TY - CHAP

T1 - The sexually abnormal male asylum-seeker

T2 - Regimes of normativities in a context of free-spiritedness

AU - Mortensen, Kristine Køhler

AU - Milani, Tommaso

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - The aim of this chapter is to investigate the emergence of the characterological figure of the sexually abnormal male asylum-seeker in Denmark. For this purpose, we examine compulsory courses in Danish sexual morals. With the help of a Foucauldian discourse ethnography, we take a multi-layered approach that investigates media debates about the introduction of this educational provision, as well as teaching materials and classroom interactions in an asylum centre. Through detailed textual analysis, we demonstrate how the Danish national value of frisind, which can be roughly translated into ‘free-spiritedness’, does not lack normativity, as the word might suggest at first glance. Rather, the incorporation of free-spiritedness into the Danish nation-state project creates a rationale according to which this national value requires protection from foreign intruders and needs to be transmitted to anyone who wishes to become part of the nation. As such, free-spiritedness works as a regulatory tool that separates ‘true’ Danes from the Other. Within this logic, the male heterosexual asylum-seeker is not only cast as carrying unhealthy sexual behaviours from which the nation-state must be protected but is also presented as a potentially harmful species that must be socialised into proper behaviour.

AB - The aim of this chapter is to investigate the emergence of the characterological figure of the sexually abnormal male asylum-seeker in Denmark. For this purpose, we examine compulsory courses in Danish sexual morals. With the help of a Foucauldian discourse ethnography, we take a multi-layered approach that investigates media debates about the introduction of this educational provision, as well as teaching materials and classroom interactions in an asylum centre. Through detailed textual analysis, we demonstrate how the Danish national value of frisind, which can be roughly translated into ‘free-spiritedness’, does not lack normativity, as the word might suggest at first glance. Rather, the incorporation of free-spiritedness into the Danish nation-state project creates a rationale according to which this national value requires protection from foreign intruders and needs to be transmitted to anyone who wishes to become part of the nation. As such, free-spiritedness works as a regulatory tool that separates ‘true’ Danes from the Other. Within this logic, the male heterosexual asylum-seeker is not only cast as carrying unhealthy sexual behaviours from which the nation-state must be protected but is also presented as a potentially harmful species that must be socialised into proper behaviour.

M3 - Book chapter

SN - 9783031384066

T3 - Palgrave Studies in Language, Gender and Sexuality

SP - 219

EP - 247

BT - Masculinities and Discourses of Men's Health

A2 - Brookes, Gavin

A2 - Chałupnik, Małgorzata

PB - Palgrave Macmillan

CY - Cham

ER -