Addressing the Other in the political-administrative field of the Danish welfare nation-state since 1945 

This sub-project is carried out by Bolette Moldenhawer, associate professor in educational studies, and the student assistants Marie Torstensen, majoring in History, Nina Holst Waaddegaard, majoring in educational studies and Astrid Krogsgaard, majoring in advanced migration studies.

This sub-project investigates the political-administrative categorising and classifying work of population management. The focus is on categorisation and classification practices addressing the Other within ministries responsible for developing either policy explicitly earmarked for the Other or policy more indirectly addressing the Other. In addition, professional associations among the immigrant and refugee population represented as corporate entities, in various consultative councils and commissions are included. The project is guided by the following research question:

  • How is the symbolic representation of the Other related to the social question of welfare nation-state formation processes in Denmark, since 1945?

The material comprises a variety of documents produced by enlisted clerks, experts and professionals such as commissions, statistics and reports.

Designating the Other is referring to a diverse group of refugees and immigrants arriving in Denmark after 1945: the population of refugees arriving since WWII and especially since the 1980s and their children and families, and the non-Western and Southern European labour immigrants arriving in the late 1960s and later settling, and the children of these early labour immigrants. All of these population groups have received attention by the political-administrative apparatus, and it is this attention and the way in which it has shaped the transformations of the Danish welfare nation-state that is the focus of my attention.