Tag: islam

El-Tayeb, Fatima “Secular Submissions—Muslim Europeans, Female Bodies, and Performative Politics”

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

El-Tayeb, Fatima “Chapter 3: Secular Submissions—Muslim Europeans, Female Bodies, and Performative Politics” in El-Tayeb, Fatima. European Others: Queering Ethnicity in Postnational Europe. 1 edition, Minneapolis: Univ Of Minnesota Press, 2011.

From introduction:

In chapter 3, I trace this discourse from its affirmation in both liberal feminism, exemplified by Dutch playwright Adelheid Roosen’s work, and in the escape narratives of ex-Muslims such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to its deconstruction by Muslim feminist activists like Danish Asmaa Abdol-Hamid. My focus throughout is on the uses of performative strate- gies in constructing as well as destabilizing binary notions of movement and immobility, progress and stagnation in relation to West and Global South, Orient and Occident, Islam and (secular) Christianity, Muslim men and women. That is, I am following Diana Taylor in using performance as a “methodological lens that enables [me] to analyze events as perfor- mances” (Taylor 2003, 3). Common to these very different types of per- formative politics is the centrality of the image of the (veiled) Muslim woman, signifying much larger assumptions around cultural (im)mobili- ties and (im)possibilities. My notion of performance in this context be- gins with Frantz Fanon’s assessment of nationalism as a scopic politics often symbolized by the clothing of female bodies. I move from tradi- tional forms of performance illustrating this view, such as Roosen’s plays, to the performative interventions of political activists like Hirsi Ali, both of which retain a hierarchy in which the authors “speak for” Muslimas, literally inscribing their perspective on generic, deindividualized female bodies. I end with feminist socialist Abdol-Hamid, who takes a radically different approach by using her own body to insist on the compatibility of supposedly exclusive positionalities, such as wearing the hijab and be- ing a radical feminist, and most importantly on the right and ability of European Muslimas to speak for themselves.

Publisher’s book description:

European Others offers an interrogation into the position of racialized communities in the European Union, arguing that the tension between a growing nonwhite, non-Christian population and insistent essentialist definitions of Europeanness produces new forms of identity and activism. Moving beyond disciplinary and national limits, Fatima El-Tayeb explores structures of resistance, tracing a Europeanization from below in which migrant and minority communities challenge the ideology of racelessness that places them firmly outside the community of citizens.Using a notable variety of sources, from drag performances to feminist Muslim activism and Euro hip-hop, El-Tayeb draws on the largely ignored archive of vernacular culture central to resistance by minority youths to the exclusionary nationalism that casts them as threatening outcasts. At the same time, she reveals the continued effect of Europe’s suppressed colonial history on the representation of Muslim minorities as the illiberal Other of progressive Europe. Presenting a sharp analysis of the challenges facing a united Europe seen by many as a model for twenty-first-century postnational societies, El-Tayeb combines theoretical influences from both sides of the Atlantic to lay bare how Europeans of color are integral to the continent’s past, present, and, inevitably, its future.

https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/european-others

Vinding, Niels Valdemar. ‘Discrimination of Muslims in Denmark’. (2020)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Vinding, Niels Valdemar. ‘Discrimination of Muslims in Denmark’. State, Religion and Muslims Between Discrimination and Protection at the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Levels, Eds. Melek Saral and Şerif Onur Bahçecik, Leiden: Brill, 2020, 144–196. brill.com,

This chapter investigates the question of discrimination of Muslims in the Danish context. This is considered across the branches of government, looking at political discourse and legislation, at ministerial administration and at the judiciary and quasi-judicial rulings. While both freedom of speech and freedom of religion are constitutionally guaranteed, and non-discrimination is protected across the branches of government, the current state of discourse on Muslims has the adverse effect of legitimising, condoning or even promoting discrimination of Muslims in Denmark. Analysing concrete cases across five major themes in discrimination against Muslims, the chapter finds a worrying tendency to explicitly legitimize and even normalize discrimination. National and international reports, studies and other sources all point to the particularly harsh and alienating discourse and debate on Muslims. Not only is discrimination against Muslims a challenge across all three branches of Danish government, but the perception of discrimination is particularly pertinent and little seems to be done by government to limit this. There is a political readiness and willingness to discriminate and to violate some of the foundational principles of both the constitution and Denmark’s international commitments, and government misses a number of important opportunities to right divisive wrongs in Danish society.

https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004421516/BP000005.xml.

