Abstract

In 2013, a nurse named Merete Bonde Pilgaard and based in Hjørring, Denmark initiated a project aimed at spreading more kindness into the everyday life. She wanted to draw attention to mental health in her project, and in that connection, she came up with the name Venligboerne, for all those who would like to add kindness to the everyday life of our citizens, and as a reminder to be kind to our fellow citizens. In fall 2014, Hjørring received a big group of asylum seekers, the nurse Merete now had the opportunity to execute the principles of Venligboerne by being kind to the newcomers, so she and many other local citizens went to welcome the newcomers that had arrived in their community. The political spectrum made intimidating campaigns to scare the refugees, so that they would not settle down in Denmark and find other countries to seek asylum in. In 2015, the “be kind to each other“ mindset now spread to other parts of Denmark and a group of civil citizens came together and laid the foundation for a Venligbo group in Copenhagen. Later they arranged for a house with help from the Copenhagen municipality which had a vacant house available for rent. Thus, Venligbohuset was created, on the address of Onkel Dannys Plads. This initiative spread effectively through the social media Facebook, and the Facebook group now has about 150.000 members.

This thesis aims to explore the social practice that takes place in Venligbohuset at Onkel Dannys Plads, with focus on the mechanisms that are meaningful for the agent’s integration into the Danish community. Based on a qualitative approach we collect data from 5 interviews and several observations of the practices that takes place in Venligbohuset. The focal point of the theoretical part of this thesis is the work of Bourdieu and his theory of the practical sense, which help us to investigate the relations between practices.

The analysis is written in four parts, in which each part places emphasis on shedding light on the different empirical findings. In the first part, we identify Venligbohuset as a subfield, since it does not contain elements of a field with full autonomy, therefore we examine it as a subfield with relation to the humanitarian field of which it is a part of. The first part lays the foundation of how we understand the practices and therefore plays a vital role throughout the rest of the analysis. The second, third and fourth part highlights different part of the practical practices that we through the empirical study and analysis find a pattern in. In this examination, we find that different kind of practices takes place in Venligbohuset, which influences the learning- and integration processes that takes place. These practices are expressed through the agents’ positioning, its hierarchies, and the use of symbolic violence – these actions occur despite the fact that the reputation and name of Venligbo citizens fundamentally contains kindness.

The study shows that these practices are subjacent and are only visible by looking behind the underlying practical actions, but for the agents these occur naturally and they are not aware of the central importance of the practices in the integration processes that takes place. Furthermore, we conclude that the learning and integration processes are bidirectional; both inclusion and exclusion ensues in these processes through the practices. The inclusion processes are essential for the integration processes to take place in the subfield. The agents are not necessarily aware of the integration process that they facilitate and therefore their contribution to the agent’s integration is unknown to them. Our finding shows that the mission of the Venligbohuset and its agent is not to facilitate integration processes, although they happen.

With this thesis, we intend to contribute to the discussion on Venligbohuset and to shed light on the practical sense that takes place in the house.