Nordic Voices On Freedom Of Expression

This booklet contains abstracts of 14 articles on freedom of expression written by both female and male debaters, journalists, writers, and academics. They speak about freedom of expression as seen from their Nordic perspective – whether they are from Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, or Åland. Nordic Voices on Freedom of Expression is a snapshot of the debate book “Den svåre yttrandefriheten – nordiska röster” produced by the Nordic Journalist Centre for the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2017. Enjoy the debate!

According to the Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, the countries of the Nordic Region are the strongest countries in the UN’s 70-year history. “This is a fact that commands respect and strengthens you as a region,” he said. The individuals in this book, all of whom are active in various international arenas, are testament to the great interest in the Nordic Region and the fact that the global Nordic voice is now perhaps more important than ever.

The theme of this volume could be summarized as critical perspectives on experiences and conceptions of freedom of expression and the media in contemporary communication societies. The book reflects Nordic as well as global perspectives. The contributors are leading Nordic scholars, but also professionals outside the Nordic region, who have been engaged for years in research on freedom of expression from different angels.

This collection pushes migration and "the minor" to the fore of literary anthropology. What happens when authors who thematize their “minority” background articulate notions of belonging, self, and society in literature? The contributors use “interface ethnography” and “fieldwork on foot” to analyze a broad selection of literature and processes of dialogic engagement. The chapters discuss German-speaking Herta Müller’s perpetual minority status in Romania; Bengali-Scottish Bashabi Fraser and the potentiality of poetry; vagrant pastoralism and “heritagization” in Puglia, Italy; the self-representation of European Muslims post 9/11 in Zeshan Shakar’s acclaimed Norwegian novel; the autobiographical narratives of Loveleen Rihel Brenna and the artist collective Queendom in Norway; the “immigrant” as a permanent guest in Spanish-language children’s literature; and Slovenian roots-searching in Argentina. This anthology examines the generative and transformative potentials of storytelling, while illustrating that literary anthropology is well equipped to examine the multiple contexts that literature engages. Chapter 4 of this book is available open access under a CC By 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

This book focuses on the multi-layered and complicated relationship between internet and human rights law. It contributes to the ongoing discussion regarding the protection of freedom of expression on the internet in the context of various doctrines of constitutional law, including the proliferation of constitutional adjudication.