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ABSTRACT
Jensen, Weibel and Vitus's article critically discusses contemporary Danish policies aimed at the elimination of ethnoracial discrimination, drawing on policy analyses and qualitative interviews with local and national authorities in Denmark. It illustrates how questions of discrimination and racism are marginalized and de-legitimized within the dominant integration discourse, resulting in the marginalization of anti-racism in policymaking. The side-stepping of racism is being naturalized in public policies through strategies of denial and by addressing discrimination as a product of ignorance and individual prejudice rather than as embedded in social structures. The authors examine how immigration, integration and (anti-)racism as concepts and phenomena are understood and addressed in Danish public policies and discourses. Despite denials of racism in Denmark, Jensen, Weibel and Vitus show that, based on re-definitions of identities and relations, it continues to exist and is evident in public debates and policies on immigration and integration.
Notes
1 Authors' interview with representative of the Copenhagen Municipality, April 2011. Translations from the Danish, unless otherwise stated, are by the authors.
2 Karen Fog Olwig, ‘Narrating deglobalization: Danish perceptions of a lost empire’, Global Networks, vol. 3, no. 3, 2003, 207–22; Rikke Andreassen and Kathrine Vitus (eds), Affectivity and Race: Studies from Nordic Contexts (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate 2015).
3 Ulf Hedetoft, ‘More than kin and less than kind: the Danish politics of ethnic consensus and the pluricultural challenge’, in John L. Campbell, John A. Hall and Ove K. Pedersen (eds), National Identity and the Varieties of Capitalism: The Danish Experience (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press 2006), 398–430.
4 Peter Hervik and Rikke Egå Jørgensen, ‘Danske benægtelser af racisme’, Sosiologi i dag, vol. 32, no. 4, 2002, 83–102.
5 David Theo Goldberg, ‘Racial Europeanization’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 29, no. 2, 2006, 331–64.
6 Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America (New York: Random House 1967).
7 Etienne Balibar, ‘Is there a neo-racism?’, in Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein (eds), Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, Balibar trans. from the French by Chris Turner (London and New York: Verso 1991), 17–28.
8 Ibid., 23.
9 Ibid., 21.
10 Marianne Gullestad, ‘Blind slaves of our prejudices: debating “culture” and “race” in Norway’, Ethnos, vol. 69, no. 2, 2004, 177–203.
11 Ministeriet for Flygtninge, Indvandrere og Integration (Ministry for Refugees, Immigration and Integration), Tal og fakta om integration: Befolkning, uddannelse, beskæftigelse Tema om børn (Copenhagen: Regeringen 2010), 20–1.
12 Olwig, ‘Narrating deglobalization’.
13 Ibid., 208.
14 Birte Siim and Anette Borchorst, The Multicultural Challenge to the Danish Welfare State: Social Politics, Equality and Regulating Families (Aalborg: Feminist Research Center in Aalborg, Aalborg University 2008).
15 Lise Togeby, Fra fremmedarbejder til etniske minoriteter (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag 2003).
16 Alan Wolfe and Jytte Klausen, ‘Other people’, Prospect, no. 58, December 2000, 28–33.
17 Jens Peter Frølund Thomsen, Konflikten om de nye danskere (Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag 2006).
18 Peter Mouritsen, ‘The particular universalism of a Nordic civic nation: common values, state religion and Islam in Danish political culture’, in Tariq Modood, Anna Triandafyllidou and Ricard Zapata-Barrero (eds), Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship: A European Approach (London: Routledge 2006), 70–93.
19 Jørgen Goul Andersen, ‘Immigration, solidarity and citizenship’, paper presented to the ‘Globalisation and the Political Theory of the Welfare State and Citizenship’ conference, 4–5 May 2006, Aalborg University, available on the Aalborg Universitet website at http://vbn.aau.dk/files/14152940/Immigration (viewed 24 November 2016).
20 Tina Gudrun Jensen, ‘Making room: encompassing diversity in Denmark’, in Alessandro Silj (ed.), European Multiculturalism Revisited (London and New York: Zed 2010), 181–213.
21 Barnor Hesse, ‘The im/plausible deniability: racism's conceptual double bind’, Social Identities, vol. 10, no. 1, 2004, 9–29.
