Bissenbakker, Mons & Lene Myong. Governing belonging through attachment: Marriage migration and transnational adoption in Denmark. (2022)

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Bissenbakker, Mons & Lene Myong. Governing belonging through attachment: Marriage migration and transnational adoption in Denmark. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 45(1), 2022, 133–152.

Based on analysis of legal documents on family reunification and educational material concerning transnational adoption in Denmark, this article suggests that the concept of attachment may be conceptualized as a specific operationalization of belonging, and that belonging and biopower may be viewed as intertwined (rather than opposites). The analysis conceptualizes two modes of how belonging is operationalized through attachment. The belonging of families seeking reunification is targeted on a regulatory level via the legal requirement of national attachment. This requirement materializes as a prognosis of belonging in families seeking reunification. On a disciplinary level, psychological attachment discourse is utilized to address belonging in adoptive kinship. As a disciplinary instrument, psychological attachment discourse extracts affective labour from the adoptee in order to secure belonging in the form of psychological attachment, which serves to sustain the white adoptive family. In both cases, attachment discourse naturalizes the governing of belonging over time.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2021.1876901

Bischoff, Carina Saxlund, Anders Ejrnæs & Olivier Rubin. A quasi-experimental study of ethnic and gender bias in university grading. (2021) [PDF]

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Bischoff, Carina Saxlund, Anders Ejrnæs & Olivier Rubin. A quasi-experimental study of ethnic and gender bias in university grading. PLOS ONE, 16(7), 2021, e0254422.

This paper contributes to the debate on race- and gender-based discrimination in grading. We apply a quasi-experimental research design exploiting a shift from open grading in 2018 (examinee’s name clearly visible on written assignments), to blind grading in 2019 (only student ID number visible). The analysis thus informs name-based stereotyping and discrimination, where student ethnicity and gender are derived from their names on written assignments. The case is a quantitative methods exam at Roskilde University (Denmark). We rely on OLS regression models with interaction terms to analyze whether blind grading has any impact on the relative grading differences between the sexes (female vs. male examinees) and/or between the two core ethnic groups (ethnic minorities vs. ethnic majority examinees). The results show no evidence of gender or ethnic bias based on names in the grading process. The results were validated by several checks for robustness. We argue that the weaker evidence of ethnic discrimination in grading vis-à-vis discrimination in employment and housing suggests the relevance of gauging the stakes involved in potentially discriminatory activities.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254422

PDF: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0254422

Fallov, Mia Arp & Rasmus Hoffmann Birk. The ’Ghetto’ strikes back: Resisting welfare sanctions and stigmatizing categorizations in marginalized residential areas in Denmark. (2022). [PDF]

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Fallov, Mia Arp, & Rasmus Hoffmann Birk. The ’Ghetto’ strikes back: Resisting welfare sanctions and stigmatizing categorizations in marginalized residential areas in Denmark. Nordic Social Work Research, 12(2), 2022, 217–228.

The Danish social housing sector is currently being restructured by national strategies that seek to combat so-called ‘parallel societies’. These strategies entail especially two things: (1) tearing down and/or privatizing social housing in marginalized and vulnerable neighbour­ hoods and (2) repressive strategies of governance which focus on ethnic minorities, restricting their choices of schools, kindergartens and interac­ tions with social services. Our argument in this article is that despite strong attempts to enforce top-down repressive and discriminatory poli­ cies, the ‘ghetto’ continually ‘strikes back’ in a double-sense: Firstly, the Danish policies meant to combat ‘ghettoization’ and ‘parallel societies’ recreate these as statistical (and governable) categories, and secondly, local housing organizations, community workers and residents engage in a struggle from below where they employ tactics to resist the most repressive elements of these urban policies. We show through empirical examples from different neighbourhoods in Denmark, how this struggle from below generate resistance in three forms: they rework classifications and understandings of the neighbourhood; they attempt to generate resilience and increase coping of marginalized groups in the face of punitive state policies; and they mediate recent tendencies to a more punitive state, and mediate and translate active forms of resistance of residents, thereby rewriting scripts of citizenship. We argue that these forms of resistance attempt to change state space production from within.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/2156857X.2021.1937289

PDF: https://vbn.aau.dk/ws/portalfiles/portal/426394707/Ghetto_strikes_back_til_VBN.pdf

Fabian, Louise & Anders Lund Hansen. Common resistance against state-led stigmatization and displacement. (2020).

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Fabian, Louise, & Anders Lund Hansen. Common resistance against state-led stigmatization and displacement. In G. Baeten, C. Listerborn, M. Persdotter, & E. Pull (Eds.), Housing Displacement: Conceptual and Methodological Issues (pp. 125–143). 2020. Routledge.

