This article engages critically with recent social theorising about local development, with illustrative examples from Icelandic peripheral settings. People in resource–based localities have attempted to cope with the transformations of late modernity in various ways. Such coping strategies consist of reflexive social practices which simultaneously produce and make use of social capital. A view of social capital as embedded in practice is advanced: instead of considering it as being a quantitatively measurable property of individuals, communities or even nations, we suggest a qualitative, interactionist approach. Seen in this way, the analytical concepts of coping and social capital are helpful for understanding current trends from resource–based towards cultural economies. Tourism is one such trajectory which has become particularly significant in Iceland. Examples of coping and social capital are provided in the article, obtained from the authors’ studies of tourist operators in two Icelandic localities.

Despite the image of gender equality in Iceland, a highly gender-segregated labour market persists, which to a limited extent has been challenged by employment-related migration and ethnification in part of the labour market in recent years. The article, which is based on the various studies by the authors, maps the contours of migrations from the early 1990s. An intersectional approach is applied in an analysis of how gender intersects with ethnicity and class to generate the existing gendered labour market. Iceland is an interesting case for studying gender and contemporary employment-related mobility on the Atlantic rim because it has only recently become an immigration country and has experienced rising emigration of Icelanders in the wake of the financial crisis in 2008. International and internal migration is identified in the country as shaped by socio-economic restructuring at different geographical scales and labour markets characterized by gender and ethnic segregation and hierarchies. Immigrant women have taken over low-strata jobs, following the increased social and spatial mobility of Icelandic women. Meanwhile, fluctuations in the construction industry have primarily affected international migration by men.

The results indicate that the long processing time of application for asylum has deteriorating effects on health. In order to promote asylum seekers' well-being and occupational rights attention needs to be focused on their living conditions and opportunities for participation in meaningful occupations, including work.

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