Romanians from Serbia in Denmark

From DanishYugoslavs to Danish Serbs: 

National Affiliation Caught Between 

Visibility and Invisibility 

Kristine Juul 

Immigrants from Serbia who came to Denmark in the 1970s and 1980s 

found a large number of shared values between Yugoslav ideals of 

brotherhood and unity and the Scandinavian welfare model. As a result, 

they felt well integrated into Danish society, almost to the point of being 

invisible. This invisibility is upheld through a constant emphasis on 

sameness between themselves and the majority population in the public 

sphere, while thecultivation of difference has been relegated to the private 

realm or to cultural associations such as theYugoslav Clubs. Over the last 

decade, this ‘sharing of values’ has been contested from several points of 

view. During their absence, Yugoslav migrants have witnessed the 

destruction of their homeland and have been forced to take on a new 

Serbian identity. In what remained of their former homeland, social and 

political instability has stimulated a re-traditionalisation of society. 

Meanwhile, the growing attention given to religion and origins haschanged 

the room for manoeuvre of immigrant families in Denmark, challenging the 

tight networks hitherto maintained with the home village. Through 

interviews with members of the Serbian community in Denmark, I explore 

how they manoeuvre between strategies of visibility and invisibility in their 

quest to become full members of Danish society while maintaining their 

cultural particularities. I also look at the often contradictory ways inwhich 

the transformation of values and norms in Serbian and Danish society have 

impacted on the cultural and social practices of Serbian families in 

Denmark.

Introduction: A Night at the Serbian Association 

In May 2008, a small gathering was held on the premises of the Danish- 

Serbian Friendship Association in a Danish provincial town. Hosting the 

meeting was a mixture of middle-aged, first-generation immigrants and 

some youngermen, born and raised in Denmark by Serbian parents. 

The purpose of the meeting was to introduce some Danish students—and 

myself as their supervisor—to the daily lifeof Serbian migrants in Denmark 

as part of their preparation for a field-trip to Serbia. Our hosts shared their 

thoughts and experiences about being Serbs in Denmark and told us about 

their jobs, family situations and leisure activities, notably in the town’s 

Serbian football club. Many of our younger hosts figured prominently in the 

photographs of consecutive football teams which adorned the walls, among 

a large number of cups and prizes won at football tournaments and in 

fishing competitions. Among these were also a number of pictures showing 

young people practising Yugoslav folk dances, on which the humorous 

comment was: ‘If you told them back in Serbia that you were practising 

folk dancing, they’d start kidding you. They’d think you’re a hillbilly. It’s 

only here that wecarry on like this’. Whereas the dancing and the Serbian 

football teams represented the association’s activities in maintaining and 

cultivating bonds within the Serbian community, other photographs 

illustrated the strongcommitment of the association to Danish society by 

documenting the visits of Danish politicians and the leadersof local labour 

movements at cultural events organised by the association. 

During the evening, a lively mixture of Danish, Serbian and Vlaski was 

spoken. Vlaski is a Romanian dialect spoken by members of the Vlach 

minority in eastern Serbia, to which all the association’s members belonged. 

Askedhow they handled three different languages in their daily lives, the 

young men replied that they mainly speakDanish, even in their homes. The 

majority used Serbian regularly, primarily to communicate with older 

familymembers and with their families back home. Vlaski was understood 

but seldom used. Several had been given Danish first names by their 

parents. In other cases their friends had turned their Serbian name into a 

Danish-sounding equivalent. These young men had many Danish friends 

and acquaintances, but maintained a core of Serbian(football) friends with 

whom they communicated almost exclusively in Danish. This was in

contrast to the older members, who mainly used Vlaski, and more rarely 

Danish, in chatting with each other. 

Likewise, the younger members tended to speak of themselves as Danish 

Serbs, whereas the older people often spokeof themselves as Yugoslavs and 

of their homeland as Yugoslavia. This reflected a reluctance among the 

oldergeneration to accept the eradication of the Yugoslav state in 1990, a 

reluctance that postponed the relabellingof the Yugoslav Club to its present 

name (the Danish-Serbian Friendship Association) until 1998. It was in this 

process that the club was restructured as an association which included 

Danes. One young man stressed that hefelt 80 per cent Danish and 20 per 

cent Serb. He said that he found it difficult to take seriously those who 

called themselves Serbs but who had lived all their lives in Denmark. 

Discussions nonetheless made it clear that our hosts attributed great 

importance to the association as a means ofsuccessful integration. It was 

precisely because of the continuous backing of the Vlach community that 

‘their’youngsters had managed to steer clear of the flaws encountered in 

other immigrant communities. 1 The many social, cultural and sporting 

activities, it was stressed, had acted tomaintain tight relations and a strong 

sense of identity within the Serbian Vlach minority. This had, they held, 

facilitated their integration into Danish society to such an extent that they 

had become successful and respectedcitizens. Several of them had obtained 

solid positions either in the municipality or as mid-level managers inprivate 

firms. Some had been elected to the town council or the ‘Council for 

Integration’ as politicalrepresentatives. 2 As for the latter, they stressed that 

they no longer discussedintegration. ‘Now it’s no longer ‘‘them and us’’, 

but instead a question of civic participation’. 

The Vlachs in Denmark: Difference and Sameness 

We do not form a glaring contrast to the Danish population. We 

do not have dark skins, and our culture and habitsare no different 

from Danish habits (Serbian male, 2005). 

Many Yugoslavs live here. But then, when you think about it, we 

aren’t here, because we are so integrated. We are accepted so

much that you won’t sense any unrest here. […] We are here, yet 

we are not here (middle-aged man ofSerbian descent, 2005). 

The focus of the present article is a group of immigrants who, in their own 

and the public’s view, have become sowell integrated that they are almost 

invisible. Indeed, the fate of the Vlach 3 community during their 40 years of 

migrant history is well described by the label ‘quiet integration’ used by 

Pedersen and Rytter (2006) to designate those immigrants whose 

integration has apparently been so undramatic that they are barely 

mentioned in the Danish media. 

As shown above, the Vlachs consider the integration process of their coethnics 

as extremely successful. They have integrated peacefully into the 

towns where they settled and have managed to maintain themselves in the 

labour market until health problems or age have forced them to retire. The 

younger generation has by and large managed to move upwards in the 

educational and social hierarchy. 4 Both groups generally endorse the 

Danish welfare model and articulate no desire to move back to their villages 

of origin,except, as one expressed it, ‘if a smart business trick could make 

him rich in a jiffy’. Finally they are proud to resemble the Danes both 

physically and culturally, something which in their eyes positions them 

favourably inthe social hierarchy of Danish immigrants. 

Paradoxically the feeling of being successful seems to be linked to the 

condition of invisibility. As was the case for the Italian community in 

London studied by Fortier (2000), invisibility, or ‘blending in’, is the 

product of integration and acceptance rather than the outcome of conditions 

of marginalisation and imposed silence, as has been the case with, for 

example, black Americans. In this group, invisibility is upheld through a 

constant emphasis on the sameness between Danes and Serbian immigrants 

(forexample, being both Christian and European). 

The gathering nonetheless underscored the fact that the ability to remain 

‘invisible’ is to a large extent the fruit of their consciously working to 

maintain and strengthen the Vlach identity. This is upheld through the 

activities of the Serbian association and frequent visits to their villages of 

origin; that is, through thecultivation of difference. The maintenance of a 

Serbian meeting place, a Serbian football team and Serbian folk-dance

training indicates that, in spite of their achievements in terms of jobs and 

status, both young and older migrants experience a tension between 

difference and sameness in their relations with the Danish majorityculture. 

While their strong ties with their villages of origin may contribute 

positively to their ability toblend in with the majority society in Denmark, 

these ties do not remove the difficulties involved in keeping upobligations 

and loyalties to several places at once. The ambivalence created by 

straddling between thesedifferent loyalties has become all the more salient 

as the former clean, bright and ‘white’ attributes of being Yugoslav have 

darkened as a result of their contemporary history, the disintegration of the 

Yugoslav federationand the subsequent civil war. 

The aim of this article is to discuss to what extent invisibility has become 

a necessary condition for successful integration into Danish society. Is 

‘invisibility’ a product of conscious strategies to blend in with themajority 

society, or is it rather a consequence of trying to keep celebrations of 

cultural difference outside the realms of the society of the majority? 

Different strategies of ‘sameness’ and ‘difference’ will be investigated in 

order to understand how a distinct social structure, such as the closely knit 

Vlach family and the strong ethnic bonds both among Vlach immigrants 

and between the homeland and the diaspora, have facilitated their 

apparently smooth integration into Danish society. Finally I look at how this 

strategy of invisibility wasaffected by the historical events that transformed 

the Vlachs’ former homeland from a socialist federation heralding 

‘brotherhood and unity’ into an inward-looking and unstable republic 

struggling to maintain ademocratic façade. 

