Varieties of representations of virtual knot groups in SL2(C)

We study the local structure of the variety of representations of a virtual knot group in SL2(C) near an abelian representation ρ0. To such a representation is attached a complex number ω and there are three cases. If ω and ω−1 are not roots of the Alexander polynomial, there are only abelian representations around ρ0. If ω is a root and ω−1 is not, there are only reducible representations. If both ω and ω−1 are roots and certain homological conditions hold, there are irreducible representations.