Yılmaz, Ferruh. ‘Right-Wing Hegemony and Immigration: How the Populist Far-Right Achieved Hegemony through the Immigration Debate in Europe’. (2012)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Yilmaz, Ferruh. ‘Right-Wing Hegemony and Immigration: How the Populist Far-Right Achieved Hegemony through the Immigration Debate in Europe’. Current Sociology, vol. 60, no. 3, May 2012, pp. 368–381.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the debate on Islam and Muslim immigrants has moved into the center of European political discourse. The increasing volume of publications about the role of Islam in social, cultural and political spheres indicates that Islam is now a major political issue, often associated with the debate on terrorism and security. This article argues that the shift in focus should be understood as the result of a hegemonic shift that goes back to the mid-1980s when the populist farright intervened in the immigration debate in Europe. The far-right not only presented immigration as a cultural threat to the future of European nations but also succeeded in moving immigration to the center of political discourse. This was done through successive right-wing political interventions that helped establish Muslim immigrants as an incompatible ontological category predicated on culture, and kept the national focus on immigration as an imminent threat to ‘our common’ achievements.

doi:10.1177/0011392111426192.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0011392111426192

Yılmaz, Ferruh. ‘Ethnicized Ontologies : From Foreign Worker to Muslim Immigrant : How Danish Public Discourse Moved to the Right through the Question of Immigration’. (2006) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Yilmaz, Ferruh. Ethnicized Ontologies : From Foreign Worker to Muslim Immigrant : How Danish Public Discourse Moved to the Right through the Question of Immigration. Dissertation. UC San Diego, 2006

My thesis, in one sentence, is that the entire political discourse in Denmark (and in many parts of Europe) has moved to the right through the debate on immigration in the last two decades. The left/right distinction is pushed to the background and a cultural one – the ‘Danish people’ /the Muslim immigrant – has come to the forefront as the main dividing line. This means that the redistribution of resources is discussed as a matter of ethnicity and culture rather than other types of social identifications (e.g. class or gender). In short, a new basis for identification has become hegemonic through the articulation of a new internal division based on culture. The hegemonic change was the result of the nationalist/ racist Right’s populist intervention in the mid 1980s. Large sections of society did not feel that their concerns and demands were represented by the political system. In an environment of such profound displacement, it was relatively easy for the populist right to point to immigration as the main threat to society (associated with the welfare system) and to articulate an antagonism between the people (silent majority) and the political and cultural elite that let immigration happen. The new hegemony is based on a culturalized ontology of the social. The (re)production of immigrants as a threatening force is maintained through a constant focus on cultural issues that are considered as anti-society. In many parts of Europe, cycles of moral panics are created around issues such as honor killings, gang rapes, animal slaughter, violence, female genital mutilation, forced marriages and headscarves. These issues produce repeatedly an unbridgeable divide between Muslim (immigrant) and Danish culture. The orientation towards these issues disperses various social and political actors along the antagonistic divide, often creating insolvable tensions and fractions within social movements. Reproducing a left/ right opposition – regardless of its particular content – is what is at stake. The answer to the populist vision of society is the construction of a new type of hegemony: the strategy or ideal for a future world should be the re- ontologization of the social.

PDF: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8fd0g7h7.

Younis, Tarek, and Ghayda Hassan. ‘Second-Generation Western Muslims: A Qualitative Analysis of Multiple Social Identities’. (2019) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Younis, Tarek, and Ghayda Hassan. ‘Second-Generation Western Muslims: A Qualitative Analysis of Multiple Social Identities’. Transcultural Psychiatry, vol. 56, no. 6, SAGE Publications Ltd, Dec. 2019, pp. 1155–1169.