The article is based on my interviews with Danish-Vlach immigrants 

between 2005 and 2008. Around 20 formalinterviews were carried out with 

(mostly) male members of different Friendship Associations. These were 

supplemented by participant observation during five visits to the villages 

(either alone or as the coordinatorfor two graduate students’ field-trips to 

Serbia) 5 and at social gatherings atthe associations in both Denmark and 

Serbia. Also important were the 20 informal conversations with retired men 

and women carried out in their homes in Serbia and/or Denmark. These 

persons were either active members of the Associations or connected to 

them through family ties. Others were randomly selected during visits to the

villages. As most visits to Serbia have taken place outside the prime holiday 

season, interviews with youngerpeople, with a few exceptions, were carried 

out in Denmark as part of Club meetings. Key persons—such as theSerbian 

priest in Denmark, the head of the local Diaspora Office in Serbia, etc— 

were also interviewed. The interviews focused on personal migration stories 

and on how the transnationallives that stretch between Serbia and Denmark 

are organised, especially by those first-generation migrants whohave been 

brought up with the values and norms of the ‘old’ Yugoslavia and who 

participate on a more or less regular basis in the activities of the Serbian 

clubs; it only includes the perceptions and practices of the second 

generation when they add to the perspective of their parents. Furthermore, 

most respondents were found among the great majority who take part in 

most important club activities, such as the celebrations; the studydoes not 

include the perceptions of those who no longer feel a need to maintain their 

links with the Vlachmigrant community in Denmark in this way. 

Living Dual Lives: Transnational Strategies and Obligations 

Until the 1990s—when the break-up of Yugoslavia and the outflows of 

refugees changed the ethnic pattern of immigrants from the former 

Yugoslavia—the Vlachs, a small minority group from eastern Serbia, were 

among thelargest diaspora communities in Denmark. 

From the diaspora’s start in the late 1960s, Vlach migration strategies had 

been characterised by chain migration, with the arriving migrants being 

under strong pressure to facilitate and help the successive migrationof close 

family relatives and more-distant kin. The close-knit social relations of the 

Vlach minority encouraged a particular pattern in which settlement was 

concentrated in four provincial towns all located within a radius of 100 

kilometres of Copenhagen. After 40 years of settlement, this pattern 

remains more or less the same, as few of the younger generation have 

chosen to move far from their families. 

In contrast to many other groups, the Vlachs mostly migrated as couples. 

Once established, these couples wouldoften be joined by their parents, with 

whom they would share an apartment and living expenses, to increase 

savings as much as possible. This was a reflection of a particular Vlach 

family tradition in which up to fourgenerations would live under the same

oof. A low birth rate (one or two children per couple) facilitatedmigration, 

as the children could be left back in the village in the care of the 

grandparents (Schierup and Ålund1986: 185). This family structure fitted 

well a strategy where migration was seen as a temporary means to quickly 

improve the family’s social and economic status. 

During the 1980s and 1990s, changing immigration policies in Denmark 

and the difficult situation of the Yugoslav economy contributed to a 

transformation of migration patterns. The initial focus on improving the 

agricultural unit at home was replaced by a strategy in which the home 

town and the housing facilities there mainly served as a backdrop for 

displaying economic success and improved status. Only a few migrants 

have moved back to thevillage. 6 Instead, the great majority have opted for 

what Schierup and Ålund havelabelled ‘permanent temporality’ (1986)— 

constant movement between one’s homes in both Denmark and Serbia. 

This mobile lifestyle is maintained not only by pensioners, but also by 

thelarge group of workers in health-related early retirement, which requires 

that the recipient must stay at least six months in Denmark. Permanent 

temporality is also motivated by a desire to be able to stay six months in 

one’sbeautiful house in the village, where the cost of living is reasonable, 

while on the other hand maintaining closecontact with one’s grandchildren 

and the Danish health-care system. This constant oscillation between the 

‘home at home’ and the ‘Danish home’ is not limited to the older 

population. Younger Vlachs also continue to visitSerbia on a regular basis 

during holidays and festivities—essential in keeping the village alive as a 

moral‘hinterland’. 

The situation of the Serbian immigrants may to a certain extent be 

characterised as one of living dual lives (seeVertovec 2001: 574) in which 

they move between two or three cultures with relative ease, and ‘pursue 

economic, political and cultural interests that require their presence in 

both’. Events, norms and values from their country of origin continue to 

exert a considerable influence on the everyday lives of both first-and 

second-generation immigrants. Furthermore, their maintenance of homes in 

both countries, and their bilingual or even trilingual language skills, 

contribute to their ability to sustain multi-stranded social relations. These 

act to link together societies of origin and those of settlement. As shown by

Levitt and Glick Schiller, it isprecisely through such interlocking networks 

of social relationships that ideas, practices and resources are unequally 

exchanged, organised and transformed (2004: 1009). The content of such 

‘dual lives’ is therefore neither static nor homogeneous. Transnational 

practices may be performed differently between various groups and 

generations, as is the case with the practices of sameness and difference put 

forward at different stages in the immigration process. But, while I agree 

with Levitt and Glick Schiller that transnational ties are not binary 

opposites, but rather form part of a mutual transnational field (2004: 1003), 

it is also important to recognise,with Escobar, that, for most people most of 

the time, ‘culture still sits in places’, and that attachment to andin ‘place’ 

therefore continues to have both practical and emotional importance 

(Escobar 2001 in Jackson etal. 2004: 6–7). I therefore use the notion of 

dual lives to underscore the often contradictory ways in which migrants 

engage with their surroundings and develop competencies in relation to 

both their homeland and thesociety of settlement. 

This dual orientation has received much attention in the recent literature 

on diasporas. Werbner (2000: 5), forexample, stresses how immigrants tend 

to fight for citizenship and equal rights in the place of settlement, often 

alongside other ethnic groups, while at the same time continuing to foster 

transnational relations and living with a sense of displacement and of 

loyalties to other places and groups beyond that of settlement. I argue here 

that this implies a divided or dual social life, not only between the ‘home at 

home’ and the home in the countryof settlement, but just as much between 

a public realm that is open and comprehensible to the Danes, and aprivate 

realm that focuses on ‘Serbdom’ or ‘Vlachness’. This private realm is to a 

large degree unobserved, ifnot concealed, in relation to the public gaze, but 

it retains an important role in shaping the worldview, normsand values of 

the ‘transnational citizen’. In the case of the Serbian Vlachs, invisibility 

may well be a convenient strategy for blending in with the Danish majority 

population. Nonetheless,such a practice appears to hinge on the existence 

of a private realm in which norms and cultural practices thatare different 

from those of the majority culture are prevalent.

Visibility and Invisibility: The Job Market as a Site of 

Integration? 

In present-day political rhetoric, it is common to refer to the labour market 

as the prime forum for integrationand an opportunity to become acquainted 

with the norms and values of the country of settlement. In the case ofthe 

Serbian Vlachs in Denmark, this has to some degree been the case, although 

with some important modifications. First, the situation proved fairly 

different for men and women; secondly, public performances do not entirely 

match activities in the private sphere. 

From the outset, male and female migrants were integrated into the 

labour market. Although they got the dirtiestjobs (Federspiel 1998: 124), 

the working conditions to which Vlach men were subjected were more 

favourable than those encountered by Vlach women. Men were primarily 

employed in shipyards and the steel industry. The traditional division of 

labour in these large industries tended to favour closeness and cooperation 

among workerswith different trades and kinds of skills (Federspiel 1998: 

101). It also implied submitting to the rules andconditions of the workplace 

and becoming members of the strong trade unions. This made it easier for 

Yugoslavmigrants to adapt to the tacit codes of work or ‘self-evident codes 

of conduct’ within the hierarchy of theindustrial enterprise (Schierup and 

Ålund 1986: 92). Although Federspiel shows how the temptation to 

undercut wages and increase working hours existed, being part of a 

collective increased not only sameness, but alsovisibility, thus making it far 

more difficult for Vlach men to go against the collective bargaining of the 

tradeunions. 

This was different for Vlach women, who had enjoyed relatively high 

degrees of equality and influence in the agricultural collectives in which 

they had worked in Yugoslavia. For them, migration meant not only 

acquiringtheir first job outside the rural sector, but also taking on hard and 

fatiguing double work in the factory and the home (Schierup and Ålund 

1986: 102). In most cases women acquired the most monotonous and 

stressful jobs, and had the most-isolated working conditions over which 

they had the least influence. A high proportion of themworked full-time on 

night shifts. In these industries, the unions were less present in regulating 

workingconditions, stimulating a far more conflictual relationship with the

Danish workers, where Vlach women were accused of speeding up the 

working processes in order just to get a tiny bonus. 

Motivation to work so hard was found primarily in the private realm, in 

the prestige game of the Vlach community, where status required the 

purchase of a new dress for every dance or wedding (Schierup and Ålund 

1986: 102–4).The option of working harder than their Danish colleagues 

and earning extra hinged on the ability of Vlach women to leave their 

children in the village or in the care of older female relatives, thereby 

stressing difference with regard to their Danish colleagues, who were more 

dependent on the services of the welfare state. The help provided by the 

family network nevertheless had itsprice in terms of increasing the level of 

obligations towards the private realm where high levels of hospitalityand 

other services were expected in exchange. 

One consequence of the heavy burdens placed on them is that a large 

number of older women suffer from healthproblems and are now retired. 

Being away from the labour market and consigned to the private sphere of 

homemakingand childcare obviously implies a degree of withdrawal from 

the wider Danish society. In reality, however, many of the older women 

primarily worked in industries where the bulk of workers were other 

immigrants, 7 for which reason the integrative ‘outcomes’ of being exposed 

to the Danish labour marketare likely to have been more limited. Things 

are different in the younger generation, as higher levels of education and 

language proficiency have contributed to a general shift towards the service 

sector. Few, if any,of this generation work in groups with other Vlachs and 

being Vlach does not seem to influence their jobsituation. 

