11:15-12.15 Thursday 8 May 2014
COMPAS Board Room, Oxford
Speaker: Marianne Holm Pedersen, Danish Folklore Archives, The Royal Library, Copenhagen

In Denmark, voluntary associations play a large role in civil society and in many Danes’ self-understanding of what particularly constitutes Danish society.  Voluntary associations are considered important sites for socialization and democratic enculturation, and ‘at gå til noget’ (‘going to something’) is attributed great cultural value. In relation to the inclusion of ethnic minorities in Danish society, many policies target young people and attempt to incorporate them in local associational life. Yet, while there is a strong focus on ethnic minority youth, little knowledge exists about how their parents view the children’s associational incorporation in local society, or about how intergenerational dynamics shape leisure practices and relations to different places among both ethnic minority and majority families.

Based on a small, ongoing pilot project among youth and their parents in an ethnically diverse neighborhood in Copenhagen, this presentation will explore different generational perspectives on youth’s leisure activities. The talk will look at how different places become positioned as legitimate or not legitimate in relation to age, gender, ethnicity, social class and civil society involvement, and what this is assumed to reveal about family relations and local inclusion.