Tag: danish denial

Danbolt, Mathias, and Lene Myong. ‘Racial Turns and Returns: Recalibrations of Racial Exceptionalism in Danish Public Debates on Racism’. Racialization, Racism, and Anti-Racism in the Nordic Countries, Ed. Peter Hervik, 2019, 39–61. (2018)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Danbolt, Mathias, and Lene Myong. ‘Racial Turns and Returns: Recalibrations of Racial Exceptionalism in Danish Public Debates on Racism’. Racialization, Racism, and Anti-Racism in the Nordic Countries, Ed. Peter Hervik, 2018, 39–61.

In recent years, the Danish public has been embroiled in different debates on racism and whiteness. While these debates instigate a break with historic and color-blind silencing of racism in Denmark, they have also given rise to multiple reproductions of racist logics. Our analysis concentrates on a debate that took off in early 2013 following the publication of the book Are Danes Racist? The Problems of Immigration Research [Er danskerne racister? Indvandrerforskningens problemer] by Henning Bech and Mehmet Ümit Necef. The debate centered around the question of whether or not so-called anti-racist research met scientific standards. We argue that this debate can be seen as a turning point in how both individual researchers in particular and racism research in general have been positioned as unscientific and as productive of social division and racism in Denmark. The chapter suggests that these racial turns can be seen as a recalibration of the tradition of Danish racial exceptionalism, where racism in Denmark is presented as containable and marginal, and where anti-racist research in itself constitutes a new form of racism.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326985617_Racial_Turns_and_Returns_Recalibrations_of_Racial_Exceptionalism_in_Danish_Public_Debates_on_Racism

Danbolt, Mathias. ‘Retro Racism: Colonial Ignorance and Racialized Affective Consumption in Danish Public Culture’. (2017) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Danbolt, Mathias. ‘Retro Racism: Colonial Ignorance and Racialized Affective Consumption in Danish Public Culture’. Nordic Journal of Migration Research, vol. 7, no. 2, June 2017, pp. 105–113.

Racial representations on commodities in Danish supermarkets have been the subject of heated public debates about race and racism in recent years. Through an analysis of a 2014 media debate about the so-called ‘racist liquorice’, the article suggests that the fight for the right to consume racialized products sheds light on how ‘epistemologies of ignorance’ of race and colonialism operate in Denmark. Focusing on how questions of history, memory and nationhood feature in the media texts, the article introduces the concepts of retro racism and racialized affective consumption to capture the affective and historical dynamics at play in debates on racism in Denmark. While the former term points to how racism becomes positioned as something always already retrograde in a Danish context, the latter relates to how a rhetoric of pleasure and enjoyment gets mobilized in the sustaining of a whitewashed image of Danish national community.

doi:10.1515/njmr-2017-0013.

PDF: http://archive.sciendo.com/NJMR/njmr.2017.7.issue-2/njmr-2017-0013/njmr-2017-0013.pdf.

Bodekær Black, Maja. ‘Hygge Racism’: ”noget Som Man Nok Bruger Mere End Man Tænker over” A Qualitative Study of Well-Intentioned Racism. (2018) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Bodekær Black, Maja. ‘Hygge Racism’: ”noget Som Man Nok Bruger Mere End Man Tænker over” A Qualitative Study of Well-Intentioned Racism. MA Thesis. Lund University, 2018,

The aim of this study is to add to the body of knowledge on racisms in Denmark with the hope that further conceptual developments on ‘hygge racism’ can be made. In order to achieve this general aim, I analyse ‘hygge racism’ based on chosen concepts that show how it is reproduced and normalised in Denmark, thus dealing with it on structural and cultural levels, while also showing how it is a discursive act of ‘doing’ racism, thereby adding the personal level to the analysis. The thesis is grounded on theories of power by Foucault and Reed, Pease ́s work on various forms of (intersecting) privileges and culture as hegemonic. Also incorporated is Durkheim ́s sacred/profane dualism and, to a smaller degree, discourse studies (Teun van Dijk). It is a qualitative study for which I have conducted 9 semi-structured interviews to find out how hygge as a Danish cultural phenomenon influences instances of racism on a daily basis. I thus found that ‘hygge racism’ is reproduced and normalised through a hegemonic Danish culture that shapes how people understand and negotiate ‘hygge racism’ and shape the discursive ways of ‘doing’ racism. In brief, the thesis firstly provides an introductory section that grounds that thesis, after which accounts of and discussions on theory and methods follow. The analysis is then divided into two main sections, the former a more structural and cultural approach, whereas the latter is mainly discursive and personal. In the end a discussion and conclusion section wraps up the thesis and suggests future research.

PDF: http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=8949314&fileOId=8949318.

Blaagaard, Bolette B. ‘Whose Freedom? Whose Memories? Commemorating Danish Colonialism in St. Croix’. (2011)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Blaagaard, Bolette B. ‘Whose Freedom? Whose Memories? Commemorating Danish Colonialism in St. Croix’. Social Identities, vol. 17, no. 1, Routledge, Jan. 2011, pp. 61–72. Taylor and Francis+NEJM,

The article addresses the issues of cultural and archival historical representations as they are presented in Danish journalism about historical events taking place in the former colonies of Denmark, the current United States’ Virgin Islands (USVI). The (post)colonial relationship between Denmark and USVI has been overlooked by Danish and ’western’-based scholars for quite some time. The article presents the case of a journalistically represented reenactment in the USVI commemorating the emancipation of the Danish slaves on the three colonial islands St. John, St. Croix, and St. Thomas in 1848. The case shows that journalists often depend on documented historical accounts rather than cultural knowledge, myths and legends, that may tell a different (his)story. Engaging journalism with feminist theory and postcolonial theory, the article discusses how this bias determines who gets to speak and who is silenced, that is, journalistic objectivity. Finally the article seeks to develop another way of thinking about postcolonial memory constructions in journalistic representations.

doi:10.1080/13504630.2011.531905.