The trade unions generally play a very positive role for the older men, 

who accepted and felt represented bytheir collective-oriented policies and 

by the emphasis given to equal rights and worker solidarity, featureswhich 

the Danish welfare state had in common with socialist Yugoslavia. The 

trade unions also stood up for theirnew members and actively campaigned 

against the widespread racist attitudes of some of their other members, 

thereby increasing the sense of security of the former. 8 However, these 

moreconflictual memories are seldom raised by the migrants, who tend to 

emphasise instead their more positive workexperiences.

At present, when the industry-based welfare state is under pressure in 

both Serbia and Denmark, collective formsof identification have tended to 

wither away. New forms have emerged in both states, with greater emphasis 

being placed on issues such as religion and origin. This has changed 

attitudes towards collective structures such asunion membership. Although 

the number of Serbs holding a union card tends to be higher than among 

native Danes,the high employment rate which has characterised the recent 

economic boom has compelled a growing number of young workers of 

Serbian origin to abandon the ‘old’ trade unions. This attitude—shared by 

many Danes—is regretted by members of the older generation, who feel 

they fought an important struggle in fighting to organise the Yugoslavwork 

force: 

Young people don’t bother to be members of a union nowadays. 

But the unions have helped us so much. We used topay 25 kroner 

(3 euros) per month to the Social Democratic Party as part of 

union membership. Then a collectionof signatures was made to 

end this tradition. But it is with these 25 kroner that we have 

obtained the societythat we have today (Serbian man, 2008). 

Nevertheless, the generally poor health of the older Vlach workers speaks 

for itself. Many suffer from serious diseases and injuries stemming from 

accidents and attrition inflicted by their labour conditions. But instead of 

voicing protest, these old people do not hold the labour system responsible. 

Rather, they choose a strategy of invisibility where compensation 

negotiated through the social security system is invested in social acts 

directed towards the Vlach community, such as extravagant wedding 

celebrations or the like. In their eyes, the ability to gain financial 

compensation continues to make unhealthy work conditions a worthwhile 

venture. 

This strategy reflects an uninterrupted emphasis on prestige goods, which 

are not necessarily made visible toDanes. Such prestige games are also at 

work when some of the young Serbian couples leave their children in the 

care of their grandparents while taking on an extra night job to be able to 

purchase luxury holidays in some distant tourist destination. Through the 

so-called ‘experience economy’, these adventures may visualise and make

public their successful integration in the consumer economy. Although 

individual, such adventures are consumed collectively as a way of 

increasing the status of the entire group. 

Integration Through Consumption: The House ‘At Home’ and 

the New ‘Home’ 

In general, the successful integration of the Serbian Vlachs has been closely 

linked to the consumer society. Butwhat does this imply, and what are the 

migrants so eager to gain? 

Interestingly, both young and old declare that they find the building of 

large houses in the village of origin unreasonable and irrational. 

Nevertheless, the home ‘at home’ persists as both a moral commitment and 

a financialburden. Great efforts are invested in the constant refurbishing of 

the large and only partly inhabited houses, to keep up with the latest 

fashions in homes and gardens. These beautification projects reflect 

obligations toprovide a decent shelter for retirement while demonstrating 

the status and success acquired in the course ofmigration. But there is also 

a more collective dimension—the beautification projects also serve to pay 

respect tothe village by raising its status vis-à-vis the surrounding villages. 

This visibility, however, is mostlydirected towards the Serbian public. In 

order not to stir up jealousy, the size and attractiveness of the Serbianhouse 

is usually not made visible to Danes. 

As settlement in Denmark has become more permanent, the home in 

Denmark has also acquired value as a symbolicpoint of reference, not only 

for the individual family, but also for the groups’ collective identity. For 

many Serbs in Denmark, the detached house stands out as the most 

important marker of integration and participation, the most obvious 

expression of their commitment to Danish society, and a way of involving 

oneself. In Denmark,the house (as well as the car and the large TV set) has 

become a visible marker of membership in the consumersociety. What is 

interesting, however, is that, while the houses in the home town are built to 

impress, theSerbs’ houses in Denmark usually look like any other house on 

the road: indeed, the owners take pride in nothaving any sign of difference 

displayed on the façade. Here the project is one of invisibility and

sameness, away of demonstrating the Vlach community’s integration and 

of signalling that they have now acquired a longertime horizon. 

Although this suggests a change in saving strategies among the 

‘integratedVlachs’, securing a decent façade and a modern interior in both 

the village and the Danish houses remains crucialfor maintaining respect 

within the Vlach community. The Danish houses are also the object of 

meticulous attention. Most Serbian men are constantly engaged in 

renovating the roof or enlarging the family residence. In this way, they 

present themselves as the ideal image of the good neighbour and hardworking 

migrant. For the women, who are traditionally in charge of the 

garden and the interior, it is more difficult to gain such a reputation. 

Because of their prolonged visits to the village during the summer, gardens 

in Denmark have to bekept to a minimum. Most homes are kept spotlessly 

clean inside, but are also almost devoid of any personalartefacts. Indeed the 

similarities between different homes are striking. All are equipped with 

more or less thesame type of corner sofa, a glass cabinet with artefacts and 

figurines, and a large television set. Several Vlach women told how they 

had stopped producing the traditional handicrafts and embroidery which 

used to decorateSerbian homes. Since their daughters feel that these do not 

fit the modern home, they are now hidden away incupboards and drawers, 

as are the embroidered pictures of Tito which used to adorn many Serbian 

homes. AsGrünenberg reports of Bosnian homes in Denmark (2006: 139), 

the living rooms are almost devoid of artefacts which could convey a 

connection with the homeland. This is probably due to a desire to downplay 

the current politicalconflicts in the homeland and avoid an open display of 

any political sympathies. Keeping the home as impersonal as possible 

nonetheless limits the women in their efforts to act as the transmitters of the 

homeland culture. The sterile interior decoration makes it difficult to 

maintain the home as a moral place in which social andreligious ties to the 

homeland are preserved. Furthermore, the busy lifestyles of working 

couples act to make lives and identities more individualised, thus leaving 

less time for daily interactions across the group. For the women, who 

seldom participate in the day-to-day activities in the club, this tends to limit 

their public involvement to the larger celebrations and gatherings. These 

celebrations are increasingly organised by the malemembers and the food

provided by a Serbian catering firm, leaving the women very few 

opportunities to displaytheir skills to a wider public. 

Re-Traditionalising Family Ties? 

In discussions with younger and older Vlachs, it is evident that strong 

family ties remain an important issuewithin the group. Much in line with 

the logics of the multi-generational family, parents feel a strong obligation 

to support their children well into their adult lives. It is therefore not 

unusual for young people or couples to live under the same roof as their 

parents: 

Most young people prefer not to take out loans to support 

themselves while they are studying. It’s not like theDanes, who 

leave it to the young people to support themselves on the state’s 

study grants and by working. We letthem stay at home until they 

are 20–25. There they can have a good life and are taken care of 

(Serbian woman,2008). 

When a young couple do move to their own flat or house, it is usually 

located in relative proximity to the parents’ house. Although the couple 

make use of public day-care facilities,grandparents are expected to play a 

vital role in the upbringing of the youngest generation. In return the elder 

generation expect that their children will support them in their old age. 

However, as socialisation increasingly takes place within Danish 

institutions, these relations of mutual obligation are likely to become more 

problematic. 

For first-generation migrants, it was important for the children to be 

raised in Serbia by the grandparents andgreat-grandparents (Schierup and 

Ålund 1986: 52). This reflected an anxiety that the children might become 

too Danish and forget their Vlach roots and the obligations towards the 

older generation that are emphasised in Vlachculture. In fact, some of the 

men in their late-20s present at the gathering mentioned above indicated 

having spent some years in the care of their grandparents in the village. 

This is not likely to happen to their own children. Instead, they are

encouraging their children to adopt Danish cultural values and practices, as 

reflected in their giving Danish first names to their children. 

The priority of sameness in terms of Danish culture and language has in 

some instances led to tensions between the generations. One grandfather 

recounted that he and his wife had been disqualified from playing a central 

role in the upbringing of their grandchildren because the younger 

generations felt it imperative that their childrenshould be taken care of by 

Danish-speaking persons. According to him, this was also why his daughter 

andson-in-law refused to live in the large house which he had planned as a 

multi-generational homestead. 

From the perspective of the younger generation, moving out of the multigenerational 

homestead provides an opportunity for gaining more terrain 

within the generational hierarchy and unequal power relations in the Vlach 

family structure. 

From Yugoslav to Serb: A Return to ‘Ancient Values’? 

Given their eagerness to ensure that their children have a high degree of 

Danish language proficiency, manycouples prefer to speak Danish at home. 

This is different from many other diaspora groups, for whom the language 

constitutes one of the most important media in preserving the native culture 

(see Eastmond 1993). The conscious use of Danish in Vlach homes is 

widespread among both the younger and the middle-aged generations, and 

is, surprisingly, also frequent among those who most ardently stress the 

need to preserve Vlach traditions. The question now is what second 

language should be passed on to the children. Where Vlaski was the 

language spoken at home in the first two decades of migration, many 

parents and grandparents now give priority to Serbian. This issignificant, as 

it is happening in a period in which the Serbian nation is often regarded 

with suspicion andantipathy by the Danish public. 

