Crisis futures: The affects and temporalities of economic collapse in Iceland

Abstract

The 2008 collapse of the Icelandic banking sector has become a defining moment in the nation's contemporary history. The event revealed the role of neoliberal economic reconfigurations in the construction of social and temporal experience, particularly by highlighting the public's investment in, and aspiration for, a bright economic future during the early-2000s. Drawing on our independent ethnographic work, we collectively trace the enormous growth and decline of the Icelandic economy over the last two decades and examine the ways the collapse has produced new feelings, associations and expectations that continue to frame the past, present and future. In doing so, we explore and problematize the interdependencies between temporality and everyday social practices amid crisis. We argue that, despite the economy strengthening over the last decade, a sense of economic uncertainty has remained, with many Icelanders anticipating another collapse. We conclude by discussing the unfinished nature of crisis and role of public forecasting as a means for contending with ongoing economic insecurity.