Indfødsretsudvalget 2012-13
IFU Alm.del Bilag 82
Offentligt
AbstractIn this master thesis I present a rhetorical critique of the learning materialDenmark Then and NowA Learning Material for the Naturalization Test onHistory, Culture, and Societypublished in 2007 by the former Danish Ministryof Integration. Passing the naturalization test is a prerequisite for applying forDanish citizenship and test questions are based on the information available inDenmark Then and Now.This material, I argue, is not only a didactic text, but a text with ideologicalperspectives as well. These perspectives appear from the narratives presented inthe text constituting norms and values of Denmark as a nation and Danes as apeople. The purpose of the text seems to be to constitute the applicant withinthese norms and values, but instead, I argue, the text seems to position theapplicant and thus its reader as an outsider to the Danish community. A thirdpersona position underscored by the general discursive nonexistence throughoutthe text.This presents a complex situation for the applicants and begs the question:How does this self-contradictory function arise? One that I enlighten by vi-brating the theory of constitutive rhetoric voiced by Maurice Charland and theconcept of the third persona described by Philip Wander against each other aswell as the text ofDenmark Then and Now.I conclude by calling attention to two essential problems: First, a discrep-ancy between the positions ’applicant’ and ’Dane’ which results from a lackreciprocity between the two identities and thus a lack of identification; and sec-ond, a set of closely defined anecdotes essentializing the Danish identity andthereby creating a back drop of static and unchangeable narratives. As anoutsider, the applicant is positioned as an agent oriented towards change, buttowards the kind of change projected by the narrative.On a broader level I view this critique as a study within the frame of rhetori-cal citizenship and thus focus on citizenship as a discursive act that materializesin many different ways.Denmark Then and Nowillustrates a view on communi-cation as a means to overcome dissent, disagreement, and difference in society.Instead, I along with rhetoricians such as Kendall Phillips, Robert Ivie, andRobert Asen argue that these types of communication have important value insociety as dynamic forces oriented towards change.
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