Pork. It’s What’s for Lunch: Food, Race, and the Politics of Migration in Denmark

The politics of migration have made their way into Danish school lunches by way of the so-called meatball war. Following the publication of a newspaper article about daycare centers that had chosen to stop serving pork and were serving halal- and kosher-friendly meals in 2013, politicians expressed concern that Danish culture was under threat and passed several legislative measures in 2014 and 2016. In this article, I argue that the concurrence of efforts to frame the eating and serving of pork as a Danish tradition in need of protection with ongoing efforts to restrict refugees’ access to the Danish state reflects a calculated effort that ultimately racialized white, pork-eating Danes in opposition to the non-white, non-Christian Other. Whiteness (and Danishness) became rearticulated through narratives about overaccommodations, cultural incompatibility, and perceived risk. The purpose of this is to justify the (often violent) exclusion of refugees and non-white persons from Danish state services specifically and European states more broadly. Exclusions include migration policy restrictions and decreased access to well-balanced meals at public institutions for religious minority communities. This case study has implications for scholarship within geography, migration studies, and food studies, as it demonstrates the ongoing role of race in shaping European society, as well as what is missed when race is left unconsidered. This debate also offers an illuminating case study for understanding how nationalism and race are (re)produced, shaped, and challenged through everyday practices, and reflects similar narratives, policy decisions, and debates elsewhere both within and outside of Europe.