The Annoying Difference

Peter Hervik holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Copenhagen; an MPhil in International Migration and Ethnic Relations (IMER); and is a Professor in the Department of Culture and Global Studies at Aalborg University. He has done research and written extensively on the Danish media coverage of ethnic and Islamic minority issues as well as on the social construction of Yucatec Mayan identity in Mexico.

"[A] very important contribution to various debates on current Danish identity politics and more generally, on the developments of contemporary right-wing politics prevailing in Europe and the West." · Gunvor Jónsson, International Migration Institute (IMI), University of Oxford

"The book offers an insightful background to the increased resistance towards ethnic minorities and the growing Islamophobia in Denmark. This development escalated with the Muhammad Cartoon Crisis that broke out in 2005 and later reverberated in different parts of the world." · Anders Hellström, Malmö University


The Muhammad cartoon crisis of 2005¿2006 in Denmark caught the world by surprise as the growing hostilities toward Muslims had not been widely noticed. Through the methodologies of media anthropology, cultural studies, and communication studies, this book brings together more than thirteen years of research on three significant historical media events in order to show the drastic changes and emerging fissures in Danish society and to expose the politicization of Danish news journalism, which has consequences for the political representation and everyday lives of ethnic minorities in Denmark.

List of Tables and Figures
Preface
List of Acronyms