The ‘Jeep-Gangsters’ from Iceland

• Published in: Critique of Anthropology
• Main Authors: Loftsdóttir, Kristín, Björnsdóttir, Helga
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publications 2010
• Subjects: Iceland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0308275x09345423; https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0308275X09345423

■ The landscape of international development has changed with increased emphasis on security as a key development issue. Peacekeeping — involving a mixture of both civilian and military agencies — is constructed inside discourses of insecurity and ‘war on terror’ and legitimized as an important contribution to development. We discuss the increased emphasis on ‘security’ and its meaning in relation to critical questions that anthropologists involved in development have been formulating in relation to issues such as participation, equality and gender. We take the recent reformulation of the Icelandic development assistance policy as an example of this current trend, examining changes in policies and the recent establishment of an Icelandic peacekeeping unit.