22 Goldberg, ‘Racial Europeanization’, 353.
23 Kathrine Vitus, ‘Racial embodiment and the affectivity of racism in young people's film’, Palgrave Communications (online), vol. 1, article no. 15007, 2015, available at www.palgrave-journals.com/articles/palcomms20157 (viewed 24 November 2016); Kathrine Vitus, ‘“When I rap, I feel more like myself”: equality and enjoyment in young women's rapper dreams', Subjectivity, vol. 9, no. 1, 2016, 59–82.
24 Iris Marion Young, ‘Abjection and oppression: dynamics of unconscious racism, sexism, and homophobia’, in A. B. Dallery and C. E. Scott (eds), Crisis in Continental Philosophy (New York: SUNY Press 1990), 201–13 (202), quoted in Derek Hook, ‘Racism as abjection: a psychoanalytic conceptualisation for a post-apartheid South Africa’, South African Journal of Psychology, vol. 34, no. 4, 2004, 672–703 (672). See also Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotions (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2004).
25 Ministeriet for Flygtninge, Indvandrere og Integration (Ministry for Refugees, Immigration and Integration), Handlingsplan til fremme af ligebehandling og mangfoldighed og til bekæmpelsen af racisme (Copenhagen: Regeringen 2003).
26 Ministeriet for Flygtninge, Indvandrere og Integration, Handlingsplan om etnisk ligebehandling og respekt for den enkelte (Copenhagen: Regeringen 2010).
27 Authors’ interview with a representative of the Ministry for Refugees, Immigration and Integration, April 2011.
28 Ibid.
29 Nado Aveling, ‘Anti-racism in schools: a question of leadership?’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, vol. 28, no. 1, 2007, 69–85.
30 Authors’ interview with a representative of the Ministry for Refugees, Immigration and Integration, April 2011.
31 Bergthóra S. Kristjánsdóttir and Lene Timm, Tvetunget uddannelsespolitik–dokumentation af etnisk ulighed i folkeskolen (Copenhagen: Nyt fra Samfundsvidenskaberne 2007).
32 Documentary and Advisory Center on Racial Discrimination, Analytical Report on Education: National Focal Point for Denmark (Copenhagen: DACoRD 2004), 30.
33 Teun A. van Dijk, ‘Discourse and the denial of racism’, Discourse and Society, vol. 3, no. 1, 1992, 87–118.
34 Goldberg, ‘Racial Europeanization’, 331.
35 ECRI, Første rapport om Danmark, CRI(1999)1 (Strasbourg: Council of Europe 1999): ECRI, Tredje rapport om Danmark, CRI(2006)18 (Strasbourg: Council of Europe 2006).
36 Jørgen Goul Andersen, Danskernes holdninger til indvandrere: En oversigt, AMID Working Paper Series 17 (Aalborg: Institut for Historie, Internationale Studier og Samfundsforhold, Aalborg Universitet 2002), 22; Jensen, ‘Making room’, 202.
37 Goul Andersen, ‘Immigration, solidarity and citizenship’.
38 Siim and Borchorst, The Multicultural Challenge to the Danish Welfare State.
39 For the English version of the Integration Act, see ‘Consolidation of the Act on Integration of Aliens in Denmark’, Consolidation Act No. 839, 5 September 2005, available on the Immigration Service's Ny i Danmark/New to Denmark website at www.nyidanmark.dk/NR/rdonlyres/105C4108-2914-4BCB-B5CE-5023B5EF62F7/0/act_on_integration_2005.pdf (viewed 25 November 2016).
40 Ministeriet for Flygtninge, Indvandrere og Integration, Integrationsloven (Copenhagen: Regeringen 2010).
41 Hedetoft, ‘“More than kin and less than kind”’.
42 Morten Ejrnæs, Etniske minoriteters tilpasning til livet i Danmark: Forholdet mellem majoritetssamfundet og etniske minoriteter, AMID Working Paper Series 18 (Aalborg: Institut for Historie, Internationale Studier og Samfundsforhold, Aalborg Universitet 2002).
43 Morten Ejrnæs, Integrationsloven: En case, der illustrerer etniske minoriteters usikre medborgerstatus, AMID Working Paper Series 1 (Aalborg: Institut for Historie, Internationale Studier og Samfundsforhold, Aalborg Universitet 2001).
44 Marianne Gullestad, Det norske sett med nye øyne (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget 2002).
45 Karen Lisa Goldschmidt Salamon, ‘I grunden er vi enige: En ekskurs i skandinavisk foreningsliv’, Tidsskriftet Antropologi, vol. 25, 1992, 105–16.
