Cryolite colonialism

RIKK – Institute for Gender, Equality and Difference at the University of Iceland – welcomes Naja Dyrendom Graugaard, Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen, for a lecture on Danish colonial extraction in Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), the politics of historical knowledge, and Inuit narrative sovereignty.

While Denmark's colonial history in Kalaallit Nunaat has received increasing public attention, dominant narratives continue to frame Danish presence through ideas of care, development, and economic benevolence. The history of orsugiak, renamed cryolite by Danish geologists, challenges these narratives by revealing how resource extraction and economic exploitation shaped Danish colonialism.

In 2025, the Kalaallit-Danish documentary Orsugiak – The White Gold of Greenland brought this history into public debate. Its subsequent removal from the Danish Broadcasting Corporation's platform, amid controversy over its interpretation of colonial economics, raised wider questions about whose knowledge and historical narratives are recognised as legitimate.

Drawing on her involvement in the documentary, Graugaard explores how colonial power relations continue to shape the production and recognition of knowledge. Through the concept of epistemic dispossession, she examines the delegitimisation of Inuit perspectives and argues for Inuit narrative sovereignty as a means of reclaiming the authority to tell Inuit histories on Inuit terms.

Naja Dyrendom Graugaard is an Associate Professor at the Center for Gender, Sexuality & Difference, University of Copenhagen. A Danish-Kalaaleq Inuk researcher, her work engages with colonial relations, Indigenous knowledge systems, Kalaallit lived experiences, and decolonial and intersectional perspectives.

She is a recipient of the 2025 Emma Goldman Award and Fellowship.

Date: Thursday 22 October 2026
Time: 12:00–13:00
Venue: Lecture Hall, National Museum of Iceland.

The event is held in English and is open to everyone.