The relationships between social identities are important when discussing the national and religious identities of Muslims in Western contexts. This study explored the identity narratives of second-generation Muslim young adults to consider the relevance of bicultural identity and acculturation theories commonly employed in research with this group. The sample comprised 20 Muslim young adults of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds from Montreal, Berlin, and Copenhagen who participated in semi-structured interviews that explored how they negotiate their social identities in light of their unique life course trajectories. This article focuses on two major themes underlying second-generation identity development: the importance of personal experience in the development of social identities; and the enmeshment of multiple social identities. We then discuss the results of our findings in light of the complex nature of social identity, group membership, and political categorization.

doi:10.1177/1363461518804554.

https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461518804554.

Hervik, Peter. ‘Ending Tolerance as a Solution to Incompatibility: The Danish “Crisis of Multiculturalism”’ (2012) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Hervik, Peter. ‘Ending Tolerance as a Solution to Incompatibility: The Danish “Crisis of Multiculturalism”’. European Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 15, no. 2, Apr. 2012, pp. 211–225.

Successful integration must include the long-term enactment of ‘the will to feel Danish’. As Jews in Denmark have done in the course of many generations, so immigrant Muslims must immerse themselves to the extent that feeling Danish is naturalized. Such is the perspective proposed in a recent focus group discussion in Denmark on the integration of Muslims into Danish society. This idea of incompatibility between native Danes and Muslim ‘newcomers’ has become a salient feature of what is termed ‘value-based journalism’ and ‘value-based politics’ in the last decade. This article traces the origin of the ‘end of tolerance’ strategy, which follows from this development and examines the emergence of neo-racism in Denmark with its ideas of xenophobia as a natural reaction to other ‘cultures’ which do not belong ’naturally’. It shows that migrants of non-European origin are talked about in an increasingly crass and uncompromising way as a consequence of the belief in incompatibility.

doi:10.1177/1367549411432024.

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254088469_Ending_Tolerance_as_a_Solution_to_Incompatibility_The_Danish_%27Crisis_of_Multiculturalism%27.

Herbert, David, and Janna Hansen. ‘“You Are No Longer My Flesh and Blood”: Social Media and the Negotiation of a Hostile Media Frame by Danish Converts to Islam’. (2018)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Herbert, David, and Janna Hansen. ‘“You Are No Longer My Flesh and Blood”: Social Media and the Negotiation of a Hostile Media Frame by Danish Converts to Islam’. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society, vol. 31, no. 01, May 2018, pp. 4–21.

While surveys suggest that Danes value freedom of religion highly, in practice ethnic Danish converts to Islam report frequent negative responses to their Muslim identities, both in public settings and from friends and family. Our paper examines how active social media users amongst converts to Islam in the greater Copenhagen area negotiate both a predominantly negative media frame and negative personal reactions in their self-understanding, through personal conduct, and on social media. Interviewees report tensions between their Danish and Muslim identities, which they struggle to resolve constructively through tactics aimed at reducing the gap in majority perception between being Muslim and Danish – for example, through exemplary personal conduct, countering negative media representations, and emphasising shared values. However, most report frustration and tiredness at the daily effort and, over time, more pro-active discursive and media-based tactics tend to be replaced by a focus on local and personal relationships.

doi:10.18261/issn.1890-7008-2018-01-01.

PDF: https://www.idunn.no/nordic_journal_of_religion_and_society/2018/01/you_are_no_longer_my_flesh_and_blood_social_media_and_th.

Henriksen, Ann-Karina. ‘“I Was a Scarf-like Gangster Girl” – Negotiating Gender and Ethnicity on the Street’. (2017) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Henriksen, Ann-Karina. ‘“I Was a Scarf-like Gangster Girl” – Negotiating Gender and Ethnicity on the Street’. Ethnicities, vol. 17, no. 4, Aug. 2017, pp. 491–508.

