Abstract
The present article is based on interviews conducted in 1980-1 with 75 Turkish women in Denmark, and re-interviews of the same women by the same interviewers in 2000-1. The aim of the original interviews was to collect the women’s accounts of their immigration, and to study their subjective evaluation of their physical, psychological and social situation at the time. Twenty years later, 85 percent of the sample could be located and 61 percent were re-interviewed. In the meantime, these women had lived and worked in Denmark, been in contact with the Danish health, educational and social systems, and their living conditions had improved considerably. There were several noteworthy changes in both objective and subjective dimensions between the two interviews, not least in the conception of shame. The analysis of the original and follow-up narratives is conducted here with a special emphasis on the relation between shame, gender roles and emancipation.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