Bjørnsson, Iben. ‘”Vi har ikke behov for forsoning …” – Det danske selvbillede i relation til Grønland 1953-2015’. (2016) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Bjørnsson, Iben. ‘”Vi har ikke behov for forsoning …” – Det danske selvbillede i relation til Grønland 1953-2015’. Temp – tidsskrift for historie, vol. 7, no. 13, 13, 2016, pp. 117–151. tidsskrift.dk, .

In 1953 Greenland, with the new Danish constitution, became an assimilated part of the Danish kingdom. With that, colonial times were over, and Greenland and Denmark had to adjust to each other in a new relation – but realities showed that perhaps Greenland were not always as equal. In Denmark, there has been different views and narratives on the Danish-Greenlandic relation, not least Denmark’s role: good, bad, and everything in between.This article investigates the official Danish view of itself in the colonial andpost-colonial relation. Through statements from ministers for Greenland from1953 through to the present, common themes as well as diversions are identified.

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/temp/article/view/24985. https://tidsskrift.dk/temp/article/view/24985

Andersen, Frits, and Jakob Ladegaard. Kampen om de danske slaver: aktuelle perspektiver på kolonihistorien. (2017)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Andersen, Frits, and Jakob Ladegaard. Kampen om de danske slaver: aktuelle perspektiver på kolonihistorien. Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2017.

Dansk slaverihistorie er ikke slut. Selvom det er 100 år siden, at Danmark solgte De Vestindiske Øer til USA, spøger slaveriet stadig. Arven fra kolonitiden er både velkendt og ukendt, fortrængt og forklaret, og det stiller krav til os om både viden og engagement.  Kampen om de danske slaver diskuterer den rolle, slaverihistorien spiller og bør spille i dag. Bogens forfattere udfordrer vanefortællingerne i den aktuelle, offentlige debat ved at følge sporene efter dansk slaveri i efterkommeres historier, arkiver og ruiner, sorte lakridser, kunst og litteratur. Med vidt forskellige synsvinkler og tolkninger bidrager de til den fortsatte diskussion om slaveriets plads i vores fælles historie, der hverken er sort eller hvid.

Indhold:

Frits Andersen og Jakob Ladegaard: Indledning

Gunvor Simonsen: Fortiden i nutiden

Pernille Ipsen og Hermann von Hesse: Døde rotter under Christiansborg

Frits Andersen: Slavefortællinger som flerstrenget erindring

Alex Frank Larsen: Den grumme arv—Interview med tre danske efterkommere af tidligere slaveejere

Jakob Ladegaard og Sine Jensen Smed: Oplyst slaveri?

Elisabeth Skou Pedersen: En spøgelseshistorie—Interview med kunstner Jeannette Ehlers

Mathias Danbolt: Mediestorme om kolonihistoriens aftryk i dansk visuel kultur

Hans Hauge: Slavesagen litterært betragtet

Nathalia Brichet: Genopbygning af en tidligere dansk plantage i Ghana

Jeff Klintø: Undervisning i slavehistorie

Astrid Nonbo Andersen: Erstatningskrav

Kasper og Anne Green Munk: At kende sandheden — Interview med Shelley Moorhead

Uddrag: http://samples.pubhub.dk/9788771845099.pdf.

https://unipress.dk/udgivelser/k/kampen-om-de-danske-slaver/

Andersen, Astrid Nonbo. ‘“We Have Reconquered the Islands”: Figurations in Public Memories of Slavery and Colonialism in Denmark 1948–2012’. (2013) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Andersen, Astrid Nonbo. ‘“We Have Reconquered the Islands”: Figurations in Public Memories of Slavery and Colonialism in Denmark 1948–2012’. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, vol. 26, no. 1, Mar. 2013, pp. 57–76.

The fact that Denmark was deeply engaged in the practices of the slave trade and slavery from the seventeenth century to 1848 often goes unnoticed—even in Denmark. For this reason, a number of Danish scholars and artists have characterized Danish ignorance of the colonial past as repression. This article demonstrates that the colonial past has in fact never been repressed, but has instead been subject to figurations, as theorized by Olick (2007). The initial experiences of colonialism have been screened at different points in time rendering the past in versions very far from the actual historical events themselves. Recently, new claims for reparations for slavery and colonialism in the former Danish West Indies have challenged the existing notions of the colonial past in Denmark. These claims have not resulted in an official Danish politics of regret (Olick 2007) as witnessed in other former colonial states. Whereas, a radical break away from the earlier conceptions of the colonial past is demanded, instead new figurations and renarrations have been used to try to incorporate the new challenges to the historical imaginary into the older layers of memory without radically breaking away from it, creating somewhat surprising results that questions the notions of a uniform global memory and understanding of historical injustices.

doi:10.1007/s10767-013-9133-z.

PDF: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10767-013-9133-z.