Sørensen, Bo Wagner. ‘Når kulturen går i kroppen: „Halve grønlændere” som begreb og fænomen’. (1997) [PDF]

Sørensen, Bo Wagner. ‘Når kulturen går i kroppen: „Halve grønlændere” som begreb og fænomen’. Tidsskriftet Antropologi, no. 35–36, 35–36, Sept. 1997.

Bo Wagner Sørensen: When Culture Gets Embodied: The Notion and Phenomenon of Greenlandic “Halfies’’ The article tries to make sense of the notion of Greenlandic “halfies” by showing how the notion is part of a cultural discourse which is expressed in terms of “between two cultures”. This discourse points both to people being split between cultures and to the cultures having materialized themselves in individual bodies. In light of recent critique of the concept of culture in anthropology it is reasonable to question the essentialism underlying the expression “between two cultures”, and also to imagine that individuals who invoke it are suffering from “false consciousness”. However, it seems that the discourse causes real pain in actual bodies, and therefore it needs to be taken seriously. In the article, the discourse is put in a larger historical, social and political perspective, showing how the idea has been established that Greenlandic and Danish culture and identity are rather incompatible entities. The Greenlandic struggle for political independence has been fought to a large degree in the field of culture, which implies that people in general are informed by dichotomy thinking. Individuals who do not match up with the acknowledged criteria for Greenlandic culture and identity are inclined to be caught between cultures and loyalities, the result being that the political cultural war is reproduced and reflected in individual bodies. Due to the widespread identityhealth model according to which the ideal identity is a clear-cut and fixed ethnic identity, these individuals are often believed to experience identity crises. The article suggests that the “problem” may not be one of incompatible cultural essences, though it is widely thought so, but rather that culture and identity get politicized.

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/tidsskriftetantropologi/article/view/115316.

Farkas, Johan, and Christina Neumayer. Mimicking News: How the Credibility of an Established Tabloid Is Used When Disseminating Racism. (2020) [PDF]

Farkas, Johan, and Christina Neumayer. Mimicking News: How the Credibility of an Established Tabloid Is Used When Disseminating Racism. Vol. 41, Jan. 2020, pp. 1–22,

This article explores the mimicking of tabloid news as a form of covert racism, relying on the credibility of an established tabloid newspaper. The qualitative case study focuses on a digital platform for letters to the editor, operated without editorial curation pre-publication from 2010 to 2018 by one of Denmark’s largest newspapers, Ekstra Bladet . A discourse analysis of the 50 most shared letters to the editor on Facebook shows that nativist, far-right actors used the platform to disseminate fear-mongering discourses and xenophobic conspiracy theories, disguised as professional news and referred to as articles. These processes took place at the borderline of true and false as well as racist and civil discourse. At this borderline, a lack of supervision and moderation coupled with the openness and visual design of the platform facilitated new forms of covert racism between journalism and user-generated content.

doi:10.2478/nor-2020-0001.

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338692613_Mimicking_News_How_the_credibility_of_an_established_tabloid_is_used_when_disseminating_racism.

Spanger, Marlene, Hanne Marlene Dahl, and Elin Petersson. ‘Rethinking Global Care Chains through the Perspective of Heterogeneous States, Discursive Framings and Multi-Level Governance’. (2017) [PDF]

Spanger, Marlene, Hanne Marlene Dahl, and Elin Petersson. ‘Rethinking Global Care Chains through the Perspective of Heterogeneous States, Discursive Framings and Multi-Level Governance’. Nordic Journal of Migration Research, vol. 7, no. 4, De Gruyter Open, Dec. 2017, pp. 251–259.

In investigating global and regional care chains, scholars have traditionally adopted a sociological bottom–up approach, but more attention has recently been focussed on the role of the state. Despite this new attention to states and how they condition care chains, the existing frameworks cannot grasp the complexity of potential struggles and tensions within states and at the various state levels. In outlining a broad and tentative analytical framework for exploration of the role of the state in shaping global care chains, this theoretical article combines feminist state theory, discursive policy analysis and multi-level governance theories. Paying attention to the role of the state, we focus on the framing of policy problems that are important for care chains and on potential tensions between different framings within a state and across the different state levels. We argue that these framings should be investigated in both receiving and sending states.

https://vbn.aau.dk/en/publications/rethinking-global-care-chains-through-the-perspective-of-heteroge.

PDF: 10.1515/njmr-2017-0029.

Hervik, Peter. ‘Fortællingen om de danske værter og deres generende gæster’. (2016) [PDF]

Hervik, Peter. ‘Fortællingen om de danske værter og deres generende gæster’. Narrativ Forskning, Eds. Glavind Bo Inger, Ann-Dorte Christensen, and Trine Thomsen, 2016. Hans Reitzels Forlag, 275–292.

