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This thesis examines frameworks for understanding postcolonial identities and intercultural emotions in Danish-Greenlandic relations. To gain a better understanding of this, I engage a language-cultural consultation with three female consultants who all have familial Greenlandic and Danish relations. Based on Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddards cultural pragmatics I investigate which cultural assumptions people who occupy these hybrid identities articulate. With their script-theory I articulate cultural scripts for tiden er moden (“the time is ripe”), at omgå danskerhad (“how to avoid Danish-hate”), Julie Berthelsen-fænomenet (“the Julie Berthelsen-phenomenon”), at ligne en grønlænder (“to look like a Greenlander”), ikke at ligne en grønlænder (“not to look like a Greenlander”) and at passe på (“to be careful”). To bring awareness to the colonial- and postcolonial history between Greenland and Denmark I use Eric A. Anchimbes postcolonial pragmatics to investigate how pragmatic analytical categories make different identities possible. Furthermore, which subcultures the consultants are part of and which emotional meanings are possible through different frameworks for understanding the colonial- and postcolonial history between Denmark and Greenland. The analysis suggests that a framework for understanding the modernization-period in Greenland in the 1950-60’s as a ‘danization’ of the Greenlandic population, rather than a necessary political initiative, can create pragmatic strategies that challenge cultural assumptions about Greenlanders as a homogenous group of people. Something can be articulated ‘now’ which could not ‘before’. I argue that this makes intergenerational respect possible, furthermore the acquiring of knowledge around Greenlandic culture from an entrypoint of curiosity instead of shame and insecurity. I discuss how cultural assumptions can be negotiated from a hybrid perspective. Furthermore, how affiliation with collectivistic cultural norms can be thought of as a privilege, because the modernization-period was characterized by the isolation of Greenlandic people from Greenlandic relations. Articulating this could bring awareness to a different framework for understanding the modernization-period where ‘the Danish way is not always the right way’. The thesis concludes a coexistence of a postcolonial subculture and a variation of hybrid subcultures. Furthermore, that emotional reactions can insinuate how a person, or their interlocutor, has a homogenous understanding of Greenlanders. The time is right to challenge these feelings and cultural assumptions through different pragmatic strategies. |
