Migration Regimes as a Reduction of Being in the Narratives of Immigrant Women in Iceland

Violence against immigrant women permeates Icelandic society despite the country’s perceived (gender) exceptionalism and egalitarian values. This paper offers a critical analysis of ten narratives by immigrant women in Iceland: five published anonymously in the newspaper Kjarninn during the 2019 #MeToo movement, and five collected through a 2023 online survey. Drawing on Hearn et al.’s (2020) concept of violence regimes and Schinkel’s (2010) ontological account of violence as a reduction of being, we argue that Icelandic migration regimes (re)produce and reinforce violence at the macro, meso, and micro levels. These regimes manifest as structural, symbolic, and intimate partner violence, operating through legal precarity, bureaucratic dependence, and institutional racialization. While all women can experience violence, immigrant women are especially vulnerable to the interconnection of these forms because of the intersection of gender, race, and migratory status. We further deploy the concepts of revictimization and retraumatization to show how administrative and legal mechanisms embedded in state institutions reproduce harm after initial victimization. Yet the narratives also reveal spaces of resistance and agency, complicating a purely victim-centered reading. The paper contributes to Nordic gender-based violence scholarship by demonstrating how an egalitarian self-image coexists with, and obscures, the violent effects of bureaucratic bordering.