Nowadays, integration is a well known and heavily discussed concept in Denmark. The rise of an neo-nationalistic discourse and the construction of an 'us' and 'them' dichotomy have been evident since the national elections in 2001. The focus on cultural and religious differences has created a strong political incentive for integrating 'them' into 'our' Danish society. Alongside this development the ‘field of integration‘ has been professionalized and expanded. This study use ‘the field of integration’ as the overall contextual framework, and at a micro level focuses on 'integration practices'. The aim of the thesis is to examine which subject positions are made available for ‘unintegrated’ refugee and immigrant women. Furthermore, the aim is to examine how political and public discourses are reflected upon in the integration practices. The thesis will use two integration projects as cases. The two projects, Kringlebakken and FAKTI, both focus on refugee and immigrant women, and have the same holistic and acknowledging approach to their target group.
This master thesis is inspired by post-structuralism, which enables a study of categorization processes, identity constructions and becomings that are present in the two integration projects that the thesis examines. These processes are examined based on semi-structured qualitative interviews with the staff and the refugee and immigrant women. The analysis is based on a varied theoretical framework. Barbara Cruikshank offers a theoretical perspective on technologies of empowerment and how these link to subjectivity processes. Nanna Mik-Meyer and Margaretha Järvinen will be used to analyze categorizations and problem identities within social work in practice. Inspired by Dorte Marie Søndergaard, Rikke Andreassen and Jacobsen and Stenvoll, this study will include an intersectional perspective since gender, ethnicity, age and class are member categories that have influenced the empirical data collection. Thus, this study includes the researcher and her subject position in the data collection and the analysis. As the analysis will show, the staff of the two integration projects present a number of available subject positions to the women. The women reflect upon these positions, when they internalize or disrupt them. The subject positions that are presented and negotiated by the staff and the women focuses on two main positions: ‘Victim subject’ and ‘Empowered subject’, which both are based on the categorization: ‘Unintegrated’. The staff portray their acknowledging integration practice as a ‘best practice’ and distance the projects from the practice of the job centers and show an antipathy against the public and political discourses on integration. Thus, a new ‘us’ and ‘them’ is constituted.