Unnur Dís Skaptadóttir
Biographic Data
| ID | 143358 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Unnur Dís Skaptadóttir |
| GIVEN NAMES | Unnur Dís |
| FAMILY NAME | Skaptadóttir |
| SIGNATURE | SKAPTADÓTTIR U D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Iceland |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8350-3898 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 75 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Informal Intermediaries in the Building of Social Capital Onboard Cruise Ships
Informal intermediaries, in the form of experienced crew members, are important to new crew members onboard cruise ships. This article demonstrates how informal intermediaries assist new crew members in building social capital onboard, which helps them adjust to a completely new environment in which they both work and live. This is especially important for female crew members, as they experience life differently from men onboard and are a minorit…
I Often Experience a Lack of Trust: Filipino Migrant Nurses' Experiences of Coping with Multiple Conflicting Workplace Demands
The global shortage of nurses highlights the critical role of migrant nurses, who face numerous barriers in host country labor markets despite their qualifications being in demand. This study explores the experiences of nurses from the Philippines working in the Icelandic healthcare sector, a sector facing attrition in the ranks of qualified medical staff, austerity measures, and labor disputes. We examine the processes of interpellation, the pre…
Differentiated Borders of Belonging and Exclusion: European Migrants in Rural Areas in Iceland
This article addresses questions of difference, positionality, and belonging from the perspectives of international migrants living and working in rural communities in Iceland. With the recent integration of rural areas into the global economy, small villages and towns have undergone rapid social transformation. The development of new industries and growing tourism in these localities has attracted many international migrants. The share of migran…
Migrants’ Inclusion in Rural Communities
This thematic issue examines migrants’ inclusion in rural communities, contributing to a deeper understanding of the complex realities informing migrant experiences and processes of inclusion and exclusion in rural localities. The studies presented apply different theoretical approaches, all using various qualitative methods, to shed light on daily life experiences and views in rural locations. This editorial discusses the questions raised in the…
Using ideological disjunctures to explain lack of investment in learning the Icelandic language through formal methods
You Don’t Want to Be One of Those stories” Gossip and Shame as Instruments of Social Control in Small Communities
Small, tight-knit communities often have the image of being places that are full of gossip and where everybody knows each other’s business. This closeness can be claustrophobic for individuals who might not want to live by the accepted social norms of the community. Gossip and rumours can be used to keep such individuals in their place by enforcing social norms through social control. Shaming is crucial to this form of social control, where certa…
Construction of Childcare Practices Among Icelandic and Polish Parents Living in Iceland: Mixed-Methods Explorations
The parental leave policy in Iceland is designed to encourage both parents to work and care and access to public early education and care (ECEC) for under six-year-olds is widespread. To date, research has not focused on how migrants in Iceland arrange care for their young children. Poles constitute the largest group of first-generation migrants in Iceland, and the study addresses the question of how they arrange care for their children compared …
Adult Immigrants’ Perspectives on Courses in Icelandic as a Second Language: Structure, Content, and Inclusion in the Receiving Society
This article aims at a further understanding on the role of formal language education in immigrants’ inclusion and identity redefinition in a new society. We analyze adult immigrants’ perspectives on education in Icelandic as a second language (ISL) by conducting a cross-analysis of a survey and various ethnographic studies. Many immigrants in Iceland report dissatisfaction with language courses and prefer to have courses better tailored to their…
Undoing Homogeneity in the Nordic Region: Migration, Difference, and the Politics of Solidarity
Developing the idea famously set out by W. E. B. Du Bois, Stuart Hall suggested that living with difference would be the problem of the twenty-first century. Instances all across the world provide evidence of this and this insightful book, centred on the Nordic countries, adds powerfully to a body of critical scholarship on race and ethnicity that shows how entangled they are within repressed histories of internal and external colonisation and im…
Narrations of homogeneity, waning welfare states, and the politics of solidarity
This chapter introduces the book’s critical approach to the narratives of cultural homogeneity and social cohesion that are usually taken for granted in the understandings of societal security in the Nordic region. Through historical analyses, the contributions show how the idea of exceptional cultural homogeneity was developed through activities by social scientists, nationalist politicians, journalists, and cultural actors, among others. The pr…
