The Political Psychology of (de)Securitization: Place-Making Strategies in Denmark, Sweden, and Canada

Abstract

In this article we demonstrate how both state structures and collective agencies contribute to patterns of securitization and, in so doing, reconfigure conceptions of space and place. Focusing on the life-chances of Muslim minority populations in Denmark, Sweden, and Canada, we begin by establishing how experiences of empire and colonization have shaped dominant regimes of citizenship and multiculturalism. Analyzing responses to the Danish newspaper publication of the ‘Mohammed cartoons’, we illustrate the dynamics of place making that are operative in the political psychology of securitization. Our analysis illustrates the cosmopolitical and dialogical character of Canadian multiculturalism and how such a regime facilitates a politics of space that is distinct from the cartographies of imperialism that inform place making in Denmark and, to a lesser extent, Sweden.