Att skriva om den Andra: en studie av representation, identitet, tillhörighet och gemenskap i texter om Yahya Hassan och Hassan Preisler

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis is to study how identity and representation operates in understandings of the Other in the reception of texts marked as being about, and written by the Other. Further my aim is to study how otherness, kinship, belonging and identity operate in these processes. My main research question is; How does Identity, kinship and belonging operates in the reception of texts, written from the position of the Other? The objects for research are Danish texts written about two Danish writers; Yahya Hassan and Hassan Preisler. These texts are published in Danish media in the forms of reviews and portraits of the authors. Both authors have been received as writing from the position of the Other and have debuted with the current books in the year of 2013. Broadly, this study employs an understanding of discourse trough concepts, such as paratexts and genre. As analytical framework, I have used theories with understandings of social relations as constructions trough language such as postcolonial theories, cultural theories and critical race theory. Some of my main conclusions are that there is a power over definition in how and what the Other are to represent in a contemporary Danish context, and how this is tightly connected with processes of exclusion and inclusion. My study also shows, how “otherness” operates in these processes as a form of capital, assigned the object of “otherness” as well as the position defining this object as being the Other. These conclusions are closely tied to how the Other is created, met and perceived by the position of power, and so have implications that transcends the objects of study and points towards more general power relations, and it’s consequences, in contemporary westerns society today.