Brøndum, Tine. “The curse of the refugee”: Narratives of slow violence, marginalization and non-belonging in the Danish welfare state. (2023) [PDF]

Brøndum, Tine. “The curse of the refugee”: Narratives of slow violence, marginalization and non-belonging in the Danish welfare state. Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, 35(2), 2023, 96–112.

Drawing on narrative interviews with people who have recently or in the past fled to Denmark, this article examines experiences of being cast as refugees within the Danish asylum and integration bureaucracy. The analysis is situated within a social context formed simultaneously by Nordic exceptionalism and racial colour-blindness, and by increasing restrictions within Danish asylum and integration policy. Within this context, the article analyses narrative accounts of structural violence and racialization within three central sites of refugee management: namely the reception and asylum camps, encounters with municipal integration workers, and in contexts of schooling and employment. The analysis conveys intersubjective perspectives on how being labelled as a ‘refugee’ involves being racialized, managed and controlled and it argues that such forms of legally-sanctioned control measures can be understood as a slow violence that harms the lives of those seeking protection in Denmark. Finally, the article discusses how people labelled as ‘refugees’ respond to and oppose experiences of racism and control, and how such responses are often silenced in ways that further legitimize racism.

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/KKF/article/view/141131

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Liinason, Mia. Homonationalism across Borders. Exploring Cross-Border Exchange and Strategic Homonationalism in the Construction of Progressive Nationalism. (2022) [PDF]

Liinason, Mia, Homonationalism across Borders. Exploring Cross-Border Exchange and Strategic Homonationalism in the Construction of Progressive Nationalism, Sexualities, 2022.

While scholars have shown the significance of transnational exchanges for shaping feminist and LGBTI+ connectivities across borders to challenge national exclusions and global divides, less attention has been directed at exploring the complex and ambiguous ways in which transnational collaborations and cross-border exchanges also may facilitate and support national agendas. That is what this article sets out to explore. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with LGBTI+ actors in a Scandinavian context, this article uses the notion of strategic homonationalism to examine the ambiguous ways in which transnational, diasporic, and refugee LGBTI+ politics and locations in the Scandinavian region strategically engage with regulatory notions of liberal-mindedness and with exclusionary discourses of genuine LGBTI+ subjectivity in this context. Rather than being restricted to national contexts, I show, forms of progressive nationalism may be facilitated by crossborder exchange of various kind. Influenced by scholars who argue for the need to bring back a focus on racialization and national belonging in analyses of the making of sexualized and/or gendered difference, the article attends to the complex politics involved in inhabiting the impossible position of not being able to “not want rights.” To this end, this article reworks homonationalism, from a concept that emerges or is rooted in a US context, to a concept that travels and is differently shaped and picked up in various located sites, showing that homonationalism in a Scandinavian context takes shape through a moralistically superior position.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607221112647

Padovan-Özdemir, Marta, and Trine Øland, Racism in Danish Welfare Work with Refugees: Troubled by Difference, Docility and Dignity. (2022)

Padovan-Özdemir, Marta, and Trine Øland, Racism in Danish Welfare Work with Refugees: Troubled by Difference, Docility and Dignity (Routledge, 2022)

This book explores contemporary Danish relations of colonial complicity in welfare work with newly arrived refugees (1978-2016) as recursive histories that reveal new shapes and shades of racism.  Focussing on super- and subordination in helping relations of postcoloniality, the book displays the durability of coloniality and the workings of raceless racism in welfare work with refugees. Its main contribution is the excavation of stock stories of colour-blindness, potentialising and compassion, which help welfare workers invest in burying that which keeps haunting welfare work with refugees, i.e., modern ghosts of difference, docility and dignity.  The book dismantles the global myth of the Danish benevolent, universalistic welfare state and it is of interest to every scholar and student, who wants to make inquiries about Danish exceptionalism and the hidden interaction between past and present, the visible and invisible in Danish welfare work with refugees.

https://www.routledge.com/Racism-in-Danish-Welfare-Work-with-Refugees-Troubled-by-Difference-Docility/Padovan-Ozdemir-Oland/p/book/9780367563356

Petersen, Anne Ring, ‘In the First Place, We Don’t Like to Be Called “Refugees”’: Dilemmas of Representation and Transversal Politics in the Participatory Art Project 100% FOREIGN? (2021) [PDF]

Petersen, Anne Ring, ‘In the First Place, We Don’t Like to Be Called “Refugees”’: Dilemmas of Representation and Transversal Politics in the Participatory Art Project 100% FOREIGN?, Humanities, 10.4 (2021), 126