This chapter focuses on the role of the Danish state in stigmatizing and displacing groups from targeted common, non-profit housing estates (the so-called ghettos). It looks closer at the resistance movements, with special focus on Denmark’s largest non-profit housing estate, Gellerupparken. The chapter draws on an intersection between the literature of critical urban theory and social movement research. It highlights the increasing production of inequalities in Denmark and the concentration of precarious socio-economic groups in rental housing. The chapter explores the government’s ghetto politics, relevant policy documents, and state-led territorial stigmatization and displacement. It addresses how different actors have been trying to subvert the ghetto stigmatization through different forms of resistance such as the new social movement Almen Modstand (Common Resistance) as well as independent activists fighting against what they see as a racist politics. The ‘ghetto package’ has been met with a growing number of resistance movements and activities in Denmark.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429427046-9

Halberg, Nina, Trine S. Larsen & Mari Holen. Ethnic minority patients in healthcare from a Scandinavian welfare perspective: The case of Denmark. (2022) [PDF]

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Halberg, Nina, Larsen, Trine S., & Holen, Mari. Ethnic minority patients in healthcare from a Scandinavian welfare perspective: The case of Denmark. Nursing Inquiry, 29(1), 2022.

The Scandinavian welfare states are known for their universal access to healthcare; however, health inequalities affecting ethnic minority patients are prevalent. Ethnic minority patients’ encounters with healthcare systems are often portrayed as part of a system that represents objectivity and neutrality. However, the Danish healthcare sector is a political apparatus that is affected by policies and conceptualisations. Health policies towards ethnic minorities are analysed using Bacchi’s policy analysis, to show how implicit problem representations are translated from political and societal discourses into the Danish healthcare system. Our analysis shows that health policies are based on different ideas of who ethnic minority patients are and what kinds of challenges they entail. Two main issues are raised: First, ethnic minorities are positioned as bearers of ‘culture’ and ‘ethnicity’. These concepts of ‘othering’ become both explanations for and the cause of inappropriate healthcare behaviour. Second, the Scandinavian welfare states are known for their solidarity, collectivism, equality and tolerance, also grounded in a postracial, colour-blind and noncolonial past ideology that forms the societal self-image. Combined with the ethical and legal responsibility of healthcare professionals to treat all patients equally, our findings indicate little leeway for addressing the discrimination experienced by ethnic minority patients.

PDF: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ftr/10.1111/nin.12457

Hedegaard, Morten Størling & Jean-Robert Tyran. The Price of Prejudice. (2018). [PDF]

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Hedegaard, M. S., & Tyran, J.-R. (2018). The Price of Prejudice. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 10(1), 40–63.

We present a new type of field experiment to investigate ethnic prejudice in the workplace. Our design allows us to study how potential discriminators respond to changes in the cost of discrimination. We find that ethnic discrimination is common but highly responsive to the “price of prejudice,” i.e., to the opportunity cost of choosing a less productive worker on ethnic grounds. Discriminators are on average willing to forego 8 percent of their earnings to avoid a coworker of the other ethnic type. The evidence suggests that animus rather than statistical discrimination explains observed behavior.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20150241

Groglopo, Adrián & Julia Suárez-Krabbe (Eds.), Coloniality and Decolonisation in the Nordic Region. (2023) [PDF]

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A. Groglopo & J. Suárez-Krabbe (Eds.), Coloniality and Decolonisation in the Nordic Region. 2023. Taylor & Francis.

This book advances critical discussions about what coloniality, decoloniality, and decolonisation mean and imply in the Nordic region. It brings together analysis of complex realities from the perspectives of the Nordic peoples, a region that is often overlooked in current research, and explores the processes of decolonisation that are taking place in this region. The book offers a variety of perspectives that engage with issues such as Islamic feminism and the progressive left; racialisation and agency among Muslim youths; indigenising distance language education for Sami; extractivism and resistance among the Sami; the Nordic international development endeavour through education; Swedish TV reporting on Venezuela; creolizing subjectivities across Roma and non-Roma worlds and hierarchies; and the whitewashing and sanitisation of decoloniality in the Nordic region. As such, this book extends much of the productive dialogue that has recently occurred internationally in decolonial thinking but also in the areas of critical race theory, whiteness studies, and postcolonial studies to concrete and critical problems in the Nordic region. This should make the book of considerable interest to scholars of history of ideas, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, international development studies, legal sociology, and (intercultural) philosophy with an interest in coloniality and decolonial social change.

Table of contents

Coloniality and Decolonization in the Nordic Region: An Introduction

Adrián Groglopo and Julia Suárez-Krabbe

Chapter 1.

