The duplicity of diversity: Caribbean immigrants in Denmark

Abstract

‘Diversity’ has become a key term in recent years, yet it has been criticized for being a vague concept with different and contradictory meanings. This article demonstrates that there are at least three inherent meanings of the term: (1) discerned difference attributed with positive or negative value; (2) diverting diversity providing pleasure and amusement; and (3) distracting diversity directing attention from something of greater importance. I argue that the concept of diversity can be a fruitful focus in ethnographic research, if its inherent multiplex and duplicitous character is recognized and actively employed. This is shown through an analysis of the ways in which immigrants from the English-speaking Caribbean to Denmark have been perceived and received as foreigners since the 1960s as representing different kinds of diversity.

Keywords:

• diversity
• foreignness
• cultural homogeneity
• integration regime
• Denmark
• Caribbean

Acknowledgements

Economic support from the Danish Council for Strategic Research is gratefully acknowledged, as is the constructive critique by two anonymous reviewers and participants in the larger research project Social Cohesion and Ethnic Diversity, of which this study was part. Most of all, the Caribbean interviewees’ invaluable help is greatly appreciated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I conducted formal, life-story-focused interviews with the Caribbean migrants. The interviews with the Danish spouses included a formal interview with one spouse, the participation of the spouses in two interviews with Caribbean immigrants, and informal conversations with two spouses.

2. http://www.statistikbanken.dk/statbank5a/default.asp?w=1440 The number comprises immigrants from the former British West Indian colonies, including Belize and Guyana. For a study of immigrants in Denmark from the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, see Fernandez (2013).

3. For another analysis of perceptions of Denmark as a culturally homogeneous society, see Jenkins (2011).

4. Many of these marriages involved citizens of the EU and did not involve legal problems with respect to family reunification.

5. The centre-left government changed this to four years in 2012.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Danish Council for Strategic Research [grant number 09-067171/DSF].

Notes on contributors

Karen Fog Olwig

KAREN FOG OLWIG is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen.