Gender and global normativity under postcolonial and postnational conditions. Some reflections from a Northern perspective

In the ‘Cartoon-war’, presented in the streets of the Middle East and on the television screens of the world and in the Nordic countries (Denmark and Norway especially), acts were symbolic, and actors were mainly men. Having returned to ‘normal’, we have again encountered the fights about ‘religious representation’ especially related to the dress of (young) women.<br> <br> In April 2006 Danish State Television employed a young muslim woman (member of a left-wing party) wearing a headscarf as an interviewer together with a young man. We are experiencing a change of representation or perhaps a competition between ‘old-style’ national democratic, representative politics and law- making on the one hand, and transnational, media-presented and media/market-based politics of influence on the other.<br> <br> The ‘new-style’ ‘market-fused’ normativity influences ‘individualized’ personal presentation of norms and values. But it is also influenced by an increased importance of other forms of non state normativity such as that presented by ethnic and indigenous (consumer) groups and by religious normative forces. Legal landscapes and maps are being changed.<br>