De fleste danskere har meget begrænset kontakt med indvandrere, flygtninge og efterkommere. De baserer i stedet deres holdninger på de kategorier, argumenter, billeder, følelser og indtryk fra narrativer, som cirkulerer i nyhedsmedierne og bliver luftet i samtaler på arbejdspladsen, i supermarkedet og til familiesammenkomster. Efterhånden bliver talen og fortællingerne om indvandrerne mere og mere indlejret som en særlig grundfortælling, hvor de nye borgere bliver sat ind i et gæst-vært scenarie fremfor i et fælles-menneskeligt og inkluderende “vi”. I artiklen præsenteres denne grundfortællings bestanddele og der argumenteres for, hvordan den forstærker og fastholder relationen mellem indfødte danskere og danskere med indvandrerbaggrund i et forhold af uforenelighed. Dette er et forhold, der udgør en fremtrædende fortælling hos danskerne allerede inden de møder mennesker med anden etnisk og kulturel baggrund.

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308892284_Fortaellingen_om_de_danske_vaerter_og_deres_generende_gaester.

Hervik, Peter. ‘Refiguring the Public, Political, and Personal in Current Danish Exclusionary Reasoning’. (2018) [PDF]

Hervik, Peter. ‘Refiguring the Public, Political, and Personal in Current Danish Exclusionary Reasoning’. Political Sentiments and Social Movements, 2018, 91–117.

Hervik uses the new concept of “fractal logic” as a way to explain how scaling takes place in Danish exclusionary reasoning, in news articles, web commentaries, blogs, and Facebook posts about Muslims. Through two incidents in Denmark, an amusement park controversy and a missing handshake panic, he shows how participants and other commentators move from small-scale particularity to a generalizable pattern that is understood to give it strength from scaling up to higher levels where the stakes are higher. This leads to the argument that the reproduction of a specific fractal logic called “the nation in danger” works as an exclusionary reasoning that reinforces the political subjectivity of Danish neonationalism. In addition, the argument opens up for a refiguring of the public–private in both psychological and political anthropology.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-72341-9_4.

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323947565_Refiguring_the_Public_Political_and_Personal_in_Current_Danish_Exclusionary_Reasoning.

Hervik, Peter. ‘Ritualized Opposition in Danish Online Practices of Extremist Language and Thought’. (2019) [PDF]

Hervik, Peter. ‘Ritualized Opposition in Danish Online Practices of Extremist Language and Thought’. International Journal of Communication, no. 13, 2019, pp. 3104–3121. Zotero,

This article looks at extreme speech practices in Danish weblogs and Facebook comment threads that treat issues of refugees, migration, Islam, and opponents as a cultural war of values and conflict. The article highlights the ritualized ways in which anti-immigrant sentiments are being communicated, received, and responded to. Such recurrent ritualistic communicative patterns include the use of a distinct indignant tone, sarcasm, racialized reasoning, and the use of “high-fives,” as well as a general indifference to facts. The article argues that these online speech patterns can best be understood as a form of “ritualized opposition” that relies on extremist, divisive use of language and a naturalization of racialized difference in its attempt to recruit and consolidate communities of support.

PDF: https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/download/9106/2713.

Hervik, Peter. ‘Ten Years after the Danish Muhammad Cartoon News Stories: Terror and Radicalization as Predictable Media Events’. (2018) [PDF]

Hervik, Peter. ‘Ten Years after the Danish Muhammad Cartoon News Stories: Terror and Radicalization as Predictable Media Events’. Television & New Media, vol. 19, no. 2, Feb. 2018, pp. 146–154. SAGE Journals,

In the tenth year after Danish daily Jyllands-Posten published twelve cartoons, the Muhammad Cartoons, this media event—and the hegemonic understanding behind it—continues to be a discursive reference point for new controversies around national borders and racial boundaries. Then, since late 2010, radicalization as a “pre-terrorist” phase has become the lens through which the category “Muslims” has been represented in much media coverage. In this article, I argue that the dominant hegemonic understanding in Denmark that is based on a certain spatial–racial logic is not a passive production of knowledge. It keeps informing news coverage of media events as terror and thereby risking describing the hegemony more than adequately understanding the events at hand.

doi:10.1177/1527476417707582.

PDF: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1527476417707582.

Hervik, Peter. The Annoying Difference: The Emergence of Danish Neonationalism, Neoracism, and Populism in the Post-1989 World. (2011)

Hervik, Peter. The Annoying Difference: The Emergence of Danish Neonationalism, Neoracism, and Populism in the Post-1989 World. New York, NY: Berghahn Books, 2011.

The Muhammad cartoon crisis of 2005−2006 in Denmark caught the world by surprise as the growing hostilities toward Muslims had not been widely noticed. Through the methodologies of media anthropology, cultural studies, and communication studies, this book brings together more than thirteen years of research on three significant historical media events in order to show the drastic changes and emerging fissures in Danish society and to expose the politicization of Danish news journalism, which has consequences for the political representation and everyday lives of ethnic minorities in Denmark.

https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/hervikannoying

Hervik, Peter. The Danish Muhammad Cartoon Conflict. (2012) [PDF]

Hervik, Peter. The Danish Muhammad Cartoon Conflict. Malmö University, Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare (MIM), 2012.

