Tag: housing

Larsen, Troels Schultz. ‘Copenhagen’s West End a “Paradise Lost”: The Political Production of Territorial Stigmatization in Denmark’. (2014) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Larsen, Troels Schultz. ‘Copenhagen’s West End a “Paradise Lost”: The Political Production of Territorial Stigmatization in Denmark’. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, vol. 46, no. 6, SAGE Publications Ltd, June 2014, pp. 1386–1402.

Why have many of the prestige developments in Copenhagen’s West End built during the golden days of the welfare state morphed into neglected and stigmatized territories? This paper seeks to answer this question by deploying a field-analytical approach inspired by Bourdieu and Wacquant. The emergence of advanced marginality and the diffusion of spatial defamation in Copenhagen are products of the historical struggles over space occurring in the field of housing and the bureaucratic field. To grasp social transformations at ground level in neglected urban areas, we need to exit those areas and scrutinize the role of the state in the (re)production of territorial stigma. This paper shows how the processes of spatial concentration of dispossessed households and the defamation of their neighbourhoods are closely linked to the institutionalization of a dualized and asymmetrical housing market and a dualizing urban policy which have converged to privilege private ownership at the cost of nonprofit housing for the past fifty years.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.1068/a45640

Johansen, Mette Louise. In the Borderland – Palestinian Parents Navigating Danish Welfare State Interventions. (2013)

~ mortenstinus

Johansen, Mette Louise. In the Borderland – Palestinian Parents Navigating Danish Welfare State Interventions. Dissertation. Aarhus Universitet, 2013,

This PhD thesis offers an account on processes of marginalization at the interface between the Danish welfare state and migrant families of Palestinian descent living in the largest so-called migrant ghetto in Denmark, Gellerupparken. Empirically, the thesis asks how marginalized Palestinian refugee parents with troubled children perceive and cope with welfare state interventions in order to keep their family together. The thesis focuses on Palestinian refugee parents who are marginalized in the Danish state and society as well as in the Palestinian community and ‘ghetto’ population in Gellerupparken, and who may in this sense may be defined as ‘extra-marginalized’. A basic point of departure for the thesis is that the study of marginalized citizens in Denmark can shed light on general contemporary state-society relationships. A key analytical optic in interpreting marginalization rests on Veena Das and Deborah Poole’s (2004) notion of state-margins as presenting the wild and uncivilized counterpart and necessary opposition to the state. According to Das and Poole the state and the margin is continuously redefined in opposition to each other through the invocation of images of the proper citizen and society (Das and Poole 2004: 8). The thesis explores the constitutive mechanisms characterizing the nature of the relationship between the Danish welfare state and the marginalized Palestinian parents in Gellerupparken, and revolves around issues on parenting, intimate everyday lives, and proximate state control. The thesis is based on 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork among Palestinian families whose children are approached as troubles and a threat by the Danish authorities. The research was conducted in Gellerupparken in 2009 and 2010. The neighborhood is characterized by a heightened commerce and interaction between different ethnic groups, but it is also known as a public outrage on the basis of increasing crime-rates, violence, social problems, and socio-economically disadvantaged families living off the Danish labor market and in isolation from the larger civil society. Since 2005, the housing project has officially been a ‘ghetto’, fulfilling certain criteria and calling for thorough state intervention and marked by the presence of a vast number of welfare institutions, and policing and surveillance.  The thesis proposes three central arguments: First, I argue that the relationship between the state and the margin is fundamentally unstable. This is so because both the state and the margin appear as internally diverse and unstable with no clear social, cultural, or internal practice-based cohesion, and because the boundaries that demarcate their divide may be just as porous as they may be impermeable. The highly unstable relationship between state and margin is mirrored in the Palestinian parents’ ambiguous practices of searching for the state when it is not there to meet their needs, and simultaneously trying to escape the state when it is perceived to be ‘intruding’ into the family in ways that are not welcome.  Secondly, I argue that marginalization is enacted between state, family, and community, and we need to include the complexity of concerns at stake in this triangular interrelationship in order to understand how marginality is locally produced. Empirically, the thesis shows that the parents perceive their parental position as caught between the proverbial rock and the hard place – between the practices and expectations of the state, the community, and their own children. This position is imbued with insecurity, despair, and a continuous quest for possible ways to keep the family together.  Thirdly, I argue that ways of coping with the interrelationships between state, community, and family is constitutive of the parents’ subjectivity. The thesis shows that borderland formations between these different agencies form the basis for the parents’ imperative to keep the family together. This struggle implies keeping the closest family from being split up and preventing the physical distance, absence, or loss of a family member from the home in the face of ‘threats’ of imprisonment, removal of children, punitive expulsion of their sons from school, or eviction of the families from their homes. It also implies avoiding break-ups between family members, including between parents and children. Furthermore, to the parents keeping the family together entails keeping relatives from breaking down. In this context, the families are under pressure from impulses that they perceive to be threatening the family’s self-preservation, such as severe illness, depression and despair.

