To See and to Respect: On the Relations between Humans, Supernatural Beings and the Landscape in Northeast Iceland

• Main Author: Svetel, Ana
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Založba ZRC 2024
• Subjects: landscape; belief traditions; supernatural beings; vernacular beliefs; hidden people; elves; ghosts; Iceland; krajina; verovanjske tradicije; nadnaravna bitja; vernakularna verovanja; skriti ljudje; vilinci; duhovi; Islandija
• Online Access: https://ojs.zrc-sazu.si/sms/article/view/13903/12079; https://ojs.zrc-sazu.si/sms/article/view/13903

This article explores selected aspects of relationships between humans, supernatural beings and the landscape in Northeast Iceland. The landscape is understood as a changeable and dynamic dimension, encompassing all the continuously emerging processes of the terrain, vegetation, land, water, gases and atmospheric phenomena. In local perceptions, both humans, with their social practices and meaning-making, and non-humans – in our case especially supernatural beings – are integrated into this dynamic landscape. Belief traditions and interactions with the supernatural have an influence on agricultural and everyday practices, as well as on the social relationships within the community. Moreover, they are always situated in a specific environment. This intertwining of visible and invisible, material and immaterial elements and actors brings forth the question of respect, through which we can think the complex relationality between humans, non-humans and the landscape. Prispevek obravnava nekatere vidike razmerij med ljudmi, nadnaravnimi bitji in krajino na severovzhodni Islandiji, pri čemer krajino razume kot izrazito spremeljivo in gibljivo razsežnost, v katero so vključeni vsi nenehno nastajajoči procesi površja, rastja, zemlje in voda, plinov in atmosferskih pojavov. V lokalnih percepcijah pa so v to dinamično krajino vpeti tako ljudje s svojimi praksami in upomenjanji kot tudi neljudje – v našem primeru predvsem nadnaravna bitja. Verovanjske tradicije in stiki z nadnaravnim med drugim vplivajo na agrarne in vsakodnevne prakse prebivalcev, pa tudi na družbene odnose v skupnosti. Obenem so zmeraj uprostorjeni v konkretnih okoljih. V tem prepletu vidnih in nevidnih, snovnih in nesnovnih elementov in akterjev se poraja vprašanje spoštovanja, s pomočjo katerega lahko mislimo kompleksno relacijskost med ljudmi, neljudmi in krajino.