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Paper short abstract:

The paper explores how Danish student activists negotiate two conflicting moral concepts – feeling safe and feeling offended – and connect them to their self-cultivation and political activities. Ethnographic research, I argue, can work to counter the growing polarisation in such moral positioning.

Paper long abstract:

Based on ethnographic fieldwork at a Danish university in 2021, this paper analyses how student activists negotiate and combine moral assessments, ethical self-cultivation and political action to promote greater inclusion of minoritised people at the university. In particular, I focus on the ways that student activists and their critics use and negotiate two central moral concepts; namely, the concepts of feeling safe and feeling offended. First, I explore how a group of critical students evokes the Danish notion of ‘tryghed’ (safety/comfort) as they cultivate a sense of caring collective self, and translate their moral concerns into political action. I then show how the meaning of ‘tryghed’ (safety/comfort), which the students link to ideals of decency and respect as non-debatable universally human values, is challenged and criticized in relation to another moral concept, namely of ‘feeling offended’. In Denmark, this concept is often used derogatively to describe a problematic hypersensitivity or ‘readiness for taking offence’ among students. I argue that in the Danish case, due to strong traditions of student involvement and democracy, the students’ moral concerns and claims – like a wish for ‘tryghed’ – are shaped, questioned and adjusted in dialogical spaces where competing moral ideals and institutional values intersect. However, with a growing polarization and aggressiveness in the public debate, such spaces seem increasingly difficult to maintain. Therefore, I maintain, ethnographic research can play a fruitful role in cultivating reflexivity and engagement across different moral positions.