Colonial Moments in Greenland:Mutable Tensions in the Contact Zone

• Published in: Itinerario
• Main Author: Hastrup, Kirsten Blinkenberg
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: /dk/atira/pure/core/keywords/FacultyOfSocialSciences; Faculty of Social Sciences; Greenland; contact zone; scalability; emerging citizenship; cosmopolitanism; Danish colonialism; greenlandic
• Online Access: https://curis.ku.dk/portal/da/publications/colonial-moments-in-greenland(02249f7e-0c9f-4c09-89d7-6f8414cfdf82).html; https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000251

In 2009, Greenland obtained self-government, terminating Danish supremacy, which had taken many forms over the centuries. This article analyses significant moments in Greenlandic-Danish relations by unpacking distinct contact zones that have emerged through the many encounters between locals and newcomers. Contact zones are always emplaced and create their own logic, which is not always easily readable as “colonialism” in the sense of appropriating lands and extracting surplus. While wrongs may have been perpetrated and ill-informed actions towards the inhabitants taken, relations between Greenland and Denmark illustrate how “colonialism” is neither uniform nor scalable. The analytical focus on colonial moments stresses the nonlinearity of colonial relations and allows for a subtler understanding of the postcolonial remains.