Global mobility and the present economic, political, and refugee crisis have resulted in political contestations and new theoretical challenges. Inspired by several European research projects, in this paper I reflect upon feminist activism and the challenges to reframing equality and social justice in contemporary society (see Siim & Mokre, 2013; Lazaridis, Campani, & Benviste, 2016). I first discuss intersectional relations between anti-racist activism and feminist activism in the Danish context. Then I discuss how feminist theorists can contribute to the reframing of (gender) equality and social justice in contemporary Nordic societies. The focus is on two approaches, each of which has inspired Nordic researchers, as well as my own thinking (e.g. Siim & Mokre, 2013): Nira Yuval-Davis’s (2011) proposal for a multilevel and intersectional approach to the politics of belonging, and Nancy Fraser’s (2013) proposal for a transnational approach to social justice, premised on redistribution, recognition, and participatory parity. I argue that both need to be adapted in order to contribute to an understanding of the feminist challenges in the particular Nordic contexts.
Resistance to right-wing political projects
The European RAGE project (Hate-speech and Populist Othering in Europe Through the Race, Age and Gender Looking-Glass, EU DG Justice, 2013–2015) analysed right-wing populist discourse in contemporary Europe as well as resistance to hate-speech, racism, and othering from feminist and anti-racist organizations (Lazaridis et al., 2016). These studies have raised new issues concerning women’s politics of belonging in the Danish/Nordic region and the challenges to reframing equality and social justice (Siim & Meret, 2016). The case studies of local and (trans)national activism in selected civil society organizations (CSOs) illustrate that in some, but not all, countries feminist activism is linked to activism concerning migrants, LGBTs, refugees, and anti-racism. Danish studies have found that women are engaged in CSOs working with refugees, migrants, LGBTs, and anti-racist groups, but feminist organizations are not visible in anti-racist struggles (Siim & Meret, 2016). I am therefore curious about the role of women’s and feminist CSOs in anti-racist struggles across the Nordic region.
These comparative studies demonstrate that the far right in Europe is diverse in terms of political discourses and structures, which are influenced by national histories and political institutions (Lazaridis et al., 2016). The Danish studies (see Siim & Meret, 2016) confirm that social equality, democracy, and gender equality are crucial elements in the country’s sense of national belonging. The social-democratic heritage and evolution of the welfare state has led to the inclusion of class, gender, and, to some extent, also LGBT in citizenship. This contrasts with the exclusion of ethno-cultural and religious diversity and the failure to integrate immigrant minorities as equal citizens. The transformation of the political landscape since the 1990s has weakened social democracy and strengthened right-wing populism and neo-nationalism in all the Nordic countries (Meret & Siim, 2013b; Siim & Stoltz, 2015). As a result, mainstream political parties are engaged in rethinking and reframing relations between national, democratic, and social questions. With Susi Meret, I have argued that the most influential Scandinavian populist party, the Danish People’s Party [Dansk Folkeparti, DF], has mobilized the voters within these divisions (Siim & Meret, 2016). The Association for Freedom of Speech [Trykkefrihedsselskabet, TS] is also situated within this paradigm, even though it employs a rhetoric mobilizing national sentiments through the superior role played by liberal Western democracies in the fight for freedom (e.g. freedom of speech).
The case studies have identified a division of tasks between the established right-wing organization, the Danish People’s Party, and the civil society organization Free Press Society (see Siim & Meret, 2016). Both organizations frame immigrants and Muslims as the main target groups of their political rhetoric, but propose diverse strategies and solutions to “the immigration question”. The TS and the journal Dispatch International clearly target Islam/political Islam/Muslims with a rhetoric of conflicting values/culture and religion. The DF also emphasizes “the threat of Islam” and the importance of saving “Danish values” on the basis of a perceived conflict between Danish cultural values and Islam/Danish Muslims. However, the DF does not focus on the defence of “freedom of speech” but rather on oppressive religion, patriarchal cultures, and the need to protect Danish democracy, welfare, and gender equality. The “victims” for TS and Dispatch International are native Danes as well as Western civilization, supposedly threatened by Islam, which is increasingly perceived as a security threat. For DF, the victims are primarily Danish citizens, who are claimed to have the right to receive the fruits of their ancestors’ labour; the solution proposed is stricter border controls, less EU influence, and more control over welfare policies.
