Governing urban diversity through myths of national sameness – a comparative analysis of Denmark and Sweden

Rebecka Söderberg,Tina Gudrun Jensen

doi:10.1108/joe-06-2021-0034

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore problematisations of urban diversity in urban and integration policies in Denmark and Sweden; the paper aims to show how such policies express social imaginaries about the self and the other and underlying assumptions of sameness that legitimise diverging ways of managing urban diversity and (re)organising the city.Design/methodology/approachInspired by anthropology of policy and post-structural approaches to policy analysis, the authors approach urban and integration policies as cultural texts that are central to the organisation of cities and societies. With a comparative approach, the authors explore how visions of diversity take shape and develop over time in Swedish and Danish policies on urban development and integration.FindingsSwedish policy constructs productiveness as crucial to the imagined national sameness, whereas Danish policy constructs cultural sameness as fundamental to the national self-image. By constructing the figure of “the unproductive”/“the non-Western” as the other, diverging from an imagined sameness, policies for organising the city through removing and “improving” urban diverse others are legitimised.Originality/valueThe authors add to previous research by focussing on the construction of the self as crucial in processes of othering and by highlighting how both nationalistic and colour-blind policy discourses construct myths of national sameness, which legitimise the governing of urban diversity. The authors highlight and de-naturalise assumptions and categorisations by showing how problem representations differ over time and between two neighbouring countries.

Highlights

Through the last 30 years, we have seen increasing concerns about ethnic and socio-economic “segregation” and “ghettoization” in media and political debate in Scandinavian countries.© Tina Gudrun Jensen and Rebecka S€oderberg
While previous research on urban policy has focussed on the othering of people and places in the urban periphery, selfing, i.e. the construction of a national self-inherent in processes of othering, is still in need of further exploration. By addressing this gap in the literature, we explore and compare Danish and Swedish urban and integration policies with an ethnographic approach and show how imagined national sameness isproduced through policy problematisations of urban diversity
In order to explore social imaginaries about the self and the other, we approach the policy as an ethnographic field and policy documents as cultural texts that construct the problem in Denmark and Sweden they address and create the categories that they govern, and are central to the organization of cities and societies (Bacchi, 2009; Shore and Wright, 2009; Wedel et al, 2005)

Summary

Introduction

Through the last 30 years, we have seen increasing concerns about ethnic and socio-economic “segregation” and “ghettoization” in media and political debate in Scandinavian countries.© Tina Gudrun Jensen and Rebecka S€oderberg. The purpose of this article is to explore policies’ roles in organising cities: how Swedish and Danish urban and integration policies produce problem representations, social imaginaries and categories about self and other.

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Results

Conclusion