National minorities and global crises: Challenging the notion of the Danish-German border region as a role model for Europe

Abstract

Since 2015, a series of high-impact global crises has sent shockwaves across Europe. From the so-called migrant crisis of 2015, through the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, national minorities have, like their majority counterparts, seen considerable changes to their lives and lifestyles as a result of measures taken by the national executives in their host countries. It is possible that significant changes to border control and the increased importance of nation-state action in times of crisis have affected the ways in which national minorities understand themselves vis-à-vis their host and kin-states. By reviewing recent media comments and academic research, this article hypothesises that these international crises have pushed national minorities away from local identities and towards more national and European discourses. As a commentary, this article encourages future exploration of this hypothesis in other minority communities across Europe.

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https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.53779/QKRA1147

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https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/publications/a1d3d262-172a-44e0-8bf2-5bb40f9264c6