The new interest in Serbian language and culture is obviously connected 

to the Vlachs’ shift in national affiliation. Although the new Serbian 

identity was largely forced upon them, it also contributed to the 

development of loyalties towards the new homeland, as the nationalist and 

conservative ideology of Serbia in the 1990s provided justification for a 

revival of traditional and chauvinist values, which were also popular in

parts of the Vlach community in Denmark, but had been suppressed during 

Tito’srule. Among these values were a greater openness towards religious 

matters and a revived interest in origins,nationality and ethnicity, as well as 

an ideological celebration of the family as a core institution in society. 

In particular, the emphasis on the family in Serbian nationalism is likely 

to have made this ideology appealingto Vlach women. For them, migration 

implied a loss of previous independence and created a situation more like 

thetraditional role of Serbian women, whose sphere of control also tended 

to be confined to the private realm.During the Milosevic regime, economic 

insecurity and the troubles related to everyday existence worked to 

strengthen women’s self-denial, but at the same time gave them new power 

and control over those who were dependent on them (Bijelic 2005: 286). 

The praise of motherhood in nationalist rhetoric and the celebration of 

women’s strong but hidden position within the family attracted a large 

number of female voters from the socially fragile and economically 

disadvantaged groups in Serbia (2005: 296). Likewise, certain migrant 

women (particularly in the older generation) may have regarded the 

ideological ‘return to ancient values’ as having thepotential to bolster their 

own roles as the guardians of tradition in charge of keeping alive the 

connectionsbetween the village of origin and the new homeland. 

At present, it is striking how the most important rites of passage, such as 

marriage, baptism and burial, continue to take place in the homeland 

village. A trip to the graveyards in the villages of origin reveals a large 

number of elaborate and well-kept tombstones. This confirms the 

importance of being buried properly, that is, in Serbian soil. Funerals 

continue to form a very important part of the Vlach religious tradition as 

symbolicacts to celebrate their common roots (Schierup and Ålund 1986: 

53). After the funerals, pomanas are heldin the village at certain intervals 

in honour of the dead to represent the sacrifices, humility and co-operation 

towards the ancestors. 9 Many migrants grumble over the constant 

obligations being placed on them to finance extravagant ceremonies of 

remembrance. As the keepers of tradition, mothers and grandmothers in 

particular have a strategic interest in ensuring that they are upheld. 

However, they are wellaware that, if such traditions are to be continued, it

is of vital importance that marriage partners should be found within the 

ethnic group: 

Of course the young people may choose their partner as they 

want, but it is preferable if the partner is ‘one of ours’. Danish 

girls don’t like spending all their holidays in the village. Often the 

mixed marriages do not last(Vlach female, 2008). 

Those who live in mixed marriages often live their own lives and 

do not take part in the traditions. The spouses don’t understand 

our traditions. They might like the meal and the slivovica [plum 

brandy] at the pomana, but they don’t understand what it’s for. 

Many of the young ones do not keep up with ourtraditions. They 

do not learn how to perform them. Furthermore, the outsiders 

don’t understand why the women should behave in a modest 

manner and take care of the traditions (Vlach male, 2008). 

As can be seen, the continuing powers of the mothers and grandmothers 

mayexplain why, although mixed marriages are gaining momentum, they 

continue to be the exception in Vlachsociety. 10 However, the fear of losing 

control is as present as ever. 

New Types of Loyalty and Obligation 

In general, religion and superstition are gaining ground, both in Serbia and 

among Serbs in Denmark. Old Serbianreligious traditions such as the Slava 

—the annual celebration of the family saint—have become important 

events in both Denmark and Serbia. In Serbia, the churches, which were 

relatively deserted during Tito’s rule, areincreasingly visited by both young 

and old, all seeking an answer to the social crisis and the ‘crisis of values’ 

of the last decade. Bio-rythms, healing, all types of herbal medicine and 

supernatural powers are also popularsolutions to various social ills. 

Among the Danish Serbs, the ‘Civil Religion of Brotherhood and Unity’ 

of the Tito era (see Perica 2002) isgradually being replaced by a renewed 

interest in the Serb Orthodox Church. As an expression of this interest,the 

largest ‘diaspora village’ in the Vlach area inaugurated a beautiful little

church in 1997, financed primarily by its communities abroad. The 

construction, which started in 1987, could be seen both as acontribution by 

the diaspora to the revitalising of old religious traditions and as political 

support for the Serb Orthodox revivalist campaign encouraged by the 

Milosevic regime (see Juul and Nielsen 2007). 

At present, many Vlachs also display their religious affiliation openly in 

Denmark, for example, by wearing large Orthodox crosses or religious 

bracelets. However, going public with your religious affiliation is not 

without itscontradictions. Although a Serb Orthodox congregation exists in 

Copenhagen, only a few Vlachs are affiliated toit. The great majority find 

the church unwilling to deal with the Vlach variant of Orthodox 

Christianity, whichis regarded as involving too much superstition. 11 Most 

ceremonies therefore continue to be performed in the villages of origin, 

where the priests are less reluctant to converge with theVlach ancestor cult. 

With this controversy in mind, it was somewhat surprising to find that a 

growing number of Vlach children now opt for Lutheran confirmation, a 

ceremony which has no equivalent in the Serb Orthodox Church. Vlach 

weddings held inDanish churches according to the Lutheran liturgy are also 

gaining in popularity. Yet fitting in with the DanishChurch does not imply 

abandoning the Serb Orthodox Church. Rather, it is an act where sameness 

in terms ofChristianity is valued over difference embodied in the official 

Serb Orthodox Church. Lacking other public rituals or symbols of 

integration, these ceremonies—celebrated with pomp and circumstance— 

serve as yet anothermanifestation of sameness and successful integration. 

This promulgation of visibility and Danishness in what has hitherto been 

perceived as a wholly Vlach domain dominated by older women acting as 

the custodians of the Vlachtradition is a significant topic deserving greater 

attention in the future. 

The need to perform such public acts of convergence may have increased 

as a consequence of the difficult transformation from being Yugoslavs to 

becoming Serbs. For many migrants, the eradication of Yugoslavia as a 

state involved important modifications of their status in Danish society, as 

wellas their previous loyalties towards nation and homeland. At present it 

is difficult to obtain a precise picture of how loyalties towards the 

nationalistic project of a Greater Serbia have developed within the Danish

diaspora,as few are keen to discuss this matter. In the 1990s, many diaspora 

communities in Europe and the USA welcomedthe new nationalistic spirit 

in Serbia (Hockenos 2003). In Denmark, the diaspora was less eager to 

attractattention to the Serbian cause. Nonetheless, the majority of Vlachs in 

Denmark were supporters of Milosevic, aloyalty which seems to have been 

widespread until 1999. 12 

An important factor contributing to commitment to the Serbian cause was 

the opening of a satellite link toBelgrade in 1991 (Hockenos 2003: 149). 

This enabled individual immigrants to watch Serbian television directly, 

and to watch the news that mattered to them in a language they understood. 

At present the Serbian channels provide the most important source of 

information, not least among those who have retired, who often have 

relatively little contact with Danish society. 

During the war, however, the satellite links communicated not only pro- 

Serbian versions of the crisis inYugoslavia, but also widespread intolerance 

towards other ethnic groups. The Albanians in particular weredepicted as 

primitive Muslims sharing the goal of expelling all Serbs from Kosovo 

(Arsenijevic 2007). Taking intoconsideration the increasingly xenophobic 

rhetoric that gained momentum in Denmark in the 1990s with the growing 

influence of the nationalistic Danish People’s Party (see Kofoed and 

Simonsen 2007), it is not surprising thatthese antipathies were widespread 

among the often poorly educated and marginalised Serbian workers. The 

Danish People’s Party was also among the few to protest against the 

violation of Serbian sovereignty in relation toKosovo’s independence, an 

act which is likely to have evoked further sympathy for this party among 

the Serbs. Inthe version of the Danish People’s Party, however, this protest 

is often spiced with strong anti-Muslimrhetoric. 13 

For some Serbs, the common mistrust with regard to Muslims has 

induced a sense of sameness between Danes and Orthodox Serbs, as 

expressed in the quotation below: 

It is not as difficult for us to integrate as it is for the Muslims. It’s 

the culture, isn’t it? We’re Christians and they’re Muslims. It’s 

another God that they believe in. We have the cross and the

Orthodox faith, that’sequal to the Protestants (young Vlach male 

in Denmark, in Ballhausen and Tonnesen 2008: 77). 

Not least because voicing pro-Serbian attitudes in relation to the Balkan 

wars or the Kosovo conflict remains largely unacceptable to a Danish 

public, it seems that the focus on shared (European) origins and (Christian) 

religion has provided a much-needed platform upon which the difficult 

process of integration can be pursued. 

However, it is important to stress that not all Serbs in Denmark supported 

the Serbian nationalist project, and that many retain a large degree of 

nostalgia towards what was formerly a state that emphasised equal rights 

andliberty. Nonetheless, they have limited means with which to contest the 

increasingly stereotyped backdrop of the Balkan countries as a perpetual 

powder keg and the site of ancient ethnic divisions and hatreds. Hence, 

football, folk dancing and traditional food are now among the few activities 

through which Serbs can become visible as a group vis-à-vis the wider 

Danish public. Such acts ofpublicity often take place under the auspices of 

the Serbian clubs, to which I now turn. 

