Dangerous Mothers and Their Potentially Dangerous Children: A study on war framing in the public and political debate regarding repatriation of Danish women and children detained in the Syrian refugee camps Al-Roj and Al-Hol
Translated title
Dangerous Mothers and Their Potentially Dangerous Children
Author
Winther, Kiwie Koch
Term
4. term
Education
Publication year
2022
Submitted on
2022-04-19
Pages
67
Abstract
Denne afhandling undersøger, hvordan den danske offentlige og politiske debat om hjemtagning af danske kvinder og børn tilbageholdt i de syriske flygtningelejre Al-Roj og Al-Hol blev præget af krigsretorik efter 9/11, særligt forstået gennem Judith Butler's idé om, at krigsrammer opdeler liv i sørgelige og usørgelige. Med Michel Foucault's metode eventalization afgrænses et samlet debatforløb fra marts 2019 til oktober 2021, analyseret gennem to empiriske repræsentationer: en folketingsdebat og et udvalgt udsnit af nyhedsdækning i Politiken, Berlingske og Ekstra Bladet. Analysen viser, at 'krigen mod terror' formede argumentationen i antagonistiske positioner, hvor de danske kvinder blev fremstillet som usørgelige og truende, mens børnene blev konstrueret som uskyldige ofre, men samtidig som potentielle fremtidige terrorister. Denne logik forstærkes af en dansk kontekst, der kan beskrives med Foucault's begreb om det biopolitiske samfund, hvor befolkningens overlevelse og optimering prioriteres, kulturelle forskelle mellem dansk og muslimsk gøres betydningsfulde, og risikostyring gør fremtidige antagelser til tilsyneladende fakta. I denne ramme bliver alternative argumenter trange. På grund af den valgte teori og metode kan resultaterne ikke generaliseres, men studiet bidrager med indsigt i, hvordan overordnede rammer gør visse argumenter mulige og andre usynlige, og tilbyder en tilgang, der kan anvendes på andre begivenheder og indramninger.
This thesis examines how the Danish public and political debate about repatriating Danish women and children detained in the Syrian refugee camps Al-Roj and Al-Hol was shaped by post-9/11 war rhetoric, drawing on Judith Butler's idea that war framing divides lives into those that are grievable and ungrievable. Using Michel Foucault's method of eventalization, the study delimits an 'event' spanning March 2019 to October 2021 and analyzes two empirical representations: a parliamentary debate and a selected sample of news coverage in Politiken, Berlingske, and Ekstra Bladet. The analysis finds that the 'war on terror' pushed arguments into antagonistic positions in which Danish women were cast as ungrievable and threatening, while the children were framed as innocent victims yet simultaneously as potential future terrorists. This logic is amplified by a Danish context described through Foucault's notion of a biopolitical society that prioritizes the survival and optimization of the population, makes cultural distinctions between Danish and Muslim salient, and uses risk management to present future abstractions as facts. Within this framing, space for alternative arguments narrows. Given the theoretical and methodological choices, the results cannot be generalized; however, the study contributes insight into how overarching frames enable some arguments and foreclose others, and it offers an approach that can be applied to other events and framings.
[This summary has been generated with the help of AI directly from the project (PDF)]
Keywords
Documents