https://pure.au.dk/portal/da/projects/phd-project-in-the-borderland–palestinian-parents-navigating-danish-welfare-state-interventions(1b244739-d48d-442b-99be-3ef35460ed33).html. https://pure.au.dk/portal/da/projects/phd-project-in-the-borderland–palestinian-parents-navigating-danish-welfare-state-interventions(1b244739-d48d-442b-99be-3ef35460ed33).html.

Jepsen, Marie Blomgren, and Rikke Skovgaard Nielsen. Ufrivillig Fraflytning Fra Udsatte Boligområder. (2018) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Jepsen, Marie Blomgren, and Rikke Skovgaard Nielsen. Ufrivillig Fraflytning Fra Udsatte Boligområder. Statens Byggeforskningsinstitut, 2018,

Den danske debat om udsatte boligbebyggelser har fyldt meget i offentligheden; tidligere i år lancerede regeringen en storstilet indsats for en gang for alle at afskaffe de socialt belastede boligbebyggelser: ”Ét Danmark uden parallelsamfund. Ingen ghettoer i 2030.” Blandt midlerne hertil er nedrivninger og bortsalg af almene familieboliger samt ufrivillige flytninger af beboere i de berørte bebyggelser.  Boligselskabernes Landsorganisation (BL) bad derfor i august SBi om at tilvejebringe en summarisk oversigt over den tilgængelige viden på feltet. Arbejdet blev igangsat september og afsluttet med månedens udgang. Der er derfor tale om en første afdækning af viden på feltet, der på ingen måde kan siges at være dækkende. Den korte tidsfrist for materialeindsamling og rapportskrivning har betydet, at rapporten dels er baseret på forfatternes egen viden samt gode råd og tips fra kolleger i ind- og udland. Rapporten er udarbejdet af videnskabelig assistent Marie Blomgren Jepsen og seniorforsker Rikke Skovgaard Nielsen.

PDF: https://sbi.dk/Pages/Ufrivillig-fraflytning-fra-udsatte-boligomraader.aspx.

Jensen, Tina Gudrun. Sameksistens: hverdagsliv og naboskab i et multietnisk boligområde. (2016)

~ mortenstinus

Jensen, Tina Gudrun. Sameksistens: hverdagsliv og naboskab i et multietnisk boligområde. 2016.

I den offentlige debat om indvandring og integration tales der ofte om ghettodannelse og parallelsamfund , og der skelnes tydeligt mellem os og dem . Her fremstilles etniske grupper som segregerede enklaver i samfundet, men virkeligheden er langt mere nuanceret. Mange af de boligområder, der hentydes til, er nemlig multietniske boligområder, og her bor bl.a. mange etniske danskere.  I både den offentlige debat og i forskningen om indvandring og integration i urbane rum i Danmark overser man ofte den interaktion, der foregår mellem mennesker med forskellige etniske baggrunde. Denne bog handler netop om interetniske relationer i sociale boligområder.  Hermed udfylder bogen et hul i dansk forskning om indvandring og integration og lægger sig op ad den fremvoksende internationale antropologiske, sociologiske og humangeografiske litteratur om udfoldelsen af interetniske relationer i hverdagsliv.  Bogen er baseret på et etnografisk feltarbejde i Grønnevang i form af deltagerobservation og interview med beboere og andre personer i området. Grønnevang er et større multietnisk socialt boligområde i København, som er beboet af omkring 50 procent etniske danskere og 50 procent etniske minoriteter. Gennem autentiske historier beskriver bogen de personer, der lever i boligområdet, og deres indbyrdes relationer.  Bogens omdrejningspunkter er naboskabets forskelligartede relationer og hverdagspraksisser samt magtforholdet mellem beboere, som udgør etnisk minoritet og majoritet.

https://samfundslitteratur.dk/bog/sameksistens.

Jensen, Tina Gudrun. Naboskab i multietniske boligområder. (2016) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Jensen, Tina Gudrun. Naboskab i multietniske boligområder. København: Boligsocialnet, 2016.

