Paper short abstract:

This paper will discuss the interplay between notions of genetic and socially constructed relatedness, through an analysis of practices of name-giving in contemporary Iceland.

Paper long abstract:

If there is one hot topic in Iceland, it is the notion of kin. The famous Icelandic sagas have nurtured the idea that Icelandic society is about kin groups who struggle for territory and power, and, recently, the so-called Icelandic Biogenetic project, initiated by the company deCode Genetics, has brought the ancestors even closer. The Icelandic fondness of kin relations has generated classical discussions on kinship terminology among anthropologists working on Iceland in the 1970s and 1980s, and inspired in the late 20th and beginning of the 21st century to anthropological analyses of the ideology of kinship within the context of biotechnology.

A topic of debate in these studies is how to correspond the tension between two extremes existing in Iceland: a strong notion of individualism and an excessive interest in kin relations. Ann Pinson argued in 1979 that patrilineal principles of social organisation have persisted in modern Iceland and that the lack of friendship in the society confirms this. Her studies have been criticised by others who insist that the Icelandic kinship system has changed from a unilineal to a bilateral orientation and that it functions as an individual resource, whereby the boundaries of kin-based networks are determined by the intersection of individual interests. Gísli Pálsson argued recently that DNA analyses and molecular biology has given genetic relatedness a renewed supreme status in Iceland, and in Europe in general, allowing little room for culture and social constructions of relatedness.

My paper will approach these debates from a detailed ethnographic account of practices of name giving and the constitution of the person in contemporary Iceland. Lining up with the recent anthropological concept of relatedness, I will show how genetic relatedness and 'socially constructed' relatedness interact in contemporary Iceland and how names reveal and generate connections between people who are not related through DNA.