Multiple archives of modernity: Colonialism, capitalism, and identity in Iceland’s transatlantic 19th century

Abstract

Anthropological and archaeological studies of the North Atlantic increasingly contribute to debates around the formation of the colonial Atlantic World. Despite contemporary myths of Iceland as a remote wilderness, the island society was integrated into interregional economies from its ninth-century settlement onward. Here we focus on mapping 19th-century Icelanders’ navigation of colonial networks as they altered their relative position in the Atlantic’s uneven social geographies and emerged from Danish colonial rule. We leverage diverse archives from our parallel interdisciplinary archaeological research projects in Northern Iceland, where shifting rural politics and Icelandic emigration to the settler colonies of Canada and Brazil engendered material and social transformations. We integrate understandings of Iceland’s modernization and nationalism with their ascendance in new colonial networks via material negotiations and strategic engagements with shifting colonial identities.