Troubling the Nordic Waters: Water Crisis, Environmental Art & Public Awareness in the Danish Family Drama The Legacy (Arvingerne)
In the recent years, the internationally acclaimed Nordic Noir serial drama has produced an array of texts challenging and critiquing the Nordic governments’ self-congratulatory attitude as exceptionally sustainable and environment-friendly. The most vivid examples of such series are the much-discussed Norwegian geopolitical thriller Occupied (2015- 2019), the Icelandic police procedural Trapped (2015-) and the recent Swedish production Thin Ice which takes place in the Danish crown territory of Greenland (2020- ). This list also contains the narratives that engage with environmental themes by integrating the elements of apocalyptic horror (The Rain, Denmark, 2018-2020), and Nordic folklore and eco-gothic imagery (Jordskott, Sweden, 2015-2017; Ragnarok, Norway, 2020).
Although different in terms of their stylistic and aesthetic qualities each of these series unveils the damage inflicted upon the environment as a result of governmental corruption and corporate consumption, often exacerbated by individual human greed and/or negligence. Notably, in many cases, the narrative climax is reached with the dramatic collapse of basic infrastructures –power and telecommunication crashes, and/or water supply disturbance–unleashing social unrest and forcing the authorities to resort to radical measures. Compared to electricity and communication which are relatively new human- made conveniences, the availability of clean water seems something “natural” and everlasting (especially considering Nordic countries’ physical geographical features). And so water contamination is perceived as an exceptional calamity bringing to the surface fundamental water qualities that influence people’s daily lives as water-based beings. Yet, despite the co-constitutive nature of human bodies and water, in most ecocritical series water-related crisis happens at the periphery of the narrative and remains under-discussed. My aim in this paper is to spotlight these particular instances of “infrastructural” failure to interrogate the easy understanding of water as a “passive” commodity to serve modern societies anthropogenic wants, rather than eco-social needs.
While the above-mentioned series provide a variety of relevant settings and incidents, my main object of analysis will be the well-known Danish drama series The Legacy/Arvingerne (2014-2017). Although critically subsumed by the category of “family noir” the last part of the series explicitly engages with water as being central to issues of social justice as much as issues of environmental concern. This particular plot line focuses on a young artist collective working to activate and to embody a sensibility and awareness of human-water interdependency in the context of ecological crisis. Examining the subject of corporate responsibility along with the challenges of art activism, The Legacy problematises the western societies’ anthropocentric logic of profit and efficiency according to which water is considered a “resource” to be continuously commodified, controlled, instrumentalised and polluted.
Irina Souch University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Although different in terms of their stylistic and aesthetic qualities each of these series unveils the damage inflicted upon the environment as a result of governmental corruption and corporate consumption, often exacerbated by individual human greed and/or negligence. Notably, in many cases, the narrative climax is reached with the dramatic collapse of basic infrastructures –power and telecommunication crashes, and/or water supply disturbance–unleashing social unrest and forcing the authorities to resort to radical measures. Compared to electricity and communication which are relatively new human- made conveniences, the availability of clean water seems something “natural” and everlasting (especially considering Nordic countries’ physical geographical features). And so water contamination is perceived as an exceptional calamity bringing to the surface fundamental water qualities that influence people’s daily lives as water-based beings. Yet, despite the co-constitutive nature of human bodies and water, in most ecocritical series water-related crisis happens at the periphery of the narrative and remains under-discussed. My aim in this paper is to spotlight these particular instances of “infrastructural” failure to interrogate the easy understanding of water as a “passive” commodity to serve modern societies anthropogenic wants, rather than eco-social needs.
While the above-mentioned series provide a variety of relevant settings and incidents, my main object of analysis will be the well-known Danish drama series The Legacy/Arvingerne (2014-2017). Although critically subsumed by the category of “family noir” the last part of the series explicitly engages with water as being central to issues of social justice as much as issues of environmental concern. This particular plot line focuses on a young artist collective working to activate and to embody a sensibility and awareness of human-water interdependency in the context of ecological crisis. Examining the subject of corporate responsibility along with the challenges of art activism, The Legacy problematises the western societies’ anthropocentric logic of profit and efficiency according to which water is considered a “resource” to be continuously commodified, controlled, instrumentalised and polluted.
Irina Souch University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Greenland to Outland: The Nordic, the “North” & the Northerly Identity in Danish Scandi Noir Fiction
The multi-nationality of Scandinavia has, for centuries, raised questions about the issue of identity within the liminal space of the Nordic countries. These questions bear not only on how the umbrella term ‘Scandinavian’ includes diverse peoples and cultures, but on how the image of racial purity promoted by these countries evokes disillusionment for those who do not fit into the Scandinavian stereotype: defined by the likes of David Pritchard as ‘a place of haunting natural beauty, a utopian society, where blonde haired beautiful people lead idyllic lives’. This stereotype has been addressed and defined often in twentieth Century Nordic Noir, from Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole (who is described as tall and blue eyed, and whose name has historical Viking associations), to Miss Smilla’s more complex racial identity. In Peter Høeg’s Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow (1992), Miss Smilla struggles with her unusual appearance and ancestry from having an Innuit mother and Danish father. She incarnates the identity crisis experienced by Greenlandic citizens who existed under Danish rule and a Danish definition of identity until as late as 2008. Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow considers not only the disillusionment felt by Greenlandic citizens in Denmark, but also traverses the fine line between the Othering and segregation of Innuit people within contested septrional spaces. The novel confronts the dehumanization that imposes a monstrosity upon the Innuit community.
This paper will discuss how this focalization of identity projects and enhances the importance of purity and perfection associated with Scandinavia, and how this creates a turbulent space for Greenlandic peoples in Denmark. The narrative perpetually foregrounds the significance of DNA, which creates space to contest the predominance of genetics within identity formation, and to challenge the image of perfection in the fair-haired, blue eyed Scandinavian stereotype. This concept of creation links these examples of Nordic Noir to Gothic precedents such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), and the monstrosity that is similarly enforced upon her creature, because he cannot conform to the physical standards required to thrive in human spaces. Shelley’s Frankenstein also shares with Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow a fascination with the boundaries and definitions of the Arctic and permafrost, which extends discussion of the physical liminality of Greenland and the Arctic zone, and the social liminality (due to their locale, their DNA, their physical makeup, and cultural differences) of those who reside there. A look also at the permafrost within these Arctic spaces reveals that as ice melts, changes, and reforms, secrets are uncovered and identity is further contrived for those who live there and associate with the domestic Arctic, and brings a discussion about Arctic geopolitics in from the periphery of this canon.
Evangeline Payne University of Sheffield, UK