The “Muhammad crisis,” the “Muhammad Cartoon Crisis,” or “The  Jyllands-Posten Crisis” are three different headings used for the global,  violent reactions that broke out in early 2006. The cartoon crisis was  triggered by the publication of 12 cartoons in the largest Danish daily  newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005 and  the Danish governments refusal to meet with 11 concerned ambassadors.  However, Jyllands-Posten’s record on covering Islam; the  ever growing restrictive identity politics and migration policies and  the popular association of Islam with terrorism made it predictable  that something drastic would eventually happen, although neither the  form of the counter-reaction or the stubborn anti-Islamic forces were  unknown. This collection of chapters seeks to fill out some of the most  glaring holes in the media coverage and academic treatment of the  Muhammad cartoon story. It will do so by situating the conflict more  firmly in its proper socio-historical context by drawing on the author’s  basic research on the Danish news media’s coverage of ethnic and  religious minorities since the mid 1990s. The author uses thick contextualization  to analyze this very current theme in IMER studies, which  has consequences for most immigrants of non-Western countries to the  Nordic countries.

PDF: http://muep.mau.se/handle/2043/14094

Hjarvard, Stig, and Mattias Pape Rosenfeldt. ‘Giving Satirical Voice to Religious Conflict’. (2017) [PDF]

Hjarvard, Stig, and Mattias Pape Rosenfeldt. ‘Giving Satirical Voice to Religious Conflict’. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society, vol. 30, no. 02, Nov. 2017, pp. 136–152.

his study concerns the Danish public service broadcaster DR’s television satire and comedy show Det slører stadig Still Veiled and its influence on public discussions and controversies concerning religion. Whereas news media’s coverage of Islam is often criticized for having a negative bias and thereby serving to escalate conflict, the cultural programming of public service broadcasters may provide different representations and enable more diverse discussions. In this study we consider how and to what extent Still Veiled gave rise to discussion and controversy concerning religion in both the general public sphere and in smaller cultural publics constituted through various social network media. The analysis shows that several, very different framings of religion appear in these debates. These debates furthermore involve a significant proportion of minority voices. The analysis suggests that a cultural public sphere may work as a corrective to the political public sphere dominated by news media.

doi:10.18261/issn.1890-7008-2017-02-03.

https://www.idunn.no/nordic_journal_of_religion_and_society/2017/02/giving_satirical_voice_to_religious_conflict.

Hussain, Mustafa. ‘Islam, Media and Minorities in Denmark’. (2000) [PDF]

Hussain, Mustafa. ‘Islam, Media and Minorities in Denmark’. Current Sociology, vol. 48, no. 4, SAGE Publications Ltd, Oct. 2000, pp. 95–116.

This article examines the contribution of Denmark’s news media to the formation of intolerant opinions about ethnic minorities. Based on an empirical investigation using discourse analysis and a narrative approach to the contents of the daily news flow on ethnic affairs in the dominant news media, the article argues that the media have played an important role in the (re)production of a prejudiced discourse on ethnic minorities. In this discursive process, Muslim minorities have been the primary victims. In the absence of social interaction between the majority population and minority groups, the cognitive frame of reference through which members of the ethnic majority premise their arguments is largely based on mental models of ethnic events that are constituted by media-mediated themes and topics on minority issues in the daily news flow of the national media.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0011392100048004008

PDF: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0011392100048004008

Jensen, Tina Gudrun, Kristina Weibel, and Kathrine Vitus. ‘“There Is No Racism Here”: Public Discourses on Racism, Immigrants and Integration in Denmark’. (2017)

Jensen, Tina Gudrun, Kristina Weibel, and Kathrine Vitus. ‘“There Is No Racism Here”: Public Discourses on Racism, Immigrants and Integration in Denmark’. Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 51, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. 51–68.

Jensen, Weibel and Vitus’s article critically discusses contemporary Danish policies aimed at the elimination of ethnoracial discrimination, drawing on policy analyses and qualitative interviews with local and national authorities in Denmark. It illustrates how questions of discrimination and racism are marginalized and de-legitimized within the dominant integration discourse, resulting in the marginalization of anti-racism in policymaking. The side-stepping of racism is being naturalized in public policies through strategies of denial and by addressing discrimination as a product of ignorance and individual prejudice rather than as embedded in social structures. The authors examine how immigration, integration and (anti-)racism as concepts and phenomena are understood and addressed in Danish public policies and discourses. Despite denials of racism in Denmark, Jensen, Weibel and Vitus show that, based on re-definitions of identities and relations, it continues to exist and is evident in public debates and policies on immigration and integration.

doi:10.1080/0031322X.2016.1270844.

https://doi.org/10.1080/0031322X.2016.1270844.

