Erasing Communities: Coloniality, Racial Banishment, and Denmark’s Ghetto Policies

Abstract

This article examines Denmark’s 2018 public housing policies, arguing they function as a mechanism for managing Muslim communities in public housing estates. It analyses these policies based on a theoretical framework of coloniality and the framing of Muslims as threats to Danish social cohesion. The article then shifts focus to the experiences of racialised residents in targeted housing estates, drawing on ethnographic data from Copenhagen, Aarhus and Odense. These residents highlight the significance of community care, intergenerational ties, and informal support networks. The article demonstrates how the ghetto policies reflect a coloniality enacted through racial governance, aiming to banish and erase Muslim communities from their neighbourhoods. By introducing the concepts of coloniality and racial banishment, the article argues that Denmark’s housing policies serve as tools of social and spatial control, used to manage its Muslim population, erase their spatial history, and dismantle community life.