Everyday Activism and Resistance By Minority Women in Denmark. (2020) [PDF]

Rognlien, Louise, and Sophia Kier-Byfield. Everyday Activism and Resistance By Minority Women in Denmark. Conjunctions, vol. 7, no. 1, July 2020, pp. 1–16.

Stereotypes of minority women, and in particular Muslim women, are being used to push certain groups to the margins of Danish society, both discursively and geographically. Focusing on two case studies working in the social periphery, Andromeda, 8220 and Kvinder i Dialog, this article illuminates how the same stereotypes are used in the production of counternarratives that resist stigma and divisive policies. Despite the media attention that the new laws in Denmark such as “ghetto” reforms and masking ban have received, less attention has been paid to examples of resistance and the fight for political subjectivity. By further developing and employing postcolonial and feminist theory in a Danish context, this article addresses this gap and embarks on an analysis of minority women’s cultural activism against homogenization.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7146/tjcp.v7i1.119854.

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342709746_Everyday_Activism_and_Resistance_By_Minority_Women_in_Denmark

Gove et al. The challenges of achieving timely diagnosis and culturally appropriate care of people with dementia from minority ethnic groups in Europe. (2021) [PDF]

Gove, D., Nielsen, T. R., Smits, C., Plejert, C., Rauf, M. A., Parveen, S., Jaakson, S., Golan-Shemesh, D., Lahav, D., Kaur, R., Herz, M. K., Monsees, J., Thyrian, J. R., & Georges, J. The challenges of achieving timely diagnosis and culturally appropriate care of people with dementia from minority ethnic groups in Europe. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 36(12), 2021, 1823–1828.

In a just society, everyone should have equal access to healthcare in terms of prevention, assessment, diagnosis, treatment and care. Europe is a multicultural society made up of people who identify with a wide range of ethnic groups. Many older people from minority ethnic groups also have a direct migration background. Several studies have shown that there is a lack of equity in relation to dementia diagnoses and care because equal opportunities do not necessarily translate into equal outcomes. An expert ethics working group led by Alzheimer Europe has produced an extensive report on this issue, a policy brief and a guide for health and social care workers. In this brief summary, the authors/members of the expert working group present some of the key challenges and recommendations for healthcare clinicians striving to provide timely diagnosis and good quality care and treatment to people with dementia from all ethnic groups.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.1002/gps.5614

Helms Jørgensen, Christian. Are apprenticeships inclusive of refugees? Experiences from Denmark. (2022). [PDF]

Helms Jørgensen, C. Are apprenticeships inclusive of refugees? Experiences from Denmark. In L. Moreno Herrera, M. Teräs, P. Gougoulakis, & J. Kontio (Eds.), Migration and Inclusion in Work Life – The Role of VET. 2022. Atlas Akademi.

Context/purpose: The influx of a large number of young refugees in Europe during 2015–2016 drew attention to the role of vocational education and training (VET) in the integration of refugees. In Denmark, the VET system is based on the apprenticeship model, where most training is located in workplaces. Apprenticeships are internationally praised for their inclusiveness, as they provide direct access to employment for vulnerable learners. The research question examined in this chapter is what role apprenticeships play in the integration of immigrants and refugees. Special focus is placed on the recent development after the “refugee crisis” of 2015–2016 and the introduction of a new special apprenticeship programme for refugees in Denmark, known as Basic Integration Education (IGU). 

Approach/Methods: First, this chapter reviews research on the capability of apprenticeships to include disadvantaged youth, and particularly research on ethnic minority students in apprenticeships. Next, it examines the political response to the refugee crisis and the process behind the introduction of the new apprenticeship programme, IGU, in Denmark. This study is based on analyses of key policy documents on the development of IGU, including official acts and documentation, evaluations, applied research publications and statistics. It also includes analyses of 11 individual interviews with key stakeholders in vocational schools, nongovernmental organisations and labour market organisations involved in the programme. The interviews conducted either face-to-face or by telephone and were recorded, transcribed and analysed for the description of two examples of how the IGU has been organised. 

Findings/Results: Immigrants and refugees face some special barriers in apprenticeships, including problems of navigating a complex system, entrance requirements and access to apprenticeship contracts and to communities in workplaces. A special apprenticeship programme for refugees (IGU) was introduced in Denmark during a period with labour shortage, but also with new anti-immigration measures, which limited refugees’ access to apprenticeships. This chapter assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the IGU programme in the following five years and examines two successful examples of IGU programmes. 

Conclusion/Key message: While apprenticeships are not particularly inclusive of ethnic minorities and refugees, the IGU programme for refugees is considered a success. The success is due to a tripartite agreement in 2016 that solved the critical issues concerning wages, apprenticeship contracts, certification, curriculum and governance. The IGU, however, also has some weaknesses, which make many refugees leave the programme before completion to shift into better-paid regular employment.