Agius, Christine. ‘Drawing the Discourses of Ontological Security: Immigration and Identity in the Danish and Swedish Cartoon Crises’. (2017)

Agius, Christine. ‘Drawing the Discourses of Ontological Security: Immigration and Identity in the Danish and Swedish Cartoon Crises’. Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 52, no. 1, SAGE Publications Ltd, Mar. 2017, pp. 109–125.

The controversy of the Danish cartoon crisis in 2006 overshadowed a similar one that took place in Sweden a year later. The crises have broadly been framed as a clash of values but both cases reveal differences worthy of investigation, namely for the complex tensions and convergences between the two states on questions of immigration, Nordic solidarity and national identity. This article aims to explore the intersubjective discourses of identity that were threaded through the debates on the cartoon crises, looking to the overlapping discourses that have constructed ideas of identity in terms of ontological security, or security of the self. It argues that both cartoon crises represent a complex discursive performance of identity that speaks to a broader set of ontological security concerns which intersect at the international, regional and national levels. Even in their differences, Swedish and Danish discourses show the tensions associated with the desire for a stable and consistent idea of self when contrasted with the Muslim ‘other’, explored in the context of discourses of modernity and tolerance, which operate as key sites that work to reiterate, reclaim and reinstate the idea of the progressive state.

doi:10.1177/0010836716653157.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836716653157.

Freiesleben, Anna Mikaela von. ‘Et Danmark af parallelsamfund: segregering, ghettoisering og social sammenhængskraft : parallelsamfundet i dansk diskurs 1968-2013 – fra utopi til dystopi’ (2015) [PDF]

Freiesleben, Anna Mikaela von. Et Danmark af parallelsamfund: segregering, ghettoisering og social sammenhængskraft : parallelsamfundet i dansk diskurs 1968-2013 – fra utopi til dystopi : Ph.d.-afhandling. Diss. Det Humanistiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet, 2015.

The parallel societyin Danish discourse is a concept often taken for granted without further scrutiny. The dominant discourse often portrays the parallel society as a result of ethnic minority segregation, especially Muslim, and thus, as both a hindrance to integration and as a threat to the social cohesion of the classic nation state. This discourse, however,is relatively new; in fact it only enteredDanish debate in the late 1990s. But what is the concept of parallel societies? How is the concept constructed in current Danish discourse? And what is the discursively connection between parallel societies, ethnic minority segregation, ghettoisation and social cohesion? These aresome ofthe questions this dissertation set out to answer.

By combining conceptual historyanddiscourse analysis, the dissertation analyses the concept of the parallel society in Danish discourse in the period from 1968-2013. The analysisreveals that the concept in a Danish context was most likely introducedin 1968 as a political strategy, and offered as another term for the left wing ideals of ‘alternative societies’. Yet, the concept was not very prevalent in Danish discourse until 1998 when the Danish member of the European Parliament, Mogens Camre,re-introduced it. This time, however, the term was used to characterize segregated Muslim communities, which Camre perceived as a threat to the social cohesion of the Danish nation state. This particular understanding of the concept of parallel society bear resemblance withthe German notionof Parallelgesellschaft. Developed during the 1990s, it quicklybecame a political catch phrase in discourses general skeptical towardsimmigration and integrationin Germany. In Denmark, the termwas re-cycled in much the same fashion; as an argument against immigration and multicultural policies, and as a ‘proof’ that integration had failed. In theperiod since the late 1960s,I have identifiedthree main discourses within a Danish usage of the term which I label: the Utopian Discourse, the Descriptive Discourse, and the Dystopian Discourse. I proceed to name the Dystopian Discourse as the dominant discourse in Denmark today. I characterize thisas a discourse about the cultural and/or religious ‘other’,who is perceived to have withdrawn into self-segregated ghettos, thus forming parallel societies which are seen as a hindranceto their integration and thus threatenssocial cohesion.

In order to examine the dominant discourse further, and discuss the link between (self-)segregation, ghettoisation and social cohesion, the dissertation also analyses the concept of the “ghetto”as it developed from Medieval Venice as a denotation of forced Jewish segregation, to poor black neighbourhoods in the United States. The concept of the ghetto then travelled back to Europe,where it became a denotation for socially deprived immigrant neighbourhoods. Ialsoexamine current research within ethnic minority segregationto discuss the link between segregation and (lack of) integration. In order to examine how the discursive linkbetween parallel societies, ethnic minority segregation and social cohesion is created, I further examinepolitical debates from the Danish parliament, Folketinget,andpublic debates, especially focusing on three recent events: The political debate aboutthe so called “Ghetto criteria”,and the public and political debates that followed the so called “Vollsmose-case” and the “Christmas Tree-case” from 2012. Thethreecases position Muslim residents of Danish neighbourhoods as a deviant ‘other’ who has withdrawn into closed parallel societies. Furthermore, the actionsof the ‘Muslim’ residents(storming a local emergency room and voting ‘no’ to a Christmas Tree) is viewed asa result of their neighbourhood, thus marking the neighbourhooda‘spoiled space’. With this dissertation I hope to cast new light upon a concept many considers as a truism, andopen the field for other discourses, interpretations, and discussions.