Denne bog stiller skarpt på naboskab blandt beboere med forskellige etniske baggrunde, som lever i et såkaldt ’multietnisk boligområde’. ’Multietnisk’ er en betegnelse, som anvendes om boligområder, hvor andelen af beboere med etnisk minoritetsbaggrund overstiger 40 %.  Bogen henvender sig først og fremmest til forskellige praktikere på området, som for eksempel er beskæftiget inden for det boligsociale område, byplanlægning, arkitektur samt aktører på lokale og nationale politikområder.  Bogen er et resultat af et forskningsprojekt, der omhandler interetniske naboskabsrelationer. Projektet er en del af en forskningsalliance om ”social sammenhængskraft og etnisk diversitet”, som blev gennemført i 2010-2015.  Bogen beskæftiger sig med de sociale hverdagspraksisser, som beboere i multietniske boligområder deler, blandt andet som naboerne. Fokus ligger i den forbindelse især på sted, rum, hverdagsliv og sociale relationer. Hermed bidrager bogen med ny empirisk såvel som teoretisk viden om, hvad det indebærer at leve sammen i et multietnisk boligområde. Emnet fremhæves indledningsvist som et overset emne i nyere forskning og i den offentlige debat om indvandring og integration i byrum i Danmark.  Et af bogens hovedargumenter er, at livet i et multietnisk boligområde indebærer mindre drama end mange fremstillinger ofte peger på.  Bogen peger i stedet på, at denne slags boligområder omfatter en indre styrke og robusthed, fordi der er mange forskellige former for dagligdagskontakt mellem beboerne, hvor det at ’dele steder’ kan medvirke til at fremme relationer.

PDF: https://viden.sl.dk/media/8933/naboskab-i-multietniske-boligomraader.pdf

Bech-Danielsen, Claus, and Gunvor Christensen. Boligområder i bevægelse: Fortællinger om fysiske og boligsociale indsatser i anledning af Landsbyggefondens 50 års jubilæum. (2017) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Bech-Danielsen, Claus, and Gunvor Christensen. Boligområder i bevægelse: Fortællinger om fysiske og boligsociale indsatser i anledning af Landsbyggefondens 50 års jubilæum. Landsbyggefonden, 2017,

Landsbyggefonden fylder 50 år den 6. april 2017, og det har vi valgt at fejre med udgivelsen af denne bog, der sætter fokus på fondens aktiviteter indenfor renoveringer og boligsociale indsatser. Fonden varetager  også  mange  andre  opgaver.  Den har  til  opgave  at  administrere kommunernes grundkapitallån, opkræve bidrag på de udamortiserede lån,  sikre  de  elektroniske  indberetninger  af  sektorens  mange  regnskaber,  foretage  regnskabsanalyser,  udvikle  benchmarkværktøjer,  udarbejde  styringsrap-porter til styringsdialogerne i kommunerne, sikre løbende huslejeindberetninger, så staten hver måned kan beregne boligydelse og boligsikring, udarbejde statistikker og meget mere. Alt dette kan ses på Landsbyggefondens hjemmeside. Alle disse opgaver er uhyre vigtige, og når vi i denne bog har valgt at fokusere på  renoveringer  og  boligsocialt  arbejde,  så  er  det,  fordi  disse  aktiviteter  har  en  direkte betydning for de enkelte beboeres hverdag, for byernes udvikling og for velfærdssamfundets  funktion. Der er almene boliger – familieboliger, ældreboliger og ungdomsboliger – over hele landet,  og  Landsbyggefondens  støtte  til  renoveringer  er  også  fordelt  over  hele landet. Alt fra afhjælpning af skimmelproblemer i ældre boliger, omdannelse af store montagebyggerier fra tresserne og til at omdanne treetagers blokke til rækkehuse i yderkommuner, hvor affolkning har reduceret behovet for boliger. Landbyggefonden sikrer også boligsociale indsatser i udsatte områder som fx. lektiecafeer,  fritidsjob  til  de  unge  mennesker  m.v.  Det  drejer  sig  om  mange  hundrede aktiviteter i mere end hundrede boligområder. Når  man  skal  skrive  en  bog  om  et  så  stort  område,  så  er  man  nødt  til  at  prioritere og belyse generelle udviklingstræk med konkrete eksempler, som kan give  et  dækkende  billede.  Det  kræver  indsigt  og  overblik  over  emnet,  og  derfor  har Landsbyggefonden bedt to af de mest indsigtsfulde forskere på feltet om at skrive jubilæumsbogen for fonden, nemlig Gunvor Christensen, der er sociolog, og  Claus  Bech-Danielsen,  der  er  arkitekt  og  professor  ved  Statens  Byggeforskningsinstitut, Aalborg Universitet.