The Danish-Serbian Friendship Association as the Merger of 

Sameness and Difference 

Serbian associations exist in all four towns where the Vlachs have settled 

and are among the institutions workingthe most energetically to make the 

often contradictory webs of visible and less visible strategies meet. They act 

both as the public face of the Vlach community and as more private 

meeting places for its members. 

Originally the associations were tightly controlled by the Yugoslav state, 

which also used them to control the political activities of its diaspora 

groups. Through the embassies, cultural exchanges took place where 

writers, folk dancers and musicians toured the different countries where 

migrants had settled. This contributed to maintaining a feeling of being a 

part of the homeland and of not being forgotten ‘down there’ (Nylund 

2006). At present, the clubs are independent but they still undertake 

different exchange activities, among them participation in Danish and

Serbian sports events, or facilitating study visits from the local trade unions 

andother political or charity-oriented activities. 

It was only in 1998 that these organisations shifted from being Yugoslav 

clubs to becoming Serbian associations. The term ‘Danish-Serbian 

Association’ serves to underscore the fact that the associations are 

subsidised by themunicipality and in principle are open to all. The board 

members take pride in narrating how the everyday activities and football 

training are attended by Danish members, as this takes away the 

‘immigrant’ connotation of the associations. Indeed the name of one of 

them is the Danish-Serbian Friendship Association, which stresses the 

transnational ethos. In everyday usage, however, the Association is usually 

called the ‘Serbian Club’ (or even the Yugoslav Club). Few, if any, non- 

Vlach Serbs participate in its social life, and it remains a predominantly 

Vlach club engaged in homeland activities. 

Women do not use the club on a daily basis, but some of the clubs have 

tried to organise so-called Saturday matinées which are more familyoriented, 

though these do not seem to have gained much popularity. In fact, 

the ordinary users are middle-aged men, who play cards, watch Serbian 

television and discuss politics. Theyounger generation show little interest 

in keeping up with Serbian politics: ‘To be honest, I’m more interestedin 

what is happening in Denmark’, one young man said. Core activities such 

as folk dancing tend to lose out, asit has become difficult to motivate either 

trainers or children. Compared to earlier periods, the level ofattendance in 

ordinary social activities is generally low. Nonetheless, having a club and 

receiving municipalsupport retains their importance for the social cohesion 

of the group—a place where Vlachs can meet and cultivate their 

distinctiveness by speaking their native language(s) and discussing 

whatever challenges they, as an ethnic minority, are confronted with—and 

is an important identity marker for most Vlach migrants, including those 

who only use the club once in a while. 

Increasingly, the activities of the clubs revolve around the organisation of 

large parties to celebrate events such as Orthodox Christmas, the club’s 

anniversary and International Womens Day—a kind of Mothers’ Day on 8 

March. These are all official Serbian celebrations whereas Vlach 

celebrations such as pomanas or Thunder Day are not held on the club’s 

premises. Normally the club’s celebrations attract several hundred people of

Vlach origin. Here, care is taken to invite notables from the Danish 

community, such as union bosses, local politicians and representatives of 

the municipality. These are opportunities to display the very best of Vlach 

and Serbianculture, varying from the handmade folk costumes to the Vlach 

folk-music and the performance of ‘Ore’, atraditional Vlach chain dance. 

By drawing on Balkan traditions of hospitality, these performances serve to 

create and enhance the bonds and networks with the outside community, 

which are crucial in maintaining municipal supportfor what is in reality the 

exclusivity of a Vlach club. But, as noted by Ballhausen and Tonnesen 

(2008), it is primarily the hospitality and the unproblematic aspects of 

Serbian and Vlach culture which are demonstrated during these events, 

while the darker sides, such as the political repression and chauvinist 

attitudes, areplayed down. In reality, it is exactly in their ability to provide 

such a powerful ‘public face’ for the Vlachcommunity that the clubs play 

their most important integrative role. Here the ‘difference’ and 

distinctiveness ofthe Vlach culture is put on display in a very visible but 

also selective manner which is accessible and understandable to a wider 

public, enabling the club to mediate between the private and the public. 

The question is, however, to what extent the clubs and other types of 

ethnic affiliation will continue to informthose groups of immigrants who 

have lived in Denmark for several decades and in many ways have come to 

see themselves as Danish. Indeed, doubt is often expressed by the elder 

members of the clubs: 

Nowadays, the cultural clubs do not attract as many people as 

they used to. People have invested their money incars and villas, 

they no longer want to spend money on drinks in the clubs. They 

prefer to stay at home and invite friends to socialise there 

(Serbian man, 2008). 

Conclusion 

As I have shown, the relatively successful integration of Vlach immigrants 

in Denmark hinges upon the ability of this minority group to create and 

maintain a strong and integrated ethnic community. The continued 

reproductionof traditions and social practices deriving from the village of

origin ensures that generational continuity and mutual co-operation make 

sense also to the younger generation. Paradoxically, this has also 

contributed toopening up this community towards Danish society. 

The construction of the Vlach community as successful and well 

integrated nonetheless carries with it a number of inconveniences. The 

focus on sameness in terms of (European) origin,Christianity and whiteness 

obviously serves to downplay their position as immigrants and makes it 

difficult toraise problems related to discrimination or more subtle feelings 

of being excluded. The widespread use of Danish,even in Vlach homes, has 

marginalised grandparents’ role in the upbringing of the younger generation 

and has madeit increasingly difficult to preserve certain key institutions in 

Vlach culture such as the multi-generational homestead, thus limiting the 

sphere of control of the older generation. 

As Vlachness loses importance, older women in particular risk having to 

relinquish their central position in the family. The continuing prestige 

games and the importance attributed to being ‘modern’ add to this process 

ofmarginalisation. While the men are active on the labour market and as 

‘do-it-yourself house-owners’, and whilethey participate in the day-to-day 

club activities, the older women are relegated to the invisible spaces of 

home-making. The modern home, which is accommodated to the public 

gaze, does not really serve to transmit the sense of belonging to Vlach 

culture which used to be transmitted through artefacts and icons from the 

homeland.Finally, the Balkan wars and the re-traditionalisation of norms 

and values in Serbian society have made it more difficult for migrants to 

straddle both their obligations to the community of settlement and those to 

their villages of origin, as many emotional issues—such as the Serbian 

position in the Kosovo conflict—are difficult to discuss in the Danish 

public space. Paradoxically, re-traditionalisation also implies a general 

interest in origins and religion, something which receives an increasing 

interest in Danish society too. 

In this situation the role of the Serbian clubs in allowing convergence 

between the visible public face and the more hidden activities of Serbian 

immigrants remains as necessary as ever. 

Notes

[1] I have not been able to verify this point. 

[2] So-called ‘Councils of Integration’ were established in a number of municipalities with the 

backing of the state in order to counsel the municipalities in matters concerning ethnic 

minorities andintegration. 

[3] In the text, the Serbian-Vlach community in Denmark will be called Vlach when itrelates to the 

specific minority group, and Serb/Serbian when it relates to traits which are common to all 

Serbsor to Serbian immigrants in Denmark. 

[4] While their parents were industrial workers and bus-drivers, the younger generationprefers jobs 

within information technology, administration or organisation and management. Some have 

concentrated on vocational training and are now skilled workers (bricklayers or carpenters), 

while the girls prefer jobs as nurses, nursing auxiliaries, home helps or secretaries (Serbian 

male, 2008). 

[5] Graduate students participating in Geography field courses in 2006 and 2008 contributedwith 

inspiring observations and opened my eyes to many issues that were later discussed with other 

respondents. 

[6] Mainly those who have not worked sufficient years in Denmark toobtain a full Danish state 

pension. 

[7] Many of the Vlach women who were interviewed had worked in a large factory producing 

medical equipment, in dry-cleaning or as fruit-packers. 

[8] The frequent mugging of Yugoslav guestworkers by motorcycle gangs reported ininterviews 

with former gang members are revealing for the degree of xenophobia to be found in certain 

layers of the Danish working class in that period (see Krüger 1976). However, such racist 

clashes are actively downplayedby the Vlach community. 

[9] For a more detailed account of the pomana ritual, see http://romani.kfunigraz.ac.at/rombase 

[10] According to Smith (2004: 129), 81 per cent of marriages among people fromex-Yugoslavia 

are with a partner with roots in the same homeland. 

[11] This was confirmed in an interview with the head of the Danish congregation. 

[12] In the eyes of my interviewees, Milosevic’s refusal to sign the Rambouillet Accord in1999 was 

indicative of his lack of willingness to end the war. 

[13] Their sympathies for the Serbian cause can be seen on the internet blog of one of theFriendship 

Associations, where a letter of sympathy from one of the leaders of the Danish People’s Party is 

posted. 

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V. (eds)Serbia Since 1989: Politics and Society under Milosevic and After. Seattle and London: 

University ofWashington Press, 286–304. 

Buciek, K. and Juul, K. (2008) ‘We are here, yet we are not here; the heritage of excluded groups’, in 

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Ashgate, 105–25. 

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35–53. 

