Overcoming Bordering Practices Through the Arts

The Case of Young Syrian Refugees and their Danish Counterparts in Denmark

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3948930
AutoresM Pace (0000-0002-6080-1104, Roskilde University, autor correspondente)
Ano2018
Volume23
Fascículo4
Páginas781-802
Data de publicação2018-10-02
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoGeopolitics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1465-0045 • E-ISSN: 1557-3028
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14650045.2017.1383385
OpenAlexW2767016975
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas4
Referências citadas27

During 2014, Denmark received nearly 15,000 asylum seekers, almost twice the number from the previous year as more people fleeing Syria’s war fled to Europe. By 2016, Denmark succeeded in making the country highly unattractive as a destination for refugees fleeing war torn countries. The country introduced a controversial ‘jewellery bill’, placed adverts in a newspaper in Lebanon dissuading refugees from contemplating a trip to Denmark, and cut assistance benefits for refugees by half. These state bordering practices aimed at securing some kind of ‘Danishness’. This article aims at ascribing agency to young Syrian refugees in Denmark, who have experienced these bordering practices and who seek to counter these practices by participating in meaningful social interactions with their Danish counterparts. The empirical focus is an artistic enactment–a weeklong dance workshop that brought these youngsters together as a distinct form of practice that brings about the conditions of possibility for meaningful integration. Conceptually, it draws upon Arendt’s theory of action and notion of ‘plurality’ to frame how such encounters come about

Danish · Political science · Refugee · Sociology · Syrian refugees · The arts · Education and experiences of immigrants and refugees · Gender Studies · Law · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration