Introduction

The immigrant family has become a key site of conflict in Scandinavian debates about integration, multiculturalism and ethnic relations. Much-publicised instances of forced marriages, genital mutilation and honour killings have created moral panics where patriarchal immigrant cultures and family structures appear as the major culprits. One popular response is to make claims for more demands on immigrants to acculturate, with less tolerance of cultural diversity. Phenomena such as forced marriage, genital mutilation and, obviously, honour killings are all illegal, and few, if any, have defended them publicly. But also technically legal practices associated with immigrants’ familial relations are attracting public attention and generating heated debates. The very institution of arranged marriage, which in many immigrant communities has largely become a transnational practice, is the most prominent example, but also gender and generational relations within the migrant family in general have been placed in the public searchlight. One such example is the issue of parents who are sending children to their country of origin for extended periods of time – should the authorities intervene in such practices in order to secure the continuity of these children's schooling and integration process in Scandinavia? At a more reflective level, gender and generational relations within the immigrant family have become turning points for discussions about the limits of tolerance and the art of balancing between recognition of difference and equality of rights. For many debaters and opinion leaders, it is precisely this set of issues related to the immigrant family which have brought to the fore the dilemmas of liberal diverse societies, and questions are arising about the compatibility of individualised liberal societies and the more collectively orientated dispositions many immigrants are thought to bring with them.

Such issues are breaking down the comfortable distinction between the public and the private which underlies much policy thinking about integration. If publicly sanctioned rights are being breached and undermined within and by families, governments cannot stand back and respect privacy. Of course, opinions differ widely and little solid knowledge exists about the precise extent of, for example, forced marriages or genital mutilation. However, as long as there is a general consensus that these things do happen and that they are related to particular ethnic groups, policymakers have a need to respond.