Søren Rud

Governance and Tradition in Nineteenth-century Greenland

This essay investigates the way in which the concept of tradition was evoked in colonial policies in nineteenth-century Greenland. It argues that ‘tradition’ provided colonial officials in Greenland with a strategy that enabled them to make fundamental changes appear as a restoration of a Greenlandic culture en route to its own destruction. The colonial authorities claimed that the establishments of new institutions were facilitating a return to the traditional practices of the past. Further, the essay argues that reforms effectuated in the later part of the nineteenth century reflect a fundamental shift in the rationality behind the colonial project in Greenland. This analytical point is reached through the deployment of the theoretical concept of colonial governmentality. Following the work of scholars such as Nicholas Thomas, David Scott and Gyan Prakash, it is argued that a significant shift occurred towards social engineering techniques (of governance). The new techniques were employed in order to structure the lifeworld of the Greenlanders, and ultimately shape their individuality. Finally, the essay draws attention to the short- and long-term consequences of the political utilization of tradition.

A Correct Admixture: The Ambiguous Project of Civilising in Nineteenth-Century Greenland

In 1879, the Danish Ministry of Domestic Affairs approved a proposal to construct a building in Copenhagen that was meant to function as a boarding house for Greenlanders while they were being educated in the metropole . The building, “Gronlaenderhjemmet”, was used as a boarding house for Greenlanders in Denmark from 1880 until 1896, when the practice of sending Greenlandic men to Denmark for educational purposes came to a halt. While in use, “Gronlaenderhjemmet” functioned as an instrument for the colonial administration, and the boarding house embodied a central aspect of the colonial administrations strategy for civilising Greenlanders: to control the civilising process in order to ensure that Greenlanders did not loose their connection with their Inuit background.

The Troubled Life of an Habitual Offender in Colonial Greenland

Abstract This article investigates how law and order was handled in the Danish colonies in Greenland during the period ranging approximately from 1911 to 1953. The Greenlandic author Peter Gundel’s frequent episodes of conflict with the law provide the framework for the analysis. The article deals with how – and through what specific techniques – procedures related to law and order worked to establish, maintain, or reform identities in colonial Greenland. It is argued that social practices within the field of law and order were characterized by the colonial administration’s tactical deployment of a specific version of Greenlandic culture.

Achieving a Correct Blend: Tradition, Modernization, and the Formation of Identity

This chapter targets specific practices aimed at shaping individuals into a “correct blend” of traditional (Greenlandic) and modern (western/European) cultural elements. The colonial administrational strategy aimed to form certain types of individuals–among them a “Greenlandic elite”. Producing the latter meant drawing on an ambiguous template which combined traditional and modern virtues. Among the various methods employed to achieve this were intermarriage; language; sending Greenlanders to be educated in Copenhagen; and housing them in a controlled environment—specifically a boarding house designed to nurture an ideal. Keeping the Greenlanders under strict control during their stay in Copenhagen, the administration used the boarding house to mold them into a “correct blend of cultural components”.

Ethnography, Time, and the Idealization of Tradition

This chapter shows how an idealized perception of Greenlandic culture was forged throughout the colonial period. The ethnographic exploration of traditional Greenlandic culture might well be compared to time traveling. Observers who traveled to the yet-uncolonized spaces in Greenland in the nineteenth and early twentieth century gained the opportunity to come face-to-face with the precolonial past in Greenland and to study and construct the Greenlanders’ otherness in the intersection of past and present. Accordingly the chapter deals with the way in which ethnographers and other observers invoked tradition as a cultural ideal in Greenland, especially in the nineteenth century. Colonial administrators in turn drew on these images to fortify their knowledge of the past and use it as a resource to inform policy decisions.

Invoking Tradition as a Governance Strategy: Danish Colonial Policies in the Late Nineteenth Century

This chapter explores how the cultural idealization, analyzed in the previous chapter, became utilized by the colonial administration as an important governmental tool. The idealized version of the traditional Greenlandic culture functioned as a model when important colonial reforms were implemented by the middle of the nineteenth century. The declared objective of these colonial reforms was to restore the traditional high position of the most proficient seal-hunters in the local communities by establishing local boards in (and through) which the seal-hunters gained political influence, prestige, and economic benefits. Given the nature of the implemented changes, however, the reforms caused a transformation rather than a restoration of the Greenlandic communities.

Toward a Postcolonial Greenland: Culture, Identity, and Colonial Legacy

In 2009, Greenland, albeit still within the Danish Realm, gained a higher level of autonomy when the Self-Government Act came into effect. This development has sparked debate over the nature of the past as well as the future relationship between Denmark and Greenland. When a newly elected Greenlandic self-government (Naalakkersuisut) in 2013 decided to establish a Reconciliation Commission, assigning it the task of investigating the effects and legacy of colonialism in Greenland, the debate increased in intensity. This chapter explores the outline of the historical development up to the present and reflects on the legacy of colonialism.

Shame and Crime: The Effects and Afterlife of Tradition

Immediately before Greenland’s status as a colony was amended, work was carried out by a government commission, namely “the Juridical Expedition to Greenland.” Taking place between 1948 and 1949, it drew heavily on colonial ideas about Greenlandic culture. Heavily informed by ideas about cultural specificity, Greenland’s penal system had resisted modernization for various reasons not least an overall reluctance on the part of Danish colonizers to do so. What follows is an examination of the evolution of the system and various episodes of conflict that took place between early Greenlandic author Peter Gundel and “the law.” His documentation of events gives the reader a glimpse into the penal system from a unique perspective. Today in Greenland where the first actual prison is scheduled to open in 2018, the penal system is still influenced by colonial specificity as well as its modus operandi which was a source of aggravation for Gundel.

Rethinking the Colonial State: Configurations of Power, Violence, and Agency

Abstract The main theme of this special volume is the colonial state and its governmental practices. This chapter introduces and contextualizes the contributions by providing a brief induction to recent developments within the study of the colonial state. It then presents the contributions under three perspectives which represent separate yet interrelated themes relevant for the understanding of the colonial state: practices, violence, and agency. Hereby, we also accentuate the value of a non-state-centric approach to the analysis of the colonial state.