Racialization through Friendship: Mixed Friendship in Youth Social Practice and Public Concern in Denmark

• In Event: 3581 - Section on Sociology of Children and Youth Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 01. Culture and Interaction

Abstract

The paper addresses the problematics of friendship and racialization in youth social practice and public concern. Through the analysis of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in one secondary school and several youth clubs in Copenhagen, the paper discusses different figured ways that young people apply to make friendships with one another in diverse surroundings. Specifically, two types of friendships are discussed: friendship from accommodation and friendship from entitlement. These configurations of friendship reveal larger complexities pertaining to racialization of ethnic minorities, particularly non-western migrants and Muslims, in Denmark. However, friendships that people make or do not make, do not remain isolated within the circles of young people. Contrary, friendship becomes a public concern when the adults concerned about youth make claims about why there are no friendships across the proclaimed ‘cultural’ difference, and why there should be such friendships. These concerns are manifested through the attempts to generate ‘intercultural’ friendship statistics and through the figure of ‘mixed friendship’ actively used in public talk. The paper concludes, that friendship in youth social practice and public concern is not disatached from the processes of racialization of ethnic minorities in Denmark. Albeit there is nothing ‘mixed’ or ‘cultural’ about friendship in social practice, the emphasis on ‘mixed’ friendship in public concern furthermore exaggerates the racialized division of ‘us’ as Danes and ‘others’ as non-western migrants.

Author

• Mante Vertelyte, Aalborg University