Browsing by Subject "racial identity development"

This Master’s thesis is a pilot study that seeks to make a novel contribution to the existing academic literature on how whiteness operates in Denmark. This study is guided by two research questions: How do white Danish university students narrate growing up white in Denmark, and what meanings do they attach to being racially aware, and to being white? Through semi structured interviews with 5 white Danes age 23 to 28, this study reveals how the internalized whiteness and racial exceptionalism of these five white Danes is rooted in their socialisation and how it manifests itself in their lives, both personally, academically and politically. A thematic analysis of the data is carried out in order to uncover underlying meanings of how the interview participants narrate their whiteness. As in Denmark (and globally), whiteness marks itself as being the unmarked norm, the analysis will be theoretically underpinned by the critical whiteness approach. Five themes are identified, and the interview data is used to critically reflect on and explore the aspects and dynamics of Danish society that, both implicitly and explicitly, contributes to whiteness remaining normative and unmarked at the same time. This study ends by concluding that in order to truly uncover the nuances of how whiteness manifests itself in Danish society, more research is needed. It also concludes that the participants narrate their whiteness as something deeply rooted and ingrained in the socialisation they have gone through and the national narratives that Denmark brands itself on, such as the idea of (racial) exceptionalism, hygge and colonial innocence.