100% FOREIGN? (100% FREMMED?) is an art project consisting of 250 life stories of individuals who were granted asylum in Denmark between 1956 and 2019. Thus, it can be said to form a collective portrait that inserts citizens of refugee backgrounds into the narrative of the nation, thereby expanding the idea of national identity and culture. 100% FOREIGN? allows us to think of participatory art as a privileged site for the exploration of intersubjective relations and the question of how to “represent” citizens with refugee experience as well as the history and practice of asylum. The conflicting aims and perceptions involved in such representations are many, as suggested by the opening sentence of Hannah Arendt’s 1943 essay “We, Refugees”: “In the first place, we don’t like to be called ‘refugees’”. Using 100% FOREIGN? as an analytical reference point, this article discusses some of the ethical and political implications of representing former refugees. It briefly considers recent Danish immigration and asylum policies to situate the project in its regional European context and argues that, similarly to its neighbouring countries, Denmark can be described as a “postmigrant society” (Foroutan). To frame 100% FOREIGN? theoretically, this article draws on Arendt’s essay, Trinh T. Minh-ha’s concept of speaking nearby, as well as the feminist concept of transversal politics (Meskimmon, Yuval-Davis). It is hoped that this approach will lead to a deeper understanding of what participatory art can bring to the ethical politics of representing refugee experience.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.3390/h10040126

Spaas, Caroline et al. Mental Health of Refugee and Non-Refugee Migrant Young People in European Secondary Education: The Role of Family Separation, Daily Material Stress and Perceived Discrimination in Resettlement. (2022) [PDF]

Spaas, Caroline, An Verelst, Ines Devlieger, Sanni Aalto, Arnfinn Andersen, Natalie Durbeej, and others, Mental Health of Refugee and Non-Refugee Migrant Young People in European Secondary Education: The Role of Family Separation, Daily Material Stress and Perceived Discrimination in Resettlement, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 51 (2022), 1–23

While scholarly literature indicates that both refugee and non-refugee migrant young people display increased levels of psychosocial vulnerability, studies comparing the mental health of the two groups remain scarce. This study aims to further the existing evidence by examining refugee and non-refugee migrants’ mental health, in relation to their migration history and resettlement conditions. The mental health of 883 refugee and 483 non-refugee migrants (mean age 15.41, range 11-24, 45.9% girls, average length of stay in the host country 3.75 years) in five European countries was studied in their relation to family separation, daily material stress and perceived discrimination in resettlement. All participants reported high levels of post-traumatic stress symptoms. Family separation predicted post-trauma and internalizing behavioral difficulties only in refugees. Daily material stress related to lower levels of overall well-being in all participants, and higher levels of internalizing and externalizing behavioral difficulties in refugees. Perceived discrimination was associated with increased levels of mental health problems for refugees and non-refugee migrants. The relationship between perceived discrimination and post-traumatic stress symptoms in non-refugee migrants, together with the high levels of post-traumatic stress symptoms in this subsample, raises important questions on the nature of trauma exposure in non-refugee migrants, as well as the ways in which experiences of discrimination may interact with other traumatic stressors in predicting mental health.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-021-01515-y

PDF: https://europepmc.org/article/med/34686949

Vitus, Kathrine, and Frederikke Jarlby, Between Integration and Repatriation – Frontline Experiences of How Conflicting Immigrant Integration Policies Hamper the Integration of Young Refugees in Denmark. (2022)

Vitus, Kathrine, and Frederikke Jarlby, Between Integration and Repatriation – Frontline Experiences of How Conflicting Immigrant Integration Policies Hamper the Integration of Young Refugees in Denmark, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 48.7 (2022), 1496–1514

Confronted with global migration pressures, European countries face the dual challenges of border control and the incorporation of immigrants into society. Danish immigration and integration policies aim to restrict the influx of refugees and to develop newcomers’ sense of civic responsibility. We analyse 2017 policy problematisations and local integration policy workers’ experiences with integrating young, newly arrived refugees under the mandatory municipal integration programme. We find that these policies lead to paradoxical effects when integration goals interact with immigration laws that create precarious temporary living conditions. Moreover, when integration is problematised as an exclusive problem of refugees’ employability and prompt economic self-sufficiency. The policy problematisations neglect the needs of young refugees by overlooking critical aspects of social and cultural integration and obscuring the possibilities for individually tailored services, which, from frontline integration workers’ perspective, are necessary to realise young refugees’ integration.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2021.1873112

Koefoed, Lasse, Kirsten Simonsen, and Anniken Førde, Everyday Hospitality and Politics. (2021) [PDF]

Koefoed, Lasse, Kirsten Simonsen, and Anniken Førde, Everyday Hospitality and Politics, Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 11.4 (2021), 444–58.