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358743292_Inclusion_for_all_in_VET_A_comparative_overview_of_policies_and_state_of_research_about_migration_integration_and_inclusion_in_Germany_Austria_and_Switzerland

Guschke, Bontu Lucie, Khawaja, Iram, & Myong, Lene. Research and education on racism in Denmark: The state of the field – and where to from here. (2023). [PDF]

Guschke, Bontu Lucie, Khawaja, Iram, & Myong, Lene. Research and education on racism in Denmark: The state of the field – and where to from here. Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, 35(2), 2023, 21–28.

This piece is based on a roundtable discussion that took place as part of the Danish Gender Studies Conference on 19 August 2022 at the University of Copenhagen. The roundtable was planned by the three special issue editors to publish it as part of this special issue. Iram Khawaja, associate professor at theɸDanish School of Education (DPU) at Aarhus University, and Lene Myong, professor at the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Stavanger, chaired the discussion, while Bontu Lucie Guschke joined as a discussant.

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/KKF/article/view/141915

Haderup Larsen, Mikkel & Schaeffer, Merlin. Healthcare chauvinism during the COVID-19 pandemic. (2021). [PDF]

Haderup Larsen, Mikkel & Schaeffer, Merlin. Healthcare chauvinism during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47(7), 2021, 1455–1473.

Social science research has produced evidence of welfare chauvinism whereby citizens turn against social policies that disproportionately benefit immigrants and their descendants. Some policymakers advocate welfare chauvinism as a means to incentivize fast labour market integration and assimilation into the mainstream more generally. These contested arguments about integration incentives can hardly be extended to the case of hospital treatment of an acute COVID-19 infection. On that premise we conducted a pre-registered online survey experiment among a representative sample of the Danish population about healthcare chauvinism against recent immigrants and Muslim minorities during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic of spring 2020. Our results show no evidence of blatant racism-driven healthcare chauvinism against acute COVID-19 patients with a Muslim name who were born in Denmark. However, we do find evidence of healthcare chauvinism against patients with a Danish/Nordic name who immigrated to Denmark only a year ago. Moreover, healthcare chauvinism against recently immigrated COVID-19 patients doubles in strength if they have a Muslim name. Our findings thus suggest that there is general reciprocity-motivated welfare chauvinism against recent immigrants who have not contributed to the welfare state for long and that racism against Muslims strongly catalyses this form of welfare chauvinism.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1860742

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348057345_Healthcare_chauvinism_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic

Graugaard, Naja Dyrendom, & Høgfeldt, Amalie Ambrosius. The silenced genocide: Why the Danish intrauterine device (IUD) enforcement in Kalaallit Nunaat calls for an intersectional decolonial analysis. (2023) [PDF]

Graugaard, Naja Dyrendom, & Høgfeldt, Amalie Ambrosius. The silenced genocide: Why the Danish intrauterine device (IUD) enforcement in Kalaallit Nunaat calls for an intersectional decolonial analysis. Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, 35(2), 2023, 162–167.

From introduction:

In 2022, it was publicly revealed that Danish authorities have initiated and performed coercive insertions of intrauterine devices (IUDs) in Kalaallit women and adolescents, beginning in the 1960s. This has brought forth public and political calls to action, and an offi cial Danish-Greenlandic commission has been established to investigate this hitherto silenced history (Naalakkersuisut 2023).As feminist scholars of postcolonial and de-colonial studies (one of us Danish/Kalaaleq, one of us non-Kalaaleq), we urge the forthcoming investigations to considerthe colonial, racial, and gendered mechanisms of the IUD enforcement prac-tice, and the narratives around it. We hold that apt analysis of Danish IUD coercion and campaigning, its past workings and present consequences, requires specific attention towards how different modes of power and oppression intersect in Danish colonial strategies in Kalaallit Nunaat. While the gendered and racial dynamics of Danish colo-nization is seldomly analyzed (Loftsdó ttir & Jensen 2012;Petterson 2012; 2014; Andersen, Hvenegård-Lassen & Knobblock 2015; Ambrosius 2020; 2022), we argue that the history (and presence) of reproductive control of Kalaallit indeed points to the intimate relations between colonialism, racism, and patriarchy in Danish colonial practices.

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/KKF/article/view/137309

Esmark, Anders, & Mikkel Bech Liengaard. Does Ethnicity Affect Allocation of Unemployment-Related Benefits to Job Center Clients? A Survey-Experimental Study of Representative Bureaucracy in Denmark. (2022).

Esmark, Anders, & Mikkel Bech Liengaard. Does Ethnicity Affect Allocation of Unemployment-Related Benefits to Job Center Clients? A Survey-Experimental Study of Representative Bureaucracy in Denmark. Journal of Social Policy, 2022, 1–22.

