The Political Strategies to Dismantle the "Ghetto": Understanding the "Ghetto" in Denmark through the Nationalist and "Othering" Discursive Lenses

Sammanfattning: Since 2010, the Danish governments have issued an annual list of disadvantaged social housing areas in Denmark, which later became known as the "ghetto list" (ghettolisten). The list categorizes social housing areas with socioeconomic problems, and where many of the residents are immigrants or descendants with non-western backgrounds. The list is accompanied by political strategies (known as the "ghetto strategy") aimed at accelerating the integration process of the targeted communities into Danish society. The political strategies positions nationalism and nativism at the center of the narrative. Through the narrative of national values, the "ghetto strategy" raises a sense of differentiation between "ghetto" and Danish society, based on the construction of the "ghetto" as lack of "Danish values" (danske værdier). This has the effect of placing them as a "parallel society" (parallelsamfund) and preventing them from integrating into Danish society – the very opposite of the strategy's stated aim. This thesis investigates the discourse of "ghetto," and explores its relationship to the practice of "othering" in Danish politics. The results show that the "ghetto strategy" in Denmark could be understood as built upon a power structure of socioeconomic inequality, ethnocentrism, populism, nativism, and nationalism. Moreover, the Danish integration policy framework’s underlying rationales are not neutral but rather heavily influenced by the political, historical, and social contexts that situated the "Danishness" and the set of values that construct it.