Social context and social control: young women in Icelandic fishing villages

PH.D. PROJECT

About the project

This Ph.D. research project focuses on young women in small fishing villages in Iceland, social status, social control, and different social factors that influence their residence in these locations. Special emphasis was placed on issues that the inhabitants can change to strengthen the community. Social control of gossip and the effects it has on the well-being and residential satisfaction of women in these communities.

The research is based on quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative data was obtained from a survey conducted in small towns and villages in Iceland in 2019. Questions about migration and migration intentions are analyzed in relation to gossip. The results show that both men and women who perceive much gossip about their love life are statistically more likely to have migration intentions than people who don’t think there is much gossip about their love life. Qualitative data comes from interviews conducted with women in small fishing villages in Iceland in 2019-2021. The interviews focused on gossip, how the women perceive gossip around them in their community, and how it has affected their life and living satisfaction.

Reputation follows people in small communities through storytelling and gossip, and the interviews focus on the social effects of gossip on individuals and their attachment to their societies. The power gossip has was examined, and how that power is used against women with shaming and especially slut-shaming.

Doctoral Candidate

Doctoral committee and Researchers

  • Þóroddur Bjarnason, University of Akureyri (Iceland) – Main supervisor
  • Unnur Dís Skaptadóttir, professor – Supervisor
  • Ólöf Garðarsdóttir, professor – Supervisor
  • Vífill Karlsson, associate professor, University of Akureyri (Iceland) – Supervisor

Collaborators

  • Byggðastofnun - Icelandic Regional Development Institute
  • Þekkingarnet Þingeyinga – Husavik Academic Center
  • Grants: Icelandic Equality Fund, Icelandic Research Fund, University of Akureyri Research Fund

Publications

Gréta Bergrún Jóhannesdóttir og Unnur Dís Skaptadóttir (2023). You don‘t want to be one of those stories: Gossip and Shame as a Social Control in Small Communities. NORA – Journal of gender and feminist research.

Þóroddur Bjarnason (ritstj), Gréta Bergrún Jóhannesdóttir, Guðmundur Gunnarsson, Ólöf Garðarsdóttir, Sigríður Elín Þórðardóttir, Unnur Dís Skaptadóttir og Vífill Karlsson, 2022. Byggðafesta og Búferlaflutningar á Íslandi. Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan.

Gréta Bergrún Jóhannesdóttir, Þóroddur Bjarnason, Aileen Stockdale og Tialda Haartsen (2021). What‘s love got to do with it? Love life gossip and migration intentions. Í Journal of Rural Studies, 87, bls. 236 – 242.

Þóroddur Bjarnason, Gréta Bergrún Jóhannesdóttir, Guðmundur Gunnarsson, Ólöf Garðarsdóttir, Sigríður Elín Þórðardóttir, Unnur Dís Skaptadóttir og Vífill Karlsson. Byggðafesta og búferlaflutningar: bæir og þorp á Íslandi vorið 2019. Byggðastofnun.

Press/Media