Transnational Practices and Migrant Capital: The Case of Filipino Women in Iceland
Filipinos have been moving to Iceland in increasing numbers since the 1990s, primarily for employment opportunities and to reunite with relatives. They are the third largest group of immigrants in Iceland and the largest group from Asia. The majority of them work in low-income jobs in the service and production sectors where they do not utilize their education. Many arrived with the help of relatives already living in Iceland. Based on multi-site…
Reproduction of marginality: The labour market position of unemployed foreign citizens during economic recession in Iceland
Following the economic crash in 2008, many migrants in Iceland lost their jobs and experienced deteriorating working conditions. In 2011, four years after the onset of the recession, the unemployment rates among the foreign population remained significantly higher than among Icelanders. In this article, we discuss experiences of unemployed migrants concerning their changed position on the labour market in order to highlight the different mechanis…
I'll Always Be a Refugee: The Lived Experience of Palestinian Refugee Women of Moving to a Small Society in Iceland
This study focuses on a group of refugee women from the Middle East who were forced to leave their homes, live in a refugee camp, and move to a small town in Iceland. Interviews were conducted to explore their experiences of resettlement in their new home. Five themes emerged: receptivity of the community, “Islamic way of life,” gender roles, lack of social ties, and language barrier. The women found security in the community and established clos…
Borders, Boundaries, and Exclusion in the Icelandic Asylum System
Grounded in theories of borders and boundaries, this article critically engages with the processes through which asylum seekers in Iceland are excluded from full participation in society. Immigration laws and bureaucratic barriers contribute to this exclusion, which is a result of restrictions on labour market participation, lack of housing, temporality, and lack of meaningful activities. We discuss how borders and boundaries create the identity …
Seawomen of Iceland: Survival on the edge
When Margaret Willson arrived in Iceland to conduct her research on seawomen she was told that they did not really exist, or that there were only a few of them. Even after finishing her study and p
Migrating Within “the Gender-equal Nordic Region”: Icelandic Migrants in Norway and the Gendered Division of Work and Care
Migration is a gendered process that shapes the lives of men and women differently, because they generally occupy dissimilar positions within the household, the labour market, and society. This article examines gender and migration within a Nordic context, between two countries that are often presented as gender-equal in cross-national comparisons. The focus is on how the gendered division of labour is manifested in the experiences of Icelanders …
Immigrant Experiences of Learning Icelandic and Connecting with the Speaking Community
The Icelandic language has a central role in defining Icelandic nationality. Given its importance in defining Icelandic nationality and as a precondition for citizenship, the article studies what learning the Icelandic language means for the growing numbers of immigrants who have arrived in Iceland in recent years. This ethnographic study presents immigrants' perspectives on learning the language to be able to participate at work as well as gain …
Icelandic for adult foreigners: Effects of imposing an Icelandic language test
Legislation linking language course attendance and passage of a language test for residence visas and citizenship, respectively, was enacted in Iceland in the early 2000s. Curricular guidelines and the language test were developed as a result. Research in other countries suggests such structures cause teachers to create de facto policies aligning with legislative goals. We explore here whether school administrators and teachers of adult foreigner…
Integration and transnational practices of Filipinos in Iceland
Imelda is a fifty year old woman who moved to Iceland in the early 1990s. In the Philippines, she was a widow with three children having a difficult time making ends meet. She had a cousin living in Iceland who told her that she could arrange for her to come to work there, so Imelda left her children with her sister and mother and got a job in a rural Icelandic fish plant; she lived sparingly and sent what was left of her wages back to her family…
Responses to global transformations: Gender and ethnicity in resource-based localities in Iceland
This article examines the impacts of burgeoning globalisation on small fishery-based villages in Iceland. With economic restructuring, new technologies in production, and changing labour migration, the inhabitants are not uniformly able to take advantage of current changes, and some have lost while others have gained. The paper examines the effects on people's lives and experiences and how they cope with these changes locally. The discussion is b…
Coping With Social Capital? The Cultural Economy of Tourism in The North
This article engages critically with recent social theorising about local development, with illustrative examples from Icelandic peripheral settings. People in resource-based localities have attempted to cope with the transformations of late modernity in various ways. Such coping strategies consist of reflexive social practices which simultaneously produce and make use of social capital. A view of social capital as embedded in practice is advance…
