“Too Weird for Banknotes”: Legitimacy and Identity in the Production of Danish Banknotes 1947–2007

Abstract

In this article I argue that questions of banknote design are closely related to ideas of the national collective. Using the Danish banknote design competitions from 1947 to 2007 as an exemplary case I show how the Danish central bank, Nationalbanken, continuously sought to balance banknote iconography between different and evolving perceptions of the national community in an attempt to underpin the legitimacy and authority of Danish banknotes. I suggest that concepts from institutional theory can explain this equipoise relationship and I argue that banknote designers need to somehow reconcile conflicting ideas about the national community. As such, this article contributes to a more detailed understanding of the considerations and challenges facing banknote-issuing authorities.

The ideological work of the daily visual representations of nations

“…While flags have been exemplars of this process, other artefacts, from stamps (Hoyo 2012), currency (Sørensen 2016;Wallach 2011), food (Hiroko 2008;Palmer 1998;Vackimes 2013) and airplanes (Thurlow and Aiello 2007) to bodies and landscapes (Palmer 1998), participate in this process. Yet in spite of this growing empirical interest in this direction, little work focuses on how these different objects come together, constituting an environment for daily life.…”