Simply the best: Parody and political sincerity in Iceland

• Published in: American Ethnologist
• Main Author: Boyer, Dominic
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2013
• Subjects: Reykjavík; Iceland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/amet.12020; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Famet.12020; https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/amet.12020

ABSTRACT Pursuing a self‐described anarcho‐surrealist politics in the aftermath of Iceland's banking crisis, Jón Gnarr shocked the country's political establishment by winning the mayoral election in Reykjavík in May 2010. In this article, I explore the rise of Gnarr's Best Party, especially its refusal to accept a distinction between parody and sincerity in its mode of political performance. Against the backdrop of the increasing monopolization of (neo)liberal political discourse and action, I discuss how “Gnarrism” reflects at once something old and something new in northern liberal democracy.