Gender construction at work in Icelandic fish plants
In this article we present the results of our studies of gender construction at work in Icelandic fish plants. Our aim is to contribute to the understanding of the processes involved in the gendering of jobs, labour and the organization of work and their interrelations. We argue that an examination of these factors can shed light on larger questions of gender segregation, women's lower position in the labour force and how gender categories and id…
Women coping with change in an icelandic fishing community
Gender Construction and Diversity in Icelandic Fishing Communities
This article combines an analysis of the social construction of gender inequality with an examination of the construction of other kinds of diversity among women in small fishing villages in Iceland. This combination is necessary in order to avoid the creation of a static categorization of women in the fisheries. The construction of commonalities and diversities among women and between women and men is examined. Gender and diversity are generated…
Undoing Homogeneity in the Nordic Region
This book critically engages with dominant ideas of cultural homogeneity in the Nordic countries and contests the notion of homogeneity as a crucial determinant of social cohesion and societal security. Showing how national identities in the Nordic region have developed historically around notions of cultural and racial homogeneity, it exposes the varied histories of migration and the longstanding presence of ethnic minorities and indigenous peop…
Coping With Social Capital? The Cultural Economy of Tourism in The North
This article engages critically with recent social theorising about local development, with illustrative examples from Icelandic peripheral settings. People in resource-based localities have attempted to cope with the transformations of late modernity in various ways. Such coping strategies consist of reflexive social practices which simultaneously produce and make use of social capital. A view of social capital as embedded in practice is advance…
Women coping with change in an icelandic fishing community
Immigrant Experiences of Learning Icelandic and Connecting with the Speaking Community
The Icelandic language has a central role in defining Icelandic nationality. Given its importance in defining Icelandic nationality and as a precondition for citizenship, the article studies what learning the Icelandic language means for the growing numbers of immigrants who have arrived in Iceland in recent years. This ethnographic study presents immigrants' perspectives on learning the language to be able to participate at work as well as gain …
Transnational Practices and Migrant Capital: The Case of Filipino Women in Iceland
Filipinos have been moving to Iceland in increasing numbers since the 1990s, primarily for employment opportunities and to reunite with relatives. They are the third largest group of immigrants in Iceland and the largest group from Asia. The majority of them work in low-income jobs in the service and production sectors where they do not utilize their education. Many arrived with the help of relatives already living in Iceland. Based on multi-site…
I'll Always Be a Refugee: The Lived Experience of Palestinian Refugee Women of Moving to a Small Society in Iceland
This study focuses on a group of refugee women from the Middle East who were forced to leave their homes, live in a refugee camp, and move to a small town in Iceland. Interviews were conducted to explore their experiences of resettlement in their new home. Five themes emerged: receptivity of the community, “Islamic way of life,” gender roles, lack of social ties, and language barrier. The women found security in the community and established clos…
Integration and transnational practices of Filipinos in Iceland
Imelda is a fifty year old woman who moved to Iceland in the early 1990s. In the Philippines, she was a widow with three children having a difficult time making ends meet. She had a cousin living in Iceland who told her that she could arrange for her to come to work there, so Imelda left her children with her sister and mother and got a job in a rural Icelandic fish plant; she lived sparingly and sent what was left of her wages back to her family…
Adult Immigrants’ Perspectives on Courses in Icelandic as a Second Language: Structure, Content, and Inclusion in the Receiving Society
This article aims at a further understanding on the role of formal language education in immigrants’ inclusion and identity redefinition in a new society. We analyze adult immigrants’ perspectives on education in Icelandic as a second language (ISL) by conducting a cross-analysis of a survey and various ethnographic studies. Many immigrants in Iceland report dissatisfaction with language courses and prefer to have courses better tailored to their…
Icelandic for adult foreigners: Effects of imposing an Icelandic language test
Legislation linking language course attendance and passage of a language test for residence visas and citizenship, respectively, was enacted in Iceland in the early 2000s. Curricular guidelines and the language test were developed as a result. Research in other countries suggests such structures cause teachers to create de facto policies aligning with legislative goals. We explore here whether school administrators and teachers of adult foreigner…
