Contemporary Norway Research Articles

The racism that dares not speak its name: Rethinking neo-nationalism and neo-racism in Norway

Abstract In contemporary Norway, the mere referral to the term racism has for all practical purposes become taboo in the public sphere. This is both the result of a strategic far-right distancing from classical forms of racism and a conscious effort by numerous Norwegian academics and public intellectuals to restrict its meaning and reference in the course of recent decades. Norway has a comparatively weak tradition of social science scholarship on racism, and persistent claims to the right to name racism on the part of minorities in Norway often come up against social and political imaginaries in which Norway and Norwegians are cast as ‘exceptional’ and ‘virtuous.’ In this article I contextualize Norwegian neo-racism with reference to persistent fears about lack of social and national cohesion arising from modern mass immigration and an increasingly multicultural Norwegian society. Using the methodology of critical discourse analysis, I take as my empirical starting point media and popular discourses on Islam and Muslims in Norway from c. 1987 to 2014. The rise of far-right political formations in Norway, I argue, must be understood not primarily through economic determinants, but seen as a result of a successful ‘culturalization of politics’ characteristic of neo-liberalism more generally.

The link between parenthood and partnership in contemporary Norway - Findings from focus group research

The increase in childbearing within cohabitation raises a question about the link between parenthood and partnership. In Norway, having the first child in cohabitation has become the most common pattern.

Cabins in Norwegian Crime Fiction: More Than a Cliché

ABSTRACT: Focusing on Monica Kristensen’s Hollendergraven [The Dutchman’s Grave] from 2007 and Jørn Lier Horst’s Booksellers’ Prize-winning Vinterstengt [Closed for Winter] from 2011, this article explores how cabins function, at times, as more than a cliché in recent Norwegian crime fiction. While cabins are employed as a convenient literary device in these two works, more importantly they also serve as a metaphor for the impact of globalization on contemporary Norway. The attitudes of Norwegian characters towards these places illuminate complex issues surrounding mobility and national identity and mirror nationalistic and, at times, xenophobic attitudes.

Women-friendly Funding? Conditions for Women's Organizations to Engage in Critical Advocacy in Norway

The main focus of this article is government funding for women's organizations and the ways in which funding affect majority and minority women's organizations' ability to perform critical advocacy in Norway. State feminism, as a descriptive model of a political process in which women's political mobilization “from below” meets political integration “from above”, is the point of departure, and the article discusses women's organizations' opportunities for political participation. The site of empirical inquiry is governmental support for both majority and majority women's organizations. The article explores the Norwegian state's reasons for funding women's organizations, as described in White Papers and funding guidelines, and the women activists' lived experiences of state funding. Norway is known for being a “women-friendly” society with an emphasis on political citizenship for women. State funding has been one way in which the Norwegian state has encouraged women's organizations' critical advocacy. This article suggests that state funding of women's organizations in Norway is one indication of a move from state feminism towards market feminism: minority women activists have to rely on project funding, which encourages an implementation role and leaves little room for minority women's own agendas; majority women activists are ambivalent about state funding because of low funding levels and increased professionalization. This article claims that advocacy pertaining to women's issues framed within a rights and justice discourse is weakened for minority and majority women, and that the structure of funding prevents a forceful advocacy role, in particular for minority women's organizations in contemporary Norway.

Opting Out? Who are the Housewives in Contemporary Norway?

Opting Out? Who are the Housewives in Contemporary Norway?

Dancing Towards Personal and Spiritual Growth

Abstract This paper explores the place where dance and religious faith meet. It gives examples of learning experiences and processes of personal and spiritual growth that occur there. The paper is based on a study of dance in Christian contexts in contemporary Norway, that is part of the RESEP (Religion as Aestheticizing Practice) research project based at the University of Agder, Norway. The empirical material is based on participant observation of dance in churches and other Christian settings and on interviews with approximately 50 dancers in these settings. Dance provides the participating dancers with multidimensional meaning and perceived benefits. Through narratives and quotations, the paper sheds light on three ways in which the dancers in question experience processes that lead to growth through dance: 1) as a holistic and attractive way of learning and communicating, 2) as personal growth; by mastering dance through self-expression in a supportive environment, expressing and processing emotions, and moving towards better mental and physical health and wholeness, 3) as spiritual growth; by providing an interface with God that strengthens one’s listening to both God and oneself, and as a way of living their faith in interaction with others.