The article explores everyday hospitality and politics through inclusive forms of integration initiatives in everyday life and urban communities in Denmark and Norway. It investigates how local initiatives and creative social strategies by local actors can empower and include refugees and immigrants in local communities. This article is based on participant observations of urban communities in Denmark and Norway working to welcome refugees and create new cross-cultural meeting places. We argue that people mobilize and take action when faced with emergency, and that the many welcome initiatives organized around theatre, food, dance and music can rework difference. The cases relate to the discussion of hospitality, the production of meaningful meeting places in a local context and the embodied encounters promoted by these activities. This article discusses everyday hospitality and politics in light of the transition in the Nordic welfare states, which has made the debate around inclusion of refugees and immigrants in local communities and the welfare state centre.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.33134/njmr.387

Coming of Age in Exile: Health and Socio-Economic Inequalities in Young Refugees in the Nordic Welfare Societies. (2020) [PDF]

Coming of Age in Exile: Health and Socio-Economic Inequalities in Young Refugees in the Nordic Welfare Societies. NordForsk, 2020,

Coming of Age in Exile (CAGE) has been a multidisciplinary research project, funded by the Nordic Research Council (NordForsk) during 2015-2020, for more information see https://cage.ku.dk/. CAGE has been led by the Danish Research Centre for Migration, Ethnicity and Health (MESU) at the Department of Public Health at the University of Copenhagen and carried out in collaboration with researchers at the Migration Institute of Finland, Turku; the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies (NKVTS), Oslo; the University of South-Eastern Norway, University of Bergen, University of Gothenburg, and the Centre for Health Equity Studies (CHESS), Stockholm University/Karolinska Institutet. 

During the last fifty years, the number of people moving to the Nordic countries has increased. From the 1970s onwards, a large part of non-Nordic immigration has consisted of refugees and their families. Children below 18 years of age comprise a sizable proportion of refugee immigrants, i.e. 25-35% of the refugees in the Nordic countries, and about twice as many when children born in exile are also included. In welfare typologies, the Nordic countries are often considered as similar in terms of their welfare state policies, but there are also important differences between countries in terms of immigration policy and economic context. The Migration Integration Policy Index (MIPEX), a comparative policy analysis tool used by the European Union, has shown that during the period in which the CAGE study was conducted, Denmark ranked far behind the other Nordic countries, with more restrictive integration policies related to financial support, family reunification, and possibilities for naturalisation. Key economic factors also differ considerably between countries, with Sweden and Finland having had higher rates of youth unemployment during recent decades. The Nordic countries, with their excellent national registers, provide a unique arena for comparative studies of refugee children and youth in order to obtain an understanding of contextual factors in the reception countries for the integration of young refugees. 

The aim of the CAGE project has been to investigate inequalities in education, labour market participation, and health during the formative years in young refugees, and how they relate to national policies and other contextual factors. CAGE has used a mixed methods strategy built around a core of cross-country comparative quantitative register studies in national cohorts of refugees who were granted residency as children (0-17 years) during 1986-2005 in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, with follow-up until 2015. These quantitative register studies have been complimented with policy analyses and qualitative studies of key mechanisms involved in the development of these inequalities.

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ketil_Eide/publication/348357687_CAGE_Final_Report_2015-2020/links/5ffa113692851c13feffbbe2/CAGE-Final-Report-2015-2020.pdf.

Sparre, Sara Lei. ‘(U)synlighed og den muslimske anden: Narrativer om flugt og religiøs identitet blandt irakiske kristne i Danmark’. (2016) [PDF]

Sparre, Sara Lei. ‘(U)synlighed og den muslimske anden: Narrativer om flugt og religiøs identitet blandt irakiske kristne i Danmark’. Tidsskrift for Islamforskning, vol. 10, no. 1, 1, Nov. 2016, pp. 252–267.

Denne artikel belyser religiøs identitet og muslimske-kristne relationer blandt irakiske kristne i Danmark. I de irakiske kristnes narrativer om flugt og mødet med Danmark er der en konstant svingning mellem dels opnåelse af tryghed, lige rettigheder og religiøs frihed og dels minorisering pga. oplevelser af at blive gjort usynlige som kristne og synlige som muslimer. Jeg argumenterer for, at de irakiske kristne fortolker og navigerer i disse oplevelser af minorisering og (u)synlighed ved at genskrive deres narrativer om flugt og forfølgelse og således også forholdet til den muslimske anden

This article highlights religious identity and Muslim-Christian relations among Iraqi Christians in Denmark. In the narratives of Iraqi Christians about flight and the encounter with Denmark there is a constant swing between the attainment of security, equal rights and religious freedom on the one hand and the minoritization that results from experiences of being made invisible as Christians and visible as Muslims on the other hand. I argue that Iraqi Christians interpret and navigate these experiences of minoritization and (in)visibility by rewriting their narratives about flight and persecution, and thus also the relationship with the Muslim other.

doi:10.7146/tifo.v10i1.24884.

PDF: https://tifoislam.dk/article/view/24884.

