The island nation of Iceland is known for many things—majestic landscapes, volcanic eruptions, distinctive seafood—but racial diversity is not one of them. So the little-known story of Hans Jonathan, a free black man who lived and raised a family in early nineteenth-century Iceland, is improbable and compelling, the stuff of novels. In The Man Who Stole Himself, Gisli Palsson lays out the story of Hans Jonathan (also known as Hans Jónatan) in stunning detail. Born into slavery in St. Croix in 1784, Hans was taken as a slave to Denmark, where he eventually enlisted in the navy and fought on behalf of the country in the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen. After the war, he declared himself a free man, believing that he was due freedom not only because of his patriotic service, but because while slavery remained legal in the colonies, it was outlawed in Denmark itself. He thus became the subject of one of the most notorious slavery cases in European history, which he lost. Then Hans ran away—never to be heard from in Denmark again, his fate unknown for more than two hundred years. It’s now known that Hans fled to Iceland, where he became a merchant and peasant farmer, married, and raised two children. Today, he has become something of an Icelandic icon, claimed as a proud and daring ancestor both there and among his descendants in America. The Man Who Stole Himself brilliantly intertwines Hans Jonathan’s adventurous travels with a portrait of the Danish slave trade, legal arguments over slavery, and the state of nineteenth-century race relations in the Northern Atlantic world. Throughout the book, Palsson traces themes of imperial dreams, colonialism, human rights, and globalization, which all come together in the life of a single, remarkable man. Hans literally led a life like no other. His is the story of a man who had the temerity—the courage—to steal himself.

The Man Who Stole Himself: The Slave Odyssey of Hans Jonathan

Biographies & Memoirs

Pálsson, Gísli

Community & Culture

University of Chicago Press

Anthropology and the New Genetics (New Departures in Anthropology)

The growth of 'new genetics' has dramatically increased our understanding of health, diseases and the body. Anthropologists argue that these scientific advances have had far-reaching social and cultural implications, radically changing our self-understanding and perception of what it means to be human; that we have become 'biomedicalized', fragmented and commodified - redefining our notions of citizenship, social relations, family and identity. This book shows how anthropology can contribute to and challenge the ways we have come to understand genetic issues. Exploring a range of issues and case studies in genetic research, it provides an ethnographic 'reality-check', arguing that we must look beyond the 'gene-centrism' of genetic codes, family trees and insular populations, to explore their wider cultural, ethical and philosophical implications. Including coverage of the controversial and widely discussed Icelandic Health Sector Database, this accessible survey will be welcomed by graduate students and researchers in social anthropology, human genetics and biotechnology.

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Cambridge University Press

The Last of Its Kind: The Search for the Great Auk and the Discovery of Extinction

Science & Math

Biological Sciences

Princeton University Press

Coastal Economies, Cultural Accounts: Human Ecology and Icelandic Discourse (Themes in Social Anthropology)

This work addresses theoretical questions regarding economic production, particularly in relation to fisheries, emphasizing the ways in which human-environmental interactions are represented in social discourse, among both indigenous producers and anthropologists. The first chapter explores some of the parallels between two kinds of theoretical discourses, one on production and the other on language, each of which may be characterized as a "language of nature". These discourses suggest a rigid dichotomy between the individual and the superorganic (society or culture), placing production and the act of speaking outside society. The producer and the speaker are presented as autonomous individuals posited by nature; they become intermediaries rather than agents, incapable of consciously modelling their own activities. An alternative, social approach emphasizes that human action, whether it be the appropriation of nature or verbal communication, is consciously motivated and necessarily embedded in human relations. The next three chapters deal with the analysis of different kinds of cultural models in the history of a particular discourse. Chapter 4 discusses the phase of peasant production in Iceland. In peasant society, there was a "natural" ceiling on production. Accordingly, in the folk model the human producer was seen to be a passive recipient of value. A series of anomalous and imaginary water-beings mediated between the domains of land and sea, between human society and nature. Chapter 5 discusses the changes in the economic rationality of Icelanders that took place when the domestic economy gave way to both petty entrepreneurial fishing and large-scale capitalist production for an expanding market at the end of the 19th century. As labour became a commodity and the previous ceiling on production was removed, a new model was developed which redifined both the domain of the natural and earlier notions of work and productivity - a model with conceptions of nature, production and human agency very different from those of the previous one. The new model underlined the economic role and the abilities of the fishing skipper, emphasizing human agency and the role of the individual in the production process. Competition for prestige, capital and labour fostered the idea that the skippers' abilities to locate and catch fish determined the size of their catch. At the same time, production discourse became gender-specific. Chapter 6 deals with the third phase of Icelandic fishing, the period for "scientific" management. With increased concentration of capital in recent years, the declining importance of labour and the integration of the industry with the state, a new cognitive succession has taken place.

Business & Money

Economics

Manchester Univ Pr

Sociology

Can Science Resolve the Nature / Nurture Debate? (New Human Frontiers)

Following centuries of debate about "nature and nurture" the discovery of DNA established the idea that nature (genes) determines who we are, relegating nurture (environment) to icing on the cake. Since the 1950s, the new science of epigenetics has demonstrated how cellular environments and certain experiences and behaviors influence gene expression at the molecular level, with significant implications for health and wellbeing. To the amazement of scientists, mapping the human genome indirectly supported these insights. Anthropologists Margaret Lock and Gisli Palsson outline vituperative arguments from Classical times about the relationship between nature and nurture, furthered today by epigenetic findings and the demonstration of a "reactive genome." The nature/nurture debate, they show, can never be put to rest, because these concepts are in constant flux in response to the new insights science continually offers.

Lock, Margaret M.

Polity

Medical Books

Medicine

Life is currently one of the most active zones of politics and economic production, as biological material is increasingly the subject of engineering, banking, reproduction, and exchange. These developments represent some of the most challenging issues facing humanity in the twenty-first century and call for new forms of engagement - and new anthropologies of life. Reflecting upon the changing human condition, Palsson addresses various conflated zones of life at particular times and scales, from the genome to the human body and the global environment. Using a 'biosocial' perspective, he argues, will help us to capture the hybrid nature of life, enhancing our sensitivity to differences and similarities in hierarchies, the reproduction of bio-objects and the exchange between humans, other species, and the environment. Engaging with topical issues on the public agenda, from personal genomics to human-animal relations to the global environment, the book sets out a compelling case for meaningful change.

Nature, Culture, and Society: Anthropological Perspectives on Life

Anthropology

The Textual Life of Savants (Studies in Anthropology and History)

First Published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Textual Life of Savants: Ethnography, Iceland, and the Linguistic Turn (Studies in Anthropology and History)

Routledge

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