"I feel Danish but...":a case study on national identity formation and ambivalence

Non-western minorities in Europe, one can argue, are experiencing particularly vulnerable processes of subjectification and identification. They are often caught between double processes of inclusion/exclusion, integration/segregation or identification/estrangement. This article explores some of the complex and ambiguous processes of identification within this group, in connection with development of the spatial identity of Danishness. It starts with a short theoretical pinning down of the figure of "the stranger'' working as a basis for the empirical analysis. Organised in three sections, each interpreting a specific narrative of identification, the analysis subsequently explores processes and problems of identity formation within a minority group increasingly designated as "strangers'' within the Danish nation state. The article concludes on the different ways in which uncertainty and ambivalence infiltrate the identity formation

Everyday Hospitality and Politics

The article explores everyday hospitality and politics through inclusive forms of integration initiatives in everyday life and urban communities in Denmark and Norway. It investigates how local initiatives and creative social strategies by local actors can empower and include refugees and immigrants in local communities. This article is based on participant observations of urban communities in Denmark and Norway working to welcome refugees and create new cross-cultural meeting places. We argue that people mobilize and take action when faced with emergency, and that the many welcome initiatives organized around theatre, food, dance and music can rework difference. The cases relate to the discussion of hospitality, the production of meaningful meeting places in a local context and the embodied encounters promoted by these activities. This article discusses everyday hospitality and politics in light of the transition in the Nordic welfare states, which has made the debate around inclusion of refugees and immigrants in local communities and the welfare state centre

Mobile encounters:bus 5A as a cross-cultural meeting place

The paper explores modes of encounters in the everyday practice of bus travel. Particularly, it addresses cross-cultural encounters located in the tension between familiarity and difference, between inclusion and exclusion. The paper is located in contemporary thoughts, approaching public transport not only as a moving device but also as a social arena. Furthermore, the bus is simultaneously perceived as a public space, at once composite, contradictory and heterogeneous, and as a meeting place involving ‘Throwntogetherness’. The encounters analysed are bodily, emotional charged and outspoken meetings between passengers, with the socio-materiality of the bus and drivers as co-riders and gatekeepers

Construção das identidades de jovens de origem imigrante em Europa: resultados dum projeto Europeu

Este artigo descreve e analisa alguns dos elementos que influenciam a construção das identidades dos jovens de origem imigrante na Europa. Os resultados derivam dum projeto de investigação europeu intitulado “Rumo à construção social duma juventude europeia: a experiência de inclusão e exclusão na esfera pública dos jovens migrantes de segunda geração”1, desenvolvido entre 2006 e 2009 em nove cidades localizadas em cinco países: Espanha (Madrid e Barcelona), Itália (Génova e Roma), Portugal (Lisboa e Porto), França (Metz), Alemanha (Berlim) e Holanda (Utrecht). A primeira parte analisa os dados quantitativos recolhidos nos contextos de estudo, comparando os jovens descendentes de imigrantes com os jovens autóctones, focando a questão da identidade como um assunto central no processo de inclusão dos jovens imigrantes. A segunda parte aborda alguns dos marcadores identitários presentes nos jovens descendentes de imigrantes em Portugal, à luz de dados etnográficos recolhidos especificamente para o caso dos jovens na Área Metropolitana de Lisboa focando as questões de identidade, género e discriminação