Buchardt, Mette. ‘The “Culture” of Migrant Pupils: A Nation- and Welfare-State Historical Perspective on the European Refugee Crisis’. (2018)

Buchardt, Mette. ‘The “Culture” of Migrant Pupils: A Nation- and Welfare-State Historical Perspective on the European Refugee Crisis’. European Education, vol. 50, no. 1, Taylor & Francis, Jan. 2018, pp. 58–73.

Culture seems to function as a central explanation when refugees and other migrants are framed as a risk and a challenge in European and national politics across the member states, including educational politics. Based on the case of Denmark during the 1970s, the article unfolds how education historically has been an arena for the internal bordering of the nation in the context of a welfare state model by means of the category of culture.

doi:10.1080/10564934.2017.1394162.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10564934.2017.1394162.

Juhl Jørgensen, Frederik. How to Develop Policies That Foster Refugee Integration and Are Supported by Voters. (2020) [PDF]

Juhl Jørgensen, Frederik. How to Develop Policies That Foster Refugee Integration and Are Supported by Voters. Dissertation. Aarhus University, 2020,

This dissertation contributes to our understanding of a fundamental policy challenge that refugee-receiving countries face: how to develop policies that foster integration and are supported by voters. It splits this challenge into two. On the one hand, there is the policy goal of promoting integration. This leads to research question 1: how does integration policies affect refugee integration. On the other hand, policy makers face the electoral constraint that policies need to be supported by voters. This leads to research question 2: does refugees’ integration success or failure affect public support for policy. The dissertation takes its theoretical point of departure in two contrasting theoretical paradigms that structure the debates about integration policy. One paradigm, argues that strict policies—such as limited benefits or forced placement—promote integration. The contrasting paradigm, holds that lenient policies—like equal benefits or voluntary placement—catalyze social mobility and integration. I study these contrasting expectations in the context of two Danish policy reforms: the start help policy and the forced placement policy. Combined, these policies have formed the backbone of Danish integration policy for the past two decades. The start help policy lowered refugees’ social assistance benefits by up to 50 percent for new refugees who obtained residency after July 1 2002. The forced placement policy fundamentally changed the Danish dispersal system as of January 1 1999: new refugees who obtained residency after this date were subject to forced placement, whereas refugees who arrived earlier were placed on a voluntary basis. I exploit these cutoffs in regression dis- continuity designs that just like controlled randomized experiments control for all confounding factors by design. The reforms provide rigorous research designs (i.e., natural experiments) for causal identification. My data are based on the Danish national registers and combine information about the treatments (i.e., the cutoffs) with information on relevant integration outcomes. Overall, the findings show that the start help and forced placement policy are too strict if the aim is to maximize integration. For policy design, this means that policy makers should reassess current policies: they should pro- vide refugees with equal benefits to prevent negative effects from economic deprivation and remove restrictions on relocation to leverage synergy effects between individual characteristics and place characteristics. Theoretically, the findings support the paradigm, which argues that equal benefits and voluntary placement catalyze social mobility and integration. These results align with recent studies, which show that less restrictive policies—i.e., fewer restrictions 87 on citizenship acquisition (Hainmueller et al. 2015; 2017a; 2019), faster processing of asylum applications (Hainmueller et al. 2016; Hvidtfeldt et al. 2018), protection of unauthorized immigrants (Orrenius and Zavodny 2012; Hainmueller et al. 2017b), and fewer restrictions on asylum seekers’ possibility of employment (Marbach et al. 2018)—are catalysts of integration. In spite of this evidence, we continuously experience that policy makers tighten integration policies and thereby decrease refugees’ chances of success- ful integration. One plausible reason for the mismatch between the supply of policies and the aim of maximizing integration is that domestic voters demand strict policies (Lawrence and Sides 2014; Hopkins et al. 2019). This constrains policy makers’ ability to deliver policies that achieve the goal of promoting integration. The last part of the dissertation moves on to study this policy constraint and explores strategies that can potentially create leeway to develop less strict policies that would promote integration. This part of the dissertation examines whether it is possible to promote citizens preferences regarding integration policy by providing them with information about refugees’ actual integration success or failure. In particular, we conduct a large-scale survey experiment that isolates the effects of correct information about non-Western immigrants’ welfare dependency rates, their crime rates, and their overall size in relation to the total population. Two opposing views structure the theoretical expectations to the impacts of this type of information. One view that draws on Bayesian learning models argues that citizens use information to update their evaluations of immigrants’ integration performance into the host society. In this logic, the provision of information may be expected to promote more positive preferences regarding policy (Sides and Citrin 2007; Nadeau et al. 1993). Another view holds that people acknowledge correct information and update their factual beliefs, but reinterpret the information in a selective fashion that justifies their existing opinions (Gaines et al. 2007). In this logic, the provision of information has little, if any, influence on citizens’ policy preferences. In line with previous work, the findings first show that citizens’ are very skeptical of non-Western immigrants and markedly exaggerate problems related to immigration. In addition, there is a strong correlation between skepticism and support for anti-immigration policies. This demonstrates that pol- icy makers indeed face pronounced electoral constraints when designing integration policy. Second, the results demonstrate that while participants update their factual beliefs in light of correct information, they remain unwilling to change their policy preferences. These findings support conclusions from ear- lier work (Lawrence and Sides 2014; Hopkins et al. 2019). As a novel finding, we show that the link between facts and policy beliefs breaks down because people interpret the correct information in a belief-consistent manner that al- lows them to avoid using the new information to guide their policy prefer- ences. Overall, this means policy makers seemingly cannot rely on “explaining the facts” as a strategy to promote more favorable integration policy views and thereby create leeway to develop less strict policies that would foster integra- tion.

