How do public authorities in Scandinavia address the issue of violence and oppression when it comes to women of ethnic minority backgrounds? What are the conceptual frameworks underlying the policies, and with what practical implications? Is violence associated with ethnic minority families taken less or more serious than violence associated with the majority, and for what reasons?
The empirical focus of this study is on the proclaimed fight against forced marriages and “honour” related violence in Norway, Denmark and Sweden through the last approx.10 years. Based on policy documents and public debate I analyse the institutional and discursive framing of these issues, as part of or set apart from the mainstream policy agenda on domestic violence vs other policy agendas. The analysis ties into post-colonial scholarship on the culturalisation of violence, arguing that this critique needs to take into account an analysis of mainstream policy agendas.
The study is part of the project “Gender equality, cultural diversity, religious pluralism: State policies and feminist interventions” (PLUREQ), in cooperation with professor Hege Skjeie and professor Beatrice Halsaa, University of Oslo. Overall research topics are questions about democratic participation, minority women’s political mobilisation, (in) group power relations and the impact of state policies on minority communities. The empirical context is (Norwegian/Scandiavian) public policy making on equality-diversity-pluralism issues since the early 1990s.
Project homepage: http://www.statsvitenskap.uio.no/forskning/plureq/
