'I think Danish patients would feel the same': Counter-discourses emerging in the Danish health sector

This article argues that the discourse of culture and ethnicity that has so far been found to dominate health sector communication about ethnic minorities is now being challenged. This assumption is corroborated by data from interviews with health professionals, who try to avoid stereotypical statements by occupying a space of professionalism, using what may seem to be a counter-discourse stressing the individual needs of the patients. The presentation is based on data from a project in which we explore how health professionals and foreign patients talk about culture in a specific Danish hospital ward and how this may have implications for staff-patient relationships. Our theoretical and methodological approach is mainly Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough 1992 [1999]; van Dijk 2008; Reisigl & Wodak 2001).