The role of street-level bureaucracy in social policy has been taken up by two relatively distinct streams of research, based on Lipsky’s foundational work (2010). One group of literature has focused on the organizational working conditions, practices and coping mechanisms of street-level bureaucrats, their impact on the implementation of political programs and reforms, and the scope for discretion in the face of political pressures and institutional demands (Brodkin and Marston, 2013; Jessen and Tufte, 2014; Breit et al., 2016; Van Berkel et al., 2017; van Berkel, 2020). Starting from a focus on interaction with clients and the direct impact of discretionary decisions ‘on people’s lives’ (Lipsky, 2010, 8), a second group of studies has focused more on differences in allocation of benefits caused by perceived ‘deservingness’ and discrimination among street-level bureaucrats (Altreiter and Leibetseder, 2014; Terum et al., 2018; Jilke and Tummers, 2018).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279422000034

Gilliam, Laura. Being Muslim “without a fuss”: Relaxed religiosity and conditional inclusion in Danish schools and society. (2022). [PDF]

Gilliam, Laura. Being Muslim “without a fuss”: Relaxed religiosity and conditional inclusion in Danish schools and society. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 45(6), 2022, 1096–1114.

The ethnic boundary between majority Danes and Muslim minorities has become increasingly impermeable in recent decades, restricting Muslim minorities to conditional inclusion, adapting to the majority’s conditions of good citizenship. This article looks at the “conditions of inclusion” for Muslim pupils in multi-ethnic schools, focusing on what pupils express as an ideal of being a “relaxed Muslim”. This condition of “relaxed” religiosity reflects the dominant discourse on integration in Denmark with its anxiety about Islamism and demands that Muslims adjust to the moderate secularism that typifies Danish society. Yet it is argued that it also points to a more general condition of being a good minority citizen in the Danish welfare society and its institutions, as well as in other similar societies, linked to ensuring the smooth running of everyday practices, ideas about civilized interaction, and maintaining the cultural dominance of the majority, and thus to a majoritydefined harmony.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2021.1971733

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354323399_Being_Muslim_without_a_fuss_relaxed_religiosity_and_conditional_inclusion_in_Danish_schools_and_society

Einhorn, Eric, Sherrill Harbison & Markus Huss. Migration and Multiculturalism in Scandinavia. (2022)

Einhorn, Eric, Sherrill Harbison & Markus Huss. Migration and Multiculturalism in Scandinavia. University of Wisconsin Press, 2022.

Scandinavian societies have historically, and problematically, been understood as homogeneous, when in fact they have a long history of ethnic and cultural pluralism due to colonialism and territorial conquest. After World War II, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway all became destinations for an increasingly diverse stream of migrants and asylum seekers from war-torn countries around the globe, culminating in the 2015–16 “refugee crisis.” This multidisciplinary volume opens with an overview of how the three countries’ current immigration policies developed and evolved, then expands to address how we might understand the current contexts and the social realities of immigration and diversity on the ground.  Drawing from personal experiences and theoretical perspectives in such varied fields as sociology, political science, literature, and media studies, nineteen scholars assess recent shifts in Scandinavian societies and how they intertwine with broader transformations in Europe and beyond. Chapters explore a variety of topics, including themes of belonging and identity in Norway, the experiences and activism of the Nordic countries’ Indigenous populations, and parallels between the racist far-right resurgence in Sweden and the United States.  Contributors: Ellen A. Ahlness, Julie K. Allen, Grete Brochmann, Eric Einhorn, Sherrill Harbison, Anne Heith, Markus Huss, Peter Leonard, Barbara Mattsson, Kelly McKowen, Andreas Önnerfors, Elisabeth Oxfeldt, Tony Sandset, Carly Elizabeth Schall, Ryan Thomas Skinner, Admir Skodo, Benjamin R. Teitelbaum, Sayaka Osanami Törngren, Ethelene Whitmire

https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/5829.htm

Dindler, Camilla & Bolette B. Blaagaard. The colour-line of journalism: Exploring racism as a boundary object in journalistic practice and principles. (2021). [PDF]

Dindler, Camilla & Bolette B. Blaagaard. The colour-line of journalism: Exploring racism as a boundary object in journalistic practice and principles. Journalistica, 15(1), 2021, 90-113.

