Icelandic souvenirs: tourist gaze vs local gaze

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Abstract

The article focuses on the post-crisis representation of Iceland through souvenirs as the result of the negotiation between the “tourist gaze” and the “local gaze”. Drawing on the materials of field work in Reykjavik as well as media articles, I analyze the impact of tourist boom on souvenir production; the local strategies of the “proper” souvenirs’ promotion; the shifting of the most popular souvenirs towards the “local” or the “tourist” due to the influence of the “mutual gaze”.

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About the authors

Irina A. Kucherova

Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences

Author for correspondence.
Email: ikucherova@gmail.com
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7246-6155

младший научный сотрудник центра европейских исследований

Russian Federation, 32-a Leninsky prospect, Moscow, 119991

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2. Fig. 1. One of the shelves with dead ends in the Reykjavik “dead end store”. Photo by the author. Reykjavik, 2018.

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3. Fig. 2. Hand-made ceramics accompanied by a photograph of the artist and brief information about her. Souvenir shop at the airport. Photo by the author. Reykjavik, 2018.

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4. Fig. 3. Condemned candies: “Icelandic lava stones”, “Icelandic lava splashes”, “Icelandic horse poop”, “Icelandic puffin eggs”. Photo by the author. Reykjavik, 2015.

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