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Special Issue Editorial • DOI: 10.2478/njmr-2014-0025 NJMR • 4(4) • 2014 • 161-167 

RESEARCHING IN/VISIBILITY IN THE NORDIC CONTEXT: 

Theoretical and empirical views 

Johanna Leinonen 1* , Mari Toivanen 2# 

1 

John Morton Center for North American Studies, University of Turku, Finland 

Received 4 March 2014; Accepted 18 September 2014 

2 

The Network for Research on Multiculturalism and Societal Interaction, 

University of Turku, Finland 

1 Introduction 

The goal of this special issue of the Nordic Journal of Migration 

Research is to provide insights into the ways in which visibility and 

invisibility of migrants (or those perceived as migrants) to and from 

the Nordic countries can be understood theoretically and empirically. 

Scholars studying migrants and minorities have employed the terms 

“visible” and “invisible” in a variety of ways. In the North American 

context, researchers often use the terms in a descriptive manner 

(in contrast to an analytical use) when referring to various groups 

of ethnic or racial minorities or persons of migrant background. In 

the European context, on the other hand, the concepts of “visibility” 

and “invisibility” are more rarely employed by scholars, who are more 

inclined to use terms such as “ethnicity”, “nationality” or “culture” 

when making distinctions between groups of people based on their 

(supposed) origins. Nevertheless, European scholars – and to a 

lesser degree, Nordic scholars – have also utilized the vocabulary of 

in/visibility in different contexts, as we will show in this introduction. 

What seems to be missing, however, is a broader theoretical 

consideration of the usefulness of the term in/visibility when 

researching migrants and minority groups. We wish to contribute to 

this discussion in this special issue, focusing on the Nordic context. 

Not only are the terms “visible” and “invisible” used varyingly 

in different scholarly traditions, but state institutions and the media 

also make frequent use of the terms, albeit mainly in the North 

American context. The diffuse use of the term makes the task of 

deining in/visibility in a comprehensive manner rather challenging, 

perhaps even impossible, not least because the words carry different 

meanings and connotations in different national and linguistic 

settings. Nevertheless, we argue that an analytical focus on how 

certain groups and individuals become “visible” or “invisible”, for 

example in daily encounters with persons representing the “majority”, 

can shed light on processes of racialization in the Nordic context. 

Following Miles (1994: 109–114), we understand racialization as 

a social process through which (real or imagined) embodied and 

biological features become associated with certain meanings and 

values. This process results in individuals and groups being assigned 

to certain identity categories, which mark them as different from the 

“majority” and inluence their everyday life in society. 

This special issue aims to critically assess the analytical 

purchase of the term in/visibility in understanding migration-related 

phenomena in the Nordic context. We argue that the focus on in/ 

visibility can help analyse how various processes of racialization 

and practices of “othering” come about and manifest themselves 

in Nordic societies. The four articles examine in/visibility in different 

realms: in personal relationships and everyday encounters between 

individuals (Guðjónsdóttir 2014; Toivanen 2014), in events organized 

in the public sphere (Juul 2014) and at the level of media debates 

(Huhta 2014). By looking at these various realms, the special issue 

highlights how racialization is a signiicant mechanism through which 

certain groups of people are rendered more or less in/visible. This 

applies also to the Nordic context, where “race” has been a sensitive 

topic in scholarship on migration, as the recent debate between 

Annika Rabo and Rikke Andreassen in the Nordic Journal of Migration 

Research (2014) testiies. Following Andreassen, we maintain that a 

focus on “ethnicity” or “culture” fails to explain the social realities and 

inequities that many groups of migrants and minorities face in the 

contemporary Nordic region. Our focus on in/visibility will illuminate 

how “race”, understood as a socially constructed category, inluences 

group position in Nordic societies in a forceful way – both in the case 

of groups that are racialized as visible (Toivanen 2014) and in the 

case of privileged individuals who due to their “whiteness” can pass 

as “one of us” in everyday interactions (Guðjónsdóttir 2014). 

While we highlight the importance of analysing how individuals’ 

physical characteristics – or, to be more precise, the values and 

meanings associated with these characteristics – inluence their 

* E-mail: johlei@utu.i 

# 

E-mail: marito@utu.i 

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161

everyday life in Nordic societies, we also argue that the analytical 

focus on in/visibility enables scholars to lesh out how ideas attached 

to embodied features alone do not always explain why individuals 

are seen as different from/similar to the “majority”. The articles show 

that becoming and being in/visible can also be based on markers 

of difference such as class status (Guðjónsdóttir 2014; Huhta 2014) 

or speaking a foreign language or having an accent (Guðjónsdóttir 

2014; Toivanen 2014). An analysis of how these different categories 

of difference/sameness are intertwined allows scholars to better 

capture the complexity of racialization processes and how they play 

out in individuals’ everyday lives. Furthermore, we do not wish to 

simply juxtapose visibility with invisibility – to claim that a person 

automatically is one but not the other. Instead, we see these concepts 

located on a continuum: a person who in one context is invisible may 

become visible in the next, and vice versa (for example, due to the 

person’s accent, see Guðjónsdóttir 2014; Toivanen 2014). In other 

words, the special issue reveals how the processes through which 

individuals and groups become in/visible are contextual, shifting in 

time and in place (see also Leinonen 2012). Therefore, a study of 

in/visibility beneits from an intersectional approach. This means 

looking at how attributes such as “race”, gender, nationality and 

class intertwine to produce certain social locations for individuals in 

particular socio-historical contexts (Yuval-Davis 2011). 

Finally, the issue also emphasizes the importance of bringing out 

the perspective from which in/visibility is analysed. While it is easy to 

assume that the “majority” possesses the power to categorize people 

as visible or invisible, it is also important to examine how migrants 

and minorities strive to inluence their own in/visibility, for example, 

in the public sphere (Juul 2014) or use it in strategic ways to their 

advantage (Guðjónsdóttir 2014; Huhta 2014). 

In this Introduction, we will briely discuss the ways in which 

scholars have utilized the concept of in/visibility in research on 

migrants and ethnic or racial minorities. While our main focus is 

on the Nordic context, we will provide examples from both North 

American and European scholarly literature. As the terms “visibility” 

and “invisibility” have been used quite loosely in research and often 

without any clear conceptual deinition, an exhaustive unearthing of 

the literature using the concepts is not possible nor even desirable. 

Instead, our main focus will be on scholarship that is central to our 

main arguments; in other words, the scholarship that engages with 

debates on migrants’ and other minorities’ racialized belongings. 

2 Mapping racialized in/visibilities 

As the origins of the words illustrate, visibility and invisibility are 

closely tied to the physical and the embodied, to something that 

can be seen (or not seen) because of visual cues (or lack thereof). 

As early as in 1903, W.E.B. Du Bois formulated: “It is a peculiar 

sensation, (…) this sense of always looking at one’s self through 

the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world 

that looks on in amused contempt and pity” (p. 9, italics added). 

Du Bois coined the term “double-consciousness” to describe the 

feeling of being an object of the “white gaze” that made him aware 

of his “two-ness” as both “American” and “African” (see Smith 2004). 

His observation exempliies how it feels to become an object of a 

racialized gaze, which focuses on physical characteristics of a human 

being, observable through visual cues, and attaches certain ideas 

about (non)belonging to these characteristics. Du Bois’s quote thus 

also illustrates how seeing is never an objective process – as we see 

something, we automatically attach a meaning and value to the object 

of our gaze. What we see and how we interpret what we see are 

acts tied to the socio-historical context in which we live (e.g. Classen 

1997). Consequently, how we observe, understand and value certain 

bodily features – such as skin colour – is a socially constructed 

process. Categories attached to different groups of people as a result 

evoke feelings of sameness or difference and thus inluence the way 

we make sense of the social world surrounding us. Becoming or being 

in/visible thus closely relates to the process of racialization. 

Nevertheless, in scholarship on migration and ethnic or racial 

minorities, the word in/visibility has often been used in a way 

that does not explicitly bring out this close connection between 

racialization processes and the ways in which people become in/ 

visible in different kinds of social situations. In fact, in the United 

States, for example, scholars often employ the term in/visibility but 

fail to provide a clear deinition for the concept. In one of the earliest 

studies using the concept, Charlotte Erickson’s 1972 study Invisible 

Immigrants on English and Scottish migrants in the nineteenth 

century United States, invisibility was associated with being a white 

European migrant group that quickly “melted” into the “mainstream” 

society. More recently, in 1999, William E. Van Vugt also viewed 

British migrants in the United States as invisible because “they could 

blend in readily with other Americans and engage more immediately 

in social and civic affairs” (p. 3). In both of these studies, the concept 

“invisible migrant” went undeined, but in reality the scholars used 

it to refer to white and English-speaking migrants who due to these 

characteristics were able to absorb quickly into the U.S. society – 

which the authors imagined as white and English-speaking. 

These two examples highlight how scholars utilizing the 

vocabulary of in/visibility need to clarify how they understand the 

concept. In Erickson’s and Van Vugt’s studies, in/visibility was 

associated with phenotypical and linguistic attributes that afforded 

British migrants a high position in the racial hierarchy of the United 

States. By doing so, the studies represented “whiteness” as an 

un-problematized normality and positioned those individuals or 

groups who deviated from the norm as visible – and also perhaps 

“inassimilable” – in the U.S. society. There is, of course, a long 

history of scholarship on how belonging is entwined with changing 

ideas regarding “races” in the U.S. context. Historians have analysed 

how the “visual lexicon” of who can be part of the “American nation” 

has changed over the course of the twentieth century (e.g. Jacobson 

2001) – or how it has, in many cases, stayed surprisingly stagnant, 

considering the diverse population of the United States. Scholars of 

Asian American Studies, for example, have shown how people of 

Asian origin are continually categorized as culturally and racially 

other, as the “foreigner-within”, due to physical differences from 

the “white” majority (Lowe 1996). Eleanor Ty (2004: 25), who has 

studied narratives of Asian Americans trying to carve out identities 

for themselves within the discursive and ideological space which 

labels them as a “visible minority”, shows that this labelling results 

in persons becoming “psychically and socially marked as other, as 

visibly different, and less than the norm, which is white.” This “white 

normality” is reproduced not only in everyday encounters but also, for 

example, in the popular media: in who gets to represent “Americans” 

in literature, movies and video games (Ho 2011; Leonard 2003; 

Szmáko 2008). 