This article argues that Danish journalistic boundary producing practices and principles uphold a representation of racial disparity. Based on critical theories of race and racism in journalism and a boundary work framework, we conduct a discursive analysis of two collective case studies that encompass 56 articles and 23 Facebook posts. Focusing mainly on 1) the construction of knowledge about potential racism, 2) who are positioned as authorities on the topic of racism, and 3) who are missing among the potential actors in the stories, we identify meta-journalistic discourses and the (re)establishment of journalistic principles and practices. We conclude that journalistic norms and practices, for now, withstand the challenges posed by minority media’s call for the recognition of race as structure by applying discursive strategies of firstly rejecting racism as structure and secondly asserting principles and practices of specific kinds of objectivity, utilising, for instance, elite sources.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.7146/journalistica.v15i1.124927

Edelgaard Christensen, Kristoffer. Governing Black and White: A History of Governmentality in Denmark and the Danish West Indies, 1770-1900. (2023). [PDF]

Edelgaard Christensen, Kristoffer. Governing Black and White: A History of Governmentality in Denmark and the Danish West Indies, 1770-1900. Dissertation. Department of History, Lund university, 2023.

This dissertation explores and compares the rationalities through which Danish state officials sought to govern the colonized Afro-Caribbean population in the colony of the Danish West Indies and the state’s Danish subjects living in the metropole of Denmark in the period 1770-1900. Theoretically, it relies upon Michel Foucault’s conception of ’governmentality’ and the way this approach to governing, and to state power more generally, has been employed in various colonial and European settings, particularly within the field of colonial governmentality studies. This dissertation distinguishes itself from this field, however, by comparing metropole and colony in a more even, in-depth, and open-ended way; one which is sensitive to changes over time. The aim of this mode of comparison is to explore on a more solid foundation what was unique (and what was not unique) about colonial governing at particular points in time and space.The dissertation is split into two parts. The first deals with the period 1770-1800 and offers an in-depth comparative account of the Danish state’s governing of seigneurial relations at home and master-slave relations in the colony; the state’s attempts to reform the criminal laws; its investment in the maintenance of racial and social hierarchies; its regulation of the everyday public lives of slaves and peasants; and lastly, its governing of the productive lives of enslaved and unpropertied laborers. In the second part, which deals with the period 1840-1900, the focus is on the making of a free labor market in metropole and colony and the associated apparatuses of poor administration and policing.Essentially, the comparative analyses of the governmentalities, which were at the heart of these projects and domains of governing, point to a profound historical shift in the relationship between metropole and colony. In the late eighteenth-century, colonial officials in the Danish West Indies could still draw upon the governmentalities, which were essential for their peers back home. Thus, although colonial and metropolitan governmentalities were far from identical, there were significant points of overlap and commensurability in the governing of ‘blacks’ and ‘whites’. Over the course of the nineteenth century however, these points of overlap and commensurability all but vanished. After the abolition of slavery in 1848, colony and metropole had become ‘worlds beyond compare’, each requiring each own particular ‘handbook’ of governing. On this basis, the dissertation points to the importance of exploring not only the distinction between colonial and non-colonial governing, but also the history of the distinction itself.

PDF: https://portal.research.lu.se/en/publications/governing-black-and-white-a-history-of-governmentality-in-denmark

Damsa, Dorina, & Katja Franko. ‘Without Papers I Can’t Do Anything’: The Neglected Role of Citizenship Status and ‘Illegality’ in Intersectional Analysis. (2023) [PDF]

Damsa, Dorina, & Katja Franko. ‘Without Papers I Can’t Do Anything’: The Neglected Role of Citizenship Status and ‘Illegality’ in Intersectional Analysis. Sociology, 57(1), 2023, 194–210.

Intersectionality scholarship has yet to systematically recognize the importance of citizenship status for the mutual shaping of inequalities. In this article, we bring attention to the combined structuring force of criminal law and citizenship status (and the related concepts of ‘illegal’ or ‘irregular’ status) in intersecting with other categories of social disadvantage, such as those created by racialization, class, gender and ethnicity. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with women in prisons for ‘foreign nationals’ and health clinics for ‘undocumented’ migrants in Norway and Denmark, this article shows how citizenship status has a central role in the co-constitution of gendered, classed and racialized social disadvantages.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.1177/00380385221096043

Damsted Rasmussen, Trine, Sarah Fredsted Villadsen, Per Kragh Andersen, Signe Smith Jervelund, and Anne-Marie Nybo Andersen. Social and ethnic disparities in stillbirth and infant death in Denmark, 2005–2016. (2021). [PDF]

Damsted Rasmussen, Trine, Sarah Fredsted Villadsen, Per Kragh Andersen, Signe Smith Jervelund, and Anne-Marie Nybo Andersen. Social and ethnic disparities in stillbirth and infant death in Denmark, 2005–2016. Scientific Reports, 11, 8001, 2021.

