New Fathers in Old Families: Changing Fatherhood and Family Life in the Faroes

This chapter examines the Faroese family in relation to economic, cultural and social transformations in recent decades. It reviews changes in family values and parenting styles, with a focus on the father’s role and status in the household. Moreover, it examines the history of the Faroese family to better understand parenthood and the father-child relationship in a small-scale maritime society in the North Atlantic. It represents a critical social anthropological perspective on fatherhood and family life today. The ethnographic approach is explorative, and the aim of the chapter is to present a variety of contemporary fathers’ perspectives and narratives on their paternal masculinity and fathering practices. The chapter draws on qualitative data from the research project ‘Fatherhood in transition? Exploring everyday life, family relations and masculinity across two generations of men in contemporary Faroe Islands’ (2018–2022). The chapter uses concepts and theoretical models from gender and island studies. It contributes to knowledge about gendered family relations and values in a society with a close connection to the ocean.