New Actors, New Action? An Intersectional Institutional Analysis of Greenlandic Representation in the Danish Parliament

On October 3, 2019, the Danish Folketing had its annual, political, and ceremonial important opening debate. After having argued that the Greenlandic Inuits sent to Denmark in 1952 as a part of a social experiment was entitled to an apology from the Danish government, the young, newly elected Greenlandic MP found herself in a harsh debate. Having finished her speech, she walks down from the lectern, she is shaky, and tears are streaming down her cheeks. The female, Danish Prime Minister who belongs to the same party group as the MP quickly rises from her seat on the floor. She goes to the MP and hugs her. The MP cries and the prime minister comforts her. In 2007, two Greenlandic women won both Greenlandic seats in the Danish parliament, an area of Greenland being primarily represented by men ended, and since 2007 only women MPs have held the Greenlandic seats. This paper constitutes the first empirical study of the female Greenlandic MPs’ work in the Danish Folketing. Applying an intersectional institutional perspective, the paper analyses if the changes within Greenlandic descriptive representation (in gender, age, and education primarily) brought about changes within Greenlandic substantive and symbolic representation. The analyses rest on interpretative semi-structured interviews with current and former Greenlandic MPs in the Danish parliament as well as bibliographic and parliamentary data.