Ethnic disparity in stillbirth and infant death has been demonstrated in Europe. As the relation between migration and health change over time, this population based register study investigated the recent figures and explored if potential differences could be explained by the well-known educational and income inequalities in stillbirth and infant death using a novel approach. Stillbirth and infant mortality varied considerably according to country of origin, with only immigrants from China, Norway, and Poland having an overall lower risk than Danish women. Women of Pakistani, Turkish, and Somali origin had a particularly high risk of both outcomes. Women from recent high conflict areas displayed a pattern with increased stillbirth risk. An observed excess risks across generations was found, which is disturbing and rule out factors related to language barriers or newness. Differences in educational level and household income explained only part of the observed inequalities. Strengthening of the maternity care system to better understand and meet the needs of immigrant women seems needed to mitigate the disparities.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-87084-3

Dahl, Malte. Alike but Different: How Cultural Distinctiveness Shapes Immigrant-Origin Minorities’ Access to the Labour Market. (2022)

Dahl, Malte. Alike but Different: How Cultural Distinctiveness Shapes Immigrant-Origin Minorities’ Access to the Labour Market. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 23(4), 2022, 2269–2287.

Does cultural dissimilarity explain discrimination against immigrant-origin minorities in the labour market? I conducted a factorial field experiment (N = 1350) to explore how explicit group cues trigger differential treatment and whether individuating information that counters cultural-based stereotypical representations mitigate discrimination. Employers were randomly assigned a job application with a putative female ethnic majority or immigrant-origin minority alias and CV photographs portraying the minority candidate with or without a headscarf—perhaps the quintessential marker of Muslim identity. Moreover, half the job applications conveyed information intended to reduce cultural distance by indicating a liberal lifestyle and civic participation. The results demonstrate that immigrant-origin women are significantly less likely to receive an invitation to a job interview, especially if they also wear a headscarf. Contrary to expectations, the differential treatment is not moderated by the individuating information in the applications. This indicates that the differential treatment is persistent and also targets immigrant-origin minorities who have acquired soft skills and signals cultural proximity.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-021-00844-y

Chatzopoulos, Ioannis. Sport, migration and integration in Denmark: Local political responses and policies in Copenhagen. (2022).

Chatzopoulos, Ioannis. Sport, migration and integration in Denmark: Local political responses and policies in Copenhagen. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 14(1), 2022, 53–69.

Denmark in recent years has seen a significant increase in immigration. The topic has become a major political issue, due mainly to the rise of far-right political parties that advocate not only for a more restrictive immigration policy, but also for an assimilation strategy for those migrants currently resident in the country. Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), the aim of this article is to analyse the role of sport policy in Copenhagen as an instrument for the social integration of migrants between 2010 and 2018. This paper focuses on female immigrants and women-only swimming, exploring the impact on policy of the interactions between national, municipal and sports club policy actors. The main findings of the research are: a) sport was identified in Copenhagen as an important vehicle for the inclusion of recent migrants into communal associationalist life and their introduction to Danish societal values and norms; b) the Municipality of Copenhagen was granted by central government considerable autonomy in interpreting their responsibilities and collaborated closely with sports clubs in the design and delivery of sports programmes related to immigrants; c) two competing advocacy coalitions were identified, one favouring inclusion through assimilation and the other integration through multiculturalism; d) the assimilationist coalition was composed of centre-right and far-right political parties. As these parties controlled the municipal sport department, it was the sports clubs that pursued a multicultural policy; and e) the issue of gender-segregated swimming was a focal issue for disputes over approaches to integration.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19406940.2021.1996436

Chaiklin, Seth. Can There Be Multicultural Science Education Policy in a Country That Does Not Recognize Multicultural Science Education?: The Case of Denmark and the Folkeskole. (2021)

Chaiklin, Seth. Can There Be Multicultural Science Education Policy in a Country That Does Not Recognize Multicultural Science Education?: The Case of Denmark and the Folkeskole. In M. M. Atwater (Ed.), International Handbook of Research on Multicultural Science Education, 2021 (pp. 1–45). Springer International Publishing.

In Denmark, the concept of multicultural science education is absent from educational research, policy, and practice. Nonetheless, this chapter uses this concept as an analytic lens to describe science education policy and practice for primary and lower-secondary school in Denmark. The introduction discusses why it can be meaningful to analyze a country’s science education policy from a multicultural science education perspective, even when the concept is not part of the existing societal discourse. The main body of the chapter is organized into four major sections. The first section introduces the idea of multicultural science education as used in this chapter, followed by sections that give a general introduction to the sociohistorical context of Denmark and a general overview of the organization, governance, and curricular content of the educational system in Denmark. The fourth section gives a narrative account that discusses and interprets how Danish school policy can be understood from a multicultural science education perspective. The conclusion discusses what this case study provides in terms of understanding multicultural science education in Denmark. The main conclusions are (a) there is a confluence between the ideals of Danish school law and policy and many of the ideals expressed within multicultural science education perspectives; (b) some aspects of Danish practice (e.g., dannelse, democratic citizenship) may provide interesting ideas for advancing the study of multicultural science education more generally; and (c) there are possibilities and challenges (e.g., a strong monocultural focus in educational policy) for working further with a multicultural science education perspective in Denmark.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37743-4_50-1

Acharya, Maya & Gabriella Isadora Muasya. Sensible Ruptures: Towards Embodied and Relational Ways of Knowing. (2023) [PDF]

Acharya, Maya & Gabriella Isadora Muasya. Sensible Ruptures: Towards Embodied and Relational Ways of Knowing. Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, 35(2), 2023, 29–45.

