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Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 8:1 (2009) ► pp.136–158

Post-colonial identity in Greenland?

When the empire dichotomizes back — bring politics back in

| University of Copenhagen

In the gradual unravelling of Greenland’s colonial relationship to Denmark, an essentialist conceptualization of Greenlandic identity has played a significant role. However, both our scholarly understanding of post-colonial Greenlandic identity and the process towards independence for Greenland could be furthered by bringing politics back in. Based on a discourse analysis of the Greenlandic debate on language, this paper makes three claims: First, the identity projects promoted in Greenland are based on an essentialist conception of identity. Secondly, Greenlandic identity discourse combines elements of traditional Inuit culture and elements of colonial modernity. Thirdly, monolingual Greenlanders are those with the most to gain from abandoning the dichotomy of essentialist identities. Strategically, the paper suggests a post-post-colonial Greenlandic identity as a means of avoiding the exclusion of valuable human resources. One step towards relieving the relation to the Danish Other of identificatory weight could be a gradual shift to English as second language.

Keywords: Inuit, Greenland, identity politics, language policy, post-colonialism, the Other
Published online: 1 April 2009
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.8.1.08gad
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