In the European context, scholars in migration and minority 

studies have employed the terms visibility and invisibility less 

frequently. When using these terms, researchers have focused 

on Muslim populations in Europe and their growing visibility in the 

public space. In addition, the increasing visibility of Muslim minorities 

in debates over migration and belonging has attracted scholars’ 

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attention. Research has revealed how powerful the images of 

“threatening” Islam are in public consciousness in Europe (AlSayyad 

& Castells 2002; Goldberg 2008: 163-169; Göle 2011; Jonker & 

Amiraux 2006; Yılmaz & Aykaç 2011). For example, the racialization 

of Muslim symbols such as the headscarf has attracted scholars’ 

attention (Al-Saji 2010). Particularly since September 11, 2001, Islam 

and Muslims have become hypervisible in public debates and media 

coverage, to the degree that the whole concept of a “migrant” has 

often been equated with stereotypical images regarding “Muslims” 

(Allievi 2005). 

However, despite the increasing public and scholarly focus on 

the visibility of Muslims in European societies, the term “in/visibility” is 

more rarely used by European researchers in reference to migrants, 

as compared to North American scholarship. The relative scarcity in 

the use of the term may be related to the association of the term 

“visibility” of human beings with the notion of “race” – with being 

visible or invisible in racial terms. David Theo Golberg (2008: 158) 

convincingly argues that in post-World War II Europe, “race has 

been rendered invisible, untouchable”, as the Holocaust has been 

the (sole) reference point for the word “race”. “Race” is something 

that belongs to the past; it is “unmentionable, unspeakable if not 

as a reference to an antisemitism of the past that cannot presently 

be allowed to revive” (ibid). The differing usage of in/visibility in 

European and North American scholarship may thus be at least 

partially explained by the hesitancy to talk about “race” in Europe. 

While scholars have analysed visible signs of religious afiliation 

(such as the Muslim headscarf) as symbols signalling “otherness”, 

the ways in which people are grouped and viewed differently due to 

their visible physical characteristics is a topic that many European 

scholars still avoid writing about. An exception to this is scholarship 

on racism in European societies, which points out more explicitly how 

physical attributes such as one’s skin colour inluence individuals’ 

everyday life. In particular, scholars studying migrants and minorities 

from a generational perspective have noted that many groups of 

children and grandchildren of migrants face exclusionary practices 

and discrimination on the basis of their physical characteristics. 

While they may attempt to claim belonging based on their citizenship, 

language skills and other attributes, their “racial belonging” is still 

questioned in everyday interactions. This has been demonstrated 

also by many Nordic scholars (Haikkola 2010; Hübinette & Tigervall 

2009; Rastas 2005; Sawyer 2002; Toivanen 2014). 

However, in the Nordic context, too, there are opposing views 

on whether the word “race” should be incorporated into scholarly 

vocabulary, as the debate between Rabo and Andreassen (2014) 

exempliies. While each Nordic country has a distinct history of nationstate 

formation, scholars have also shown that the way the Nordic 

nations imagine themselves relies on ideas of cultural, religious 

and (to a certain extent) linguistic homogeneity (e.g. Brochmann & 

Djuve 2013; Häkkinen & Tervonen 2004; Kivisto & Wahlbeck 2013; 

Mulinari et al. 2009). Nonetheless, Nordic scholars are increasingly 

paying attention to how ideas regarding “race” have inluenced the 

construction of “nationhood” over time (Blaagard 2006; Keskinen et 

al. 2009; Loftsdóttir & Jensen 2012; Rastas 2004; Sawyer 2000, 2002; 

Urponen 2010). In addition, recent studies, including some included 

in this issue, show that an individual’s belonging to the nation may be 

questioned due to her or his visible physical characteristics (Hübinette 

& Tigervall 2009; Ruohio 2009; Guðjónsdóttir 2014; Toivanen 2014). 

Thus, even if choosing not to employ the term “race” as part of one’s 

theoretical vocabulary, the fact remains that people’s lives in the 

Nordic countries and elsewhere in Europe are inluenced by the way 

they are “seen” by the majority. “Racial” meanings can be implicitly 

conveyed as the unspoken subtext in terms such as “ethnicity”, 

“immigrant” or “refugee”. The association of these categories with 

“non-white bodies” and “non-Western origins” has been identiied 

by many scholars (e.g. Silverman 1992; Silverstein 2005; White 

2002). For example, Marianne Gullestad (2002: 50) notes that in 

Norway, the term innvandrer (“migrant”) typically invokes images of 

persons who have a “‘Third World’ origin, different values from the 

majority, ‘dark skin’”. Similarly, Finnish scholars have pointed out that 

“migrants” are seen in Finland as a uniform, undifferentiated mass, 

originating from non-Western parts of the world and associated with 

pre-modern gender and family systems (e.g. Huttunen 2004; Rastas 

2005; Säävälä 2009; Tuori 2007; Vuori 2009). 

Furthermore, several researchers have also started to inquire 

how “whiteness” operates in the Nordic context (Blaagard 2006; 

Hübinette & Lundström 2011; Loftsdóttir & Jensen 2012), inspired 

by critical race and whiteness studies, a ield that was initiated in 

the United States in the 1990s as a reaction against conservative 

and colour-blind politics of the time. Critical whiteness scholars 

argue that “whiteness” is the invisible norm against which others 

are deined and judged, and their goal is to analyse whiteness as a 

socially constructed category and as a system of privilege “mapped 

on the domination of ‘others’ – that is, people of color” (Andersen 

2003: 24). Whiteness scholars have mainly focused on Englishspeaking 

countries, in particular the United States. However, the 

concept also has analytical value in the Nordic region, which is, 

as argued by Blaagard (2006: 1) “in several ways the epitome of 

whiteness in the Western and Nordic European consciousness”. It is 

important, however, not to simply import U.S.-based theories into the 

Nordic context: whiteness operates differently in varying historical 

and societal circumstances. While U.S. discussions have revolved 

mainly around the black–white binary, the situation is different in the 

Nordic countries and elsewhere in Europe. As Gabriele Grifin and 

Rosi Braidotti argue (2002: 227), “(t)he black–white dynamic leaves 

untouched the whole issue of diversity among groups seemingly of 

one color, the intra-group differences that account for many of the 

most serious racial and ethnicized conlicts in Europe.” Whiteness 

is a socially constructed category just like any other racial category: 

different groups of European migrants, for example, are not equally 

“white” or “assimilable” (McDowell 2008). Consequently, it would be 

a simpliication to argue that being regarded as “white” equals being 

“invisible” in Nordic societies. 

We recognize that the relationship between in/visibility and 

racialization processes is very complex. This is evidenced by the 

articles included in this issue that show how ideas regarding “race” 

do not alone determine who ends up being labelled as visible and 

who does not. For example, while many groups of migrants can be 

considered “privileged” partly due to their perceived “whiteness”, 

their position in society is not simply determined by their skin colour 

but also by other factors such as their nationality, class status and 

language skills (Leinonen 2012; Guðjónsdóttir 2014). The question of 

“audible visibility” will be explored in this issue by Guðjónsdóttir (2014) 

and Toivanen (2014). They highlight how language use may inluence 

an individual’s in/visibility in everyday encounters, and this visibility 

can be valued positively or negatively depending on factors such as 

the nationality and class status of the person in question (see also 

O’Connor 2010; Leinonen 2012; Toivanen 2013). In other words, the 

equation of one’s “racial” belonging with visually observable features 

provides insuficient tools to analytically understand the complexity 

of different racialization processes through which certain groups and 

individuals become marked as more or less visible. This highlights 

the need to study in/visibility intersectionally: a person becomes 


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163

visible in everyday encounters, in public spaces and also in public 

debates because of an intertwined set of factors, such as her or his 

nationality, language skills and public behaviour. This is a question 

that has been less studied by scholars, and it will be explored in the 

articles included in this issue (Guðjónsdóttir 2014; Huhta 2014; Juul 

2014; Toivanen 2014). Together, the papers highlight how in/visibility 

of migrants and minorities should be understood as a continuum 

rather than as a dichotomy: not only is group in/visibility tied to 

speciic socio-historical circumstances but also each individual’s 

in/visibility may vary according to the social setting that the person 

occupies. 

This shifting nature of in/visibility draws attention to the question 

of power: who is in the position to observe and label someone 

as different or similar, and who are the objects of observing and 

labelling. The relationship between power and in/visibility is a 

complex one. Writing about the United States, bell hooks (1989) has, 

for example, pointed to the “hypervisibility” of racialized groups as 

cultural and racial stereotypes and their simultaneous invisibility and 

“powerlessness” in society and culture (see also Yamamoto 1999). 

