With víkingr into the Identity Trap: When Historiographical Actors Get a Life of Their Own

Abstract

As the field of genetic history has grown, academic interest in migration, peoples and ethnic identities has also grown apace. The people of the British Isles have been a focus of research in this area. Specifically, researchers have been fishing for Vikings in the gene pool. My paper begins, therefore, with some brief remarks on the etymology of the term »Viking«, its historical usage and the reception of Vikings in modern times. I address practices of naming as well as the role of romanticization and mythologization as constituents of the popular image of »the Vikings«. The discussion makes it apparent that the term »Viking« has a wide variety of associations and that behind the shared designation, which functions as a kind of semantic shorthand, lie many relationships that have yet to be studied. For that reason, in a second step, this paper outlines what are, in some cases, the greatly diverging conceptualizations of time, space, mobility and identity on which archaeological and genetic interpretations are based. I discuss in particular the problem posed by the essentialization of archaeological subjects as well as the »naturalization« of protagonists of historiographical narratives and their equation with historical actors. Finally, I address the dangers associated with identity politics, which go on both outside the academic discourse and within academia itself. Our duty now is to steer clear of mere battles over the prerogatives of interpretation. Instead, we must cultivate academic and political reflexivity, as well as mutual acceptance. Only by doing so will we be able to explore questions-and they are important questions-concerning the constitution and historicization of identities, interactions among migrations, mobility and identity, and about the relationships between biological and social reproduction.

I am a Viking! DNA, popular culture and the construction of geneticized identity

“…In utilizing "ethnic ancestry" and similar terminology, constructing ancestry classifications consistent with culturally constituted racial categories, basing their entire enterprise on unquestioned assumptions of ethnicity and race as essential and decipherable from an individual's DNA, […] genetic ancestry firms are complicit not only in the processes of racialization but in racist misappropriations of genetic science. (Scodari 2017, 12) The claim that genetic genealogy automatically leads to a biological reification of race has been challenged by other studies (Hofmann 2016;Rose 2007;Roth and Ivemark 2018;Scully, Brown, and King 2016;Shim, Rab Alam, and Aouizerat 2018). Concluding their interviews with British genealogists tracing their "Viking ancestry," Scully, Brown, and King (2016) emphasize that GATs do not supply individuals with definite ethnic identities, but provide material which can be incorporated into more complex narratives of identity.…”

“…In this context, it emerged as a key signifier rooting Scandinavian nation states in the Norse culture of the ninth to eleventh centuries (Svanberg 2003;Wilson and Roesdahl 1992). The word "Viking" was appropriated from the ancient terms "víkingr" and "víking"words that historically were used to designate individuals undertaking faraway journeys (Downham 2012;Hofmann 2016)-and then applied as an ethnic denominator of people living in Scandinavia at the end of the first millennium. While people with Norse religion and runic script inhabited Scandinavia during this period, with some groups traveling the rivers of Russia and some pillaging and settling in present-day Brittany, UK and Ireland, little indicates that these groups considered themselves to be an ethnic unity, let alone called themselves Vikings (Downham 2012;Svanberg 2015, 34).…”

“…It seems more adequate to say that claiming Viking roots is a subtle way of appropriating what Ahmed (2007) calls "whiteness as an orientation": a subjective phenomenological approach to the world constituted by the socio-historical hegemony of whiteness. 5 Second, while the figure of the Viking is strongly attracted to the notion of whiteness, it is also characterized by a considerable semantic elasticity (Hofmann 2016;Service 1998;Wawn 2000). As Wawn has pointed out:…”