Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T06:22:08.590Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Beyond ‘puffins and moss’: Iceland Airwaves and post-crash musical tourism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2021

Kimberly D. Cannady Open the ORCID record for Kimberly D. Cannady [Opens in a new window]
Kimberly D. Cannady*
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores relationships between the significant growth of foreign tourism to Iceland, following the 2008 economic crash, and the popular music festival Iceland Airwaves. I consider the effects of Iceland Airwaves on popular music in Reykjavík during the festival and outside of the festival season. My focus is primarily on how the local population experiences Iceland Airwaves and musical tourism in general. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Iceland between 2010 and 2018, I examine how musicians, politicians, festival management, tourism sector workers, business people, and other music industry workers approach and negotiate the rising role of popular music in Iceland's new tourism economy. This research contributes to broader understandings of how music festivals and musical tourism shape local musical life year-round, and it also offers insight into Iceland's internationally renowned popular music industry.

Type
Article
Information
Popular Music , Volume 39 , Issue 3-4 , December 2020 , pp. 539 - 553
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bohlman, P.V. 2017. ‘Musical borealism: Nordic music and European history’, in The Oxford Handbook of Popular Music in the Nordic Countries, ed. Holt, F. and Kärjä, A.-V. (New York, Oxford University Press), pp. 33–56Google Scholar
Bruner, E.M. 2001. ‘The Maasai and the Lion King: authenticity, nationalism, and globalization in African tourism’, American Ethnologist, 28/4, pp. 881–908CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brydon, A. 1989. ‘Returning to the present: Icelandic identity and the festival’, The Icelandic Canadian, 48/2, pp. 13–19Google Scholar
Cannady, K. 2014. History on their Shoulders: Music and Nation-Building in Iceland. PhD thesis, University of WashingtonGoogle Scholar
Cannady, K. 2017. ‘Echoes of the colonial past in discourse on North Atlantic popular music’, in The Oxford Handbook of Popular Music in the Nordic Countries, ed. Holt, F. and Kärjä, A.-V. (New York, Oxford University Press), pp. 203–18Google Scholar
de Peuter, G. 2012. ‘Confronting precarity in the Warhol economy’, Journal of Cultural Economy, 7/1, pp. 31–4710.1080/17530350.2013.856337CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gamma. 2018 Tourism in Iceland: Investing in Iceland's Growth Engine (London, Gamma Advisory)Google Scholar
Getz, D. 2005. Event Management and Event Tourism (2nd ed.) (New York, Cognizant)Google Scholar
Getz, D. 2008. ‘Event tourism: definition, evolution, and research’, Tourism Management, 29, pp. 403–2810.1016/j.tourman.2007.07.017CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, C., and Connell, J. 2012. Music Festivals and Regional Development in Australia (Burlington, VT, Ashgate)Google Scholar
Gössling, S. 2006. ‘Iceland’, in Extreme Tourism: Lessons from the World's Cold Water Islands, ed. Baldacchino, G. (Oxford, Elsevier), pp. 115–127Google Scholar
Grétarsdóttir, T, Ásmundsson, Á., and Lárusson, H. 2015. ‘Creativity and crisis’, in Gambling Debt: Iceland's Rise and Fall in the Global Economy, ed. Durrenberger, E.P. and Pálsson, G. (Boulder, CO, University Press of Colorado), pp. 93–108Google Scholar
Iceland Naturally. n.d. ‘Contact us’, https://www.icelandnaturally.com/contact-us (accessed 23 August 2018)Google Scholar
Jóhannesson, G.T., and Huijbens, E.H. 2010. ‘Tourism in times of crisis: exploring the discourse of tourism development in Iceland’, Current Issues in Tourism, 13/5, pp. 419–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jóhannsdóttir, H. 2006. ‘Under the tourist gaze’, in The Cultural Reconstruction of Places, ed. Eysteinsson, Á. (Reykjavík, University of Iceland Press), pp. 111–121Google Scholar
Loftsdóttir, K., and Lund, K.A. 2016. ‘Þingvellir: commodifying the “heart” of Iceland’, in Postcolonial Perspectives on the European High North, ed. Huggan, G. and Jensen, L. (London, Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 117–4110.1057/978-1-137-58817-3_5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loftsdóttir, K, Kjartansdóttir, K., and Lund, K.A. 2017. ‘Trapped in clichés: masculinity, films and tourism in Iceland’, Gender, Place & Culture, 24/9, pp. 1225–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lund, A., Loftsdóttir, K., and Leonard, M. 2017. ‘More than a stopover: analysing the postcolonial image of Iceland as a gateway destination’, Tourist Studies, 17/2, pp. 144–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matthíasson, Á., 2014. ‘Entertaining Indigenes’, The Grapevine, 27 October. https://grapevine.is/culture/music/airwaves/2014/10/27/entertaining-indigenes/ (accessed 23 August 2018)Google Scholar
Meadows, R. 2014. ‘“Jockomo Fee Na Nay!”: Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Creole Sensorialities and the Festivalization of New Orleans’ Musical Tourism’, in Sun, Sea, and Sound: Music and Tourism in the Circum-Caribbean, Rommen, T. & Neely, D. (New York, Oxford University Press), pp. 238–265CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oslund, K. 2011. Iceland Imagined: Nature, Culture, and Storytelling in the North Atlantic (Seattle, WA, University of Washington Press)Google Scholar
Ólafsdóttir, R., and Runnström, M.C. 2013. ‘Assessing hiking trails condition in two popular tourist destinations in the Icelandic highlands’, Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism, 3–4, pp. 57–67Google Scholar
Prentice, R., and Andersen, V. 2003. ‘Festival as creative destination’, Annals of Tourism Research, 30/1, pp. 7–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prior, N. 2015. ‘“It's a social thing, not a nature thing”: popular music practices in Reykjavík, Iceland’, Cultural Sociology, 9/1, pp. 81–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pruett, D.B. 2011. ‘When the tribe goes triple platinum: a case study toward an ethnomusicology of mainstream popular music in the U.S.’, Ethnomusicology, 55/1, pp. 1–3010.5406/ethnomusicology.55.1.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ritchie, J.R.B. 1984. ‘Assessing the impacts of hallmark events: conceptual and research issues’, Journal of Travel Research, 23/1, pp. 2–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rommen, T. 2014. ‘Introduction: music touristics in the Circum-Caribbean’, in Sun, Sea, and Sound: Music and Tourism in the Circum-Caribbean, ed. Rommen, T. & Neely, D. (New York, Oxford University Press), pp. 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schram, K. 2011. ‘Borealism: folkloristic perspectives on transnational performances and the exoticism of the North’. PhD dissertation, University of EdinburghGoogle Scholar
Sigurðardóttir, M.S., and Young, T. 2011. Towards Creative Iceland: Building Local, Going Global. http://www.icelanddesign.is/media/PDF/towardscreativeicelandreport1.pdf (accessed 23 August 2018)Google Scholar
Stefánsson, Þ., Sæþórsdóttir, A.D., and Hall, C.M. 2017. ‘When tourists meet transmission lines: the effects of electric transmission lines on tourism in Iceland’, Energy Research and Social Science, 34, pp. 82–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Størvold, T. 2018. ‘Sigur Rós: reception, borealism, and musical style’, Popular Music, 37/3, pp. 371–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Bank. n.d. International Tourism, Number of Arrivals. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ST.INT.ARVL?locations=IS&view=chart. (accessed 23 August 2018)Google Scholar