Surviving like Scheherazade. Veiled Women and Liberalism: the Trap of the Progressive Left

Houria Bouteldja.

Chapter 2. Racialisation in a “Raceless” Nation: Muslims Navigating Islamophobia in Denmark’s Everyday Life

Amani Hassani

Chapter 3. Enriching Sami language distance education

Hanna Helander, Satu-Marjut Pieski, and Pigga Keskitalo

Chapter 4. The Virtue of Extraction and Decolonial Recollection in Gállok, Sápmi

Georgia de Leeuw

Chapter 5. Coloniality of Knowledge and the Responsibility to Teach: Nordic Educational Interventions in the “South”

Jelena Vićentić

Chapter 6. Swedish Television Reporting on Venezuela as Damnation

Juan Velázquez Atehortúa

Chapter 7. Creolizing Subjectivities and Relationalities within Roma-gadje Research Collaborations

Ioana Țîștea and Gabriela Băncuță

Chapter 8. Decoloniality: Between a Travelling Concept and a Relational Onto-Epistemic Political Stance

Madina Tlostanova

DOI: https://www.routledge.com/Coloniality-and-Decolonisation-in-the-Nordic-Region/Groglopo-Suarez-Krabbe/p/book/9781032274867?gclid=Cj0KCQiAgqGrBhDtARIsAM5s0_nUuuv6JLXuU1udbn_3Ri4vIdHV8dPSh0a5jeARmBEk-s-Rp6wYy0UaAmTiEALw_wcB

PDF: https://books.google.dk/books?id=anCpEAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&hl=da&pg=PT55#v=onepage&q&f=false

Høeg Næraa, Astrid Marie, Dorthe Susanne Nielsen & Morten Sodemann. Patient-physician agreement among vulnerable ethnic minority patients in Denmark. (2021). [PDF]

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Høeg Næraa, A. M., Nielsen, D. S., & Sodemann, M. (2021). Patient-physician agreement among vulnerable ethnic minority patients in Denmark. Danish Medical Journal, 68(11).

INTRODUCTION Medical doctors in Denmark are clinically challenged by ethnic minority patients, resulting in delayed or incorrect treatments. Apart from language barriers, little is known about the nature of the challenges presented by ethnic minority patients. The present study investigated the level of agreement between the patients’ main problems,doctors’ referral notes and patient-reported problems documented at a hospital-based migrant health outpatient clinic.

PDF: https://ugeskriftet.dk/patient-physician-agreement-among-vulnerable-ethnic-minority-patients-denmark

Engebretsen, Elisabeth L. & Mia Liinason. Transforming Identities in Contemporary Europe: Critical Essays on Knowledge, Inequality and Belonging. (2023). [PDF]

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Engebretsen, Elisabeth L. & Mia Liinason. Transforming Identities in Contemporary Europe: Critical Essays on Knowledge, Inequality and Belonging (1st ed.). 2023. Routledge.

Interdisciplinary in perspective, this book explores contemporary struggles around ‘identity politics’ in Europe, offering a unique glimpse into contemporary tensions and paradoxes surrounding identities, belonging, exclusions and their deep-seated gendered, colonial and racist legacies. With a particular focus on the Nordic region, it provides insights into the ways in which people who find themselves in minoritized positions struggle against multiple injustices. Through a series of case studies documenting counter-struggles against racist, colonialist, sexist forms of discrimination and exclusion, Transforming Identities in Contemporary Europe asks how the paradigm and politics of the welfare state operate to discriminate against the most marginalized, by instating a naturalized hierarchy of human-ness. As such it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities with interests in race, gender, colonialism and postcolonialism, citizenship and belonging. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Introduction Transforming identities in contemporary Europe By Elisabeth L. Engebretsen, Mia Liinason 

“Welcome to the most privileged, most xenophobic country in the world”. Affective figurations of white Danishness in the making of a Danish citizen By Linda Lapiņa 

Educational challenges for Nordic exceptionalism Epistemic injustice in the absence of antiracist education By Kris Clarke, Manté Vertelyté 

Autobiographical flesh Understanding Western notions of humanity through the life and selected writings of Una Marson (1905–1965) By Jéssica Nogueira Varela 

‘It’s our bodies, we are the experts!’ Countering pathologisation, gate-keeping and Danish exceptionalism through collective trans knowledges, coalition-building and insistence By Nico Miskow Friborg 

Gayness between nation builders and money makers From ideology to new essentialism By Anna-Maria Sörberg 

(Not) in the name of gender equality Migrant women, empowerment, employment, and minority women’s organizations By Christel Stormhøj 

