#hws greenland | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

peonycats · 1 year ago

Note

Hey, so as a person who has in my unpublished works a story wherein APH Greenland is minorly featured, after I saw your post complaining about Greenland's current characterisation in fanworks, I realised that my story 100% fits all the things you were complaining about. And if it's not too much trouble how would you characterise Greenland in a way that is less problematic?

Or do you have any reccomendations for resources I can use to educate myself about Greenlandic culture?

So, I will preface this with the following:

I AM NOT INDIGENOUS. I AM NOT INUK. YOU SHOULD GO ASK SOMEONE INDIGENOUS OR BETTER YET, SOMEONE WHO IS GREENLANDIC INUIT.

However, in this post, I will primarily give some guidelines that are generally applicable to any nation personification of color that has experienced colonialism/imperialism by a Western nation and is still dealing with its legacy. Keep in mind that what you're asking for is a lot, however- we're touching on topics of national anthropomorphizations in political cartoons, the depiction of the colonized, particularly the indigenous, and the relationship between the colonized and the colonizer.

Don't make Greenland America and Canada's relative.

Don't make Greenland Denmark's kid, biological or otherwise.

Don't use sensitive contemporary issues in Greenland for fandom content.

Don't Make Greenland America and Canada's Relative

Every time I've seen this come up, this is usually justified one of two ways-

a) Greenland is related to America and Canada because the Vikings set up the first European settlements in continental North America, so they would be related via their Norse heritage. b) Greenland is related to America and Canada because America and Canada have a native parent, and Greenland is a sibling of that native parent.

To head things off- The first one is bad. See my next section for the issues of making Greenland a child of the Nordics/Nordic ancestors.

The second one almost always carries the implication of that the native parent of America and Canada is some kind of nebulous pan-American "APH Native America" personification; the issues with having the many indigenous peoples of the Americas as similar and interchangeable enough to warrant only one personification to represent them all are obvious, I should hope.

The slightly more plausible alternative is that America and Canada's native parent represents some Inuit group, and through that, Greenland is their sibling. Even if more plausible, we run into the same issue of turning a group into a monolith- there are many different Inuit groups, all with their own unique histories and cultures. Though Inuit groups may be more related than all Indigenous Americans to each other, they are still not a monolith, and determining their relationships to each other shouldn't be resolved with a blanket solution of "they're all related, nuff said."

If we want to dig into the weeds of historical accuracy, it makes no sense for America to have Inuit heritage, seeing as the United States began as the Thirteen Colonies in the Eastern Seaboard of the modern United States which doesn't overlap with the traditional lands of the Inuit. The Alaska Purchase was not made until 1867, hundreds of years after the establishment of the Thirteen Colonies.

I would also like to point out another issue I’ve seen with many “Auntie/Uncle Greenland depictions” in the fandom. Whenever you do see such depictions of Greenland in the fandom, almost never do we see the creator of such interpretations shedding light on any other indigenous characters (particularly ones not related to the USA and Canada). Therefore, such depictions are exceptionalizing and exalting an indigenous character above all other indigenous characters because they have more of a connection to major Western countries.

Overall summary: The primary issue with making Greenland related to America and Canada is that Greenland is never allowed to exist outside of their links to these two. If you want to depict Greenland with respect, the most basic thing you can do is to not reduce Greenland into a tool for you to better characterize America and Canada and flesh out their background.

Don't make Greenland Denmark's Child, Biological or Otherwise

TW: racist caricatures of black, Latino, Native American, and Asian people

So first some quick historical background: Norse settlement of Greenland began around the 900s-1100s and died out sometime between 1450 and 1500 due to a variety of environmental and sociopolitical reasons. The surviving Norse settlers most likely either left or assimilated with the local Inuit populations, so there is some genetic legacy, but 85-90% of the population of Greenland today considers themselves Greenlandic Inuit.

