Iceland, rejected by McDonald's: desire and anxieties in a global crisis

Abstract

Iceland’s increased involvement in global economic markets in the early 2000s came to a sudden halt in autumn 2008 when Iceland became at the time the worst case of the global financial crisis. The discussion focuses on anxieties in relation to the aftermath and how they reflect internal Icelandic discussions that are entangled with Iceland’s past as a Danish dependency. The closing of McDonald’s restaurants in a year after the crash is a vivid example of anxieties in regard to Iceland’s global circumstances, simultaneously reflecting persistent geopolitical order of an unequal world.