‘Home is where the cat is’ The here-there of queer (un)belonging By Ramona Dima, Simona Dumitriu 

The poetics of climate change and politics of pain Sámi social media activist critique of the Swedish state By Akvilė Buitvydaitė, Elisabeth L. Engebretsen 

Varieties of exceptionalism A conversation By Selin Çağatay, Mia Liinason, Olga Sasunkevich

PDF: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003245155

Eriksson, Birgit & Anne Mette W. Nielsen. Changing Gellerup Park: Political Interventions and Aesthetic Engagement in an Exposed Social Housing Area in Denmark. (2022) [PDF]

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Eriksson, Birgit & Anne Mette W. Nielsen. Changing Gellerup Park: Political Interventions and Aesthetic Engagement in an Exposed Social Housing Area in Denmark. The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics, 31(64), 2022, 76-98.

Some low-income social housing neighborhoods are undergoing radical transformations in Denmark. Classified as “ghettos” and “parallel societies,” and marked by area-specific legislation, we identify a triple exposure in these neighborhoods. The residents are exposed to inequality, stigmatization, and discriminatory interventions. Parallel to this, cultural policies and programs have approached these same neighborhoods based on the assumption that they can be “elevated” through art. Drawing upon a broader research in art project in four social housing areas (Eriksson, Nielsen, Sørensen and Yates, 2022), this article focuses on Gellerup Park in Aarhus and considers how two site-specific art platforms address the site and time-specific conditions of the area, offering alternative relations and forms of engagement.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.7146/nja.v31i64.134221

Dunlavy, Andrea, Karl Gauffin, Lisa Berg, Christopher Jamil De Montgomery, Ryan Europa, Ketil Eide, et al. Health outcomes in young adulthood among former child refugees in Denmark, Norway and Sweden: A cross-country comparative study. (2021) [PDF]

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Dunlavy, A., Gauffin, K., Berg, L., De Montgomery, C. J., Europa, R., Eide, K., Ascher, H., & Hjern, A. (2021). Health outcomes in young adulthood among former child refugees in Denmark, Norway and Sweden: A cross-country comparative study. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 51(3), 2021, 330-338.

Dunlavy, Andrea, Karl Gauffin, Lisa Berg, Christopher Jamil De Montgomery, Ryan Europa, Ketil Eide, and others, Health Outcomes in Young Adulthood among Former Child Refugees in Denmark, Norway and Sweden: A Cross-Country Comparative Study, Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 2021.

Aims:This study aimed at comparing several health outcomes in young adulthood among child refugees who settled in the different immigration and integration policy contexts of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.Methods:The study population included refugees born between 1972 and 1997 who immigrated before the age of 18 and settled in the three Nordic countries during 1986?2005. This population was followed up in national registers during 2006?2015 at ages 18?43 years and was compared with native-born majority populations in the same birth cohorts using sex-stratified and age-adjusted regression analyses.Results:Refugee men in Denmark stood out with a consistent pattern of higher risks for mortality, disability/illness pension, psychiatric care and substance misuse relative to native-born majority Danish men, with risk estimates being higher than comparable estimates observed among refugee men in Norway and Sweden. Refugee men in Sweden and Norway also demonstrated increased risks relative to native-born majority population men for inpatient psychiatric care, and in Sweden also for disability/illness pension. With the exception of increased risk for psychotic disorders, outcomes among refugee women were largely similar to or better than those of native-born majority women in all countries.Conclusions:The observed cross-country differences in health indicators among refugees, and the poorer health outcomes of refugee men in Denmark in particular, may be understood in terms of marked differences in Nordic integration policies. However, female refugees in all three countries had better relative health outcomes than refugee men did, suggesting possible sex differentials that warrant further investigation.

Aims: This study aimed at comparing several health outcomes in young adulthood among child refugees who settled in the different immigration and integration policy contexts of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

Methods:The study population included refugees born between 1972 and 1997 who immigrated before the age of 18 and settled in the three Nordic countries during 1986-2005. This population was followed up in national registers during 2006-2015 at ages 18?43 years and was compared with native-born majority populations in the same birth cohorts using sex-stratified and age-adjusted regression analyses.

Results:Refugee men in Denmark stood out with a consistent pattern of higher risks for mortality, disability/illness pension, psychiatric care and substance misuse relative to native-born majority Danish men, with risk estimates being higher than comparable estimates observed among refugee men in Norway and Sweden. Refugee men in Sweden and Norway also demonstrated increased risks relative to native-born majority population men for inpatient psychiatric care, and in Sweden also for disability/illness pension. With the exception of increased risk for psychotic disorders, outcomes among refugee women were largely similar to or better than those of native-born majority women in all countries.