In other words, the physical visibility of migrant/minority bodies can 

result in structural invisibility and inability to inluence stereotypes 

and representations regarding one’s own group. 

Furthermore, scholars using the vocabulary of in/visibility 

tend to see visibility as an “imposed” condition – as something 

that is undesirable for those who are labelled as visible, whether 

in everyday encounters or in public debates. However, in some 

cases, visibility may be a source of positive distinction. An example 

of “positive visibility” can be found in Haikkola’s study (2010) of 

young people of migrant background in Finland, who despite having 

grown up in the country still use the category of a “foreigner” to 

distinguish themselves from “Finns”. As their belonging to Finland 

is often questioned in everyday interactions, they choose to 

associate positive characteristics with being a visible “foreigner” in 

Finland. These positive characteristics included, for example, being 

sociable and having closer family relations than those belonging to 

the “majority”. Guðjónsdóttir (2014) shows how a privileged group 

of migrants, Icelanders in Norway, strategically accentuate their 

national origin in social interactions because being an Icelandic 

person creates invariably positive reactions among Norwegians. 

Thus, while Icelandic migrants may become visible in everyday 

situations, for example, through their language use, this visibility is 

a positive quality for this group of migrants when it is combined with 

a “desired” nationality. 

It is thus important to remember that migrants and minorities can, 

at least to a certain degree, also contest or downplay the identities 

imposed on them or use them to their advantage. Certain kinds of in/ 

visibilities can be performed (cf. Butler 1990) and strategically played 

out by migrants or those perceived as migrants, if that is seen as 

beneiting the individual or community. For instance, in her research 

on the visibility of Muslims in Europe, Göle (2011: 387) approaches 

visibility as a form of agency that can be performative in the case of 

“culture, aesthetic forms, dress codes, or architectural genres”. Efforts 

to emphasize one’s visibility can be aimed at claiming recognition in 

the public space through manifestations of difference. Thus, paying 

attention to the performative dimension of in/visibility allows the 

analysis of different forms of agency that individuals and groups 

have when making claims for greater public visibility, when trying to 

control group’s public image or when trying to remain invisible from 

the “public eye” (Fortier 2003; Huhta 2014; Juul 2014). As these 

examples suggest, employing the term in/visibility is invested with 

ambivalence that the researcher has to deal with. Becoming or being 

in/visible does not simply suggest that the person or group has been 

imposed to (negative) visibility in the form of harmful stereotypes and 

representations. In/visibility can also be understood in connection to 

claiming recognition in society, or as Brighenti (2007: 329) puts it: 

“recognition is a form of social visibility, with crucial consequences on 

the relation between minority groups and the mainstream”. 

Thus, it is important to examine the different forms of agency that 

individuals and communities possess when they claim recognition in 

society, for example, through visible displays of their origins in the 

public sphere (Juul 2014) or through active attempts to control the 

group’s public image in the media (Huhta 2014). It is also important 

to note that there may be signiicant disagreements within migrant 

communities or minority groups about the exact nature of the desired 

in/visibility. For example, political and religious frictions may create 

tensions within communities (Huhta 2014), and these frictions can 

also be transnational in scope, as migrants and those remaining 

in the home country may have different understandings of how to 

construct desired in/visibility in the public and/or private sphere (Juul 

2014). Together, the articles highlight how in/visibility is a condition 

that is sometimes imposed on migrants and minorities, for example, 

in the media or in everyday interactions with persons belonging to 

the majority; in other instances, it is something that the individuals or 

the groups strive for. 

3 The contents of the special issue 

The articles included in this issue focus on the question of in/visibility 

through four different cases: Finnish migrants in the early twentieth 

century United States (Huhta), Icelandic migrants in Norway 

(Guðjónsdóttir), Serbian Vlachs in Denmark (Juul) and Kurds in 

Finland (Toivanen). The contributors represent various ields of 

study, including anthropology, geography, history and sociology. 

They also employ various research methods including archival 

research, interviewing and participant observation. This interdisciplinary 

set of articles sheds light on the social processes through which 

individuals and groups become in/visible in different realms, such as 

the media and the public space, and highlight how there are various 

actors and audiences involved in these processes. The articles show 

that racialization is a signiicant mechanism in rendering people in/ 

visible in the Nordic context, but that “race” alone does not explain 

why certain groups are more in/visible than others. Finally, the articles 

highlight the deeply contextual nature of in/visibility: the processes 

through which certain groups become more or less visible are always 

tied to the speciic socio-historical contexts in which they occur. 

Aleksi Huhta’s paper examines debates on the visibility of 

Finnish migrants in the U.S. and Finnish American press after the 

strike that occurred in 1907 in the Mesabi Range in Minnesota. His 

article, titled “Debating visibility: race and visibility in the Finnish- 

American press in 1908”, analyses how different groups of Finnish 

migrants tried to change the negative public image that Finns had 

in the English-language press after the strike, in which Finns had 

been the most active group. The paper shows how there were deep 

fractions within the migrant community along political and religious 

lines, and therefore, there was no single understanding of what 

constitutes “desired visibility” of Finns. Moreover, the paper shows 

that Finns’ worry about their public image in the United States 

contained concerns about their “racial” position; at the same time, the 

way they understood “race” was not only about “biological” origins 

but also about ideas regarding the group’s “civilizational” level, its 

class status and its behaviour in the public space. 

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Guðbjört Guðjónsdóttir’s paper, “‘We blend in with the crowd but 

they don’t’ – (In)visibility and Icelandic migrants in Norway”, contributes 

to the growing ield of whiteness studies in the Nordic region. Her 

paper focuses on Icelandic migrants in Norway in the aftermath of 

the 2008 economic crisis and looks at how they construct migrant 

belonging through racialization. Her paper illustrates that migrants 

from Iceland often chose to display their “non-Norwegianness”, as 

being an Icelander evoked positive stereotypes among members of 

the host society. Their advantageous national origin, combined with 

perceived visual, cultural and ancestral similarities with the “white 

mainstream”, brought about certain privileges, such as preferential 

treatment in the housing market. In short, her paper skilfully shows 

how “whiteness” intersects with class, nationality and language to 

produce in/visibility and certain privileges for Icelandic migrants. 

Kristine Juul’s paper “Performing belonging; celebrating 

invisibility? The role of festivities among migrants of Serbian origin 

in Denmark and Serbia” discusses the performative dimension of 

in/visibility. She approaches the topic through the case of Serbian 

Vlach migrants in Denmark and their efforts to become more or 

less visible in the public space. On the one hand, her paper shows 

how Serbian Vlachs celebrate their invisibility in Danish society, 

which they interpret as a sign of successful integration. On the other 

hand, the Serbian Vlach community strategically displays certain 

(easily palatable) cultural traditions in the public space through 

public celebrations to showcase their belonging to Danish society. 

Juul’s paper also analyses the question of in/visibility within the 

transnational Serbian Vlach community. She demonstrates how 

migrants organize highly visible celebrations in the home villages to 

display their success stories. These celebrations are kept invisible 

from the Danish public and simultaneously build hierarchies within 

the transnational community, as those remaining in the home country 

cannot afford to fully participate in the extravagant festivities. 

Mari Toivanen’s paper, “The visual lexica of (national) belonging 

and non-belonging in the accounts of young Kurds in Finland”, argues in 

favour of including an analytical focus on in/visibility to gain insights into 

the racialization processes in the Finnish context. Her study illustrates 

how the racializing categorizations experienced by young Kurds in 

everyday encounters convey an understanding of the boundaries of 

national belonging and “Finnishness” as “white”. Her paper looks at 

different visibilities as manifested in racializing categorizations and 

what kind of visual lexica of belonging they suggest in the Finnish 

context. Furthermore, her study suggests that there are alternative 

spaces of belonging that transcend the racialized understanding of 

“Finnishness” as “white”, thus pointing towards agency possessed by 

young Kurds in negotiating belonging in Finland. 

Acknowledgements 

We thank Suvi Keskinen and the participants of the seminar 

“Multicultural and Postcolonial Intersections” at the University of 

Turku for their comments on earlier drafts of this Introduction. In 

addition, we thank the anonymous reviewer and the editors-in-chief 

of the NJMR for their valuable suggestions to improve the article. 

Johanna Leinonen holds a Ph.D. Degree in History from the University 

of Minnesota (Minneapolis, USA). Her areas of specialization include 

trans-Atlantic migration between Finland and the United States, 

international marriage migration, transnational families, gender 

and migration, and critical race and whiteness studies. Currently, 

Leinonen is a Research Coordinator at the John Morton Center for 

North American Studies (University of Turku, Finland). Her peerreviewed 

publications include articles in the International Migration 

Review, Journal of American Ethnic History, Journal of Ethnic and 

Migration Studies, L’Homme: European Journal of Feminist History 

and Social Science History. 

Mari Toivanen received her Master’s Degree from Paris 

IV Sorbonne in 2008 and her Doctoral Degree from the Department 

of Social Research at the University of Turku in 2014. Toivanen’s 

Ph.D. research focused on various aspects of negotiating belonging 

among young Kurds in Finland, thus contributing to the growing 

body of academic literature on identity issues among young adults 

with migrant background in northern Europe. Her research interests 

include belonging, home, transnationalism, Kurdish diaspora and 

migrant generations. Currently, Toivanen is a Coordinator in the 

Network for Research on Multiculturalism and Societal Interaction 

(University of Turku, Finland). 

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