Responses to global transformations: Gender and ethnicity in resource-based localities in Iceland
This article examines the impacts of burgeoning globalisation on small fishery-based villages in Iceland. With economic restructuring, new technologies in production, and changing labour migration, the inhabitants are not uniformly able to take advantage of current changes, and some have lost while others have gained. The paper examines the effects on people's lives and experiences and how they cope with these changes locally. The discussion is b…
You Don’t Want to Be One of Those stories” Gossip and Shame as Instruments of Social Control in Small Communities
Small, tight-knit communities often have the image of being places that are full of gossip and where everybody knows each other’s business. This closeness can be claustrophobic for individuals who might not want to live by the accepted social norms of the community. Gossip and rumours can be used to keep such individuals in their place by enforcing social norms through social control. Shaming is crucial to this form of social control, where certa…
Reproduction of marginality: The labour market position of unemployed foreign citizens during economic recession in Iceland
Following the economic crash in 2008, many migrants in Iceland lost their jobs and experienced deteriorating working conditions. In 2011, four years after the onset of the recession, the unemployment rates among the foreign population remained significantly higher than among Icelanders. In this article, we discuss experiences of unemployed migrants concerning their changed position on the labour market in order to highlight the different mechanis…
Borders, Boundaries, and Exclusion in the Icelandic Asylum System
Grounded in theories of borders and boundaries, this article critically engages with the processes through which asylum seekers in Iceland are excluded from full participation in society. Immigration laws and bureaucratic barriers contribute to this exclusion, which is a result of restrictions on labour market participation, lack of housing, temporality, and lack of meaningful activities. We discuss how borders and boundaries create the identity …
Migrating Within “the Gender-equal Nordic Region”: Icelandic Migrants in Norway and the Gendered Division of Work and Care
Migration is a gendered process that shapes the lives of men and women differently, because they generally occupy dissimilar positions within the household, the labour market, and society. This article examines gender and migration within a Nordic context, between two countries that are often presented as gender-equal in cross-national comparisons. The focus is on how the gendered division of labour is manifested in the experiences of Icelanders …
Gender construction at work in Icelandic fish plants
In this article we present the results of our studies of gender construction at work in Icelandic fish plants. Our aim is to contribute to the understanding of the processes involved in the gendering of jobs, labour and the organization of work and their interrelations. We argue that an examination of these factors can shed light on larger questions of gender segregation, women's lower position in the labour force and how gender categories and id…
Gender Construction and Diversity in Icelandic Fishing Communities
This article combines an analysis of the social construction of gender inequality with an examination of the construction of other kinds of diversity among women in small fishing villages in Iceland. This combination is necessary in order to avoid the creation of a static categorization of women in the fisheries. The construction of commonalities and diversities among women and between women and men is examined. Gender and diversity are generated…
Gender Construction and Diversity in Icelandic Fishing Communities
This article combines an analysis of the social construction of gender inequality with an examination of the construction of other kinds of diversity among women in small fishing villages in Iceland. This combination is necessary in order to avoid the creation of a static categorization of women in the fisheries. The construction of commonalities and diversities among women and between women and men is examined. Gender and diversity are generated…
Gender construction at work in Icelandic fish plants
In this article we present the results of our studies of gender construction at work in Icelandic fish plants. Our aim is to contribute to the understanding of the processes involved in the gendering of jobs, labour and the organization of work and their interrelations. We argue that an examination of these factors can shed light on larger questions of gender segregation, women's lower position in the labour force and how gender categories and id…
Women coping with change in an icelandic fishing community
Coping With Social Capital? The Cultural Economy of Tourism in The North
This article engages critically with recent social theorising about local development, with illustrative examples from Icelandic peripheral settings. People in resource-based localities have attempted to cope with the transformations of late modernity in various ways. Such coping strategies consist of reflexive social practices which simultaneously produce and make use of social capital. A view of social capital as embedded in practice is advance…
