Open Lecture: From Diversity to Conviviality

Intra-EU Mobility and International Migration to Denmark in Times of Economic Recession - Deniz Neriman Duru

This lecture explores differences between EU and non EU migrants in accommodating to the Danish flexicurity labour and welfare regime during the economic crisis. A quantitative survey has been conducted followed by semi-structured qualitative interviews with migrants who moved to Denmark between 2008-2013. It is argued that lack of multicultural policies trigger individualised strategies of accommodation rather than ethnic or national group base integration, favouring a more homogenous group of high-skilled and educated group of workers and students of postgraduate/higher education. Rather than ordered multicultural diversity, we find ‘flexicurity diversity’ as manifested in patterns of conviviality among the immigrants based on common interests, needs and lifestyles. These migrants depict a socially active profile in building new networks with locals, other foreigners, and their co-nationals and emphasise an inclusive, cosmopolitan and expat identity. Nonetheless, unequal distribution of rights and Danish flexicurity have exclusionary effects, ‘securing’ social benefits and offering free education and rights for the group of EU migrants, while discriminating towards others.