Extra Credit~World Conversations Day

I actually was a participant in this World Conversations Day, as I was invited to be one of the "representatives" for the J-Term travels to Norway and Iceland as we explored the topics of "language, culture, and identity." Being a person who was already especially interested in these topics, I really feel that I got a lot out of this trip. During our time in Scandinavia, we were able to meet with directors of the language councils of both Norway and Iceland, speak with government ministers whose department involves cultural issues, se ancient manuscripts (as especially in Iceland, there is a very deliberate and deliberately grass-roots effort to maintain continuity of past and present in culture and especially language...indeed, as Ari Pal Kristinsson of the Icelandic Language Council pointed out, Iceland is extremely unique in that it possess an almost exact 1:1:1 ratio between ethnicity, nation, and language), and even strike up conversations with store owners and bus drivers about their opinions of their culture and language issues today. For my final paper, I used the ideas of Andersen and "Imagined Communities" and especially the writings of Tomas Hyland Eriksen as I explored even more in depth the ideas of nationalism, ethnicity, and minority rights, and whether "cultural preservation" versus encouraging minorities to "assimilate" on their own terms is the greater ethical role of the anthropologist and society in general.

We shared this event with the J-Term group that traveled to Germany, since the class was one that focused on German language immersion; we then had a very interesting dialogue about our experiences with using language, when Germans/Norwegians/Icelanders used English or their native languages, and how this affected our experiences in the nation as outsiders. The class that went to Germany had the special priviledge of being able to stay with host families, and thereby gain even greater access to the culture. For us (as many of the J-Term to Scandinavia have had various levels of Norwegian language), we had to make more deliberate efforts to get out into the community and explore, striking up conversations. Since I am in Norwegian class this year, I was one of those who especially tried to take advantage of being in Norway and enjoyed applying my readings of Norwegian culture and language issues to how I was using it on a day-to-day basis.