ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with some of the roots of the formation of the discourse of immigration and with only some of the most important routes that can be identified in Denmark. It describes the discourse of immigration to be a domain of language-use unified by overt or covert common assumptions and practices in the field of immigration. There are many hidden and “apparently innocent” assumptions, or “details” that the immigration debate does not take into consideration. These ways of representing, or discourses, make it possible to construct “immigration problems” in definite ways, but at the same time they limit other possible ways of thinking and constructing the problems. Mainstream immigration research in Denmark is done mostly by freelance researchers, by research institutions, such as the Danish National Institute of Social Research in Copenhagen and academics. If one focuses on the instances when Danish immigration research has been presented to the public, one can again easily detect widespread, but problematic assumptions.