Dansk resumé Lande der modtager flygtninge står over for den fundamentale politiske ud- fordring: hvordan udvikles politikker der fremmer integrationen og som samtidig bakkes op af vælgerne. Afhandlingen bidrager til forståelsen af problemstilling, og inddeler udfordringen i to forskningsspørgsmål. På den ene side er der målet om at udvikle politikker, der fremmer integrationen, hvilket fører til forskningsspørgsmål 1: hvordan påvirker integrationspolitikker flygtninges integration. På den anden side begrænses politiske beslutningstagere af, at det er nødvendigt at politikkerne møder opbakning i befolkningen. Dette fører til forskningsspørgsmål 2: påvirker flygtninges integrationssucces eller -fiasko befolkningens opbakningen til policy. Afhandlingen tager sit teoretiske afsæt i to modsatrettede teoretiske paradigmer, som ofte strukturerer debatten omhandlende integrationspolitik. Det første paradigme argumenterer for, at strengere politikker, såsom begrænset adgang til overførselsindkomster eller tvungen placering, fremmer integrationen. Det andet paradigme argumenterer modsat for, at mindre strenge politikker, såsom lige adgang til overførselsindkomster eller frivillig placering, fremskynder social mobilitet og integration. Til at studere disse modsatrettede forventninger anvender jeg henholdsvis den danske starthjælpsreform og reformen af den danske placeringspolitik, der tilsammen har udgjort rygraden af dansk integrationspolitik de seneste to årtier. Starthjælpspolitikken nedsatte flygtninges overførselsindkomst med op til 50 procent for nye flygtninge, der opnåede opholdstilladelse efter 1. juli 2002. Den danske placeringspolitik blev fundamentalt ændret fra 1. januar 1999, hvor spredningen af flygtninge overgik fra et frivilligt til tvunget regime. Jeg udnytter disse tærskler i regressionsdiskontinuitetsdesigns, der ligesom randomiserede eksperimenter per konstruktion kontrollerer for alternative forklaringer. Reformerne udgør dermed naturlige eksperimenter og stringente forskningsdesigns for kausal inferens. Mit data er baseret på de national danske registre og kombinerer information omkring reformernes tærskelværdier med information omkring relevante integrationsvariable. Overordnet viser resultaterne, at starthjælpen og tvungen placering er for stramme, såfremt målet er, at fremme integrationen. For policy betyder det, at de politiske beslutningstagere bør genoverveje disse politikker. Konkret bør de give flygtninge ret til regulære overførselsindkomster for at forhindre de negative konsekvenser der følger af økonomiske afsavn. Endvidere bør de fjerne den tvungne placering, der forhindrer udnyttelsen af potentielle positive synergieffekter, der måtte være mellem flygtninges og deres placerings karakteristika. Teoretisk støtter resultaterne det andet paradigme, der argumenterer for, at lige overførselsindkomster og frivillig placering fremskynder social mobilitet og integration. Resultaterne flugter ned den seneste forskning, der viser, at færre begrænsninger på erhvervelsen af statsborgerskab (Hainmueller et al. 2015; 2017a; 2019), hurtigere behandling af asylansøgninger (Hainmueller et al. 2016; Hvidtfeldt et al. 2018), beskyttelse af illegale indva drer (Orrenius and Zavodny 2012; Hainmueller et al. 2017b), samt færre begrænsninger af asylansøgeres muligheder for at arbejde (Marbach et al. 2018) fremmer integrationen. På trods af disse resultater oplever vi en stadig stigende tendens til, at de politiske beslutningstagere strammer forskellige integrationspolitikker. Der- med besværliggør de faktisk flygtninges integration fremfor at hjælpe den på vej. En potentiel årsag til dette misforhold mellem målet om at fremme integrationen og politikudbuddet er, at vælgerne rent faktisk efterspørger disse politikker (Lawrence and Sides 2014; Hopkins et al. 2019), og dermed begrænser beslutningstagernes muligheder for at udvikle alternativer, der kan levere på målet om at fremskynde integrationen. Den sidste del af afhandlingen beskæftiger sig med disse vælgermæssige begrænsninger, og udforsker strategier, beslutningstagerne potentielt kan an- vende til at skabe sig selv spillerum til at udvikle politikker, der fremmer integrationen. Denne del af afhandlingen undersøger, om det er muligt at fremme vælgernes præferencer for integrationspolitik ved at præsentere dem for in- formation om flygtninges faktiske integration. Konkret anvender vi et survey-eksperiment til at isolere effekterne af at give vores respondenter korrekt in- formation om ikke-vestlige indvandreres afhængighed af overførselsindkomster, deres kriminalitetsrater samt størrelsen af den ikke-vestlige indvandrer- befolkning relativt til den samlede befolkning. To modsatrette perspektiver strukturerer hvordan denne type information kan forventes at påvirke respondenterne. Det første perspektiv, der baserer sig på bayesianske læringsmodeller, argumenterer for, at vælgere anvender information til at opdatere deres evalueringer af immigranternes faktiske integration. Følgeligt forventes det, at de justerer deres policy præferencer i en mere positiv retning (Sides and Citrin 2007; Nadeau et al. 1993). Det andet perspektiv anerkender at vælgerne måske anvender information til at opdatere deres faktiske overbevisninger, men argumenterer modsat for, at de fortolker information på selektiv vis således de er i stand til at retfærdiggøre deres eksisterende meninger (Gaines et al. 2007). Dermed kan det ikke forventes, at information har nogen effekt på deres policy præferencer. På linje med den eksisterende litteratur viser mine resultater for det første, at vælgerne er meget skeptiske overfor ikke-vestlige indvandrere, og markant overestimerer problemer relaterer til denne immigration. Derudover viser resultaterne, at der er en stærk korrelation mellem at være skeptisk og fore- trække stramme politikker. Samlet viser det, at beslutningstager står overfor markante elektorale begrænsninger i deres overvejelser om udformningen af integrationspolitikker. For det andet viser resultaterne, at vores respondenter er parate til at opdatere deres faktiske overbevisninger i lyset af ny information, men de forbliver modvillige i forhold til at justere deres policy præferencer. Dette underbygger konklusionerne fra tidligere studier i andre kontekster (Lawrence and Sides 2014; Hopkins et al. 2019). Vi viser samtidig, at linket mellem fakta og policy bryder sammen, fordi vores respondenter fortolker den nye information på en måde, der er i overensstemmelse med deres eksisterende meninger, hvilket retfærdiggør at de undgår at anvende den nye information til at guide deres policy præference. Samlet set betyder det, at beslutningstagerne tilsyneladende ikke kan regne med, at det er tilstrækkeligt at for- klare de faktiske forhold, som en strategi til at fremme mere favorable integrationspolitiske holdninger og dermed skabe sig selv et spillerum til at ud- vikle politikker, der fremskynder integrationen.

PDF: https://politica.dk/fileadmin/politica/Dokumenter/ph.d.-afhandlinger/frederik_juhl.pdf.

Lemberg-Pedersen, Martin. ‘The “Imaginary World” of Nationalistic Ethics: Feasibility Constraints on Nordic Deportation Corridors Targeting Unaccompanied Afghan Minors’. (2018) [PDF]

Lemberg-Pedersen, Martin. ‘The “Imaginary World” of Nationalistic Ethics: Feasibility Constraints on Nordic Deportation Corridors Targeting Unaccompanied Afghan Minors’. Etikk i Praksis – Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics, no. 2, Nov. 2018, pp. 47–68.

This article examines Swedish, Danish and Norwegian governments’ participation in the European Return Platform for Unaccompanied Minors (ERPUM) project and its failed attempts to deport unaccompanied minors (UAMs) to Afghanistan. It argues that ERPUM is an interesting and urgent case of a “deportation corridor” and suggests that this framework can benefit from analysis through normative and applied ethics and in particular discussions of feasibility constraints. It therefore identifies and critically assesses two nationalistic arguments for deportation common in Nordic politics, based on appeals to credibility and humanitarianism. Considering the growth of nationalistic immigration policies in Nordic states, the article turns the usual discussion of feasibility on its head by showing that not only cosmopolitan, but also nationalistic ethics must face up to charges of lacking realism. More specifically, it argues that the case of ERPUM illustrates how nationalistic deportation ethics may rely on inconsistent normative and erroneous empirical assumptions, which can be criticized for their arbitrariness, ideological grounding and lack of feasibility.

doi:10.5324/eip.v12i2.2425.

