‘A Southern man can have a harem of up to twenty Danish women’: Sexotic politics and immigration in Denmark, 1965–1979 (original) (raw)
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This book focuses on the latter half of the twentieth century, when much of northwest Europe grew increasingly multicultural with the arrival of foreign workers and (post-)colonial migrants, whilst simultaneously experiencing a boom in feminist and sexual liberation activism. Using multilingual newspapers, foreign worker organizations’ archives, and interviews, this book shows that immigrants in the Netherlands and Denmark held a variety of viewpoints about European gender and sexual cultures. Some immigrants felt solidarity with, and even participated in, European social movements that changed norms and laws in favor of women’s equality, gay and lesbian rights, and sexual liberation. These histories challenge today’s politicians and journalists who strategically link immigration to sexual conservatism, misogyny, and homophobia.
This book: 1. Historicizes current European debates about the sexual politics of immigrants from Muslim-majority regions 2. Explores the centrality of sexual politics to European debates about immigration and integration 3. Challenges dominant theories linking immigration to sexual conservatism and misogynistic behaviour This book focuses on the latter half of the twentieth century, when much of northwest Europe grew increasingly multicultural with the arrival of foreign workers and (post-)colonial migrants, whilst simultaneously experiencing a boom in feminist and sexual liberation activism. Using multilingual newspapers, foreign worker organizations’ archives, and interviews, this book shows that immigrants in the Netherlands and Denmark held a variety of viewpoints about European gender and sexual cultures. Some immigrants felt solidarity with, and even participated in, European social movements that changed norms and laws in favor of women’s equality, gay and lesbian rights, and sexual liberation. These histories challenge today’s politicians and journalists who strategically link immigration to sexual conservatism, misogyny, and homophobia.
Facing the queer migrant in Nordic Noir
Queering the Migrant in Contemporary European Cinema, 2020
While Nordic Noir-at times referred to as Scandinavian Noir-has become an internationally powerful and evocative concept or phenomenon that encompasses literature, film and television, its existence is rather recent, at least as a definable, critical concept. 1 Before international audiences and critics 'discovered' that there was a specific regional aesthetics and mode of narration attached to the crime novels (and later, televised series) coming out of the Nordic countries, it was not considered as anything other than just ordinary Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish or Icelandic crime 2-at least by the Nordics themselves. 3 And while 'Nordic' and 'Scandinavian'as geographical and cultural categorisations and labels-in most international discourse are used indiscriminately, it should be pointed out that they do differ in terms of geography and in terms of inclusion: while 'Nordic' as a geographical label encompasses all five countries, 'Scandinavian' encompasses only three of them: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. 4 Yet while Nordic and Scandinavian differ from one another-the former being more inclusive than the latter-they are, of course, intimately related, not least because they share a long, and at times complicated, history. 5 Linguistically, the Scandinavian languages are closely related-especially in written form-and culturally, all five Nordic countries share many traits and traditions. Further, these countries share a similar political history, with a strong Social Democratic (or at least liberal) governance starting in the early twentieth century, a governance mostly characterised by the will to create a modern, equal society informed by an inclusive welfare system. As we have reached the new millennium, these welfare states are slowly being dismantled, due much to the fervent attacks (and apparent mesmerism) coming from nationalist, popularist and far-rightist ends. There is, however, one more aspect that unites the two concepts 'Nordic' and 'Scandinavian': both refuse any national claims. In this chapter on Nordic Noir, I will concentrate on one Nordic country in particular: Sweden. I will investigate how characters who are queer and either asylum seeking refugees, (im)migrants, or in other ways ethnically different, are currently being represented and negotiated in contemporary 'Swedish' Noir. The characters I will be focusing on can all be described
Between Two Ills: Homonationalism, Gender Ideology and the Case of Denmark
Redescriptions: Political Thought, Conceptual History and Feminist Theory, 2021
This article draws on Mouffe’s theory of agonistic democracy and critique of hegemonic consensuses to examine whether and how homonationalism can come to fuel antagonisms levelled against the gender+ movements. Using discourse analysis, the article analyses the case study of Denmark, where in 2018 the anti-gender campaign openly challenged the government’s homonationalist discourse. The analysis confirms that the government’s homonationalist discourse establishes modes of exclusion from the national imaginary, which the anti-gender actors contest by articulating an antagonism levelled against the gender+ movements’ attributed queer ideology. The antagonising potential of homonationalist discursive practices is further substantiated by pointing to the ways in which the government’s discourse reinforces a liberal idea of citizenship that gives priority to liberal rights over the democratic values of popular sovereignty and participation. Conversely, the anti-gender discourse gives pri...
Norwegian Sexualities: Assimilation and exclusion in Norwegian immigration policy
In this article, we discuss how certain sexual norms currently labeled as ‘Norwegian’ come into play in immigration policy related to marriage migrants and homosexuals who seek asylum in Norway. Our analyses indicate that discourses on sexuality in immigration politics are gendered and racialized at the Norwegian border. We discuss the continued significance of Orientalist notions that render its sexual subjects as inherently ‘different’ and supposedly premodern in contemporary regulation of immigration to Norway. Independence, freedom of choice and informed, strategic initiative, usually considered late modern ideals, seem to be grounds for suspecting the motivation for migration. Migration seems to be legitimate only when it is a result of necessity caused by the inherent emotional and sexual needs which signify the authentic homosexual and marriage migrant.