Conclusions: The observed cross-country differences in health indicators among refugees, and the poorer health outcomes of refugee men in Denmark in particular, may be understood in terms of marked differences in Nordic integration policies. However, female refugees in all three countries had better relative health outcomes than refugee men did, suggesting possible sex differentials that warrant further investigation.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.1177/14034948211031408

Bischoff, Carina Saxlund & Anders Ejrnæs. From Homogeneity to Diversity: Societal and Political Responses to Immigration. (2021)

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Bischoff, Carina Saxlund & Anders Ejrnæs. From Homogeneity to Diversity: Societal and Political Responses to Immigration. In A. Hagedorn Krogh, A. Agger, & P. Triantafillou (Eds.), Public Governance in Denmark, 2022, (pp. 227–245). Emerald Publishing Limited.

International migration is a global challenge affecting peoples and nations all over the world. In the advanced economies and welfare states of Western Europe, integrating migrants presents political, social as well as economic challenges. Over the past 50 years, Denmark has made a remarkable U-turn on the immigration question. Once the author of one of the most liberal immigration policies in Western Europe, Denmark presently has one of the strictest. This chapter addresses the causes behind the Danish policy U-turn, and how it has affected the social, economic and political integration of immigrants in Denmark. The chapter shows how Danish immigration politics have turned from low to high salience and have undergone radical changes resulting in a tightening of both internal and external immigration policies. It has become far more difficult to obtain residence and citizenship in Denmark. These measures have limited influx although international refugee crises are difficult to control at the borders. Moreover, Danish integration policies have focused increasingly on obligations and incentives, primarily by cutting benefits. The Danish case however shows that reduction of social benefits only has a marginal positive short-term effect on employment but with some negative side effects. When it comes to education, the Danish welfare state has been relatively successful in integrating immigrants and descendants in the educational system.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80043-712-820221013

Badre-Esfahani, Sara, Lone Kjeld Petersen, Camilla Rahr Tatari, Jan Blaakær, Berit Andersen, and Lene Seibæk. Perceptions of cervical cancer prevention among a group of ethnic minority women in Denmark—A qualitative study. (2021) [PDF]

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Badre-Esfahani, Sara, Lone Kjeld Petersen, Camilla Rahr Tatari, Jan Blaakær, Berit Andersen, and Lene Seibæk, Perceptions of Cervical Cancer Prevention among a Group of Ethnic Minority Women in Denmark—A Qualitative Study, PLOS ONE, 16.6 (2021), e0250816 <https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250816>

Background Cervical cancer screening (CCS) and human papillomavirus vaccination (HPVV) are effective measures against cervical cancer (CC). Attendance in HPVV and CCS provides the greatest protection, while combined non-attendance in HPVV and CCS provides little to no protection. It is hence concerning that some large ethnic minority groups show considerably lower HPVV and CCS attendance than other women–especially women from Middle-Eastern and North African (MENA) countries and Pakistan. Little is, however, known about the reasons for this low combined attendance pattern n. Aim To explore perceptions of and barriers to HPVV and CCS, among MENA and Pakistani women in Denmark. Method Focus group interviews were conducted. Data was transcribed verbatim, and analysed using systematic text condensation. Findings Seventeen long-term resident women originating from six major MENA countries and Pakistan were included. Mean age was 36 years. We found that these women, across different age groups and descent, had sparse knowledge and understanding about CC, and their perceived relevance of disease prevention was low. Compared to HPVV, their barriers to CCS were more fixed and often linked to socio-cultural factors such as taboos related to female genitals and sexuality. Moreover, they presented unmet expectations and signs of mistrust in the healthcare system. However, at the end of the interviews, participants became more attentive toward CC prevention, particularly toward HPVV. Conclusion Elements of insufficient knowledge and understanding of CC and its prevention were found among a group of MENA and Pakistani women. Their socio-cultural background further represents a barrier particularly towards CCS. Additionally, negative experiences and unmet expectations lessen their trust in the healthcare system. All of which underlines the need for new tailored CC preventive strategies for this group. Based on our findings we suggest that future studies develop and evaluate interventions aiming to improve HPVV and CCS, including user-involvement.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250816

Berisha, Tringa. Racialized spatial attachments: Researcher positionality and access in a Danish suburban high school. (2023)

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Berisha, Tringa. Racialized spatial attachments: Researcher positionality and access in a Danish suburban high school. Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, 35(2), 2023, 63–79. https://tidsskrift.dk/KKF/article/view/136438

Danish high school’s rising ethnic/racial diversity and tendencies of segregation call for explorations of students’ educational experiences of racialized differentiation. This article unfolds methodological reflections on this endeavor, by focusing on researcher access. Not only is space a medium through which racial relations materialize – space is also interconnected with access. If researchers depend on relations for access to sites of inquiry, which depends on how researchers are read by actors in the field, it is critical to scrutinize the spatial dimensions to such readings and what knowledge is (allowed to be) produced. Unfolding two ethnographic vignettes, the researcher’s positionality of passing is analyzed to explicate the relationship between racialized bodies and racialized spaces. I propose the notion of spatial attachments as an analytical lens for explaining such body–space conflations to illuminate the interconnectivity between educational spaces and the broader external world, and to expand the language to address racialization in the colorblind context of Danish high schools.