Responses to global transformations: Gender and ethnicity in resource-based localities in Iceland
This article examines the impacts of burgeoning globalisation on small fishery-based villages in Iceland. With economic restructuring, new technologies in production, and changing labour migration, the inhabitants are not uniformly able to take advantage of current changes, and some have lost while others have gained. The paper examines the effects on people's lives and experiences and how they cope with these changes locally. The discussion is b…
Integration and transnational practices of Filipinos in Iceland
Imelda is a fifty year old woman who moved to Iceland in the early 1990s. In the Philippines, she was a widow with three children having a difficult time making ends meet. She had a cousin living in Iceland who told her that she could arrange for her to come to work there, so Imelda left her children with her sister and mother and got a job in a rural Icelandic fish plant; she lived sparingly and sent what was left of her wages back to her family…
Icelandic for adult foreigners: Effects of imposing an Icelandic language test
Legislation linking language course attendance and passage of a language test for residence visas and citizenship, respectively, was enacted in Iceland in the early 2000s. Curricular guidelines and the language test were developed as a result. Research in other countries suggests such structures cause teachers to create de facto policies aligning with legislative goals. We explore here whether school administrators and teachers of adult foreigner…
Seawomen of Iceland: Survival on the edge
When Margaret Willson arrived in Iceland to conduct her research on seawomen she was told that they did not really exist, or that there were only a few of them. Even after finishing her study and p
Migrating Within “the Gender-equal Nordic Region”: Icelandic Migrants in Norway and the Gendered Division of Work and Care
Migration is a gendered process that shapes the lives of men and women differently, because they generally occupy dissimilar positions within the household, the labour market, and society. This article examines gender and migration within a Nordic context, between two countries that are often presented as gender-equal in cross-national comparisons. The focus is on how the gendered division of labour is manifested in the experiences of Icelanders …
Immigrant Experiences of Learning Icelandic and Connecting with the Speaking Community
The Icelandic language has a central role in defining Icelandic nationality. Given its importance in defining Icelandic nationality and as a precondition for citizenship, the article studies what learning the Icelandic language means for the growing numbers of immigrants who have arrived in Iceland in recent years. This ethnographic study presents immigrants' perspectives on learning the language to be able to participate at work as well as gain …
Borders, Boundaries, and Exclusion in the Icelandic Asylum System
Grounded in theories of borders and boundaries, this article critically engages with the processes through which asylum seekers in Iceland are excluded from full participation in society. Immigration laws and bureaucratic barriers contribute to this exclusion, which is a result of restrictions on labour market participation, lack of housing, temporality, and lack of meaningful activities. We discuss how borders and boundaries create the identity …
Undoing Homogeneity in the Nordic Region: Migration, Difference, and the Politics of Solidarity
Developing the idea famously set out by W. E. B. Du Bois, Stuart Hall suggested that living with difference would be the problem of the twenty-first century. Instances all across the world provide evidence of this and this insightful book, centred on the Nordic countries, adds powerfully to a body of critical scholarship on race and ethnicity that shows how entangled they are within repressed histories of internal and external colonisation and im…
Narrations of homogeneity, waning welfare states, and the politics of solidarity
This chapter introduces the book’s critical approach to the narratives of cultural homogeneity and social cohesion that are usually taken for granted in the understandings of societal security in the Nordic region. Through historical analyses, the contributions show how the idea of exceptional cultural homogeneity was developed through activities by social scientists, nationalist politicians, journalists, and cultural actors, among others. The pr…
Transnational Practices and Migrant Capital: The Case of Filipino Women in Iceland
Filipinos have been moving to Iceland in increasing numbers since the 1990s, primarily for employment opportunities and to reunite with relatives. They are the third largest group of immigrants in Iceland and the largest group from Asia. The majority of them work in low-income jobs in the service and production sectors where they do not utilize their education. Many arrived with the help of relatives already living in Iceland. Based on multi-site…
Reproduction of marginality: The labour market position of unemployed foreign citizens during economic recession in Iceland
Following the economic crash in 2008, many migrants in Iceland lost their jobs and experienced deteriorating working conditions. In 2011, four years after the onset of the recession, the unemployment rates among the foreign population remained significantly higher than among Icelanders. In this article, we discuss experiences of unemployed migrants concerning their changed position on the labour market in order to highlight the different mechanis…
