The Attached Meanings of Integration: A Discursive Construction of a Danish National Identity and the ‘Othering’ of Non-Western Immigrants in the ‘Ghetto Plan’

Sammanfattning: This thesis examines how integration as a category of practice or as an emic concept functions in political discourses. In doing so, this study delimit itself by focusing on the problematization of non-western immigrants in socially vulnerable residential areas in the whitepaper ‘A Denmark Without Parallel Societies – No Ghettos in 2030’ presented by the Danish Government in March 2018. By adopting a theoretical framework of Umut Özkirimli’s take on nationalism, the concept of ‘othering’ and Carol Bacchi’s WPR approach to policy analysis, this paper finds that integration as a category of practice function as a code word for differentiation in identity formation where the ‘othering’ of non-western immigrants and socially vulnerable residential areas confirm a Danish national identity. Thus, this thesis contributes to a framework addressing the discursive construction of a Danish national identity in the societal debate on integration through the analysis of policies.