This paper explores queer and racialized experiences in Danish academia through what we call ‘sensible ruptures’: affective, embodied and sensory ways of knowing. Taking seriously these modes of knowledge, the article outlines the creation of an online, audio-visual archive. Weaving together text, audio and images to unfold our concept of sensible ruptures, we demonstrate how the audio-visual can meaningfully contribute to capturing the affective and material fabric of racialized and queer experiences with/in Danish higher education. Sensible ruptures underscore the importance of under-standing the complex processes of racialization in an institutional and national context saturated by ambiguity and exceptionalism. We contend that thinking not only against, but beyond, disembodied colonial logics offers a different mode of knowledge creation, reconfi guring the self as permeable: constituted through and with our histories and surroundings. We centre friendship as a vital part of this process, harnessing queer epistolary to perform our pursuit of, and argument for, knowledge as always and inevitably relational.

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/KKF/article/view/138090

Cengiz, Paula-Manuela, & Leena Eklund Karlsson. Portrayal of Immigrants in Danish Media—A Qualitative Content Analysis. (2021) [PDF]

Cengiz, Paula-Manuela, & Leena Eklund Karlsson. Portrayal of Immigrants in Danish Media—A Qualitative Content Analysis. Societies, 11(2), 2021, Article 2.

Media coverage can affect audiences’ perceptions of immigrants, and can play a role in determining the content of public policy agendas, the formation of prejudices, and the prevalence of negative stereotyping. This study investigated the way in which immigrants are represented in the Danish media, which terms are used, what issues related to immigrants and immigration are discussed and how they are described, and whose voices are heard. The data consisted of media articles published in the two most widely read Danish newspapers in 2019. Inductive qualitative content analysis was conducted. The portrayal of immigrants was generally negative. Overall, immigrants were portrayed as economic, cultural and security threats to the country. The most salient immigrant groups mentioned in the media were non-Westerners, Muslims, and people ‘on tolerated stay’. Integration, xenophobia and racial discrimination were the three immigrant-related issues most frequently presented by the media. The media gave voice mainly to politicians and immigrant women. The material showed that Danes have a strong affinity for ‘Danishness’, which the papers explained as a major barrier to the integration and acceptance of immigrants in Denmark.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.3390/soc11020045

Caselli, Mauro & Paolo Falco. As Long as They Are Cheap: Experimental Evidence on the Demand for Migrant Workers. (2020) [PDF]

Caselli, Mauro & Paolo Falco. As Long as They Are Cheap: Experimental Evidence on the Demand for Migrant Workers, SSRN, 2020.

How does demand for migrant vs native workers change with price? We conduct an experiment with 56,000 Danish households (over 2 percent of all households in the country), who receive an advertisement from a cleaning company whose operators vary randomly across areas but meet the same quality standards and have equal customer ratings. When the operator has a migrant background, we find that demand is significantly lower than when the operator is a native. The gap, however, is highly sensitive to price, with demand for the migrant increasing steeply as the price falls. For an hourly pay close to the 25th percentile of the earnings distribution in similar occupations (24 USD per hour), demand for the migrant is one-fifth of the demand for the native. A 25 percent reduction in the price makes the gap in demand disappear.

PDF: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3685873

Castro Christiansen, Liza & Sabine Bacouel-Jentjens. The business case for diversity and inclusion in Denmark: A multi-level perspective from discourse to reality. (2022)

Castro Christiansen, Liza & Sabine Bacouel-Jentjens. The business case for diversity and inclusion in Denmark: A multi-level perspective from discourse to reality. Question(s) de management, 38(1), 2022, 137–149.

The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of the macro level factors that impact the way in which a company approaches and conceptualises diversity management (DM) in Denmark. A multi-level relational framework was adopted to uncover the contextual situation of DM in a Danish manufacturing company. Twenty semi-structured indepth interviews have been conducted and analyzed using the Gioia method. The findings show how diversity-related factors on the societal level favour the adoption of a business case rationale for DM on the organizational level of the case company. A deeply ingrained societal orientation of voluntarism (in contrast to a legal obligation) combined with low Power Distance seem to favour a “walk the talk”– attitude, which goes beyond the mere establishment of demographic diversity.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3917/qdm.218.0137

Brodersen, Marianne & Trine Øland. Gendered racism: The emancipation of ‘Muslim’ and ‘immigrant’ women in Danish welfare politics and professionalism. (2023) [PDF]

Brodersen, Marianne & Trine Øland. Gendered racism: The emancipation of ‘Muslim’ and ‘immigrant’ women in Danish welfare politics and professionalism. (2023) [PDF] Gendered racism: The emancipation of ‘Muslim’ and ‘immigrant’ women in Danish welfare politics and professionalism. Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, 35(2), 2023, 130–146.