PDF: https://lbf.dk/om-lbf/publikationer/2017-boligomraader-i-bevaegelse/.

Andersen, John, and John Pløger. ‘The Dualism of Urban Governance in Denmark’. (2007)

~ mortenstinus

Andersen, John, and John Pløger. ‘The Dualism of Urban Governance in Denmark’. European Planning Studies, vol. 15, no. 10, Routledge, Nov. 2007, pp. 1349–1367.

The article argues that the present Danish urban policy and urban democracy can be characterized by a striking duality and tension between: (1) Participatory empowering welfare oriented community strategies, which targets deprived districts and neighbourhoods, which are based on notions of the inclusive city. This trend is founded on priorities of radical democracy, social justice, inclusion and citizens empowerment; (2) Neo-elitist/corporative market driven strategic regional and global growth strategies, which are based on notions of the Entrepreneurial Globalized City and where urban policy becomes a question of facilitation of the “growth machine” and neo-liberalized urban authoritarianism. The article discusses dilemmas for overcoming the growing tension between elitist neo-corporate growth regimes, which are in operation via “Quangoes” and closed elite networks, and community empowerment and welfare oriented policy in the age of globalization. Taking the stand of community empowerment and welfare policy, the article conclusively discusses ways to shape a new inclusive politics of difference including using “positive selectivism” as part of an empowerment strategy.

https://doi.org/10.1080/09654310701550827.

Bissenbakker, Mons, and Michael Nebeling. ‘En følelsernes grammatik og politik’. (2020)

~ mortenstinus

Bissenbakker, Mons, and Michael Nebeling. ‘En følelsernes grammatik og politik’. i Et ulydigt arkiv: Udvalgte tekster af Sara Ahmed, Eds. Daniel Nikolaj Madsen, Eva Obelitz Rode, Lea Hee Ja Kramhøft, and Mette A. E. Kim-Larsen, Forlaget Nemo, 2020, 11–22.

Et ulydigt arkiv er syv af Sara Ahmeds artikler fra de sidste 20 år samlet og for første gang udgivet på dansk. Teksterne arbejder med figurer som ’den feministiske glædesdræber’, ’den melankolske immigrant’, ’det egenrådige barn’ og ’den fremmede’ indenfor emner som racisme, feminisme, klagen, m.m. Samlingens tekster skifter kontinuerligt mellem det teoretiske og det hverdagslige; mellem filosofi og popkultur; mellem det strukturelle og personlige erfaringer. 

Et ulydigt arkiv indeholder derudover et helt nyt forord dedikeret til denne udgave samt et introducerende forord af lektor Mons Bissenbakker og lektor Michael Nebeling, som viser Ahmeds tænknings relevans i dansk kontekst.

https://portal.findresearcher.sdu.dk/da/publications/en-f%C3%B8lelsernes-grammatik-og-politik.

https://www.forlagetnemo.dk/butik/ulydigtarkiv

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

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Simonsen, Kristina Bakkær. ‘Ghetto-Society-Problem: A Discourse Analysis of Nationalist Othering: Ghetto-Society-Problem’. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, vol. 16, no. 1, Apr. 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:10.1111/sena.12173.

PDF: https://pure.au.dk/portal/files/124980286/Ghetto_Society_Problem_Accepted_manuscript_2016.pdf .

Herby, Jonas, and Ulrik Haagen Nielsen. Omfanget Af Forskelsbehandling Af Nydanskere: Et Felteksperiment På Lejeboligmarkedet. (2015) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Herby, Jonas, and Ulrik Haagen Nielsen. Omfanget Af Forskelsbehandling Af Nydanskere: Et Felteksperiment På Lejeboligmarkedet. Holte: Ankestyrelsen, 3 Nov. 2015,

Boligsøgende med mellemøstligt klingende navne skal i snit søge om 27 % flere boliger end boligsøgende med et danskklingende navn for at have ligeså gode chancer for at få tilbudt en lejebolig eller en fremvisning. Det vil sige, at når en boligsøgende med et danskklingende navn har sendt 4 ansøgninger, skal en boligsøgende med et mellemøstligt klingende navn søge om 5 boliger for at have lige så gode muligheder for at se eller få den tilbudt.