For the following centuries, there were sporadic interactions between European whalers and the local Inuit. It was only until 1721 that another attempt at colonization was made, this time by the missionary Hans Egede, who founded a trading company and Lutheran mission near present day Nuuk, with the express permission of the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway.

Greenland took on a special status in both Danish policy and imagination, a far-off land that was "vulnerable" to other nation's influences and in need of Danish protection. In line with that thinking, the Danish state held an exclusive monopoly on Greenland's resources and all trade with Greenlanders. It pressured Greenlandic Inuit to stay in their occupations of hunting and fishing so that Denmark could maintain access to resources Greenland provided, mainly animal products from local wildlife the Inuit hunted.

Additionally, the Danish also tightly regulated interactions between the Danish colonial population and the local Inuits. For a time, intermarriage was strictly controlled, limited to only Danish men and Greenlandic women of mixed descent and had to be approved by the colonial administration. When the US wanted to build military bases on Greenland for military purposes during WW2, a major concern of Greenlandic authorities was minimizing contact between the US soldiers and the local Inuits.

Of course, Greenland didn’t stay this way forever. Against Denmark’s wishes, Greenland did open up and become further integrated into the global economy and order of nations, and to this day a lot of Greenlanders have a Danish ancestor somewhere in their family tree.

However, to make Greenland (substantially) related to the Norse is to do a disservice to the hundreds of years of Greenlandic Inuit culture that already existed and then continued to thrive for hundreds of years in the absence of continued Nordic contact and influence. It implies that the ethnogenesis of the Greenlandic Inuit was kicked off by the Norse settlers, when in reality, the Greenlandic Inuit are largely descended from the native Thule people and later waves of migration of other Inuit people from modern day Nunavut and Nunavik. To make Greenland the child of Denmark is worse, and stands in stark contrast to the fact that compared to other nations and their settler colonies (think, England and America), Denmark heavily controlled Danish migration to Greenland and wanted to keep Greenland isolated and contained.

Now, moving past the issue of historical accuracy, there's been a long history in political cartoons starring national anthropomorphizations of allegorizing international relationships as familial relationships, or "mentor-mentee" relationships, especially when it comes to colonizer-colony relationships.

REPORT FROM THE FILIPINES Send more soldiers -Otis Uncle Sam: Balm in Gilead! Well, thank heavens both my new daughters haven't got the same disposition.

'School Begins', cartoon of Uncle Sam teaching a class in civilisation to pupils labelled 'Philippines', 'Hawaii', 'Porto Rico' and 'Cuba'

In these cartoons, the colonized is portrayed as child-like, infantile, in need of the US's benevolent guidance to be "civilized." After all, if the relationship between the colonizer and its colonial possessions was like that of a parent and their children (or a teacher and their students)- well, children need their parents, so therefore, the colonies need the colonizer and its guidance, right? By doing so, it portrays the relationship between the colonizer and its colonies as a necessary, benevolent one, one done for the benefit of the colony, and masks the inherently exploitative, unequal nature of colonialism.

To make Denmark a parental influence on Greenland, then, is to replicate the same paternalistic attitude Denmark took to Greenland as a colonial possession in need of guidance and direction, and possibly whitewashing the toll Danish colonization has taken on Greenland. Even depictions of Denmark and Greenland that emphasize their “little brother/big brother” relationship are problematic, because they fall into the same colonial rhetoric of Greenland "needing" Denmark's civilizing guidance.

Moreover, sensitivity is another concern for depictions of Greenland. At the risk of speaking for groups I do not belong to, having a child Greenland be raised by Denmark and the other Nordics (esp if Greenland has a negative relationship w them) hews a little too closely to the real life kidnapping of Indigenous children from their families to be raised instead by white families, in an attempt to remove them from their heritage and culture. Unless you're actually Greenlandic Inuit or indigenous, I don't think this is your story to tell.

Don't Use Sensitive Contemporary Issues in Greenland for Fandom Content

Don't use sensitive contemporary issues for fandom content, especially as an outsider. Don't be like the person I saw making angst headcanons around Greenland's high suicide rate.

---