, I create fictional personas and circumstances that reflect the views of multiple people I’ve spoken with. Some of what they ‘say’ are direct quotes, while other things they say are fictionalised representations of what has been said to me. I use this method for two reasons. As I mentioned, the field is small and risk of unintentional identification is real. So, in a sense, this is an ethical consideration to try to discuss at times complex matters without implicating anyone specific. It also allows me to integrate my own creative practices in with the study of the creative practices of others. Manty anthropologists have been looking at the relationship between fiction and ethnography for many years, including Sherry Ortner (1992), Kirin Narayan (1999) and many more. As Janet Heaton (2017) has argued, the use of pseudonyms and other obscurants is rarely scrutinised. The use of personas is often associated with large datasets and design or computational research, but Jacobs, Dreessen and Pierson (2008) point out that ‘thick personas’, like ‘thick description’ can be a useful way of preserving the richness of ethnographic data.
In this paper, the first persona is Anthea, a migrant who had settled in Iceland more than five years before my arrival, had published and presented short works of writing and poetry and was working on her first novel. She is an amalgam of several international writers I spoke to in Iceland who voiced similar concerns with me. The other persona I use is Antónius. He’s a middle-aged Icelandic man who works in a field adjacent to publishing, frequently encountering tourists. He’s well read and well-travelled, and represents an amalgam of similarly engaged Icelanders.
To start this paper off, I want to describe a conversation I was having with Anthea about publishing in Iceland. She explained to me that despite living here for a number of years, her Icelandic was still fairly basic and nowhere near the level she’d need to write decent fiction or poetry. This was an obvious barrier for her. She told me: “Publishers here only publish in Icelandic,” emphasising ‘only’ as though things should be otherwise. But this is Iceland, I said. Doesn’t it make sense that they publish for the local audience? “The language is the dog whistle,” she told me. “They use it to keep us out.” I had a sense she was not just talking about publishing, but was speaking much more broadly, and so I prompted her to carry on.
She explained: “They tell you that learning the language is the key to being accepted here, but it’s a lie. It doesn’t matter how good your Icelandic is, you’ll always be an útlandingur.” A foreigner. An outsider.
In this presentation, I unpack some of the dynamics underlying Anthea’s frustrations. At the core of her feelings was her sense that, in Iceland, migrants would never truly be considered properly Icelandic. Their participation in society at large – and in the literary scene – would only ever be partial and contingent. This form of exclusion was at times described to me as marginalising, and was often expressed with frustration or anger. The idea that learning the language was ‘the key’ to full acceptance into Icelandic community was predicated on long-standing policies to protect a linguistic heritage perceived to be at threat, and secure a future for a language with so few speakers (Skaptadóttir & Innes 2017).
Yet, as I will show in this presentation, the literary scene also happens to be one space in which this dynamic of exclusion is being challenged and where change is starting to emerge. To explore the sentiments packaged into Anthea’s phrase ‘the language is the dog-whistle’, I first look at the current state of migration in Iceland, and then linguistic heritage and literary tradition. By analysing metaphors relating to Icelandic as being both a “treasure to be protected” and the “key” to unlocking Icelandic integration, I suggest there is a duality of thinking that enforce boundary-making processes linked to national identity, effectively creating barriers for most migrants. In my concluding reflections, I look at some examples of how local and migrant authors have collaborated and created new spaces in the literary scene that break down the very idea of boundaries and gatekeepers, encouraging inclusive spaces for creative expression.
Migration
Migration has been a significant force for social change in Iceland over the last few decades. From the 1990s until the late 2000s, migrants as a proportion of the Icelandic population increased from 2% to 9% (Loftsdóttir 2017) due to the nation’s growing economy. Even with the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC), which significantly impacted the Icelandic economy, migration continued increasing and, by 2022, migrants made up 16% of the country’s total population (Statistics Iceland 2022).