I'll Always Be a Refugee: The Lived Experience of Palestinian Refugee Women of Moving to a Small Society in Iceland
This study focuses on a group of refugee women from the Middle East who were forced to leave their homes, live in a refugee camp, and move to a small town in Iceland. Interviews were conducted to explore their experiences of resettlement in their new home. Five themes emerged: receptivity of the community, “Islamic way of life,” gender roles, lack of social ties, and language barrier. The women found security in the community and established clos…
Adult Immigrants’ Perspectives on Courses in Icelandic as a Second Language: Structure, Content, and Inclusion in the Receiving Society
This article aims at a further understanding on the role of formal language education in immigrants’ inclusion and identity redefinition in a new society. We analyze adult immigrants’ perspectives on education in Icelandic as a second language (ISL) by conducting a cross-analysis of a survey and various ethnographic studies. Many immigrants in Iceland report dissatisfaction with language courses and prefer to have courses better tailored to their…
Construction of Childcare Practices Among Icelandic and Polish Parents Living in Iceland: Mixed-Methods Explorations
The parental leave policy in Iceland is designed to encourage both parents to work and care and access to public early education and care (ECEC) for under six-year-olds is widespread. To date, research has not focused on how migrants in Iceland arrange care for their young children. Poles constitute the largest group of first-generation migrants in Iceland, and the study addresses the question of how they arrange care for their children compared …
You Don’t Want to Be One of Those stories” Gossip and Shame as Instruments of Social Control in Small Communities
Small, tight-knit communities often have the image of being places that are full of gossip and where everybody knows each other’s business. This closeness can be claustrophobic for individuals who might not want to live by the accepted social norms of the community. Gossip and rumours can be used to keep such individuals in their place by enforcing social norms through social control. Shaming is crucial to this form of social control, where certa…
Undoing Homogeneity in the Nordic Region
This book critically engages with dominant ideas of cultural homogeneity in the Nordic countries and contests the notion of homogeneity as a crucial determinant of social cohesion and societal security. Showing how national identities in the Nordic region have developed historically around notions of cultural and racial homogeneity, it exposes the varied histories of migration and the longstanding presence of ethnic minorities and indigenous peop…
Differentiated Borders of Belonging and Exclusion: European Migrants in Rural Areas in Iceland
This article addresses questions of difference, positionality, and belonging from the perspectives of international migrants living and working in rural communities in Iceland. With the recent integration of rural areas into the global economy, small villages and towns have undergone rapid social transformation. The development of new industries and growing tourism in these localities has attracted many international migrants. The share of migran…
Migrants’ Inclusion in Rural Communities
This thematic issue examines migrants’ inclusion in rural communities, contributing to a deeper understanding of the complex realities informing migrant experiences and processes of inclusion and exclusion in rural localities. The studies presented apply different theoretical approaches, all using various qualitative methods, to shed light on daily life experiences and views in rural locations. This editorial discusses the questions raised in the…
Using ideological disjunctures to explain lack of investment in learning the Icelandic language through formal methods
Informal Intermediaries in the Building of Social Capital Onboard Cruise Ships
Informal intermediaries, in the form of experienced crew members, are important to new crew members onboard cruise ships. This article demonstrates how informal intermediaries assist new crew members in building social capital onboard, which helps them adjust to a completely new environment in which they both work and live. This is especially important for female crew members, as they experience life differently from men onboard and are a minorit…
I Often Experience a Lack of Trust: Filipino Migrant Nurses' Experiences of Coping with Multiple Conflicting Workplace Demands
The global shortage of nurses highlights the critical role of migrant nurses, who face numerous barriers in host country labor markets despite their qualifications being in demand. This study explores the experiences of nurses from the Philippines working in the Icelandic healthcare sector, a sector facing attrition in the ranks of qualified medical staff, austerity measures, and labor disputes. We examine the processes of interpellation, the pre…
Sociology (19 works) · Political science (15 works) · Icelandic (13 works) · Gender Studies (11 works) · Geography (9 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Migration and Labor Dynamics (8 works) · Economics (7 works) · Immigration (7 works) · Law (7 works)