Drawing on an ethnographic study in Copenhagen, this article explores the gendered ethnicities of young women navigating multi-ethnic street terrains. The study includes an ethnically heterogeneous sample of 25 women aged 13–23 who are involved in street-oriented peer groups and activities. The analysis demonstrates how young women modify their lifestyle, language, body and posture to establish proximity to ethnic minority youth. By applying intersectional theory, the article explores gender and ethnicity as situational accomplishments, and it is argued that ethnic identifications in this context need to be explored as flexible and fluid, changing, not only over a lifetime, but within a single day. This exploration of young women’s gendered ethnicities adds to the limited research on the gendered and racialized dynamics of street culture.

doi:10.1177/1468796816666592.

PDF: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1468796816666592.

Hellström, Anders, and Peter Hervik. ‘Feeding the Beast: Nourishing Nativist Appeals in Sweden and in Denmark’. (2014) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Hellström, Anders, and Peter Hervik. ‘Feeding the Beast: Nourishing Nativist Appeals in Sweden and in Denmark’. Journal of International Migration and Integration, vol. 15, no. 3, Aug. 2014, pp. 449–467.

Sweden and Denmark share a similar socio-political structure, yet these two countries demonstrate two distinct discourses on immigration. This article focuses on the tone of the debate in Denmark and Sweden concerning immigration and national identity. If the tone of debate is shaped by a language of fear, we argue, this predisposes people to vote for anti-immigration parties. Our analysis highlights the position of anti-immigration parties; hence, the Sweden Democrats (SD) in Sweden and the Danish People’s Party (DPP) in Denmark. We use frame analysis to detect recurrent frames in the media debate concerning the SD and the DPP in the political competition over votes. Our material concentrates on the run-up to the European Parliamentary (EP) elections of 2004 and 2009, in total 573 articles in ten major Danish and Swedish newspapers. We show that the harsh tone of the debate and the negative dialogue risks leading to the construction of beasts that are impossible to negotiate with. In the Swedish political debate, the SD is highly stigmatized as the beast (the extreme other) in Swedish politics and this stigma is used by the SD in the mobilization of votes. In Denmark the religion of Islam as such plays a similar role and provides the DPP with an identity. We conclude that we are confronted with a two-faced beast that feeds on perceptions of the people as ultimately afraid of what are not recognized as native goods.

doi:10.1007/s12134-013-0293-5.

PDF: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12134-013-0293-5.

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

Hansen, Janna, and David Herbert. ‘Life in the Spotlight: Danish Muslims, Dual Identities, and Living with a Hostile Media’. (2018) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Hansen, Janna, and David Herbert. ‘Chapter 12 Life in the Spotlight: Danish Muslims, Dual Identities, and Living with a Hostile Media’. Contesting Religion, Ed. Knut Lundby, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2018, 205–222.

We examine ethnic Danish and ethnic minority Muslim (n = 15) responses to the negative media frame they experience, and their efforts to build viable dual identities – ways of being Danish and Muslim. The reported media negativity is triangulated with evidence from ECRI media reports, public opinion surveys, and reports on government policies and institutions. We find that interviewees’ experiences vary with their visibility as Muslims, so hijab wearing women and men of colour report most negativity in public environments. We also find that efforts to pro-actively project a positive social media image of Islam vary by time since conversion, gradually declining. Danish Muslim challenges in forming dual identities are compared with those of Swedish (Malmö) and British (London) Muslims. We examine why London Muslims more readily construct dual identities than Malmö Muslims – despite greater negativity in national surveys and barriers to voting. The implications for cultural conflict in Scandinavia are discussed.

doi:10.1515/9783110502060-017.

PDF: https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/book/9783110502060/10.1515/9783110502060-017.xml

Halrynjo, Sigtona, and Merel Jonker. ‘Naming and Framing of Intersectionality in Hijab Cases — Does It Matter? An Analysis of Discrimination Cases in Scandinavia and the Netherlands’. (2016)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Halrynjo, Sigtona, and Merel Jonker. ‘Naming and Framing of Intersectionality in Hijab Cases — Does It Matter? An Analysis of Discrimination Cases in Scandinavia and the Netherlands’. Gender, Work & Organization, vol. 23, no. 3, 2016, pp. 278–295.