PDF: https://ast.dk/filer/ankestyrelsen-generelt/antidiskriminationsenheden/rapport-om-etnisk-diskrimination-pa-boligmarkedet.pdf.

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]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

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.

Seemann, Anika. ‘The Danish “Ghetto Initiatives” and the Changing Nature of Social Citizenship, 2004–2018’. (2020) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Seemann, Anika. ‘The Danish “Ghetto Initiatives” and the Changing Nature of Social Citizenship, 2004–2018’. Critical Social Policy, SAGE Publications Ltd, Dec. 2020,

This article critically examines the Danish ‘ghetto initiatives’ of 2004, 2010, 2013 and 2018, with a particular focus on their implications for ‘social citizenship’. Its approach is twofold: firstly, it explores how each of the four major ghetto initiatives constructed ghettos and their residents as a problem for the welfare state, and what policy measures were proposed to address the problems identified. Secondly, it examines the legislative changes that resulted from each of the ghetto initiatives and assesses their implications for social citizenship. In doing so, it relates its findings to the different developmental stages of social citizenship in Danish welfare state history. The article argues that the ghetto initiatives have led to an unprecedented spatialization and ethnicization of social citizenship which mark a radical departure from the guiding principles of post-1945 Danish welfare thought and practice.

doi:10.1177/0261018320978504.

PDF: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0261018320978504

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

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

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.

Lapina, Linda. ‘“Cultivating Integration”? Migrant Space-Making in Urban Gardens’. (2017)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Lapina, Linda. ‘“Cultivating Integration”? Migrant Space-Making in Urban Gardens’. Journal of Intercultural Studies, vol. 38, no. 6, Routledge, Nov. 2017, pp. 621–636.

Organized cultural encounters manage difference, conduct, time and space. Yet, alternative social spaces emerge besides these scripts. This article explores migrant space-making in integration gardens, an urban gardening association in Copenhagen aiming to ‘dismantle social and cultural boundaries’. The space of the gardens is multilayered. Firstly, it operates as an integration grid – a homogenizing-organized cultural encounter evolving around a foreigner–Dane binary. However, the gardens also emerge as a web of gardening, centered around plants and gardening practices, breaching multiple (hi)stories, locations, relationships, and materialities. The article juxtaposes the spatiotemporal logics of the integration grid and the web of gardening, analyzing the possibilities for action and relating they afford. The analysis contributes to theorizations of organized cultural encounters by highlighting the embodied, affective human and non-human agencies in divergent space-making practices. Discussing these multidirectional spaces, the article links conceptualizations of agency, bodies, affectivity, time and space.

doi:10.1080/07256868.2017.1386630.

Lapina, Linda. ‘“Diversity Tourists”? Tracing Whiteness through Affective Encounters with Diversity in a Gentrifying District in Copenhagen’ (2020)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Lapiņa, Linda. ‘“Diversity Tourists”? Tracing Whiteness through Affective Encounters with Diversity in a Gentrifying District in Copenhagen’. Social & Cultural Geography, vol. 0, no. 0, Routledge, June 2020, pp. 1–20.

This article develops the diversity tourist as an analytical figure to explore how middle-class whiteness emerges through encounters with racialized diversity in gentrifying urban space. Drawing on interviews with white middle-class Danish residents in Copenhagen’s Nordvest district, I examine how whiteness takes shape through affective ambivalence and negotiations of proximity and distance. My informants live in Nordvest, but see themselves as privileged tourists. They perceive diverse Others as true locals whose presence not only stimulates and entertains them, but also facilitates self-development, increased awareness and inclusive pedagogy. Moreover, the local spaces and people of Nordvest represent a different or superior reality and promise an escape from white, gentrified Copenhagen. I collect these practices in the figure of the diversity tourist to show how a particular brand of Danish middle-class whiteness emerges through embracing diversity and reminiscing over one’s own privileges vis-à-vis racialized, less advantaged people and spaces. I examine how, despite attempts at transcendence, this whiteness feels claustrophobic, finding itself in a limbo, trapped by its own gaze. The figure of diversity tourist contributes to studies of whiteness and gentrification, capturing how whiteness and intersectional privilege are enlaced in space and fueled by affective ambivalence.

doi:10.1080/14649365.2020.1783349.

