Integration and New Limits on Citizenship Rights

Denmark and Beyond

N. Stokes-DuPass

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781137469045
• eBook ISBN: 9781137469052
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Social Sciences

Integration and New Limits on Citizenship Rights is a state-centered analysis of citizenship, immigration and social identity. It explores the increasing role of nation states as critical actors in using social policy to affect the social location of immigrants and ethnics and also to redefine what it means to be a full citizen.

CHAPTER 1

THE CONTEXT AND SETTING

I WAS INITIALLY DRAWN TOWARD CONDUCTING RESEARCH in Denmark because of its reputation as one of the most advanced and comprehensive social welfare states in the world. Denmark (like many of its Nordic neighbors) also has a reputation for being socially progressive in terms of social policies and human rights. I arrived in Denmark during the summer of 2000 unaware that I was about to witness a pivotal cultural and political turning point. There was a growing trend toward entitlement retrenchment and anti-immigration sentiment. Denmark was in the midst of a historic national election marked by the rise of two conservative political parties: the Liberal Party (Venstre in Danish) and the Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti in Danish). The rise in popularity of these once-marginalized political parties also marked significant ideological and political shifts in public and political discourse about ethnic populations living in Denmark and the impending arrival of new immigrants.

I lived in a college dormitory (called a kollegium in Danish) with Danish university students while these events unfolded. Within a few days of my arrival, I was pushed by my neighbors to immediately start Danish language classes and to acquire enough knowledge about Danish history and political systems to have something intelligent to add to the many political discussions that occurred almost daily over morning coffee in our tiny fourth-floor kitchen.

One of my most vivid memories of these early days is attending the birthday party of Astrid, a neighbor. Our shared kitchen was decorated in the Danish national colors (red and white) and there were images of the Danish flag on the cake, on the banner, and on the cocktail napkins that we used. After everyone from our floor and some outside guests arrived, we sat at a large candlelit dinner table that was filled with wine, beer, and platters of home-cooked food made by residents of our floor. Before dinner was served, everyone stood up and sang the following song, “I dag er det Astrid’s Fødselsdag, Hurra! Hurra! Hurra! Hun sikkert sig en gave får, som hun har ønsket sig i år med dejlig chokolade og kager til.” This song is similar to the English “Happy Birthday” song.

After the singing, the platters of food were served family style, with each person passing the various courses of food around the large table. Everyone was speaking Danish and, at times, someone would tap a glass with their silverware to signal that the side conversations should stop and that someone was going to make a speech about the honoree. When the speech was over, everyone lifted their glasses toward the guest of honor, laughed, and cheered. Thereafter, the side conversations resumed.

At that time, I did not speak Danish and I remember that none of my neighbors translated the songs or speeches. Even my invitation to the party was presented more as a command than as a welcoming invitation to attend. Yet I felt warmth and a sense of coziness during the evening—a feeling that I later learned is called hygge in Danish.

As I reflect on the 18 months that I lived at the kollegium, I recall many parties that followed the same theme and ritual. Even my birthday was celebrated in this way despite the fact that I am African American and from the United States. In fact, at the floor planning meeting where mine and other birthdays in October were being discussed, I jokingly asked, “Where is the American flag for my birthday?” I was promptly told, “You are in Denmark now and this is how we do things!”

When I think of and describe Danish national identity, these birthday parties are among the first images that come to mind. In the early days, I had no understanding about the traditions associated with this way of celebrating a person’s birthday. I do remember feeling conflicting emotions at these events. On one hand, I felt a warmth and sincerity that I had not felt in any other university event I had attended in the United States. This was evident by the level of care my neighbors exhibited in cooking the delicious food that we ate, the time and energy spent preparing and decorating the room, and the intensity of emotion contained in the speeches made during the dinner.

On the other hand, I also never felt more socially isolated than I did at these parties. Even though all of my neighbors spoke English, not one person attempted to translate what was being said or to explain why the Danish flag was used as decoration. I had to constantly interrupt conversations happening around me to solicit explanations of what was going on. The strong sense of tradition and national identity—as illustrated in this small but significant way (a birthday party)—represents a powerful theme expressed throughout this book: the contradiction of being welcomed and simultaneously being kept at a distance. This theme was echoed by many of my immigrant respondents when asked about their integration to life in Denmark.