PDF: https://www.ntnu.no/ojs/index.php/etikk_i_praksis/article/download/2425/2861

Shield, Andrew DJ. Immigrants on Grindr: Race, Sexuality and Belonging Online. (2019)

Shield, Andrew DJ. Immigrants on Grindr: Race, Sexuality and Belonging Online. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

This book examines the role of hook-up apps in the lives of gay, bi, trans, and queer immigrants and refugees, and how the online culture of these platforms promotes belonging or exclusion. Within the context of the so-called European refugee crisis, this research focuses on the experiences of immigrants from especially Muslim-majority countries to the greater Copenhagen area, a region known for both its progressive ideologies and its anti-immigrant practices. Grindr and similar platforms connect newcomers with not only dates and sex, but also friends, roommates and other logistical contacts. But these socio-sexual platforms also become spaces of racialization and othering. Weaving together analyses of real Grindr profile texts, immigrant narratives, political rhetoric, and popular media, Immigrants on Grindr provides an in-depth look at the complex interplay between online and offline cultures, and between technology and society.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-30394-5.

https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030303938.

Suárez-Krabbe, Julia, Annika Lindberg, and José Arce-Bayona. Stop Killing Us Slowly: A Research Report on the Motivation Enhancement Measures and the Criminalisation of Rejected Asylum Seekers in Denmark. (2018) [PDF]

Suárez-Krabbe, Julia, Annika Lindberg, and José Arce-Bayona. Stop Killing Us Slowly: A Research Report on the Motivation Enhancement Measures and the Criminalisation of Rejected Asylum Seekers in Denmark. The Freedom of Movements Research Collective, 2018,

Executive summary:

According to the Danish Minister of Immigration and Integration, the Danish deportation centres Sjælsmark and Kærshovedgård are set up to ‘make life intolerable’3 for those rejected asylum-seekers who cannot immediately be detained or deported, thereby pressuring them into leaving Denmark ‘voluntarily’. As part of the motivation enhancement measures introduced into the Danish Aliens Act in 1997 the deportation centres confine asylum seekers in geographically isolated ‘open’ institutions with low living standards and minimum welfare provisions. However, these measures have not fulfilled their official function. Instead of making more people return ‘voluntarily’, they have pushed rejected asylum seekers into illegality, while others remain stuck and de facto confined in deportation centres for a potentially indefinite time period. This report gives an overview of the setup of the deportation centres and analyses how the discrepancy be-tween the intended and real effects may be interpreted. It asks: what are the functions of deporta-tion centres based on their real, rather than politically declared effects? Addressing this question, the report finds the following:

• The deportation centres in particular and the motivation enhancement measures in general, do not fulfil their declared function of increasing ‘voluntary’ returns, nor do they address the issue of migrants who are legally stranded for lengthy periods of time with very circumscribed rights.

• The legal frameworks regulating detention or prisons in Denmark (i.e. time limits, ac-cess to legal advice, rights guarantees) do not apply to deportation centres. Deporta-tion centres can therefore be compared to indefinite detention

.• The deportation centres result in the dras-tic deterioration of the mental and physical health of the men, women, and children ac-commodated there

• The political framework, the juridical setup and the daily rules and practices in depor-tation centres contribute to the criminalisa-tion of migrants and refugees

.• By running these practices in a legal grey zone, the Danish government circumvents – and overtly breaches – human rights reg-ulations at the same time locking residents in a situation with very limited possibilities to contest these conditions and claim their human rights.

• While failing to achieve their own stated goals, the motivation enhancement meas-ures and the deportation centres do achieve making peoples’ lives intolerable: they break people’s spirits and minds and force them to live a life in illegality, outside of the justice- and rights system.~

PDF: http://refugees.dk/media/1757/stop-killing-us_uk.pdf.

Verdasco, Andrea. ‘Communities of Belonging in the Temporariness of the Danish Asylum System: Shalini’s Anchoring Points’. (2019) [PDF]

Verdasco, Andrea. ‘Communities of Belonging in the Temporariness of the Danish Asylum System: Shalini’s Anchoring Points’. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 45, no. 9, July 2019, pp. 1439–1457.

Refugees often find themselves in a protracted situation of temporariness, as applications for asylum are processed, deportations negotiated and possible extensions of temporary protection status considered within the context of increasingly restrictive governmental policies across Europe. Through the case of a young Sri Lankan woman who arrived in Denmark as an ‘unaccompanied asylum-seeking minor’ and spent five years within the Danish asylum system, this article explores how she experienced moving through different legal categories and the institutional settings associated with them. I argue that, by engaging in social relations in the localities where she was situated, she developed places of belonging that could serve as ‘anchoring points’ providing some measure of stability in her otherwise unpredictable and precarious life situation. This case suggests that, even under conditions of protracted temporariness and legal uncertainty, individuals are able to create important anchoring points and develop communities of belonging that can serve them in a difficult process of belonging to Denmark.

doi:10.1080/1369183X.2018.1443393.

