The Greenlandic Project Globalization of Markets 13102000

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The Greenlandic ProjectGlobalization of
Markets13/10/2000
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Acculturation through consumption

• increasing mobility of populations (ethnoscapes)
• migrants face identity negotiation - an
  existential challenge
• constructing identity through consumption
• Greenlanders in Denmark no clear cut dichotomy
  between host country and culture of origin

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Greenlandic consumers in Denmark

• History of Greenland
• Norse viking settlers from yr 1000 to 15th
  century
• recolonized 17th century
• 1953 integration
• 1979 Home rule
• Greenlanders in Denmark
• migrates to Denmark for education, jobs, spouses,
  consumer lifestyle
• Result of pre-modern globalisation

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Method

• qualitative research project
• 20 depth interviews
• respondents 22 - 67 years of age
• both temporary and permanent residents
• focus on border crossings, consumption patterns,
  food consumption

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General perceived differences
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Perceived differences of food cultures
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Food Differences between Greenlandic and
European cuisine

• Types of Greenlandic food
• Dried ammassat (small salmon-type fish), dried
  trout, bullhead, and halibut. Delicacies from the
  summer catch might be dried seal and white whale
  meat mattak. Special titbits were considered to
  be stale, slightly perished white whale tail fin
  and flippers. Dried reindeer meat with preserved
  tallow. Stomach and sections of gut filled with
  seal blood, which were then dried to make
  so-called caramels. Berries preserved in
  crystal-clear oil from seal blubber. Or frozen,
  gathered after frost has set in. Herbs such as
  rose-root and willow herb, specially oil
  preserved in skin bags. Some people would mix it
  with the vitamin rich content of a reindeers
  stomach. (quoted in Janda Bækgaard, p. 54)
• Missed direct from nature unique/authentic

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• Types of Danish food
• fried pork with parsley sauce
• vegetables
• pizza
• mexican food
• All foods that are not Greenlandic
• some foods more Danish than others (pork vs.
  pizza)
• Creolized

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Production/acquisition Greenlandic food

• Fresh and natural caught, shot or gathered
• Shared/gifts
• In Greenland - the board
• In Denmark - the Greenlandic House
• Although I can buy Greenlandic food here at
  work, like seal, dried fish and mattak and those
  kinds of things, then I really miss being able to
  go down to the board and buy fresh goods and
  then go home and cook it You know freshly
  caught fish, cod, red-fish, father-lasher and
  catfish, and lumpsucker and seal and birds, you
  know freshly-caught, I really miss that.
  (female, age 36 living with her Danish husband)

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Production/AcquisitionDanish food
I find more exotic goods And you look a
lot in magazines, also about food, and see all
these things that you can now acquire down here
in Denmark American food and you name it.
And new recipes, new possibilities for cooking,
Mexican food and such things. Those you cannot
try at home, since, of course, there are certain
ingredients you cannot get. (Occupation
student, gender female, age 34, residence from
Ilulissat, Copenhagen)

• processed and imported
• no direct link to nature cultural
• the supermarket (both in Greenland and Denmark)
• Between scarcity and abundance!

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Consummation

• Greenlandic
• festive occasion
• gifts
• increasingly commercialized culture consumed
  (Firat, 1995)
• food as community - togetherness and otherness
• natural time schemes

• Danish
• everyday food
• creolized food culture
• utilitarian in value
• cultural time schemes

I remember my first cultural clash in Greenland,
it was my first seal. My grandparents (mothers
side) had a big party. So I didnt come home for
dinner, and my father made a big deal out of
that. You had to be punctual for dinner. He could
not accept that you can forget all about time
when a big event like this one occurs.
(Occupation student, gender male, age 34,
residence Århus).
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Food Discourses (James 1996)Movement of meals
movement of meaning
COMPATIBILITY
YES
NO
SCOPE
1. GLOBAL (eg. Pizza Danish food)
2. EXPATRIATE (e.g. Mexican food pork)
Onion, rice
GLOBAL
3. CREOLIZATION
4. NOSTALGIA (Greenlandic food)
Onion and rice mixed with seal
Suasaat
LOCAL
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Perspectives

• Bear skin, musk ox. Its a very Greenlandic
  home I have. Soap stone figures, tupilaks
  everything that we call Greenlandic art. You
  wouldnt see that in a typical Greenlandic home
  in Greenland. They would rather have the
  painting of the deer in the forest hanging over
  the sofa. That looks so nice and exotic, right?
• Constructions of Danish and Greenlandic do
  not have a natural tie to locality
• Musealization?
• Drum-dance evening school in Århus
• Exoticization purification of the authentic
  irrespective of geographical borders
• Hyperculture?