DANSK:

Parallelsamfundet bliver ofte taget for givet i dansk diskurs som en betegnelse for segregerede indvandrersamfund (fortrinsvis muslimske) med ’andre’ normer og værdieroguden kontakt til det omgivende majoritetssamfund. Parallelsamfundet opfattes derfor ofte som en hindring for integration og som en trussel mod sammenhængskraften. Dette er dog en relativt ny måde, at anvende begrebet på. Først fra slutningen af 1990’erne er begrebet parallelsamfund blevet anvendt i denne betydning i en dansk sammenhæng, og først i løbet af 00’erne slog denne diskurs for alvor igennem.

Denne afhandling sætter fokus på begrebet parallelsamfund, der indtil nu har været et ubeskrevet blad i en dansk forskningssammenhæng. Med udgangspunkt i begrebshistorie og diskursanalyse spørger denne afhandling blandt andet: På hvilken måde begrebet parallelsamfund er blevet konstrueret diskursivt i den danske politiske og offentlige debat i perioden 1968-2013, herunder, hvornår er det opstået og,hvorledes hardettransformeret sig? Hvilken diskurs om parallelsamfund er dominerende i dag? Hvordanoghvornår erden gledet ind i sproget som en selvfølgelighed? Og sidst men ikke mindst, hvordan hænger parallelsamfund i denne dominerende diskurs sammen med forståelser af etniske minoriteters boligmæssige segregering, ghettoisering og social sammenhængskraft?

Analysen anskueliggør, at begrebet i en dansk kontekst blev introducereti 1968 som en politisk strategi, der skulle bruges som et alternativt begreb til venstrefløjens ’alternative samfund’. Det var dogsandsynligvisikke særligt fremtrædende i dansk diskurs indtil slutningen af 1990’erne, hvor Mogens Camre, dengang medlem af Europaparlamentet for Socialdemokraterne, genintroducerede begrebet som en betegnelse for segregerede indvandrersamfund, som han så som udgørende en trussel mod den danske nationalstat. Denne særlige forståelse af parallelsamfundet har meget tilfælles med det tyske begreb Parallelgesellschaft, der blev udviklet i midten af 1990’erne. Det var hurtigt blevet et politisk slagord i indvandrerkritiske debatter i Tyskland. I Danmark bruges begrebet i dag på stort set samme måde: som et argument mod indvandring og multikulturalisme, og som et ’bevis’ for, at integrationen har fejlet. Begrebet har derfor i en dansk kontekst transformeret sig fra et (i teorien) værdifrit sociologisk begreb til en normativog politiseret term. Jeg identificerer tre diskurser, der er blevet aktiverede i perioden 1968-2013, som jeg benævner: den utopiske diskurs,den deskriptivediskursog den dystopiske diskurs, og jeg udpegerden dystopiske diskurs somden dominerende diskurs i dag. Det er denne diskurs, der oftestaktiveres i debatter om indvandring og integration, som et billede på selvsegregering, ghettoisering og mangel på sammenhængskraft.

For at kunne studere denne diskursive konstruktion yderligere, undersøger afhandlingen dernæst: (1) ghettobegrebet sådan som det har udviklet sig siden middelalderens Venedig, over USA og til aktuelle danske og udenlandske debatter om ghettoisering. (2) Den aktuelle forskning inden for boligmæssig segregering, og (3) politiske og offentlige diskurser om ghettoisering og parallelsamfund. Disse diskurser tager afsæt i tre aktuelle sager: (a) den politiske debat om ghettokriterierne, med særligt fokus på det såkaldte ’etnicitetskriterium’. Samtde politiske og offentlige debatter om (b) Vollsmosesagenog (c) Juletræssagen, beggefra 2012. Disse debatter konstruerer bl.a. det multietniske boligområde som et ’spoiled space’, og ser beboernes handlinger (”parallelsamfund”, angreb på en skadestue og afvisningen af et juletræ) som et resultat afderes boligområde (ghettoen).

PDF: https://curis.ku.dk/ws/files/160573902/Ph.d._2016_Freiesleben.pdf. https://curis.ku.dk/ws/files/160573902/Ph.d._2016_Freiesleben.pdf.

Jensen, Kristian Kriegbaum. ‘What Can and Cannot Be Willed: How Politicians Talk about National Identity and Immigrants: What Can and Cannot Be Willed’. (2014) [PDF]

Jensen, Kristian Kriegbaum. ‘What Can and Cannot Be Willed: How Politicians Talk about National Identity and Immigrants: What Can and Cannot Be Willed’. Nations and Nationalism, vol. 20, no. 3, July 2014, pp. 563–583.

