FLUID LANDSCAPES AND THE INSULAR IMAGINARY IN ROY JACOBSEN’S BARRØY-SERIES

Abstract

The paper aims to investigate, through the perspective of the recent new materialist turn in the humanities, the island imaginary in Northern Norway. The research will revolve around Roy Jacobsen’s Barrøy-serien, a series of four books which depict the islands of Northern Norway. The whole world of the islanders seems to be encircled and ultimately enclosed by water. The title of the first volume in the series (The Unseen) points directly toward the socio- and geopolitical invisibility of the inhabitants of the little island, who seem to be outside any social system, living their life off the grid. Islands have been often portrayed in literature as such isolated microcosms, objects of colonial gaze and desire, powerless and inert. However, in Barrøy-serien, Roy Jacobsen seems to break this pattern, by ascribing agency to nonhuman (and more-than-human) systems like the island or the ocean. The story of the protagonist Ingrid seems to slowly become the story of the Barrøy island itself, which is never just the backdrop of human action and intention, but a force that has the power to shape human destinies. I argue that these narratives allow nonhuman entities like the island and the ocean independence and autonomy, acknowledging their enmeshment in human life.

Keywords

• blue ecocriticism
• island studies
• nonhuman studies
• new materialisms
• landscape
• ocean studies