Multidisciplinary Approaches to Disability in Iceland (Late 9th–Early 20th Century)

• Published in: Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research
• Main Authors: Crocker, Christopher, Ebenezersdóttir, Eva Þórdís, Ólafsdóttir, Sólveig, Bergsdóttir, Arndís, Haraldsson, Haraldur Þór, Bower, Alice, Tirosh, Yoav, Sigurjónsdóttir, Hanna Björg, Rice, James
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Stockholm University Press 2022
• Subjects: Disability Studies; Archaeology; Medieval Literature; Folklore; History; and Museology; Disability History; Methodology; Iceland; Collaborative Research; Absence
• Online Access: https://www.sjdr.se/jms/article/view/868; https://doi.org/10.16993/sjdr.868

This article reports on a multidisciplinary project exploring constructions of disability in Iceland before the establishment of disability as a modern legal, bureaucratic, and administrative concept. The project’s vast temporal scope spans the settlement of Iceland in the late 9th century to the early 20th century, and it combines research in the fields of Archaeology, Medieval Literature, Folklore, History, and Museology. The article outlines the project’s rich and diverse source material and its data collection procedures before discussing the various methods employed across the disciplines involved. Focus simultaneously turns to the project’s myriad discipline-specific findings and to the presence of ambiguity and absence, invisibility, or silence as recurring cross-disciplinary themes.