Intimate engagements with language: creative practices for inclusive public spaces in Iceland

ABSTRACT

The article discusses an artistic event “Emotions Icelandic Awakes” organized by the Reykjavik City Library as part of the national celebrations for Icelandic Language Day. It examines the potential of affording genuine attention to language as a matter of emotional inquiry for the process of intercultural exchange. We reflect on the role of public institutions in providing an inclusive space that facilitates intercultural communication and where agency and language ownership is discursively determined by the participants. We consider inclusive public spaces as places of ‘enacting hospitality‘ and counterspaces that may help to deconstruct the hegemonic position of Icelandic language in contemporary public discourse regarding immigrants in Iceland.

Greinin fjallar um viðburð Borgarbókasafnsins “Tilfinningar sem tungan vekur” í tilefni af degi íslenskrar tungu. Viðburðurinn er dæmi um skapandi aðferð til að draga fram tilfinningalegar víddir tungumáls og varpa ljósi á tungumálið sem viðfangsefni fjölmenningarlegra samskipta. Skoðað er hlutverk opinberra stofnana í að skapa opinn vettvang sem gefur færi á tjáningu ólíkra radda til að stuðla að samskiptum, þar sem þátttakendur sjálfir skilgreina orðræðuna um að tilheyra samfélagi. Við rýnum í opin almenningsrými með jafnan aðgang allra og sem mögulegt er að endurskilgreina, sem rými mótvægis er varpa ljósi á ríkjandi valdamisræmi og ráðandi orðræðu um aðlögun innflytjenda á Íslandi og tengsl við hreintungustefnu.

KEYWORDS:

• Public spaces
• inclusion
• linguistic integration
• immigrants
• artistic methods
• Iceland

LEITARORð:

• Náin sambönd við tungumál: Skapandi aðferðir fyrir opnari almenningsrýmum í Reykjavík

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 By ‘foreign-born,’ we mean persons that were born outside Iceland and without any Icelandic background, although we are aware that referring to individuals/artists as ‘foreign’ may be polarizing and reproduce social boundaries.

2 The term ‘foreign’ implies something alien, strange and not belonging, hence it can be both normative and arbitrary. When talking about ‘foreign influences’ on the Icelandic language, we mean these linguistic practices that are typically recognized as non-standard Icelandic. The same applies to the expression ‘foreign accent,’ used later in this article.

3 Our emphasis is in bold.

4 See: https://borgarbokasafn.is/en/get-know-our-participatory-projects

5 We refer to the texts as they were performed and shared with us by the artists after the event. None of them were published so far, except: the shorter version of Elena Ilkova essay was published recently in Ós Pressan Journal, 5/2021; poems presented by Ewa Marcinek translated into Icelandic were included in Tímarit Máls og Menningar, 3/2016 and will come out in English in Ós Pressan Journal, 6/2022.

Additional information

Funding

This article is part of the output from the project Inclusive Societies: The Integration of Immigrants in Iceland, financed by Rannís – Icelandic Research Fund [grant number 184903-051]. The work was also supported by the Reykjavik City Library and the Mobilities and Transnational Iceland project of excellence.

Notes on contributors

Anna Wojtyńska

Anna Wojtyńska is a postdoctoral researcher at School of Social Sciences, University of Iceland. She holds a master degree from Warsaw University and doctoral degree from University of Iceland. Her research focus is on Polish migrants in Iceland with emphasis on migrants’ transnational practices and their participation in the labour market. She is currently working on two projects: ‘Inclusive societies?’ and ‘How integration looks like in rural locations?’

Lara Hoffmann

Lara Wilhelmine Hoffmann is a PhD student at the Unversity of Akureyri in the research project ‘Inclusive Societies? The Integration of Immigrants in Iceland’. Her work concentrates around the participation of immigrants in Iceland, focusing especially on languages, media use, and the arts. She holds an MA in Art Studies from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She is also active in the field of art and literature, e.g. as an editorial board member of the publishing collective ‘Ós Pressan.’

Dögg Sigmarsdóttir

Dögg Sigmarsdóttir is a project manager for civic participation at the Reykjavik City Library. She holds a MA in political philosophy and law. The focus of her projects is on citizenship practice, participative methods, inclusion and migration.

Ewa Marcinek

Ewa Marcinek is educated in culture studies, creative writing and visual art, passionate about words and stories. One of the founding authors of Ós Pressan, a non-profit publishing group and writing collective. A poet at The Poetry Brothel Reykjavik. A creative writing teacher in various community projects. A writer and theatre producer at Rekjavík Ensemble.