ABSTRACT
In 2017, nine years after the disastrous crash, Iceland has become a busy tourist destination. When walking in downtown Reykjavík, I hear only a few people speaking Icelandic. Everywhere people are dressed in sturdy ‘explorer’-style clothing suitable for Iceland’s climate. Most of the store signs are in English, and many international brand stores are prominent. Stores aimed specifically at tourists – often full of items made in China – are clearly visible with the so-called ‘puffinization’ (Lundavæðingu) of Laugavegurinn, Reykjavík’s main shopping street. The term ‘puffinization’ refers negatively to the high number of stores specializing in tourist souvenirs, the term drawing from a chain that has a puffin as its logo. On a route of 1300 meters in downtown Reykjavík, a tourist can expect to encounter 30 stores selling products directly aimed at tourists (Guðmundsson 2015). In addition, cafés and restaurants are on every corner, and housing in Reykjavík’s central area has increasingly been commercialized as rented spaces, the inflated rent driving out the original residents of the neighborhood. When I was at Iceland’s international airport at the end of 2017, I was struck by the number of advertisements there as a whole at the airport, that all in different ways emphasizing Iceland’s exceptionalism. When I was entering a flight to the US, one captured me especially. It was an image of a man seen from afar walking on a snow field, the blue-white color of the sky around him signaling that it will snow even more. The large letters printed across the image say, “But We Don’t Take Cover, We Survive, Thrilled to Show What We’re Made Of.” The “we” that is used here must be the ‘Icelanders,’ reifying them as resilient, strong and as one with nature (see Figure 10.1).