This article examines the intersecting oppressions of Danish welfare politics and its emerging interest in emancipating ‘immigrant’ women and girls. It draws on Patricia Hill Collins’ notion of controlling images and, based on a documentary text corpus, it identifies how the images of the unfree immigrant housewife and the inhibited immigrant girl are formed through oxymoronic liberal arguments of care and control. The article demonstrates how this plays out in an assemblage of policy documents and suggests why welfare professionalism is called upon to ‘rescue’ ‘immigrant’ women and girls, situating welfare politics and professionalism within the racial welfare state and its racial capitalist and Orientalist logics. The analyses demonstrate how gendered and racialized signifiers help to structure welfare politics and professionalism, and how a space of emancipation is intertwined with a global economic division of labor. The article suggests that racialized welfare politics and professionalism are permeated by the desire to emancipate women, which remains a powerful impulse within Danish welfare state capitalism, liberalism and social-democratic reasoning.

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/KKF/article/view/134282

Brøndum, Tine. “The curse of the refugee”: Narratives of slow violence, marginalization and non-belonging in the Danish welfare state. (2023) [PDF]

Brøndum, Tine. “The curse of the refugee”: Narratives of slow violence, marginalization and non-belonging in the Danish welfare state. Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, 35(2), 2023, 96–112.

Drawing on narrative interviews with people who have recently or in the past fled to Denmark, this article examines experiences of being cast as refugees within the Danish asylum and integration bureaucracy. The analysis is situated within a social context formed simultaneously by Nordic exceptionalism and racial colour-blindness, and by increasing restrictions within Danish asylum and integration policy. Within this context, the article analyses narrative accounts of structural violence and racialization within three central sites of refugee management: namely the reception and asylum camps, encounters with municipal integration workers, and in contexts of schooling and employment. The analysis conveys intersubjective perspectives on how being labelled as a ‘refugee’ involves being racialized, managed and controlled and it argues that such forms of legally-sanctioned control measures can be understood as a slow violence that harms the lives of those seeking protection in Denmark. Finally, the article discusses how people labelled as ‘refugees’ respond to and oppose experiences of racism and control, and how such responses are often silenced in ways that further legitimize racism.

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/KKF/article/view/141131

Breidahl, Karen N. & Gina Gustavsson. Can we trust the natives? Exploring the relationship between national identity and trust among immigrants and their descendants in Denmark. (2022). [PDF]

Breidahl, Karen N. & Gina Gustavsson. Can we trust the natives? Exploring the relationship between national identity and trust among immigrants and their descendants in Denmark. Nations and Nationalism, 28(2), 2022, 592–611.

Politicians often seek to strengthen national identity by encouraging immigrants to adopt the ‘national values’, thus supposedly boosting trust. However, empirical studies of the social effects of national identity have focused almost exclusively on the native majority. In this article, we instead ask how national identity among immigrant minorities affects their trust, including towards natives. We draw on unique survey data from a representative sample of the five largest non-Western immigrant groups and their descendants in Denmark. This reveals that national belonging, national pride and citizenship preferences are positively linked to social as well as institutional trust. These relationships hold even when controlling for the perception of sharing one’s values with others and the extent to which one holds ‘typically Danish’ values widely shared among the majority population. This suggests that the emotional component of national identity, but not its content in the form of values, indeed forms an important basis for social cohesion.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12834

Bratt, Christopher. Is it racism? The belief in cultural superiority across Europe. (2022) [PDF]

Bratt, Christopher. Is it racism? The belief in cultural superiority across Europe. European Societies, 24(2), 2022, 207–228.

Are Europeans racist if they maintain that some cultures are superior? Theorists of cultural racism argue so and suggest that modern racism in Europe is expressed as a belief in cultural superiority. But this claim has been based on theoretical arguments, not on empirical tests. The current research investigated how widespread a belief in cultural superiority was in European countries and tested how such a belief related to biological racism. Analyses of data from the European Social Survey (21 countries, total N > 33,000) showed large differences across countries in tendencies to endorse the belief in cultural superiority. But in nearly all countries, a factor model consistent with the theory of cultural racism had much better support than a factor model building on the assumption that culturalism is distinct from racism. Even when the factor analysis was able to maintain a distinction between racism and culturalism, the two factors had a very strong correlation. The present research suggests that although a belief in cultural superiority may harbour different views, expressed beliefs in cultural superiority and cultural concerns are strongly associated with traditional racism.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.1080/14616696.2022.2059098

Hunter, Elizabeth Löwe. Black Racial Isolation: Understanding African Diaspora Subjectivity in Post-Racial Denmark. (2023) [PDF]

Hunter, Elizabeth Löwe. Black Racial Isolation: Understanding African Diaspora Subjectivity in Post-Racial Denmark, 2023, Dissertation, UC Berkeley.