Jaffe-Walter, Reva, and Iram Khawaja, ‘Why Do I Live Here?’: Using Identity Mapping to Explore Embodied Experiences of Racialization. (2022)

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Jaffe-Walter, Reva, and Iram Khawaja, ‘Why Do I Live Here?’: Using Identity Mapping to Explore Embodied Experiences of Racialization, in (Re)Mapping Migration and Education Centering Methods and Methodologies, ed. by Cathryn Magno, Jamie Lew, and Sophia Rodriguez (Brill, 2022), pp. 112–33

In this chapter, we turn to young people as producers of social and affective knowledge who teach us about power, race, and identity, and offer insights into rethinking the boundaries of nation and belonging. We explore identity mapping as a qualitative methodology that amplifies the voices, ideas, and imaginations of immigrant youth to consider how processes of racialization are experienced in this moment of extreme xenophobia and nationalism. Sharing our experiences of using visual mapping in focus groups with immigrant youth in Denmark across two separate studies, we explore how identity mapping fosters a sharing of young people’s embodied and affective experiences in ways that open up transformative spaces of solidarity and learning.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004522732_006

Jacobsen, Gro Hellesdatter, and Anke Piekut, ‘Integrating’ Immigrant Children? School Professionals’ Reflections on the Boundaries between Educational Ideals and Society’s Problematization of Immigrants. (2022) [PDF]

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Jacobsen, Gro Hellesdatter, and Anke Piekut, ‘Integrating’ Immigrant Children? School Professionals’ Reflections on the Boundaries between Educational Ideals and Society’s Problematization of Immigrants, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 22.2 (2022), 132–47

In Danish policy and public debates, the concept of integration is often related to a problematization of immigrants, which paradoxically makes their successful integration into Danish society unobtainable. In recent years, Denmark has become known for its increasingly restrictive policies regarding immigration and integration, although an internal ‘exceptionalist’ understanding of the country as a place without discrimination on the basis of race and ethnicity still prevails. Drawing on interviews with principals and teachers from 15 Danish schools, the paper analyses these professionals’ reflections on their work of educating immigrant children in a societal context of restrictive immigration and integration policies, focusing specifically on how they construct, cross, and work at the boundaries between school and society. The article contributes to our understanding of professionals’ processes of navigating and demarcating themselves from a highly politicized context of immigration and integration policies, while at the same time illuminating more general societal processes regarding race, integration, and nationalism.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.1111/sena.12369

Jensen Smed, Sine, ‘O Pity the Black Man, He Is Slave in Foreign Country’: Danish Performances of Colonialism and Slavery, 1793-1848. (2023)

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Jensen Smed, Sine, ‘O Pity the Black Man, He Is Slave in Foreign Country’: Danish Performances of Colonialism and Slavery, 1793-1848, in Staging Slavery: Performances of Colonial Slavery and Race from International Perspectives, 1770-1850, ed. by Sarah J. Adams, Jenna M. Gibbs, and Wendy Sutherland (Taylor & Francis, 2023)

https://books.google.dk/books?id=WPSnEAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&hl=da&pg=PT215#v=onepage&q&f=false

Jensen, Sarah, ‘The Danes Are Rich and Live in the Villas; the Others Live in the Blocks of Flats’: On the Social and Material Character of Diversity in Children’s School Life in Denmark. (2021)

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Jensen, Sarah, ‘The Danes Are Rich and Live in the Villas; the Others Live in the Blocks of Flats’: On the Social and Material Character of Diversity in Children’s School Life in Denmark, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 0.0 (2021), 1–16