Lapina, Linda. Making Senses of Nordvest Tracing the Spaces, Bodies and Affects of a Gentrifyingneighborhood in Copenhagen. (2017) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Lapina, Linda. Making Senses of Nordvest Tracing the Spaces, Bodies and Affects of a Gentrifyingneighborhood in Copenhagen. Roskilde: Dissertation. Roskilde University, 2017.

This thesis emerges from an ethnographic study of Nordvest, a district in Copenhagen. I came to know Nordvest as an area undergoing multiple changes. Nordvest was known, sensed and experienced as, among other things, “diverse” and multicultural; socially disadvantaged; a “municipality garbage bin”; an up-and-coming, gentrifying area; and peripheral and outside, or not quite “Copenhagen.” These modalities of knowing and experiencing Nordvest were mutually interlinked and emotionally polyvalent. I set out to examine how everyday social spaces in Nordvest constrained and shaped inequalities, processes of in- and exclusion, and processes of majoritization and minoritization, in particular pertaining to racialization, class, and Danishness. This thesis revolves around four research articles. Each article can be conceived as an optical device, a prism, that sheds and breaks different kinds of light on various spaces, presences and social processes in Nordvest.

https://forskning.ruc.dk/en/publications/making-senses-of-nordvest-tracing-the-spaces-bodies-and-affects-o

PDF: https://www.academia.edu/32196657/Making_Senses_of_Nordvest_Tracing_the_spaces_bodies_and_affects_of_a_gentrifying_neighborhood_in_Copenhagen

Schmidt, Garbi. ‘“Grounded” Politics: Manifesting Muslim Identity as a Political Factor and Localized Identity in Copenhagen’. (2012)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Schmidt, Garbi. ‘“Grounded” Politics: Manifesting Muslim Identity as a Political Factor and Localized Identity in Copenhagen’. Ethnicities, vol. 12, no. 5, SAGE Publications, Oct. 2012, pp. 603–622.

A prominent strand within current migration research argues that, to understand the participation of immigrants in their host societies, we must focus on their incorporation into the cities in which they settle. This article narrows the perspective further by focusing on the role that immigrants play within one particular neighbourhood: Nørrebro in the Danish capital, Copenhagen. The article introduces the concept of grounded politics to analyse how groups of Muslim immigrants in Nørrebro use the space, relationships and history of the neighbourhood for identity political statements. The article further describes how national political debates over the Muslim presence in Denmark affect identity political manifestations within Nørrebro. By using Duncan Bell’s concept of mythscape (Bell, 2003), the article shows how some political actors idealize Nørrebro’s past to contest the present ethnic and religious diversity of the neighbourhood and, further, to frame what they see as the deterioration of genuine Danish identity.

doi:10.1177/1468796811432839.

Schmidt, Garbi. ‘Space, Politics and Past–Present Diversities in a Copenhagen Neighbourhood’. (2016)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Schmidt, Garbi. ‘Space, Politics and Past–Present Diversities in a Copenhagen Neighbourhood’. Identities, vol. 23, no. 1, Routledge, Jan. 2016, pp. 51–65.

This article responds to the need for a cautious use of the concepts of diversity and social cohesion in migration research. Presently missing in the literature is a historicisation and contextualisation of these concepts that can highlight the heterogeneity of diversity. In our investigation of the cities and neighbourhoods in which migrants settle and how migrants affect these neighbourhoods, it is important to ask whether the diversity of today is significantly different from the diversity a hundred years ago. To provide the missing perspectives, I offer a situated historical analysis of empirical data and ethnographic fieldwork in Nørrebro, a neighbourhood of the Danish capital, Copenhagen. Situating the contemporary heterogeneous characteristics of cities and neighbourhoods within a local history of diversity is useful for our understanding of past and contemporary social solidarities that underlie the perceptions of ‘otherness’ and the changing implications of the focus on immigrant identity.

doi:10.1080/1070289X.2015.1016521.

https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2015.1016521.

Shield, Andrew DJ. Gay Immigrants and Grindr: Revitalizing Queer Urban Spaces? (2018). [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Shield, Andrew DJ. Gay Immigrants and Grindr: Revitalizing Queer Urban Spaces? 2018.

In this (open-access) essay, I assess the idea that Grindr and related apps render urban gay spaces obsolete, and offer three counter-arguments based on my research with immigrants and tourists who use Grindr. In short: newcomers who use Grindr might actually bring new life to queer urban spaces, because… 1. Newcomers don’t use Grindr in the same way they use (physical) queer spaces; 2. Newcomers use Grindr *in* queer spaces; and 3. Newcomers often have better luck finding sex offline.