A Danish study of the counterforces to hate-speech, othering, and racism selected a number of voluntary associations working with asylum seekers and refugees, immigrants and LGBT minorities, and anti-racist groups for in-depth focus-group interviews.1 The interviews aimed to map out issues, such as representation and aims, strategies and alliances, and relationships with mainstream political institutions and right-wing political forces. Who are the main actors, and what are the identities, strategies, and priorities of the selected groups? What are the activists’ values, ideas, and claims? To what extent are they able to work together, respect differences, and create intersectional alliances and collaborations?
We found that female activists were engaged in anti-racist struggles and support for minority groups, for example around LGBT issues, but, in contrast to what is the case in some more conservative countries, we did not find intersectional alliances around gender equality and feminist issues (Siim & Meret, 2016). We also found that in the Danish case activists primarily understand themselves as positive counterforces working to establish a “we”, not as negative “anti-bodies” working against political institutions. The selected associations aimed to integrate the dual roles of activist and advocate, working both “for and with” the target groups. Activists find that it is effective to combine diverse strategies, such as legal protection, reform of the court system and immigration policies, with “everyday activism” and enlightening the public. An understanding of activities against hate-speech, discrimination, and racism as a form of “everyday activism” implies the aim of changing the daily lives of refugees from “below”. Some participants give priority to a type of civic activism aimed at reforming the legal rules and procedures in order to influence the Danish asylum system—for example, to make it live up to international human rights conventions. Explicit political activism is not the major strategy for the selected organizations. The activists from diverse organizations are all concerned with combating “new forms of racism”, as opposed to biological racism; a minority refers explicitly to “structural, cultural and institutional racism” within the Danish asylum system, while a few activists are mainly concerned with “discrimination in their own country of origin, (mainly Muslim) community and families”.2
One example of “everyday activism” is the practice of the Trampoline House [Trampolinhuset, TH], a local community house in Copenhagen, called a “citizens’ house” [medborgerhus] by one of its founders.3 It was set up in 2010 by two former artists, one a feminist, as a model aimed at encompassing all asylum-seekers as “users” of the House. The activists explained that their approach is to practise “everyday activism” in order to create a space for activities and meals during the daytime, to make users of the House feel that it is “like home”, helping to change their daily lives and contribute to their empowerment. The aim is to change the Danish asylum system by demonstrating through “a good example” how to create a “we”, not only for the Left, but also to win the “centre”.
A recent example of another type of “everyday activism” is the Friendly Neighbours [Venligboerne, VB], an informal group founded in 2013 by two local women in the small town of Hjørring, at the northern end of the Jutland Peninsula. It is a local group inspired by values of “kindness” to strangers/visitors, and its aim is to make their town a nice place to live in/visit. When Hjørring received 500 asylum seekers in 2014, the group added a new objective: “help and support for local asylum seekers”. Since then it has mushroomed and today includes around 150,000 members, forming groups and local networks in 101 cities, including local initiatives in Greece, Italy, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Turkey, and the UK. Because of this success, it is somewhat surprising that the group has not yet felt the need to formalize the organization or legalize the name; it is still based on informal initiatives with a local Facebook group and a café in the local asylum centre as its main activities, while volunteers are free to arrange activities for refugees, such as trips to the beach and so on. VB understands itself to be an informal group working with a non-political approach inspired by a philosophy of kindness and values of friendship, respect, and curiosity. It aims to meet people in an open way, to learn by dialogue with them, and to build bridges between different cultures. This non-political approach has recently been challenged by a local group in Copenhagen, which publicly criticized the government’s migration policies and the conditions in the asylum camps. As a result, a bitter conflict has emerged about the name and identity of the group.4 This reveals that there are different interpretations of “everyday activism” and questions whether such non-political activism is possible.