This is an Afrofeminist Cultural Studies analysis of blackness and belonging in Denmark. The study is situated within African Diaspora Studies, specifically the theoretical branches in and of Europe. Simultaneously constructed as marginal to hegemonic Europeanness and dominant conceptions of blackness, I seek to carve out space for Afropean and European Black perspectives. With attention to genealogical distinctions between European-based Afrofeminisms and Black Feminisms of the USA, this dissertation is a contribution to a grounded theory of blackness in a larger European context. Specifically, this is a step towards writing the much under-theorized conditions of the African diasporas in the Nordics into the archives (McEachrane 2016).The study centers first-person narratives. I focus on first-generation African diaspora Dan-ish people, i.e., those with experiences of being raised and socialized in Denmark while Black as the first in a family. Situation myself as a researcher within this very life experience, I examine how others have navigated that experience before the era of the Internet and with a scarcity of racial mirroring. But particularly, I examine the condition of being racialized as Black in an alleged post-racial European context, dominated by a ‘raceless’ discourse of Denmark and its ‘other’ (El-Tayeb 2011; Boulila 2019). And more precisely within a regional discourse of Nordic Exceptionalism (Habel 2011). Positioned as apparently a paradox within an exclusive nationalist narrative, Afropean existence becomes unspeakable and Black Danish people constructed as always already foreigners, having just arrived. Part of the Black Danish experience, as across the Nordic region, is thus characterized by a lack of language to name one’s reality (Adeniji 2016; Diallo 2022). And importantly, a language to understand and resist racism, and to develop a political consciousness (Essed 1991; Kelekay 2019). I analyze how these circumstances affect Black Danish people’s subjectivity. The study’s first chapter builds on a reading of Crucian-Danish Victor Cornelins’ autobiography From St. Croix to Nakskov from 1976. This is supplemented by material from the Nakskov Local History Archives in Denmark. Here, I offer feminist analyses centered in African diasporic care and consideration of historical representations of blackness in Denmark as well as archival silences. Reading Cornelins as an early theorist of blackness in Denmark, the contours of a primary formative condition emerge: racial isolation. The second and third chapters are based on original data from semi-structured interviews during a seven-month stay in Copenhagen in 2020-2021. The second chapter sketches out the scattered collective of a post-WWII generation of so-called ‘brown babies.’ Being of Black American and white German parentage, thousands of individuals were deemed ‘better off’ outside of Germany due to their blackness and ‘mixedness.’ At the beginning of a post-racial discourse in Europe and a decolonization moment globally, a generation of ‘brown’ children were adopted into the intimate sphere of the post-racial Danish nation-state. An obscured, misrepresented part of Danish history, this chapter seeks to humanize people of this generation and identify their agency in constructing themselves as whole. The final chapter gives context to the current moment and growing up Black in Denmark. Imagined as outside of the Danish nation, yet also outside of dominant immigration discourse, analyzing the particularity of racialization as Black proves highly pertinent. The taxing reality of experiencing racism in a post-racialist culture become clear, especially the fact of being the only one in many social contexts. Yet this chapter also illuminates people’s ambivalence, disidentification, and dissociation from concepts of collective blackness or minoritarian solidarity. There is a complex relationship between assuming one’s own racialized social position as Black and understanding oneself as Danish. Black racial isolation runs through the three chapters as a common condition for African diasporic Danish people who have come of age in Denmark between 1905 and 2021. I therefore of-fer Black racial isolation as a core concept to better understand how Danish Black people make sense of themselves and their relationship to African diasporas and Black (political) collectivity. As a Black experience the Danish is version an articulation of racialization within a Westernized con-text historically shaped through binaries of Black/white. What sets this apart from other theorizations of blackness in the West, is that it experienced alone, rather than in community. My findings suggest that such isolation can results in internalization of binaries and a splitting of the self. In conclusion, I meditate on conditions for creating connection – with self and others – as a path to-ward sustainable, humanizing futures for Danish African diasporic blackness and belonging. As such, this dissertation contributes original, grounded theory of blackness, race, and racialization in Europe with deep appreciation for Afrofeminist and decolonial feminist genealogies from which this study could grow.

PDF: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3qk0z1fm