Practical Orientalism – Bodies, Everyday Life and the Construction of Otherness

In the light of the increasing questioning of multi‐culturalism in popular debate, the focus of this paper is the ways in which cultural/national identities are constituted and renegotiated in everyday, banal bodily practices. Denmark is the case, but the processes experienced in this context are seen as part of a broader European development. We first discuss recent changes in the political semiotics of Europe in which former East/West boundaries are blurred and new ones constructed and renegotiated in many scales. Many studies, we argue, do in this context underestimate the degree to which this process is going on in banal, bodily and sensuous practices. An entrance to this discussion is to follow the idea of ‘banal nationalism’, but we want, by way of examples from the Danish case, to suggest that what we are dealing with is a practical orientalism, articulated through processes of ‘othering‘ developed in the concrete bodily encounters in everyday life.     

MAJORITY AND MINORITY NATIONALISM IN THE DANISH POST‐WELFARE STATE

The future of the nation and the Danish welfare state is one of the most important political issues today. The transition in neoliberal governance from welfare state to security state, the ongoing securitization of global and European mobility, the restructuring of public services and the re‐scaling of political and economic power has made the debate around the welfare state central. In this article I take an approach to the welfare nation state that is based on the practices and narratives of everyday life. The argument is that narrative practices in everyday life constitute a central sphere inviting studies of the struggle over the welfare community and meaning. The empirical material draws on two recent research projects that include narratives and perspectives from minority and majority population in Denmark. By analysing different perspectives on the nation the article intends to open up for both shared narratives on the welfare state but also differences in the ongoing struggle over the right to the nation.