The case studies illustrate that tensions exist between “empowerment” and “emancipation”, between strategies to integrate refugees and political activism aimed at closing the asylum camps and “chang[ing] the whole system” (Siim & Meret, 2016). I find that they also raise questions about relations between feminism and anti-racism, between affirmative and transformative strategies, and theories designed to reframe (gender) equality and social justice.
Feminist approaches
In the following, I discuss the tensions and conflicts between two theoretical approaches aimed at reframing (gender) equality and social justice, one represented by the sociologist Nira Yuval-Davis, and the other by the political philosopher Nancy Fraser. I ask how their main concepts can be employed in studies from the Nordic context.
In Yuval-Davis’ book, Politics of Belonging and Intersectional Contestations (2011), the key concept politics of belonging is concerned with issues such as who is perceived as friend or foe, as well as how this perception is negotiated and influenced by citizens’ practice of everyday bordering. The main argument is that it is necessary to distinguish between emotional feelings of belonging and the politics of belonging. Yuval-Davis claims that any concrete analysis of belonging and political projects of belonging must employ an intersectional perspective that combines a broad macro-analytical approach with case studies. She argues that contestations and differences exist within and between the main categories and proposes an intersectional approach that combines inter- and intra-categorical studies (Yuval-Davis, 2011, pp. 6–8). Another key concept is citizenship, which she defines as the participatory dimension in all political communities. This understanding of citizenship is multi-layered and includes intersectional forms of citizenship of sub-state, cross-state, and supra-state political communities. Yuval-Davis’s normative politics of belonging is multi-layered, transversal, and emancipatory and advocates universal human security (Yuval-Davis, 2011, p. 203). I find the politics of belonging and intersectional contestations to be useful concepts—for example, in studies of the demise of Nordic social democracy, the rise of the populist right, and the potential for transversal alliances between feminist and anti-racist groups. I propose, however, that intersectional contestations around contemporary issues of nationalism, feminism, and racism should be explored in more detail within the context of Danish/Nordic welfare nationalism (Meret & Siim, 2013b; Siim & Stoltz, 2015).
In Fraser’s book Fortunes of Feminism (2013), the main argument is that we must recover feminism’s emancipatory promise during the present economic and political crisis. She claims that the fate of feminism in the neo-liberal era presents a paradox. On the one hand, the relatively small countercultural movement of the previous period has expanded, successfully disseminating its ideas across the globe. On the other hand, feminist ideas have undergone a subtle shift in the altered context and have become “susceptible to serving the legitimation needs of a new form of capitalism” that prefers claims for recognition over claims for redistribution (Fraser, 2013, p. 223). Inspired by Polanyi’s The Great Transformation (1944), she argues that it is possible to weave local protest, national politics, international affairs, and global financial regimes into a powerful historical synthesis (Fraser, 2013, p. 228). Her normative goal is a revision of Polanyi’s framework, adding a third dimension to the central conflict between marketization and social protection, which she calls “emancipation”, arguing that struggles for emancipation provide the missing link that can mediate every conflict between marketization and social protection.
I find Fraser’s three-dimensional concept of social justice—reconciling claims for redistribution, recognition, and participatory parity—useful for empirical analysis, but it can be difficult to employ in empirical studies of feminism, racism, and nationalism. I will illustrate this point with a recent interview in Le Monde.5 Here, Fraser evaluates the American presidential campaign and raises a violent criticism of Hillary Clinton’s feminism, which she claims to be the incarnation of “neo-liberal” feminism premised on close relations with Wall Street and Goldman Sachs. The argument is that Hillary Clinton’s politics will not be able to change ordinary women’s and citizens’ situation by strengthening redistributive policies. Fraser refers to the increase in inequalities in the USA and defends a feminism inspired by social democracy that takes account of structural causes of inequality, including gender inequality.