This article examines how intersectionality is recognized in hijab discrimination cases brought before the Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Dutch equality bodies. Hijab cases are regarded as a perfect example of intersectionality, as religion and gender are interwoven in the use of the Muslim veil. The theoretical shift towards intersectionality has influenced substantial revisions of equality policies, bodies and laws. Recognizing intersectionality has become synonymous with quality in the equality architecture. We question this and argue that quality must be scrutinized empirically, including the practice of the equality bodies. Our results show that most complainants do not present their cases as intersectional discrimination, and that only the Norwegian equality body applies an intersectional approach. However, an intersectional approach seems not to be crucial to protect against discrimination in these cases. Thus, we argue that the quality of the equality architecture should be scrutinized more on the process, judgement and actual ability to promote equality, than on the naming and framing of intersectionality.

doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12089.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/gwao.12089.

Dalgaard, Nina T. ‘The Impact of Islam and the Public and Political Portrayals of Islam on Child-Rearing Practices—Discursive Analyses of Parental Accounts among Muslims Living in Denmark’ (2016) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Dalgaard, Nina T. ‘The Impact of Islam and the Public and Political Portrayals of Islam on Child-Rearing Practices—Discursive Analyses of Parental Accounts among Muslims Living in Denmark’. Culture & Psychology, vol. 22, no. 1, Mar. 2016, p. 65.

With the rise of Islamist terrorist attacks in the US and Europe the impact of Islam on child-rearing practices has become a matter of public attention and debate. Within the political discourse in the Western world and in the mass media, Muslims are often being portrayed negatively. Research has documented how Muslims living in the West are adversely affected by the negative portrayals of Islam associated with the War on Terror. The aim of the present study was to explore the impact of Islam on child-rearing practices and parental identity formation among self-identified Muslims in Denmark. Using a discursive approach to analyzing interviews with parents in 29 Middle Eastern refugee families, six rhetorical strategies were identified: (1) minimizing differences, (2) highlighting compatibility, (3) emphasizing positive aspects of Islam, (4) countering common prejudice, (5) actively distancing oneself from terrorists/extremists, and (6) separating Islam as a religion from cultural traditions. It is argued that the global as well as national political discourse post 9/11 is reflected in all of the six rhetorical strategies. Whether parents position themselves as having a high or low bicultural identity or a Muslim parental identity, their positioning involves drawing on the discursive resources from the mass media, the global and national political and public discourse. Furthermore, it is argued that all rhetorical strategies can be seen as attempts to counter the hurt associated with the negative portrayal of Islam.

PDF: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1354067X15621478.

Agius, Christine. ‘Performing Identity: The Danish Cartoon Crisis and Discourses of Identity and Security’ (2013) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Agius, Christine. ‘Performing Identity: The Danish Cartoon Crisis and Discourses of Identity and Security’. Security Dialogue, vol. 44, no. 3, June 2013, pp. 241–258.

The Danish cartoon crisis, which attracted international media attention in 2006, has largely been debated as an issue of freedom of speech, feeding into broader debates about the ‘clash of civilizations’. This article aims to explore the dominant discourses that performed a seemingly stable and consistent Danish identity at the domestic and external levels. Domestically, the discourse of a progressive Danish identity under threat from unmodern others was performed via discourses of a ‘culture struggle’ and a restrictive immigration policy designed to keep intact a narrow definition of Danishness. Externally, Danish identity and security was performed and defended via participation in the ‘war on terror’, democracy promotion and overseas development assistance, which became tools that were not simply associated with security in the liberal sense but also contained a spatial dimension designed to keep consistent the image of the complete nation-state. By adopting a discursive approach, the article aims to explore the performance of Danish identity that animated the cartoon crisis in order to highlight the complexities and contestations that animate ideas of self.

PDF: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0967010613485871

doi:10.1177/0967010613485871.