Mapping the social history of political-administrative viewpoints and interventions addressing “the stranger within” since 1945 in Denmark.

Author(s):

Bolette Moldenhawer(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

17. Histories of Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

17 SES 02, Politics in Transition and Education

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-08

15:15-16:45

Room:

427.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Marta Padovan-Özdemir

Contribution

This paper investigates how the political-administrative apparatus in its documents, committee work and legislative framework categorizes and problematizes “the stranger within”, and how these categorizations and problematizations are socially distributed and legitimized as symbolic acts carried out by professional associations who have been engaged in this endeavour. ‘Professional associations’ is used as a label for agents, institutions and organizations that engage in efforts to regulate knowledge and authorizations in their respective areas of intervention. As such, they are key regulatory agencies, which constitute a site for formal corporation in which different voices and viewpoints meet, visions are negotiated and compromises achieved (Nerland & Karseth 2014, p. 188).

Analytically, the present paper reveals the diachronic configuration of how “the stranger within” has been described and problematized within the political-administrative field since 1945 in relation to state crafting practices which in general moves from the right to welfare to the obligation of workfare and an expansive securitization (Moldenhawer & Øland 2013, Simon-Kumar 2014, Wacquant 2009, 2013).

In this paper, “the stranger within” is referring empirically to the population of refugees, immigrants and their descendants arriving in Denmark since WWII. Analytically, “the stranger within” is also to be examined as a realized social category existing both in the objectivity of the world (in the form of for example border control practices and welfare institutions addressing the population referred to as refugees, immigrants and their descendants) and in people’s minds, in the form of principles of classification that are implemented both by ordinary agents, institutions and organizations and by the political-administrative operators of official classifications (Bourdieu 1996, p. 24; Hansen and Øland 2014, p. 18).

The investigation is informed by a field analytic approach that consider variations in the relative power of the entrusted professional associations influencing the political-administrative apparatus as they impose their particular vision of the problematized “stranger within” and of its representation (Bourdieu 1987). Hence, the attention is on who is included and excluded in terms of group-making based on class, place, ethno-racial origin, language, citizenship status and Danish cultural values.

Method

Empirically, the study comprises analysis of documents produced in the state apparatus. The primary documents selected for analysis include commission reports issued by various ministries addressing the issue of “the stranger within”. In addition, the commission reports include the supporting appendices, which have informed the work of the commission. The commissions are partly membered by invited representatives of professional associations and experts in the field in question, partly by assigned clerks of the ministry. These commission reports are considered to constitute the negotiated compromise of the collaborative work invested by the commission members and the invited professional expertise. The selection of commission reports is based on a comprehensive word search in the Danish Law Gazette (Lovtidende, In Danish) since 1945 by means of the search categories refugee, immigrant, foreigner, right of citizenship, alien, integration etc. The Danish Law Gazette holds all the laws, regulations, finance bills and treaties. The vast compilation of documents from this initial search has been surveyed and classified by the specifications of the initial search categories; i.e. how immigrants are specified as "refugees from Germany”, “persons form the former Yugoslavia", "adult foreigners" or "young refugees". Furthermore, the survey classifies the documents by their ministerial affiliation, notes the political interventions resulting from the parliamentary-judicial processes and importantly, dedicated membership of invited professionals in the working groups. Roughly described, the ministries appointed to act on behalf of “the stranger within” has changed from Ministry of Justice (until 1960s), Ministry of Employment (until 1971), Ministry of Social affairs (until 1982), Ministry of Interior and Justice (until 1993), Ministry of Interior (until 2001), Ministry of immigrants, refugees and integration (until 2011) and Ministry of Social and child affairs and integration (until 2012). Professional agents possessing symbolic capital and who have been involved in the commission work are representatives from e.g. The Danish Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), The Confederation of Danish Employers (DA), Danish Refugee Council (DRC), Danish Red Cross (DRK), Local Government Denmark (KL), The Association of Ethnic Equality (NEL), Research institutions and welfare professionals. In order to analyse the voices, viewpoints and positions of the entrusted professional agents, an initial search for empirical sources in the National Archives will be carried out.

Expected Outcomes

This paper produces knowledge about the significant changes which occurred since 1945 in the Danish welfare nation-state seen through the political-administrative categorization practices concerning “the stranger within”. Moreover, the paper shows how these practices are attending to categories and legitimations as regards who is included and excluded in terms of group-making based on class, place, ethno-racial origin, language, citizenship status and Danish cultural values. Although the geo-political context of this paper is Denmark, this case – to paraphrase Simon-Kumar (2014, p. 4) – parallels shifts in how categorization practices of “the stranger within” have been exposed to welfare, workfare and securitization policies, and how these processes can inform knowledge about state transformation processes in other immigration countries.

References

Bourdieu, Pierre 1996. On the Family as a Realized Category. Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 13(3): 19-26: 19 DOI: 10.1177/026327696013003002 ______________1991. Language & Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press. ______________1987. The Force of Law: Towards a Sociology of the Juridical Field, Hastings Law Journal, University of California, Hastings College of Law, 808-853. Hansen, Christian Sandbjerg, and Trine Øland. 2014. “The Social Making of Educational Theory: Unravelling How to Understand the Content, Emergence, and Transformation of Educational Theory.” Nordic Journal of Educational History 1 (2): 3–26. Simon-Kumar, Rachel. 2014. “Neoliberalism and the New Race Politics of Migration Policy: Changing Profiles of the Desirable Migrant in New Zealand.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, July, 1–20. doi:10.1080/1369183X.2014.936838. Moldenhawer, Bolette, and Trine Øland. 2013. “Disturbed by ‘the Stranger’: State Crafting Remade through Educational Interventions and Moralisations.” Globalisation, Societies and Education 11 (3): 398–420. doi:10.1080/14767724.2013.789617. Nerland, Monika and Karseth 2014. Standardization of Professional Knowledge and Practice, In World Yearbook of Education 2014. Governing Knowledge. Comparison Knowledge-Based Technologies and Expertise in the Regulation of Education, edited by Tara Fenwick, Eric Mangez and Jenny Ozga, Oxon and New York: Routledge. Wacquant, Loïc 2009. Punishing the poor. The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity. Durham and London: Duke University Press. ____________ 2013. The wedding of workfare and prisonfare in the 21st century: responses to critics and commentators. In Criminalisation and advanced marginality. Critically exploring the work of Loïc Wacquant, Edited by Squires, P. and Lea, J. Great Britain: Polity Press, pp. 243-259.

Author Information

Bolette Moldenhawer (presenting / submitting)

University of Copenhagen

Media, Cognition and Communication

Copenhagen

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