The interview raises critical issues about relations between redistribution and recognition. Is Fraser arguing that struggles for redistribution always outweigh struggles for recognition? In the case of the USA, you would expect an intersectional approach to gender equality and ethnicity/race to try to reconcile claims for recognition by black, Latin-American, and indigenous women with claims for redistribution. The strength of Fraser’s approach is her emphasis on struggles for emancipation and transformative politics, but is social-democratic feminism still transformative? Arguably Helga Hernes’s vision of women-friendly societies and state feminism is no longer viable due to the fragmentation of the women’s movement and the transformation of the Nordic welfare states.
Conclusion
The present refugee crisis has exacerbated problems around integrating struggles for gender equality with anti-racism, and combining claims for redistribution, recognition, and participatory parity. I have previously argued that gender theory and research should reframe equality and social justice from both intersectional and transnational perspectives (see Siim & Mokre, 2013; Rolandsen Agustin & Siim, 2014). In this paper, I claim that Nordic feminists need to study contemporary politics of belonging and intersectional contestations about nationalism, feminism, and racism.
I find that feminist theory and research need to conceptualize the dramatic transformations in the institutions of the welfare state, the demise of social democracy, and the rise of right-wing politics across the Nordic region. Increased mobility and immigration within and beyond European borders have transformed the highly praised social-democratic Nordic welfare states, which were premised on women-friendly policies and state feminism. As a result, welfare nationalism (Brochmann & Hagelund, 2011) has been transformed into “exclusive welfare” nationalism, reserved for Nordic citizens only. Social democracy has lost electoral support, and new forms of nationalism have emerged (Meret & Siim, 2013a; Siim & Meret, 2016). The right-wing Norwegian Progress Party is presently part of the government, the Danish People’s Party is the biggest party in the liberal-conservative block and the second biggest party after the Social Democratic Party; the nationalist True Finns Party is part of a coalition government; and the anti-immigration party, Sweden Democrats, is gaining popular support. These changes in citizens’ political projects of belonging raise troubling questions about the new challenges faced by any attempt to reframe (gender) equality and social justice in the Nordic region.
Nordic feminists must address the implications of these changes for contemporary feminist and anti-racist struggles. The strength of Yuval-Davis’s approach is her intersectional and transversal model, while the strength of Fraser’s approach is her transnational and transformative vision. Arguably, both approaches need to be adapted to the particular Nordic context (Siim & Stoltz, 2015), and feminists need to discuss what approaches are justified, desirable, and feasible.
Notes on contributor
Birte Siim is a professor of Gender Research in the Social Sciences, Aalborg University in Denmark. Her research concerns comparative European welfare, democracy and citizenship research theorizing gender, diversity and intersectionality. She is currently the Danish coordinator of Gender and Generational Citizenship, the European research project bEUcitizen (2013–2017). Her English publications include Gender and Citizenship: Politics and Agency in France, Britain, and Denmark (2000), Negotiating Gender and Diversity in an Emergent European Public Sphere (with Monika Mokre) (2013), ‘Citizenship” in G. Waylen et al. eds. Handbook on Gender and Politics (2013). Her current project is Everyday bordering and contested politics of belonging in contemporary Denmark (with Ann-Dorte Christensen).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. The five groups selected for focus-group interviews were: 1) SOS against Racism, the Danish branch of an international organization targeting racism; 2) Sabaah, which targets immigrant youth inspired by the Danish LGBT movement; 3) The Trampoline House; 4) LGBT Asylum; and 5) Refugees Welcome.
2. Focus group interviews by members of Sabaah, see note 1.
3. “Galleri for politisk forandring” [Gallery for political change], Berlingske Tidende, 25 August 2016.
4. “Venligboere i bitter strid om navn og identitet” [Friendly people in a bitter fight about their name and identity], “I Hjørring vil de drikke kaffe, og i København vil de slås” [In Hjørring they want to drink coffee, and in Copenhagen they want to fight], Politiken, 24 August 2016.
5. “Interview with Nancy Fraser”, Le Monde Debat, 27 July 2016.