I would often see Antónius at my local café and strike up a conversation with him. One morning, in the height of the summer tourism trace, he expressed some concern about migrants. It wasn’t the first time he’d done so. He pointed to the rise in convenience stores around the city centre as an example, servicing the needs of tourists. “Look at them. You go in there and they’re always run by Islamic men. You never see any women in there. What do we need them for? Who are these people?” He asks these questions rhetorically, understanding that the stores exist mostly for the benefit of tourists. But it would be wrong to assume he’s strictly against migration or tourism. “We need these workers to do the jobs we don’t want to do. We can’t support two million tourists alone.” The frustration, as far as he was concerned, was not strictly against the tourists themselves but, first, the impact on current infrastructure and, second, the lack of long-term planning to manage migration and tourism levels.
Migrant experiences in Iceland are diverse. Many migrants have excellent experiences and settle in well. Others, less so. Origin country does appear to be a factor impacting a migrant’s experience, according to Unnur Skaptadóttir (2015) and colleagues (Skaptadóttir & Innes 2017; Skaptadóttir, Wojtyńska & Innes 2024). Migrants to Iceland have largely come from Eastern Europe, with Poland and Lithuania making up the largest origin nations (Skaptadóttir 2015). When compared with Western and especially Northern Europeans, Eastern Europeans have tended to find integration into Iceland most difficult (Skaptadóttir, Wojtyńska & Innes 2024). Within these groups are further gradations. Polish migrants, for example, may be more likely to feel accepted, while Lithuanians may be viewed with suspicion for involvement in organised crime or other illegal or antisocial activities (Loftsdóttir 2017; Ólafsson 2008). Pre-GFC, the contribution of these migrants to the booming economy was often unacknowledged in mainstream Icelandic discourse (Loftsdóttir 2015), while post-GFC anti-immigrant sentiments rose and peaked around the 2014 elections (Bergmann 2015; Loftsdóttir 2017).
But there was also a sense among some I spoke with that migration was again becoming a critical issue. In a conversation with him about the upcoming elections several months ago, Antónius said to me: “I’m worried that during next year’s election the government will try to ride an anti-immigration ticket.” More recently, since the election was called, he explained how Samfylkingin, the Social Democratic Alliance were, quote, “dog whistling to get votes”. You add to this recent rhetoric from the government and more hard-line asylum seeker and deportation policies, (Ćirić 2023b) and one gets a picture of an increasingly wary situation for migrants.
As myself a visitor in Iceland, with low levels of Icelandic, many of my interlocutors ended up being migrants who’d arrived in the last 10–15 years. The key to fitting in, many people said to me, was to learn the Icelandic language.
Linguistic heritage and literary tradition
The Icelandic language, islensku, holds a protected status in Iceland for at least two reasons. The first is that islensku is perceived as endangered. The second is that it has been tied to Iceland’s national identity since the beginning of its independence movement, and so speaking Icelandic has become intrinsically tied to what it means to be Icelandic.
Factors relating to islensku’s status as an endangered language are multiple. Publication in Icelandic literature has been strong and supported nationally (Holmarsdóttir 2001). Yet a number of factors have been identified by the Icelandic Language Committee (2023), or the Íslensk málnefnd, as critically impacting the future of the language. For example, there is a lack of technical and scientific publications in Icelandic, in part because new technical words must be made up of older, established words. The outcome of this is that those whose language skills are very advanced find themselves needing a second language, like English, to discuss their expertise. In the case of early language development in schools, the committee highlight the increased numbers of children whose ‘móðurmál’, or mother tongue, is not islensku (Íslensk málnefnd 2023), similarly limiting language practice at an early stage. This links migration—the increase in foreign-born children in the early childhood system, and indeed, migrants working within the early childhood system—to factors limiting Icelandic fluency in children. While conservative media have at times embraced this argument, the reality is of course more complex and comments from all my interlocutors recognised this. For example, other reports acknowledge the impact of digital media on Icelandic development, with the availability of online English content far outstripping Icelandic content (University of Manchester 2012). One Icelandic author described the situation to me in these terms: “We now have Icelandic kids growing up who think they are good at English, but just learn it from YouTube so their English isn’t that good. And their Icelandic is falling behind, too.”