Gay Immigrants and Grindr: Revitalizing Queer Urban Spaces?

PDF: https://forskning.ruc.dk/en/publications/gay-immigrants-and-grindr-revitalizing-queer-urban-spaces.

Madsen, Lian Malai, and Bente Ailin Svendsen. ‘Stylized Voices of Ethnicity and Social Division’. (2015) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Madsen, Lian Malai, and Bente Ailin Svendsen. ‘Stylized Voices of Ethnicity and Social Division’. Language, Youth and Identity in the 21st Century Linguistic Practices across Urban Spaces, Eds. Jacomine Nortier and Bente A. Svendsen, Cambridge University Press, 2015, 207–230.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/language-youth-and-identity-in-the-21st-century/C1D52D2D7A8B016233BEE9192F8885FE 

PDF: https://www.academia.edu/12718309/Stylized_voices_of_ethnicity_and_social_division.

Stonawski, Marcin Jan, Adrian F. Rogne, Henrik Bang, Henning Christensen, and Torkild Hovde Lyngstad. Ethnic Segregation and Native Out-Migration in Copenhagen. (2019) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Stonawski, Marcin Jan, Adrian F. Rogne, Henrik Bang, Henning Christensen, and Torkild Hovde Lyngstad. Ethnic Segregation and Native Out-Migration in Copenhagen. preprint, SocArXiv, 23 Jan. 2019.

We study how the local concentration of ethnic minorities relates to natives’ likelihood of outmigration in the capital of Denmark. In US studies, a high or increasing proportion of racial or ethnic minorities in inner city neighborhoods is seen as the prime motivation for ‘white flight;’ White middle-class families moving towards racially and ethnically homogeneous suburbs. The relatively egalitarian Scandinavian setting offers a contrasting case, where inner cities are less deprived, and where minority groups primarily consist of immigrants and children of immigrants that have arrived over the past few decades. Using rich, population-wide, longitudinal administrative data over a twelve-year period, linked to exact coordinates on places of residence, we document how the geographical distribution of minorities within Copenhagen relates to native out-migration. We observe increasing out-migration among the native majority population from areas with high and increasing minority concentrations, largely supporting the hypothesis of a ‘native flight’ mobility pattern.

doi:10.31235/osf.io/tx7b6.

https://osf.io/tx7b6.

Hassani, Amani Riad Mohammed. ‘Muslim, Young and Urban – A Comparative Ethnography of Representation and Mobility among Young Adults Who Identify as Muslim in Copenhagen, Denmark and Montreal, Canada.’ (2018) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Hassani, Amani Riad Mohammed. Muslim, Young and Urban – A Comparative Ethnography of Representation and Mobility among Young Adults Who Identify as Muslim in Copenhagen, Denmark and Montreal, Canada. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Dissertation. Concordia University, Apr. 2018.

This thesis explores the lives of young adults (18-25-year-old) who identify as Muslim in Copenhagen and Montreal. As a comparative ethnography, it sets out to examine the transatlantic similarities and differences among young people who grew up in an era where Muslims were often represented as a foreign object in need of integration, and at times as threatening. The thesis investigates processes of representation depicting young Muslims’ life histories, social positions and social identifications. Furthermore, it follows these young individuals’ movements through their cities and the spatial narratives they construct through these movements. I have sought to unravel the complexity of my interlocutors’ self-ascribed identifications of Muslim and Copenhagener/Montrealer – as well as the many other identifications they adopted – by furnishing their narratives with spatial representations; in many ways, these young people were shaped by and shaped the social spaces they inhabit. In so doing, the thesis seeks to counter the populist positioning of ‘the Muslim other’ by informing the broader themes entailed in the intersection between young adulthood, social mobility, spatial mobility, urban life and self- identification as a Muslim in a Western society. The ethnographic methods I employed in this study were threefold; I used participant observation to study my interlocutors’ social contexts, the cities they live in, and the public debates that permeate their city spaces. Semi-structured interviews were another important avenue for understanding how my interlocutors represented their lives, experiences and social positions. Finally, I used interlocutor-directed city tours to explore their movements in their localities. This last method was an essential instrument with which to situate and contextualize my interlocutors’ lives, experiences and navigations within their cities.

