Non-citizen women and penal power in the Nordic welfare states

Non-citizen women illegalized

In her thesis Women and bordered penality in the Nordic welfare state, Dorina Damsa explores the perspective of non-citizen women and their experiences of differentiated and exclusionary penal responses in Norway and Denmark.

– The aim is not only to enrich existing knowledge about the legal and institutional arrangements and practices of migration control, but also to provide new knowledge about the socio-economic dynamics, processes and places generally associated with men, says Damsa.

For these women, the experience of ‘illegality’ is extremely limiting, in legal, socio-economic, physical and affective terms. Damsa shows that citizenship status creates inequality and unintended consequences for these women.

– Some of the women in this study also experience gendered violence as part of their current lives here in the Nordic region. Due to their non-citizen status and the fear of deportation, they are unable to access legal protection or services designed to safeguard women at risk, says Damsa.

Global mobility and the Nordic countries

The Nordic self-image has long been centred on the idea of a specific Nordic model, including aspects such as a humane approach to punishment and justice, inclusive welfare states, and a focus on international peace mediation, humanitarian aid, sustainable development and environmentalism. At the same time, all Scandinavian countries have experienced a rise in penal populism, and there are ongoing debates about punishment and control directed at non-citizens. In her thesis, Damsa points out the limitations of the traditional welfare state approach:

– Penal power becomes more openly exclusionary when used against non-citizens: it leads to closed detention centres, penal institutions exclusively for non-citizens, and a deportation regime, rather than welfare provisions and a return to society, explains Damsa.

According to Damsa, when faced in real-life situation with the choice between protecting the privileges of citizenship or non-citizen women’s rights, the Nordic countries often appear to choose the former.

The empirical studies in the thesis show the ongoing entanglement of immigration and criminal law.

The result is a differentiation in the criminal justice system and a destabilization of the ordinary framing of justice and punishment within the national context:  

– Through penal power, the differentiation due to citizenship status is being reproduced and reinforced, and often results in gendered harm. Migration control practices produce liminality, marginality and exclusion, and may lead to gendered exploitation, abuse or violence. The logic of nation-state migration control is contested, not least by non-citizen women, as going against the fundamental principles of equality and women’s right to protection, says Damsa.

Damsa shows that, despite the tendency to see the Nordic countries as a single more or less homogenic area, there are important differences between the Nordic countries. She therefore argues that accounts of punishment in the Nordic region would be greatly improved by more specific intersectional analyses.

Diversity of the Nordic region

What does it mean to be a citizen? Citizenship has always been a disputed category, which is open to question, and is ultimately susceptible to change. Currently, formal citizenship and the privileges deriving from it are intimately connected with state sovereignty and the use of penal power.

– Deportation and penal institutions specifically designed to hold non-citizens are political in nature, says Damsa.

This dissertation has been written in the hope that recognizing how socio-economic disadvantage intersects with legal categories may pave the way to the destabilization of exclusionary penal policies and practices that, presently, appear immune to change.

See also:

• Artikkel 1: ‘Without Papers I Can’t Do Anything’: The Neglected Role of Citizenship Status and ‘Illegality’ in Intersectional Analysis

• Artikkel 2: "Punished and banished – Non-citizen women’s experiences in a Danish prison". The article has not been published yet.

• Kapittel 1: Between Belonging and Exclusion: Migrants’ Resilience in a Norwegian Welfare Prison

• Artikkel 3: "‘This is not what I signed up for’ – Danish prison officers’ attitudes towards more punitive penal policies"

• Artikkel 4: A difference that makes a difference? Reflexivity and researcher effects in an all-foreign prison