In post-structurally informed research, the answer to the widely documented ‘achievement gap’ among ethnic minorities has been a critique of educational institutions’ monocultural discourse and its exclusionary effects, thus highlighting a contingent, discursive conception of diversity. However, in this empirical article, 10- to 15-year-old students from two ethnically mixed schools in Denmark point to a much more concrete, social and material diversity that is laid out in terms of patterns of residence, leisure activities, and socio-economic resources at home. Over the school years, however, this social and material diversity is gradually transformed to a question of ethnicity that explains why students’ opportunities for educational participation ultimately differ. From a dialectical materialist reading of Hall’s concept of articulation, this article explores how this transformation is made possible in everyday school life, thus arguing that ethnic diversity is more than a contingent, discursive construction; it is closely connected to ingrained patterns of material inequity in educational practice.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2021.1900620

Jensen, Tina Gudrun, and Rebecka Söderberg, Governing Urban Diversity through Myths of National Sameness – a Comparative Analysis of Denmark and Sweden. (2021) [PDF]

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Jensen, Tina Gudrun, and Rebecka Söderberg, Governing Urban Diversity through Myths of National Sameness – a Comparative Analysis of Denmark and Sweden, Journal of Organizational Ethnography, 11.1 (2021), 5–19

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore problematisations of urban diversity in urban and integration policies in Denmark and Sweden; the paper aims to show how such policies express social imaginaries about the self and the other and underlying assumptions of sameness that legitimise diverging ways of managing urban diversity and (re)organising the city.

Design/methodology/approach Inspired by anthropology of policy and post-structural approaches to policy analysis, the authors approach urban and integration policies as cultural texts that are central to the organisation of cities and societies. With a comparative approach, the authors explore how visions of diversity take shape and develop over time in Swedish and Danish policies on urban development and integration.

Findings Swedish policy constructs productiveness as crucial to the imagined national sameness, whereas Danish policy constructs cultural sameness as fundamental to the national self-image. By constructing the figure of “the unproductive”/“the non-Western” as the other, diverging from an imagined sameness, policies for organising the city through removing and “improving” urban diverse others are legitimised.

Originality/value The authors add to previous research by focussing on the construction of the self as crucial in processes of othering and by highlighting how both nationalistic and colour-blind policy discourses construct myths of national sameness, which legitimise the governing of urban diversity. The authors highlight and de-naturalise assumptions and categorisations by showing how problem representations differ over time and between two neighbouring countries.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.1108/JOE-06-2021-0034

Kammersgaard, Tobias, Thomas Friis Søgaard, Torsten Kolind, and Geoffrey Hunt, ‘Most Officers Are More or Less Colorblind’: Police Officers’ Reflections on the Role of Race and Ethnicity in Policing. (2022)

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Kammersgaard, Tobias, Thomas Friis Søgaard, Torsten Kolind, and Geoffrey Hunt, ‘Most Officers Are More or Less Colorblind’: Police Officers’ Reflections on the Role of Race and Ethnicity in Policing, Race and Justice, 2022, 21533687221127445

Several studies worldwide have demonstrated that ethnic minorities are more likely to be stopped, questioned and searched by the police. In this paper, we explore how police officers themselves discuss and make sense of ethnic disparities in police stops. Based on interviews with 25 police officers in two police precincts in Denmark the paper illustrates how officers actively reflect on the (un)importance of ethnicity for policing. Findings point to how the officers both rejected that ethnicity directly mattered for who they chose to stop, as well as how they offered alternative and indirect explanations for why ethnic minorities were stopped more often.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/21533687221127445

Johansen, Mette-Louise E., Intimate Belonging—Intimate Becoming: How Police Officers and Migrant Gang Defectors Seek to (Re)Shape Ties of Belonging in Denmark. (2022) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Johansen, Mette-Louise E., Intimate Belonging—Intimate Becoming: How Police Officers and Migrant Gang Defectors Seek to (Re)Shape Ties of Belonging in Denmark, Genealogy, 6.2 (2022), 40

This article examines the ways that Danish gang exit programs engage police officers and gang defectors in a pervasive work on belonging between gangs, kinship networks and the state. In urban Denmark, the majority of gang exit candidates are of ethnic-minority background and form part of the street-gang environment in marginalized migrant neighborhoods. This is an intimate social environment constituted by diasporic kinship networks, where gang formations are entangled with kinship formations. Hence, when gang defectors leave their gang, they also often leave their family and childhood home for a life in unfamiliar places and positions. As I show, gang desistance is thus a highly dilemmatic process in which gang defectors find themselves “unhinged” from meaningful social and kinship relationships and in search of new ways of embedding themselves into a social world. Based on an ethnographic study of gang exit processes in Denmark’s second largest city, Aarhus, this article shows how police officers and gang defectors seek to (re)shape ties of belonging between gangs, kinship networks and the state. The process, I argue, illuminates the intimate aspect of the notion of belonging, in which kin and state relatedness is deeply rooted in interpersonal spaces and relationships.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy6020040