46 Steffen Jöhncke, ‘Velfærdsstaten som integrationsprojekt’, in Karen Fog Olwig and Karsten Pærregaard (eds), Integration: Antropologiske perspektiver (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum 2007), 37–62.
47 Hedetoft, ‘“More than kin and less than kind”’, 403.
48 Charlotte Hamburger, ‘Assimilation som et grundtræk i dansk indvandrerpolitik’, Politica, vol. 22, no. 3, 1990, 306–19.
49 Amnesty International, Starthjælp: når staten diskriminerer (Copenhagen: Amnesty International 2007); ECRI, Tredje rapport om Danmark.
50 Ministeriet for Flygtninge, Indvandrere og Integration, Erklæring om aktivt medborgerskab (Copenhagen: Regeringen 2006), 10.
51 Ibid., Annex 1.
52 Karen Fog Olwig and Karsten Pærregaard, ‘Integration: Antropologiske perspektiver’, in Olwig and Pærregaard (eds), Integration, 9–34.
53 Mouritsen, ‘The particular universalism of a Nordic civic nation’, 73.
54 Ministergruppen om Bedre Integration, Regeringens vision og strategier for bedre integration (Copenhagen: Regeringens 2003), 12.
55 Stuart Hall, ‘The spectacle of the “other”’, in Stuart Hall (ed.), Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (London: Sage 1997), 223–90 (258).
56 Minister for Ligestilling (Minister for Gender Equality), Beskæftigelse, deltagelse og lige muligheder til alle (Copenhagen: Regeringen 2005).
57 Ibid., 9.
58 Ibid., 10.
59 Randi Gressgård and Christine M. Jacobsen, ‘Questions of gender in a multicultural society’, Nora: Nordic Journal of Women's Studies, vol. 11, no. 2, 2003, 69–77.
60 Michael Bræmer, ‘Udlændingelov ændres konstant’, Ugebrevet A4 (online), 29 March 2010, available at www.ugebreveta4.dk/udlaendingelov-aendres-konstant_19196.aspx (viewed 28 November 2016).
61 Ibid.
62 Van Dijk, ‘Discourse and the denial of racism’.
63 Goldberg, ‘Racial Europeanization’.
64 Gullestad, ‘Blind slaves of our prejudices’.
65 Rikke Andreassen, ‘The Mass Media's Construction of Gender, Race, Sexuality and Nationality: An Analysis of the Danish News Media's Communication about Visible Minorities from 1971–2004’, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of History, University of Toronto, 2005.
66 The views expressed in the article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Tina Gudrun Jensen
Tina Gudrun Jensen is an anthropologist affiliated with the Centre for Advanced Migration Studies at the University of Copenhagen. She has conducted research on migration, cultural complexity, social integration and urban spaces. Her work focuses on inter-ethnic relations and processes of inclusion and exclusion. Her latest publications include ‘The Complexity of Neighbourhood Relations in a Multi-Ethnic Social Housing Project in Copenhagen’ (Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 2015) and ‘Crossing Cultural Borders and Identities in Brazil and Denmark: A Comparative Perspective’ (Revista Ciências da Religião: História e Sociedade, 2015). Email: [email protected]
Kristina Weibel
Kristina Weibel is a sociologist and programme analyst at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Tanzania. Her areas of work and research include gender and development, social policy, marginalization, discrimination, integration and migration. Her publications include (with Sara Jul Jacobsen, Tina Gudrun Jensen and Kathrine Vitus) Analysis of Danish Media Setting and Framing of Muslims, Islam and Racism (Danish National Centre for Social Research 2012); and (with Tina Gudrun Jensen, Mette Kirstine Tørslev and Kathrine Vitus) Integration, Difference and (Anti)discrimination in Danish Primary and Lower Education (Danish National Centre for Social Research 2012). Email: [email protected]
Kathrine Vitus
Kathrine Vitus is a sociologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Work at Aalborg University in Copenhagen. Her areas of research are childhood and youth, identity and ethnicity, migration, integration and marginalization, and qualitative methods. Her recent publications include, with Rikke Andreassen, Affectivity and Race: Studies from Nordic Contexts (Ashgate 2015), ‘Racial Embodiment and the Affectivity of Racism in Young People’s Film’ (Palgrave Communications, 2015); and ‘“When I rap, I feel more like myself”: Equality and Enjoyment in Young Women’s Rapper Dreams’ (Subjectivity, 2016). Email: [email protected]