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323432801_Communities_of_belonging_in_the_temporariness_of_the_Danish_Asylum_System_Shalini%27s_anchoring_points

Vitting-Seerup, Sabrina. ‘* ’Flygtninge’ på scenen – dilemmaer og potentialer’. (2018) [PDF]

Vitting-Seerup, Sabrina. ‘* ’Flygtninge’ på scenen – dilemmaer og potentialer’. Peripeti, vol. 15, no. 29/30, 29/30, Oct. 2018, pp. 127–137.

Through a reparative reading and by ‘staying with the trouble’, this article looks into four Danish performances from 2016-2017 that have worked with inclusion of people with refugee-experience. The text thereby identifies some of the dilemmas, questions and hopes that the different approaches to inclusion bring about.

https://tidsskrift.dk/peripeti/article/view/109637.

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/peripeti/article/view/109637/158983

Hercowitz-Amir, Adi, and Rebeca Raijman. ‘Restrictive Borders and Rights: Attitudes of the Danish Public to Asylum Seekers’. (2019)

Hercowitz-Amir, Adi, and Rebeca Raijman. ‘Restrictive Borders and Rights: Attitudes of the Danish Public to Asylum Seekers’. Ethnic and Racial Studies, May 2019, pp. 1–20.

Social mechanisms explaining Danes’ attitudes to asylum seekers were analysed on two main dimensions: border control and rights allocation, in a national survey of 500 adult respondents in September 2013. Data show that the respondents supported exclusionary practices against asylum seekers much more than exclusion from rights. Three main mechanisms were simultaneously at play in both exclusionary dimensions: perceptions of threat, social distance (prejudice), and perceiving asylum seekers as not “genuine refugees”. Identifying asylum seekers’ as a security and socio-economic threat, as persons not in “real” fear of persecution, together with prejudicial attitudes to them had a boosting effect on excluding asylum seekers from the Danish collective in terms of entry and rights. Findings are discussed in light of existing theories on exclusionary attitudes to asylum seekers.

doi:10.1080/01419870.2019.1606435.

https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2019.1606435.

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]

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.

Brändle, Verena K., Hans-Jörg Trenz, Freja Sørine Adler Berg, and Anna Sofie Rosenberg. ‘Solidarity Contestation in Danish Media: A National Escape from Transnational Crisis’. (2018) [PDF]

Brändle, Verena K., Hans-Jörg Trenz, Freja Sørine Adler Berg, and Anna Sofie Rosenberg. ‘Solidarity Contestation in Danish Media: A National Escape from Transnational Crisis’. Integrated Report on Transnational Solidarity in the Public Domain (WP5), 2018, 165–192,

PDF: http://transsol.eu/files/2018/05/deliverable-5-1.pdf. http://transsol.eu/files/2018/05/deliverable-5-1.pdf.

Bech, Emily Cochran, Kristian Kriegbaum Jensen, et al. ‘Hvem er folket? Flygtninge og adgangen til dansk statsborgerskab’. (2017) [PDF]

Bech, Emily Cochran, Kristian Kriegbaum Jensen, et al. ‘Hvem er folket? Flygtninge og adgangen til dansk statsborgerskab’. Politica., vol. 49, no. 3, 2017, pp. 227–248.

Danmark har nogle af de mest restriktive statsborgerskabsregler i Europa med krav om blandt andet langt ophold, sprog, viden, selvforsørgelse og kriminalitet. Statsborgerskab giver stemme- og opstillingsret til nationale valg og er dermed forudsætningen for fuld demokratisk inklusion. I dag står godt 376.000 voksne indbyggere uden statsborgerskab. På baggrund af registerdata undersøger vi, hvorvidt flygtninge, som indvandrede som voksne mellem 2001 og 2009, har kunnet opfylde kravene til sprog, selvforsørgelse og kriminalitet. Vi undersøger, hvilke krav der er mest ekskluderende, og hvor stor en forskel det ville gøre, hvis kravene lempedes. Herudover undersøges, hvor mange danske statsborgere med dansk oprindelse faktisk kan leve op til de gældende krav. Med det som udgangspunkt diskuterer vi kravenes implikationer for det danske demokrati, og hvorvidt det svarer til normative forestillinger om fairness.

PDF: https://politica.dk/fileadmin/politica/Dokumenter/politica_49_3/bech_et_al.pdf

Arce, José, and Julia Suárez-Krabbe. ‘Racism, Global Apartheid and Disobedient Mobilities: The Politics of Detention and Deportation in Europe and Denmark’ (2018) [PDF]

Arce, José, and Julia Suárez-Krabbe. ‘Racism, Global Apartheid and Disobedient Mobilities: The Politics of Detention and Deportation in Europe and Denmark’. Kult, vol. 15, 2018.

PDF: http://postkolonial.dk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/11_Julia-og-Jose_We-are-here-because-you-were-there_final.pdf. http://postkolonial.dk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/11_Julia-og-Jose_We-are-here-because-you-were-there_final.pdf.