The ethnic‐civic framework remains widely used in nationalism research. However, in the context of European immigrant integration politics, where almost all ‘nation talk’ is occurring in civic and liberal registers, the framework has a hard time identifying how conceptions of national identity brought forth in political debate differ in their exclusionary potential. This leads some to the conclusion that national identity is losing explanatory power. Building on the insights of Oliver Zimmer, I argue that we may find a different picture if we treat cultural content and logic of boundary construction – two parameters conflated in the ethnic‐civic framework – as two distinct analytical levels. The framework I propose focuses on an individual and collective dimension of logic of boundary construction that together constitute the inclusionary/exclusionary core of national identity. The framework is tested on the political debate on immigrant integration in Denmark and Norway in selected years. Indeed, the framework enables us to move beyond the widespread idea that Danish politicians subscribe to an ethnic conception of the nation, while Norwegian political thought is somewhere in between an ethnic and civic conception. The true difference is that Danish politicians, unlike their Norwegian counterparts, do not acknowledge the collective self‐understanding as an object of political action.

doi:10.1111/nana.12069.

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264773027_What_can_and_cannot_be_willed_How_politicians_talk_about_national_identity_and_immigrants.

Lindekilde, Lasse. ‘The Mainstreaming of Far-Right Discourse in Denmark’. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies’ (2014)

Lindekilde, Lasse. ‘The Mainstreaming of Far-Right Discourse in Denmark’. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, vol. 12, no. 4, Routledge, Oct. 2014, pp. 363–382.

Building on two recent case studies of public debates concerning political meetings arranged by or involving controversial Muslim actors in Denmark, this article argues that an observed mainstreaming of intolerant discourses, most forcefully expressed by the Danish People’s Party, can be explained by the proliferation of a new form of “liberal intolerance” that has transformed old racist or nationalist intolerance into a discourse stressing liberal reasons (autonomy, gender equality, social cohesion, public-private divide, security risks) for not tolerating particular Muslim practices. By comparing the two cases, the different toleration/intoleration positions and arguments in the two debates are brought out, and four different modalities of “liberal intolerance” are identified. Further, the article shows how the spread of liberal intolerance discourses across the political spectrum in Denmark has significantly affected Danish (liberal) Muslim actors’ possibilities of political participation and room for maneuvering.

doi:10.1080/15562948.2014.894171.

Simonsen, Kristina Bakkær. ‘Ghetto–Society–Problem: A Discourse Analysis of Nationalist Othering’. (2016)

Simonsen, Kristina Bakkær. ‘Ghetto–Society–Problem: A Discourse Analysis of Nationalist Othering’. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, vol. 16, no. 1, 2016, pp. 83–99.

This article examines the role of the ghetto in Danish political discourse. While ghetto studies have previously been conducted within the field of urban sociology, the article departs from this tradition in offering a discourse analytical perspective on the former Danish government’s strategy against ghettoization (The Ghetto Plan). Integrating perspectives from the literature on nationalism with Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse analytical framework, the analysis argues that the ghetto marks an antagonistic anti-identity to Danish society. This discursive construction of the ghetto against society has the effect of confirming Danish identity, while at the same time precluding possibilities of the ghetto’s integration in society. Highlighting these implications, the study feeds into societal debates on integration, and suggests a framework for studying nationalist othering in a discourse analytical perspective.

doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/sena.12173.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/sena.12173.

Jørgensen, Martin Bak, and Trine Lund Thomsen. ‘“Needed but Undeserving”: Contestations of Entitlement in the Danish Policy Framework on Migration and Integration’. (2018)

Jørgensen, Martin Bak, and Trine Lund Thomsen. ‘“Needed but Undeserving”: Contestations of Entitlement in the Danish Policy Framework on Migration and Integration’. Diversity and Contestations over Nationalism in Europe and Canada, Eds. John Erik Fossum, Riva Kastoryano, and Birte Siim, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2018, 337–364.

This chapter investigates how entitlement is being narratively framed through contestations and negotiations in the policy regimes on labour migration. The chapter focuses particularly on the case of Denmark. It has been argued that the Nordic welfare states can be characterised as expressions of a universal welfare state; however, when it comes to the Nordic immigration regimes, there is less similarity. Contrary to studies emphasising the role of right-wing populist parties, our claim is that we find a decreasing level of contestation among the political parties and increasing support of welfare chauvinism. Furthermore, the chapter argues that we have seen an increased culturalisation becoming the basis for entitlement and access and thus creating new stratifications of exclusion and inclusion.

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-58987-3_13.

https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58987-3_13.

