TY - JOUR
T1 - New neighbours in a time of change
T2 - local pragmatics and the perception of asylum centres in rural Denmark
AU - Whyte, Zachary
AU - Larsen, Birgitte Romme
AU - Olwig, Karen Fog
PY - 2019/8/18
Y1 - 2019/8/18
N2 - Asylum centres in rural areas are an increasingly common mode of managing asylum seekers in Denmark. These centres’ arrival occurs in a context of protracted rural crisis, as demographic and economic changes reshape local communities. Yet research on these processes remains scarce, issues concerning asylum and the rural being seldom conceived together. At the same time, majority population attitudes towards refugees are often depicted through the opposed poles of xenophobia and humanitarianism. Based on ethnographic research, this article examines the meanings and consequences of asylum centres for rural Danish communities. Drawing on anthropological theory on the mutuality of social life we argue that asylum centres become embedded in pre-existing relations within local communities and between them and the centralising Danish welfare state. Local communities sometimes were initially sceptical about asylum centres, but they generally developed a collective, pragmatic approach towards them in contrast to the divided, ideological cast of national debates on asylum. By shifting focus from the national to the local, from the urban to the rural, and from the migrants to the neighbouring communities, a less polarising and more everyday mode of relating to the arrival of asylum seekers becomes visible.
AB - Asylum centres in rural areas are an increasingly common mode of managing asylum seekers in Denmark. These centres’ arrival occurs in a context of protracted rural crisis, as demographic and economic changes reshape local communities. Yet research on these processes remains scarce, issues concerning asylum and the rural being seldom conceived together. At the same time, majority population attitudes towards refugees are often depicted through the opposed poles of xenophobia and humanitarianism. Based on ethnographic research, this article examines the meanings and consequences of asylum centres for rural Danish communities. Drawing on anthropological theory on the mutuality of social life we argue that asylum centres become embedded in pre-existing relations within local communities and between them and the centralising Danish welfare state. Local communities sometimes were initially sceptical about asylum centres, but they generally developed a collective, pragmatic approach towards them in contrast to the divided, ideological cast of national debates on asylum. By shifting focus from the national to the local, from the urban to the rural, and from the migrants to the neighbouring communities, a less polarising and more everyday mode of relating to the arrival of asylum seekers becomes visible.
KW - Asylum centres
KW - Denmark
KW - interactions of mutuality
KW - local pragmatism
KW - rural communities
U2 - 10.1080/1369183X.2018.1482741
DO - 10.1080/1369183X.2018.1482741
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85048043746
SN - 1369-183X
VL - 45
SP - 1953
EP - 1969
JO - Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
JF - Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
IS - 11
ER -