Regarding the linkage between islensku and national identity, this is grounded in the Icelandic independence movement of the late 1800s. While still a colony of Denmark, the rationale was to find markers sufficiently strong markers of national identity to sustain an independence movement. According to Pálsson (1995), the apparent linguistic continuity spanning a thousand years was used as one justification for the existence of a national identity, as well as a longstanding storytelling and literary tradition in the form of the sagas. The sagas and the language were used to justify the need for an Icelandic independence, demonstrating a clear and unique cultural identity. What followed was in fact an intentional effort to standardise islensku – embrace it and encourage it as a national language as opposed to Danish – problematising somewhat the picture of its continuity over many centuries. The success of this movement, culminating in full independence won in 1944, has engrained the importance of the Icelandic language in national identity ever since. This has led to what some describe as an attitude toward linguistic purism (Rawlings et al 2020)—keeping the language as close to its longstanding chrematistics as possible, right down to pronunciation. Policies protecting the ‘purity’ of the language have only been reinforced in recent years, in the wake of increased migration (Hilmarsson-Dunn & Kristinsson 2010).
Today, Iceland has a reputation as a highly literate nation. In 2013, following research about rates of publication in Iceland, the BBC reported that as many of 10% of the population had published a book (Goldsmith 2013). This number was misreported – in fact, the study suggested one in ten Icelanders would see their writing in print, including everything from writing eulogies to contributing to to school newsletters, to producing a PhD thesis. Yet this 10% figure continues to be cited as fact today. In my own discussions with Icelanders in the publishing industry, some said as many as one in seven or even one in five will publish a book in their lifetimes. Meanwhile, Icelanders are reported to read or listen to 2.4 books per month, and book sales continue to be high (Ćirić 2023a). I suggest that the reputation of Iceland as highly literate and of its language as contiguous for over a thousand years are examples of what Kristín Loftsdóttir has called Icelandic exceptionalism (2019) that sets Iceland apart from the rest of the world as a small yet successful nation. The logic of exceptionalism has been deployed to suggest that racism is not a problem in Iceland because it was never a colonial power. But what I want to suggest is that the exceptional legacy of the Icelandic language makes it both essential to being counted as Icelandic and too precious to allow access to it freely. The Icelandic language is often reported as being one of the most difficult to master, and yet nevertheless essential. People I’ve spoken with have expressed annoyance that on the one hand locals will acknowledge the difficulties learning Icelandic and wonder why anyone would bother trying, while at the same time excluding those who do not speak it flawlessly. Linguistic heritage and literary tradition are inextricably tied to longstanding efforts to build and sustain an independent and sovereign nation, characterised by a rich cultural heritage. Language and literary tradition remain tied to national identity today.
Islensku and its metaphors: The treasure and the key
I experienced two metaphors several times in my conversations about the Icelandic language, particularly in relation to migration. The first was that islensku was something precious, “a treasure to be protected’ as one author described it. They continued on: “The arrival of immigrants is like an invasion, because of the small number of us […] Sooner or later the centre won’t hold.” This metaphor operates on the notion of the language being something precious (the word "gem" was once also used) that needed protection or a stronghold.
The other metaphor was the key. As Antónius said: “The key to really being Icelandic is learning the language.” That is, it’s a key to unlock access to Icelandic society and personhood. Islensku as both the treasure and the key suggest an interesting dynamic that speaks to a duality in the Icelandic mindset.
While most of the Icelandic authors I spoke with outwardly supported migration and even celebrated the works of migrant authors experimenting with the Icelandic language, at the same time some also voiced concern that the recent increase in publishing non-Icelandic authors was leading to a watering-down of the strict rules of Icelandic. It’s worth noting that mainstream Icelandic publishers only started publishing foreign-born authors in the last few years, so this is a very recent phenomenon and, indeed, something that some Icelandic authors were reflecting on.