Like many of my respondents, I also learned very quickly that the key to social acceptance among my Danish neighbors was to rapidly learn and express an appreciation for the traditions of our kollegium—a place that I later learned was one of the oldest student houses in Copenhagen. This kollegium was as heavily steeped in tradition as the people who lived there. These traditions play a significant part of what many of my respondents would later describe as typical “Danishness.”

Anyone with a cursory knowledge of Danish history can understand why Danes hold on so fervently to their history and cultural traditions. Denmark is a nation that has fended off one adversary after another. Its history is punctuated by several wars with its Nordic neighbors, where each defeat resulted in territory reductions. The losses of land resulted in a heavily centralized Danish state led by an agrarian class—a state-building pattern that was unusual as compared to that in other parts of Europe where states were typically formed out of either elite-driven social movements or peasant rebellions (Campbell et al., 2006).

In the 10 years that followed (2000–2010), I have traveled back to Denmark for both work and pleasure. I often feel conflicted about my experiences thus far in this proud and beautiful country. On one hand, I felt welcomed by my neighbors—several of them have remained close friends whom I visit each time I return to Denmark. On the other hand, I have also experienced Danes shouting at me in anger on the subway, telling me in Danish, “Foreigner, go back home.”

INTRODUCTION

This book focuses on the increasing role of nation-states as critical actors in using social policy to make race (racial and ethnic hierarchies) and to redefine what it means to be a full citizen. Citizenship scholars have noted that this concept has traditionally been used as the means for uniting diverse groups under one national identity—especially true for nations with long and diverse histories of receiving immigrants (i.e., United States, Canada, etc.). Using Denmark as a case study, my research moves away from recent citizenship literature. I argue that states with recent and rising immigration have begun to constrain citizenship from performing its traditional role and have used it to divide populations rather than to unite them.

In particular, I examine the relationship between native-Danes’ discourse and new-Danes’ (or ethnic/immigrant Danes’) perceptions of their identity and their families’ identities in light of this discourse. The data demonstrate how the Danish case presents challenges for prevailing theories about citizenship, intermarriage, and assimilation. Denmark, as a relatively homogeneous ­country and a relatively new immigrant-receiving country, gives us the opportunity to reexamine classic theories on citizenship, assimilation, and intermarriage from a unique point of view. The Danish case also best captures the invisible work of integration and the new limits being placed on citizenship rights. Recent changes to Danish laws intended to restrict sham marriages and decrease immigration from non-Western countries are also limiting the marital rights of Danish citizens and permanent residents.

The issue of intermarriage and immigration policies gained national attention in Denmark with the publication of journalist Ralf Christensen’s op-ed piece on his personal and negative experiences with Danish Immigration Services in August 2012. This was not the first media story about a couple being denied a family reunification visa. What makes the story compelling is that this time the story was being told by a well-connected native-Danish citizen and a public figure. Christensen and his Turkish wife, Merih, have put a new face to this issue. Their experience highlights the unintentional consequences of these restrictive policies: a native Dane whose right to reside in Denmark with his immigrant wife is being challenged by Danish authorities. In the article, Christensen described the lengthy application process, frequent verbal miscommunications regarding immigration regulations, conflicting information on Danish government websites, and finally the nine-hour-long wait to meet with immigration officials—only to have his wife’s application for a residence visa be denied. Christensen described the entire process as “degrading” and “inhumane” in the article and in the subsequent interviews. The couple eventually prevailed and was awarded the visa upon appeal. The appeal was won citing European Union (EU) laws associated with family reunification. The significance of Ralf and Merih’s appeal is that their case exposed how recent changes to Danish laws regarding immigration have been at odds with EU laws and recommended best practices. Their story went viral both domestically and internationally, thus exposing the invisible—and sometimes unjust—side effect of the recent restrictive laws and social policy. Their case shows how the state can deny people the right to marry whom they want and to remain in their country with their spouse.

