De unges stille oprør: Modstand, indflydelse og fremtid på Færøerne

This article explores young people’s resistance against the parental generation in the Faroe Islands with a focus on the struggle for cultural and religious values. The aim of the article is to illustrate a silent revolt unfolding, and to analyse its consequences on a small-scale, relatively homogenous society in the North Atlantic. The young people move in a landscape where it is almost impossible to be anonymous and where social control is extensive. Relying on data from two ethnographic projects that I have overseen, the article discusses young people’s resistance in relation to their feelings of being included and respected in the local community and in relation to their future perspectives. Religion has an important role in many young Faroe Islanders’ lives, thus the conflict between conservative and liberal life values is at the core of the cultural struggle of the youth. The article studies the struggle and revolt of the youth through the
optic of globalization theory focusing on the local/global dynamics of youth identity formation. The youth resistance, as reflected in the documentary Skál(Cheers), exhibits the double struggle of the youth of the Faroes: to preserve their Faroese identity in a globalising world, as well as to introduce and establish a more diversified and (culturally) liberal society in the Faroes. The material of the article reveals that society is changing, but that the tempo of the transformation makes it hard to claim that we are witnessing a dramatic revolutionary shift.