Khawaja, Iram, Tina Wilchen Christensen, and Line Lerche Mørck, Dehumanization and a Psychology of Deglobalization: Double Binds and Movements beyond Radicalization and Racialized Mis-Interpellation. (2023) [PDF]

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Khawaja, Iram, Tina Wilchen Christensen, and Line Lerche Mørck, Dehumanization and a Psychology of Deglobalization: Double Binds and Movements beyond Radicalization and Racialized Mis-Interpellation, Theory & Psychology, 33.2 (2023), 249–65

This article seeks to conceptualize and analyze how processes of deglobalization are interdependently connected with processes of dehumanization, double bind, and racialization in the field of radicalization of ethnic and religious minorities in Denmark. We analyze two sociopolitical cases to show how deglobalization takes form in local practice, enabling or limiting specific subjects’ and groups’ possibilities of being perceived and accepted as Danish citizens. Relations between radicalization and dehumanization are explored across subjective, societal, political, and discursive practices linked to double bind processes and possible movements beyond them. Our aim is to establish a theoretical framework for exploring a psychology of deglobalization that takes into account processes of racialization, mis-interpellation, double bind, and the possibilities for rehumanization.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.1177/09593543221138541

Kende, Judit, Julia Reiter, Canan Coşkan, Bertjan Doosje, and Eva G. T. Green, The Role of Minority Discrimination and Political Participation in Shaping Majority Perceptions of Discrimination: Two Cross-National Studies. (2022) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Kende, Judit, Julia Reiter, Canan Coşkan, Bertjan Doosje, and Eva G. T. Green, The Role of Minority Discrimination and Political Participation in Shaping Majority Perceptions of Discrimination: Two Cross-National Studies, Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 2022

We develop a minority influence approach to multilevel intergroup research and examine whether country-level minority norms shape majority members? perceptions of discrimination. Defining minority norms via actual minority discrimination and political participation, we hypothesized that in national contexts with greater minority experiences of discrimination and greater minority political participation, majority perceptions of discrimination should be higher. We implemented two cross-national multilevel studies drawing on the European Social Survey and Eurobarometer data with 19,392 participants in 22 countries in Study 1, and with 17,651 participants in 19 countries in Study 2. Higher aggregate levels of minority discrimination were not related to greater acknowledgment of discrimination among majority members. However, higher aggregate minority political participation did relate to higher perceptions of discrimination in Studies 1 and 2. We conclude that country-level minority norms are consequential for majority attitudes, but these norms need to be actively communicated through political participation.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.1177/13684302221075711

Kjærulff, Thora Majlund et al. Geographical Inequalities in Acute Myocardial Infarction beyond Neighbourhood-Level and Individual-Level Sociodemographic Characteristics: A Danish 10-Year Nationwide Population-Based Cohort Study. (2019) [PDF]

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Kjærulff, Thora Majlund, Kristine Bihrmann, Ingelise Andersen, Gunnar Hilmar Gislason, Mogens Lytken Larsen, and Annette Kjær Ersbøll, Geographical Inequalities in Acute Myocardial Infarction beyond Neighbourhood-Level and Individual-Level Sociodemographic Characteristics: A Danish 10-Year Nationwide Population-Based Cohort Study, BMJ Open, 9.2 (2019).

Objective This study examined whether geographical patterns in incident acute myocardial infarction (AMI) were explained by neighbourhood-level and individual-level sociodemographic characteristics.

Design An open cohort study design of AMI-free adults (age ≥30 years) with a residential location in Denmark in 2005–2014 was used based on nationwide administrative population and health register data linked by the unique personal identification number. Poisson regression of AMI incidence rates (IRs) with a geographical random effect component was performed using a Bayesian approach. The analysis included neighbourhood-level variables on income, ethnic composition, population density and population turnover and accounted for individual-level age, sex, calendar year, cohabitation status, income and education. Setting Residents in Denmark (2005–2014).

Participants The study population included 4 128 079 persons (33 907 796 person-years at risk) out of whom 98 265 experienced an incident AMI. Outcome measure Incident AMI registered in the National Patient Register or the Register of Causes of Death. Results Including individual and neighbourhood sociodemographic characteristics in the model decreased the variation in IRs of AMI. However, living in certain areas was associated with up to 40% increased IRs of AMI in the adjusted model and accounting for sociodemographic characteristics only moderately changed the geographical disease patterns.

Conclusions Differences in sociodemographic characteristics of the neighbourhood and individuals explained part, but not all of the geographical inequalities in incident AMI. Prevention strategies should address the confirmed social inequalities in incident AMI, but also target the areas with a heavy disease burden to enable efficient allocation of prevention resources.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-024207