“Norwegian Women Got Gender Equality Through Their Mothers' Milk, But Anti-racism Is Another Story”—An Analysis of Power and Resistance in Norwegian Feminist Discourse

This article seeks to explore majority feminists' difficulties in addressing minority women activists' claims in contemporary Norway. The article identifies different representations of feminism in the Norwegian women's movement. Findings indicate that minority women are excluded in the hegemonic representation of feminism by being defined as “different” and not included in this understanding of “women”. Inspired by discourse analysis, intersectionality, and perspectives from black and post-colonial feminist theory, the article argues that the hegemonic representation of feminism is so persistent because it resonates with dominant representations of “Norwegianness”, racism, integration, and gender equality. Within the hegemonic representation of feminism, the asymmetrical relationship between “immigrant women” and “Norwegian women” is unreflected, and racial horizons of understanding (race thinking) are not acknowledged. Racism is not considered to be a relevant issue in the Norwegian context and is thus silenced. The article also identifies counter-hegemonic representations that challenge the hegemonic understanding; however, these understandings are still marginal within feminist discourse in Norway.

The Role of the Church in contemporary Norway: Changed Relations between State and Church

Summary Church of Norway is in a process of transition from being a State Church to get a looser relation to the state. This process will take time and for the time being the church does not have a proper church order. The Church shall remain a Lutheran Folk church, but what that implies is rather unclear both among politicians and church leaders. Probably it expresses a wish for continuity with the Church from the Age of Reformation to M ay 2012, when the Constitution was changed. The new text wishes to promote the importance of human rights, but that implies some problems since there is an ongoing debate on these rights. Further the changes have created a power vacuum in the Church that different groups try to fill. This shows how the Church is split between pietistic inspired traditionalism and modernizing liberalism. Like in other churches the present controversy revolves around views and attitudes towards homosexuality and same-sex-marriages. In spite of pluralization, secularization and church elite...

The Political Role of Restaurants and Chefs in the Construction of National Food Culture: Traditional and Typical Food Identities in Norway 1980–2011

The role of restaurants and chefs in contemporary Norway is interesting not only as a local phenomenon reflecting a shift in food mentality, but also a global phenomenon. This article offers an exploratory study, mostly descriptive, but linked to the concept of globalization. The first part gives a brief account of the political and cultural framework of Norwegian food. The second part focuses on the evolution of the structural system Norwegian chefs have worked within during the past thirty years. Thirdly, we emphasize chefs’ direct responsibility in respect of the construction of traditional, local, regional and national understanding of food.

Reproductive Imaginations: Stories of Egg and Sperm

The authors analyse how human reproduction is narrated in contemporary Norway, both in public settings and by individual women and men. We ask who and what is ascribed agency in these reproductive narratives and explore the different ways in which egg and sperm cells emerge as entities occupying centre stage in contemporary stories of conception—whereas the actual gendered persons are seldom mentioned. Stories of reproduction are “the bottom line”, so to speak, of perceptions of gender and gender difference. We discuss how gender is intricately and inadvertently implied in stories where egg and sperm cells take centre stage; on the one hand the gametes imply the meaning of women and men, but, on the other, this displacement liberates cultural meaning-making processes. In this text, we explore how gender is portrayed in contemporary versions of reproduction when it is generally depicted as a fusion of egg and sperm cells.

“A Defeat not to Be Ultra-Fit”: Expectations and Experiences Related to Pregnancy and Employment in Contemporary Norway

Managing work while pregnant has long been a challenge for women in both paid and unpaid work. With Norway as the case in point, the aim of this study was to explore expectations and experiences among women relating to work-life and pregnancy health. Employing the constant comparison method, we drew on interviews, Internet discussions, newspapers, and health information booklets. The findings revealed strong discourses on pregnancy as health, and high expectations among pregnant women to be healthy, fit, and maintain their working capacity throughout pregnancy. Women who needed to slow down failed to fulfil these normative expectations and commonly experienced this as a personal defeat. Despite policies and regulations protecting women's pregnancy-related needs vis-à-vis their employer, some women hesitated to claim their eligibility to special rights. Many pregnant women overstretched, compromising their own health. This, we argue, reflects the ambiguity in policy and in the public debate. Ideas about pregnant women as a vulnerable group needing special protection on the one hand, and the expectations to perform as usual throughout pregnancy on the other, are discussed here in view of a gender-difference versus a gender-neutral discourse, the latter being foundational to the public debate on gender in contemporary Norway.

Social Status in Norway

We estimate a status order for contemporary Norway using register data on married and cohabiting couples. By applying multidimensional scaling to contingency tables which cross-classify the occupation of spouses and cohabiting partners, we are able to extract a dimension which could reasonably be interpreted as reflecting social status in the classical Weberian sense. The general contour of the Norwegian status order and that of the UK are remarkably similar, as is the way in which social status relates to education, income and social class in the two countries. But social status is more equitably distributed in Norway than in the UK. Finally, as a demonstration of the empirical relevance of the class–status distinction, we show that these two dimensions of social stratification underpin different kinds of social attitudes in Norway.

Continuity and Change: Aspects of Contemporary Norway. ANNE COHEN KIEL

Continuity and Change: Aspects of Contemporary Norway. ANNE COHEN KIEL

Continuity and Change: Aspects of Contemporary Norway.

Continuity and Change: Aspects of Contemporary Norway.