Jørholt, Eva. ‘En Fremmed Kommer Til Byen: MGP Missionens Bud På Inter-Etnisk Nytænkning i Dansk Film’. (2013) [PDF]

Jørholt, Eva. ‘En Fremmed Kommer Til Byen: MGP Missionens Bud På Inter-Etnisk Nytænkning i Dansk Film’. Kosmorama, no. 251, 2013,

Det trak store overskrifter og pustede nyt liv i racismedebatten, da det kom frem, at Det Danske Filminstitut i oktober 2011 havde givet afslag på en ansøgning om produktionsstøtte til børnefilmen MGP Missionen. Filmen udmærker sig ved at være den første decideret kommercielt anlagte danske film med etniske minoriteter i bærende roller. Men derudover bidrager filmen til en dekonstruktion af den forskelstænkning, som er så altdominerende i den offentlige debat om indvandrere her til lands.

Fuld tekst: https://www.kosmorama.org/kosmorama/artikler/en-fremmed-kommer-til-byen-mgp-missionens-bud-pa-inter-etnisk-nytaenkning-i.

Jul Jacobsen, Sara, Tina Gudrun Jensen, Kathrine Vitus, and Kristina Weibel. Analysis of Danish Media Setting and Framing of Muslims, Islam and Racism. (2013) [PDF]

Jul Jacobsen, Sara, Tina Gudrun Jensen, Kathrine Vitus, and Kristina Weibel. Analysis of Danish Media Setting and Framing of Muslims, Islam and Racism. København: The Danish National Centre for Social Research, 2013.

This paper presents the results of two case studies exploring the role which the Danish newspaper Media play in the reproduction of racial and ethnic inequalities. One case study analyses representations of Muslims and Islam in Danish newspapers, the other the presence and absence of discussions about racism and discrimination of ethnic minorities in Denmark. The analyses are based on, respectively, a two-month and a two-week monitoring of four Danish newspapers between mid-October and mid-December 2011. A relatively large share of the news stories dealing with Muslims and Islam was negatively framed and restricted to certain topics such as extremism, terror and sharia, whereas positive actions and critical topics like racism and discrimination against Muslims were more or less nonexistent in the Media coverage. Constructed through an antagonistic and hierarchical relationship between ‘Danes’ and ‘Muslims’, Muslim culture and Islam tended to be represented as a threat to Danish society and so-called Danish values. The reporting was rather one-sided and exclusive of minority voices, and when Muslims were given voice, the same few publicly visible and vocal actors appeared. At the same time, the lives and opinions of the less visible majority of Muslims more or less vanished in the Media coverage. In this way, the newspapers constructed a distorted and negative picture of Muslims and their religion, and thereby contributed to a general climate of intolerance and discrimination against Muslim minorities.

PDF: https://pure.vive.dk/ws/files/224036/WP_10_2013.pdf.

Keskinen, Suvi. ‘Limits to Speech? The Racialised Politics of Gendered Violence in Denmark and Finland’. (2012) [PDF]

Keskinen, Suvi. ‘Limits to Speech? The Racialised Politics of Gendered Violence in Denmark and Finland’. Journal of Intercultural Studies, vol. 33, no. 3, Routledge, June 2012, pp. 261–274.

The ‘crisis of multiculturalism’ discourse characterises the current political and media debates in many European countries. This paper analyses how liberal arguments, especially gender equality and freedom of speech, are used to promote nationalist and racialising political agendas in Denmark and Finland. It detects the powerful emergence of a nationalist rhetoric, based on the ‘politics of reversal’ and a re-articulation of liberal notions, in the Nordic countries, which have been known for their collectivist welfare state models and commitments to social equality. Through an analysis of case studies in both countries, the paper shows how debates about gendered violence in Muslim families turn into attempts to broaden the discursive space for racialising speech and to individualise racism.

doi:10.1080/07256868.2012.673470.

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263304082_Limits_to_Speech_The_Racialised_Politics_of_Gendered_Violence_in_Denmark_and_Finland

Kim-Larsen, Mette A. E. ‘Hvid mælk – om racialisering af mælk og laktoseintolerans i forbindelse med transnational adoption’. (2016) [PDF]

Kim-Larsen, Mette A. E. ‘Hvid mælk – om racialisering af mælk og laktoseintolerans i forbindelse med transnational adoption’. Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, no. 4, 4, 2016.

In Denmark, ‘lactose intolerance’ refers to a medical diagnosis and a condition where the person is unable to digest lactose, a sugar found in milk and dairy products. However, 75% of the world’s population is considered lactose intolerant which raises the question: under which circumstances is lactose intolerance considered a disease in Denmark? In order to answer this question, this article examines different subjectifying processes in relation to health, race,ethnicity, and the consumption of food, and the relation of all of these factors to milk. The analysis focuses on a publication by the Danish adoption organization Adoption og Samfund (Adoption and Society), a special issue on food. Influenced by the work of Butler (1990, 2004), Omi & Winant (1986) and Myong (2009), I find that milk comes to determine whiteness and Danishness in the publication. Consequently, lactose tolerance functions as a figure for the normalizedbody belonging to the white adopter, who is framed by firstness and situated in the Global North. At the same time, lactose intolerance functions as a figure for the deviant, weak, medicalized body belonging to the adoptee of colour who is framed by otherness and situated in the Global South. Hence, drinking milk (or not) positions the subject either as part of a privileged majority or an underprivileged minority.

doi:10.7146/kkf.v25i4.104396.