In my interpretation, these concerns also emerged in other ways, for instance, questions raised about who was being awarded prizes and government grants and on what basis. One author I spoke with celebrated the increased diversity among those receiving government grants, but also wondered if established authors who had been receiving it were being pushed out. What impact would it have on these established authors, he wondered. Another thought that there were some interesting migrants in the literary scene today doing interesting experimental things with Icelandic. But they were still largely in the minority, and he could think of only one or two examples. “They would be interesting to authors because of the way they use the language… but maybe not to mainstream audiences,” he said.
Preserving the language stands in for a means of safeguarding the nation itself and its identity in a globalised world. This is why, when migrants arrive in Iceland, they are expected to learn the language and why comprehension of islensku was recently announced as being added to the citizenship tests (Fontaine 2024).
The ’key’ metaphor takes this question of ‘safeguarding’ the nation further. The key metaphor emerges again with Skaptadóttir and Innes (2017: 25), who suggest that “for people moving to Iceland, learning Icelandic is a door opener allowing them to participate and get access to the new society and culture. However,” they warn, “it can simultaneously serve as a tool for exclusion.” Access to the key is not equal, and many migrants struggle to develop the skills advanced enough to be accepted as Icelandic. The migrants Skaptadóttir and Innes (2017) interviewed suggested barriers like: working in low-paid and high-demand jobs, making it difficult to attend or afford classes; working in highly segregated industries, making encounters with fluent Icelandic speakers difficult or rare; initially intended to stay for short periods but ending up in Iceland longer for personal or family reasons. Many reported difficulty practicing Icelandic outside of the classroom setting.
But Anthea spoke to me of her own efforts at learning the language. Early in her time in Iceland, she attended classes and wanted to learn Icelandic so she could speak with her partner’s parents and get a decent job. She would try speaking to locals in their language, but these efforts were often frustrated. Sometimes her interlocutors would hear her accent and switch immediately to English. Other times they would correct her pronunciation instead of engaging in a conversation, leaving her feeling embarrassed. Making errors – and having them corrected – is an essential part to language learning (Guzmán-Muñoz 2020). Yet the affective experience Anthea described suggested these corrections were embarrassing, curt, or otherwise shaming – whether they were intended as such or not. Skaptadóttir and Innes (2017) also found, when interviewing migrants in Iceland, that it was common to experience one of two responses: praise for making effort at fitting in, or criticism for failing to communicate like a local (2017). Rather than encouraging learning, these corrections implied there was no room for error. In the end, feeling exasperated, Anthea gave up her efforts to learn Icelandic and has been able to survive well enough without it. “Iceland gaslights you,” she told me. “Everyone here will tell you Icelandic is impossible to learn, but they expect you to be an expert when you try.”
When I told this story to Antónius, he admitted that the conditions for migrants wanting to learn Icelandic were not ideal, that this was a relatively new challenge for Iceland. “We have this idea that the language should not just contain certain things, but sound in certain ways […] We’re no good with accents.” He said when he was young, the number of migrants living in Reykjavík was “maybe half a percent. Now its twenty-five percent. But they’re still new for us.”
It seemed to me that a dual logic of the treasure and the key were at play. First, it was deemed necessary to protect a language perceived to be at risk due to multiple global factors, therefore requiring strict boundaries of protection. Icelandic, given its age, is often described as an exceptional language – and a difficult one to master. This is given as a reason why many are not able to achieve the level Icelanders expect of migrants to be included as part of society. Yet at the same time, the language operates as the key beyond the barrier established to protect it. Thus the feeling of being gaslit: you’re told that no matter how hard you try, you won’t get there and yet you would not quite get there.
In short, I want to suggest that if the language is both the key to the door and the treasure locked behind the door, then when you’re standing on the outside it can be awfully difficult getting your hands on that key.
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