Turks in Denmark: Patterns of Incorporation and Collective Organizing Processes

It has become a conventional approach to look at the impact of the political institutions to understand immigrant organizing patterns in the receiving countries. The underlying assumption in this process is that the organizational language of the host state makes an impact on the organizational patterns of immigrants in a given state. The article takes this insight as the backdrop for understanding the Turkish organizing processes in the Danish context and first looks at the institutional arrangements and integration- and citizenship model prevailing in Denmark and secondly, at the collective Turkish organizing processes within this structural framework while taking dynamics of social participation and agency into account. The Turkish minority group is the largest immigrant group in Denmark and the article pays attention to the heterogeneity that exists within the Turkish group and seeks to outline emerging organizing patterns with regard to ethno-national, religious, political and other dividing categories.