Racial Turns and Returns: Recalibrations of Racial Exceptionalism in Danish Public Debates on Racism

Abstract

translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Critical Hip Hop Pedagogy, Moral Ambiguity, and Social Technologies

“…; categories that are always constructed through negotiations in which the interaction varies according to the specific context (Collins 1998: 208). However, for several decades, a culture of “racial silence” (Myong 2009) has dominated Denmark and other Scandinavian countries and served to obscure the ways in which race continues to operate as a biopolitical medium that produces and reproduces frames for understanding bodily difference in the Danish context (Andreassen and Vitus 2015; Danbolt and Myong 2019). Recognizing this, we refer, throughout this article, to the target group of the rap‐based social programs as “racially Othered” or “racially minoritized.” Empirically speaking, however, it should be mentioned that our interlocutors (the vast majority of them being young men) have primarily been refugees, immigrants, or descendants of people from Muslim‐majority countries in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, or Northern Africa.…”

Feeling difference: Race, migration, and the affective infrastructure of a Danish detention camp

“…Denmark's migration control regime is thus among the sites where state racism is implemented, and where the racial boundaries of the Danish welfare state are produced, maintained, and also challenged by those affected (Arce and Suárez-Krabbe, 2019). Yet, Danish political and public debate is characterised by a persistent denial of racism and insistence on the 'colourblind' and 'non-racist' character of Denmark (Danbolt and Myong, 2019). Indeed, like in other Nordic countries, 'race' and racism are regularly considered issues of the past (Loftsdóttir and Jensen, 2012; see also Goldberg, 2002), or as something external and largely irrelevant to the (ideologically constructed) homogeneously white Nordic nation-state (Andreassen and Vitus, 2015).…”

White Danish Love as Affective Intervention: <i>Studying Media Representations of Family Reunification Involving Children</i>

“…These domains have been dominated by arguments that Denmark is accepting too many immigrants, in particular from the Middle East, and that their presence poses a threat to societal cohesion (Yilmaz 2016: 74f, 162f). The anti-immigration framework has, to a great extent, been assembled vis-à-vis exceptionalist notions of Denmark as a tolerant and non-racist welfare state that is now at risk of being undermined by 'unintegrated' migrants and their descendants, who are often imagined as exploiting the Danish welfare system (Rytter 2018;Yilmaz 2016) or by 'divisive' forms of identity politics (Danbolt & Myong 2019).…”