In his seminal work, Milton Gordon (1964) argued that intermarriage contributes to the inevitable absorption of ethnic populations into the dominant society of the United States. By examining this form of assimilation through the lens of identity politics in contemporary Denmark, I argue that the concept of intermarriage, commonly viewed by many social scientists as the final step in the assimilation process leading to cultural fusion, has now become the first step for many third-country nationals. By examining intermarriage in this context, we observe that increasingly restrictive laws and social policy have complicated the respective social locations of native Danes, ethnic Danes, and some third-country nationals in terms of who can and cannot make legitimate claims to “Danishness.” Despite claims that economic self-sufficiency, cultural assimilation and language acquisition are key to social inclusion and acceptance into Danish society, many of the third-country nationals, although achieving these objectives, still expressed significant feelings of exclusion from Danish society. In this book, I show how these recent changes to immigration law now restrict the marital rights of native Danes and also constrain citizenship from performing its traditional function in relatively new immigrant-receiving countries with once-­homogeneous populations.

Denmark was racially and religiously homogeneous until the latter half of the twentieth century, when it began receiving more diverse immigrants. As the number and variety of non-Scandinavian and non-Western European people immigrating to Denmark rises, the society is experiencing many of the challenges associated with becoming a diverse and multicultural society.

The universality of access to the myriad benefits and ­programs offered within the Danish welfare state is typically assumed to be a function of a strong social contract between the citizen and the state. Yet there is substantial debate about whether some immigrants and non-EU foreign nationals living in Denmark should and do have the same rights of access as Danish citizens. These debates are frequently played out in the public policy forum, specifically within the context of recent political elections and subsequent revisions to immigration and citizenship laws.

At issue is the fact that many Danish citizens and political actors have mixed feelings about immigration and the increased diversity that has resulted. Some citizens and politicians with conservative leanings on issues of immigration have pushed for stricter legislation and administrative policies that serve to limit the number of people entering Denmark and support social policies that encourage rapid social integration for new immigrants into Danish culture. Opponents to these measures argue that these policies force assimilation upon new arrivals who are third-country nationals in the form of required language and culture courses and restrictive housing policies. They further argue that these policies are also discriminatory because the provisions of the Integration Act are not applied to foreign nationals from other Nordic or EU countries.

As more people like Ralf and Merih Christensen and some of my respondents become more visible and commonplace, these laws face greater scrutiny from political actors and citizens both within and outside of Denmark. Some have begun to question whether the Danish state vis-à-vis legislation and restrictive social policies has infringed on a citizen’s basic human right—to marry the person that one chooses and continue to reside in one’s country. This line of discourse is moving to the foreground of many conversations about immigration, citizenship, and national identity throughout Europe.

Like many of its European neighbors, immigration to Denmark has undergone significant changes over the last several decades. Migration between Denmark and other wealthy European countries has consistently been the most significant source of immigration. The number of immigrants to Denmark from these countries has more or less corresponded to the number of emigrants. What are new and most significant are the increasing numbers of immigrants from Turkey, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. As Table 1.1 demonstrates, in 1984, foreign nationals represented only 2% of the total population, and by the year 2000, this grew to 4.9%. In 2012, foreign nationals were 10.4% of the population and descendants of non-Western countries represented 6.5% of the population (Statistical Yearbook 2000, 2004, 2006, 2010; Statistics Denmark, 2012). These figures may underestimate immigrants because those ethnics with Danish citizenship are not statistically considered “foreign.”

According to the Danish Ministry of the Interior, immigrants are defined as “persons who were born outside of Denmark and whose parents are foreign citizens or were born outside Denmark.” Descendants are defined as “persons born in Denmark to parents who are not Danish citizens born in Denmark” (Statistical Yearbook 2000: 8). This distinction is important for two reasons. First, official records and statistics about “foreigners” are divided ...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• HALF TITLE PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT
• DEDICATION
• CONTENTS
• LIST OF TABLES
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• CHAPTER 1: THE CONTEXT AND SETTING
• CHAPTER 2: THEORIZING CITIZENSHIP AND NATIONAL IDENTITY
• CHAPTER 3 THE MANUFACTURING OF AND MAKING CLAIMS TO DANISHNESS
• CHAPTER 4: THE INTEGRATION ACT AND MANUFACTURED DANISHNESS
• CHAPTER 5: ASSIMILATION AND INTERMARRIAGE
• CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION AND BROADER IMPLICATIONS: WHERE DO WE (THEY) GO FROM HERE?
• APPENDIX: REFLECTIONS ON SELF, METHODS, AND PLACE
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX