Racialised othering is an embodied, spatial and affective process. It shows in a multitude of ways and can be mobilised in very structural ways in laws, policies and institutional practices but it can also be more subtle and seemingly invisible : for example in how an atmosphere changes when you enter a room, in glances and gazes that shift or center on your body, in ways in which it is possible to move in the spaces you inhabit, in a sense of ease or burden of your own being, in hyper-vigilance or hyper-(in)visibility-  and not the least in a sense of powerlessness. In this seminar we explore the different ways in which racialisation and powerlessness is negotiated in everyday contexts.

Amani Hassani will present her research on the Danish ghetto policies with an emphasis on how these policies become ways to control the social, cultural and physical spaces of racialised communities. Dr Amani Hassani | Introduction | Brunel University London

This talk focuses on the so-called parallel societies that consecutive Danish governments have described as threats to Danish social cohesion. I introduce three narratives focusing on how community life was constructed in some of the most stigmatised Danish ghettos. These narratives provide an alternative story to the dominant moral panic that the Danish ghetto policies have benefitted from. They emphasise social and cultural support networks that enabled generations of migrants to create family roots and social mobility through these communities.

All this is being dismantled with the 2018-ghetto policies which target housing estates with more than 50% non-Western residents. These racialising policies have often left residents feeling powerless when experiencing the erasure of their neighbourhoods. However, I argue that shifting the focus to everyday spaces, social life and cultural expressions, new possibilities of navigation emerge. Everyday practices have the potential to not only challenge ethno-nationalist discourses that seek to erase racialised communities but also create spaces for meaningful relationships that contest powerful processes of racialisation across minority/majority positions.

The talk will be followed by a round table discussion with associate professor, Christian Sandbjerg Hansen and associate professor Iram Khawaja. The seminar is organized by Center for Migration and Integration research, Aarhus University (MIAU) and Afmagt.dk