The Nationalist Challenges to Citizenship, Equality and Inclusive Solidarity
Abstract
The paper aims to analyze the new forms of ethno-nationalisms challenging citizenship, (gender) equality and solidarity across Europe. It explores the intersectional dilemmas of migration politics following the immigration and ‘refugee crisis’ reflecting critically upon the links between exclusionary nationalism and acts of solidarity. The theoretical and methodological approach integrates key concepts from citizenship, nationalism and gender theories with special emphasis on the interface of migration, gender and race/ethnicity. The family often plays a key role in nationalist politics of belonging and scholars tend to agree that nationalist discourses reflect a gender bias that construct men and women differently in their public and private lives. Yet no agreement exists about how to gender nationalism or about strategies to counter nationalist projects through acts of solidarity and resistance. The empirical part gives an overview of recent studies of gender and neo-nationalism and identify a variety of opposition to migration, (gender) equality and human rights across Europe influenced by the countries’ histories, cultural and political developments. The main part examines citizens’ activism against racism and discrimination from the Nordic region. The focus is on exploring the influence of exclusive nationalism on politics and acts of solidarity against the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim consensus from the particular Danish context. The paper employs an intersectional approach to analyze the acts of citizenship and solidarity focusing on the agency, goals, strategies and motivations of activist groups. It asks who the activists are, how they enact citizenship and solidarity and to what extent they practice inclusive solidarity that link anti-racist strategies with claims about women’s, sexual rights and gender equality. The aim is to add knowledge about strategies to overcome the challenges that ethno-nationalism presents for citizenship, (gender) equality and social justice from the particular Nordic context. The perspective is to analyze the conditions for fostering inclusive solidarity against exclusionary nationalism focusing on the intersectional relations between immigration, gender and race/ethnicity.
Info
Conference Abstract, 2021
UN SDG Classification
DK Main Research Area
Social Science