PDF: https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/984439/1/Hassani_PhD_F2018.pdf

Gundelach, Birte, and Markus Freitag. ‘Neighbourhood Diversity and Social Trust: An Empirical Analysis of Interethnic Contact and Group-Specific Effects’. (2014)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Gundelach, Birte, and Markus Freitag. ‘Neighbourhood Diversity and Social Trust: An Empirical Analysis of Interethnic Contact and Group-Specific Effects’. Urban Studies, vol. 51, no. 6, SAGE Publications Ltd, May 2014, pp. 1236–1256.

To date, neighbourhood studies on ethnic diversity and social trust have revealed inconclusive findings. In this paper, three innovations are proposed in order to systemise the knowledge about neighbourhood ethnic diversity and the development of social trust. First, it is proposed to use a valid trust measure that is sensitive to the local neighbourhood context. Second, the paper argues for a conception of organically evolved neighbourhoods, rather than using local administrative units as readily available proxies for neighbourhood divisions. Thirdly, referring to intergroup contact theory and group-specific effects of diversity, the paper challenges the notion that ethnic diversity has overwhelmingly negative effects on social trust.

doi:10.1177/0042098013495578.

Flemming Balvig, Lars Holmberg, and Aydin Soei. Tingbjergundersøgelsen: Om risikoadfærd og sociale overdrivelser blandt børn og voksne i Brønshøj og Tingbjerg. (2017) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Flemming Balvig, Lars Holmberg, and Aydin Soei. Tingbjergundersøgelsen: Om risikoadfærd og sociale overdrivelser blandt børn og voksne i Brønshøj og Tingbjerg. 2017, p. 35. København: AFFORD.

Tingbjergundersøgelsen er et pilotprojekt, som sammenligner risikoadfærd blandt 14-og15-årige unge i et såkaldt “udsatboligområde” –Tingbjerg– med et såkaldt “ikkeudsatboligområde” – Brønshøj. Undersøgelsen sammenligner endvidere antagelser om de unges risikoadfærd hos henholdsvis de unge selv og devoksne omkring dem. Samlet set tyder undersøgelsen på ,at omfanget af risikoadfærd blandt de 14-15-årige i Tingbjerg er ret begrænset, også set i forhold til tilsvarende undersøgelser foretaget i andre områder i Danmark. De svage tendenser, der er, peger faktisk i retning af, at risikoadfærden er lidt mere udbredt blandt de unge i det “ikke-udsatte” boligområde.

På nogle områder har de unge i Tingbjerg overensstemmende antagelser om deres kammerater, eksempelvis vedrørende forbrug af alkohol og hash, mens de på andre områder overvurderer, eksempelvis vedrørende, hvor normalt det er at udøve vold blandt skolekammeraterne, og hvor normalt det er være bandekriminel og besidde våben.

De voksne i Tingbjerg har imidlertid væsentligt mere overdrevne antagelser om Tingbjergeleverne og de tror generelt, at risikoadfærd–også den personfarlige del af slagsen–er en del af livet for en ikke uvæsentlig del af de unge.

PDF: https://curis.ku.dk/ws/files/187289228/Tingbjergprojektet_rapport_oktober_2017.pdf.

Dinesen, Peter Thisted, and Kim Mannemar Sønderskov. ‘Ethnic Diversity and Social Trust: Evidence from the Micro-Context’. (2015) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Dinesen, Peter Thisted, and Kim Mannemar Sønderskov. ‘Ethnic Diversity and Social Trust: Evidence from the Micro-Context’. American Sociological Review, vol. 80, no. 3, June 2015, pp. 550–573.

We argue that residential exposure to ethnic diversity reduces social trust. Previous within-country analyses of the relationship between contextual ethnic diversity and trust have been conducted at higher levels of aggregation, thus ignoring substantial variation in actual exposure to ethnic diversity. In contrast, we analyze how ethnic diversity of the immediate micro-context—where interethnic exposure is inevitable—affects trust. We do this using Danish survey data linked with register-based data, which enables us to obtain precise measures of the ethnic diversity of each individual’s residential surroundings. We focus on contextual diversity within a radius of 80 meters of a given individual, but we also compare the effect in the micro-context to the impact of diversity in more aggregate contexts. Our results show that ethnic diversity in the micro-context affects trust negatively, whereas the effect vanishes in larger contextual units. This supports the conjecture that interethnic exposure underlies the negative relationship between ethnic diversity in residential contexts and social trust.

doi:10.1177/0003122415577989.

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264541795_Ethnic_Diversity_and_Social_Trust_The_Role_of_Exposure_in_the_Micro-Context