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/KKF/article/view/104396.

Lenneis, Verena, and Sine Agergaard. ‘Enacting and Resisting the Politics of Belonging through Leisure. The Debate about Gender-Segregated Swimming Sessions Targeting Muslim Women in Denmark’. (2018)

Lenneis, Verena, and Sine Agergaard. ‘Enacting and Resisting the Politics of Belonging through Leisure. The Debate about Gender-Segregated Swimming Sessions Targeting Muslim Women in Denmark’. Leisure Studies, vol. 37, no. 6, Routledge, Nov. 2018, pp. 706–720.

In 2016 women-only swimming sessions targeting Muslims made the headlines in the Danish media, precipitating great discussion about whether such sessions contributed to or impeded social integration. This article focuses on the debate in the city council of Aarhus concerning women-only swimming activities that had existed for 10 years and had been well attended. Yet, after a year of discussion, the city council voted for a municipality-wide ban on women-only swimming during public opening hours. The popularity and longevity of the sessions pose the question: Why and how has women-only swimming become a ‘problem’, in other words a leisure time physical activity that challenges current discourses on immigration and integration? The debate on women-only swimming is an interesting case to study as it testifies not only to an increasing focus on the civic integration of ethnic minorities, including their leisure practices, but also to strong resistance by the general public and the women affected. Drawing on a postcolonial feminist perspective, our analysis shows how perceptions of Danishness, gender equality and non-religious leisure become central arguments in the debate, pointing to various ways in which understandings of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion and nation intersect in the current restrictive politics of belonging.

doi:10.1080/02614367.2018.1497682.

https://vbn.aau.dk/da/publications/enacting-and-resisting-the-politics-of-belonging-through-leisure-.

Lenneis, Verena, and Sine Agergaard. ‘Tilhørsforhold og danskhed. Debatten om kønsopdelt svømning’. (2018) [PDF]

Lenneis, Verena, and Sine Agergaard. ‘Tilhørsforhold og danskhed. Debatten om kønsopdelt svømning’. Dansk Sociologi, vol. 29, no. 3, 3, 2018, pp. 45–63. rauli.cbs.dk,

I 2016 og 2017 skabte kvindesvømning – et tilbud, der tiltrækker mest, men ikke udelukkende etniske minoritetskvinder – intens debat i hele Danmark. Denne artikel fokuserer på den politiske debat i Aarhus Byråd, der førte til en beslutning om, at der i kommunens svømmehaller ikke må være kønsopdelt svømning i den offentlige åbningstid. Formålet med artiklen er at undersøge, hvordan en fritidsaktivitet som kvindesvømning blev til et problem i 2016, som krævede en langvarig debat og et politisk indgreb. Med udgangspunkt i Nira Yuval-Davis’ begreber om politisering af tilhørsforhold viser vores analyse, hvordan forestillinger om danskhed og dertilhørende danske værdier gøres til centrale argumenter i den politiske debat, som fører til politisk regulering af en velbesøgt sundhedsfremmende fritidsaktivitet. Debatten om kønsopdelt svømning understreger, at værdier såsom individuel valgfrihed eller religionsfrihed, som indtil for nyligt prægede den politiske praksis i nordiske velfærdsregimer, afløses af danskhed som den altoverskyggende værdiramme.   

The debate about gender-segregated swimming: belonging and Danishness  In 2016 and 2017, women-only swimming – an initiative that attracts mostly, but not exclusively minority ethnic women – caused considerable discussion across Denmark. This article focuses on the year-long political debate in the city council of Aarhus which subsequently led to a ban on women-only swimming activities during public opening hours in the municipality’s indoor swimming pools. The aim of this article was to examine why a leisure time activity such as women-only swimming became a ‘problem’ in 2016, and how it became subjected to political regulation. Drawing on Nira Yuval-Davis’ politics of belonging, our analysis shows how imaginations of ‘Danishness’ and, in particular, Danish values became central arguments in the political debate that led to the regulation of a well-attended and health-promoting leisure activity. The debate on gender-segregated swimming emphasizes that values such as freedom of choice or freedom of religion, which until recently have dominated the political practice in Nordic welfare regimes, are replaced by ‘Danishness’ as the paramount political concern.  Keywords: gender, ethnicity, religion, belonging, integration.

doi:10.22439/dansoc.v29i3.5804.

PDF: https://rauli.cbs.dk/index.php/dansksociologi/article/view/5804.