Dollars and Delusion: Global Finance, Cultural Trauma and Ethno-economic Subjectivity in Post-boom Iceland

Abstract:

Paradoxically, recent financial crises reveal both the ultimate collapse of ‘national capitalism’ and the increased prominence of economic nationalism. This article examines the Icelandic case in order to analyse socio-cultural dynamics of economic downfall and to offer an approach to investigate (post-)neoliberal impressions of the nation as economic entity. It employs Piotr Sztompka's work to assess Iceland's economic meltdown in 2008 as traumatizing change that triggered a project of (national) self-transformation. This project, dissected as mnemonic phenomenon, entails reframing the success of bankers as deceit, a call for the purge of politics and business, and various adaptive efforts initiated to realize a sustainable existence in tune with Iceland's ‘real’ history and geography. We stress that such dissection reveals the influence of macro-economic tendencies on principles and practices of collectivity, and illustrates the relevance of a focus on ethno-economic subjectivity to study the lived experience of those confronted with contemporary politics of finance.