IcelandXWorld

There's a lot going on in chapter 12, IcelandXWorld. At first glance it can seem a bit jumbled: fishing for fish, fishing for genes, and a self-conscious policeman. What does it all mean?

The key to answering this question, I think, lies in taking account of the chapter's position relative to the preceding chapters. In other words, in can be more fruitful to "pull back" and view the whole of the text, rather than concentrating on the minute details of chapter 12.

In the preceding chapters, Fortun has explored his complex relationship to his object of study; he admits to distanceXcomplicity, a chiasmic relationship that involves the blurring of boundaries between subject and object. Fortun is enfolded into the very events he studies.

But if the preceding chapters blur the line between Fortun and his object, how does IcelandXWorld take this further?

Chapter 11 ends with a question: "So just where is the boundary to mark the differences between Iceland and the rest of the world?" (158) This is precisely the question that chapter 12 seeks to illuminate, with all its talk of policemen and fishing. As the chapter title -- and the sprawling style -- indicates, Fortun is arguing for another chiasmic blurring of boundaries. In this instance, it is not the blurring of subjectXobject, but rather objectXnotobject ("notobject" representing everything that we use to distinguish the object as "set apart"). In other words, not only does Fortun recognize the extent to which he is entangled in his object of study, but he also recognizes the extent to which the very act of "picking out" an object is an artificial construction that runs afoul of the much more complex -- and scandalous -- IcelandXWorld.

This chapter, then, serves to illuminate another way in which Fortun is enfolded into his study: The very act of selecting an object of study constitutes the subjective creation of that object.