Catrin Lundström | Linköping University (original) (raw)
Books by Catrin Lundström
Natur & Kultur, 2022
Den färgblinda skolan – ras och vithet i svensk utbildning behandlar vad begreppen ras och vithet... more Den färgblinda skolan – ras och vithet i svensk utbildning behandlar vad begreppen ras och vithet har att säga om dagens svenska skola. Utgångspunkten för boken är att Sverige numera härbärgerar västvärldens mest heterogena elevsammansättning efter USA, inte minst gäller det den rasliga och etniska mångfalden liksom religiös och språklig mångfald. Samtidigt har den svenska skolan på rekordtid kommit att utvecklas till västvärldens mest segregerade och ojämlika skola.
Hur kan tvillingbegreppen ras och vithet hjälpa oss att förstå detta nya Sverige och det genomsegregerade svenska utbildningsväsendet?
Routledge, 2023
Since its foundation as an academic field in the 1990s, critical race theory has developed enormo... more Since its foundation as an academic field in the 1990s, critical race theory has developed enormously and has, among others, been supplemented by and (dis)integrated with critical whiteness studies. At the same time, the field has moved beyond its origins in Anglo-Saxon environments, to be taken up and re-developed in various parts of the world – leading to not only new empirical material but also new theoretical perspectives and analytical approaches. Gathering these new and global perspectives, this book presents a much-needed collection of the various forms, sophisticated theoretical developments and nuanced analyses that the field of critical race and whiteness theories and studies offers today. Organized around the themes of emotions, technologies, consumption, institutions, crisis, identities and on the margin, this presentation of critical race and whiteness theories and studies in its true interdisciplinary and international form provides the latest empirical and theoretical research, as well as new analytical approaches. Illustrating the strength of the field and embodying its future research directions, The Routledge International Handbook of New Critical Race and Whiteness Studies will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities with interests in race and whiteness.
Routledge, 2023
Race in Sweden is an introduction to, and a critical investigation of, the Swedish relationship t... more Race in Sweden is an introduction to, and a critical investigation of, the Swedish relationship to race in the post-war and contemporary eras. This relationship is fundamentally shaped by an ideology of colourblindness, with any kind of race talk being taboo in public discourse and everyday language use, and in practice forbidden in official and institutional language.
A study of a country which was until recently strikingly white but has become extremely diverse, yet where the legacy of Swedish whiteness co-exists with a radical, colourblind, antiracist ideology, Race in Sweden will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities with interests in race and ethnicity, whiteness and Nordic studies.
Makadam, 2020
Begreppet vit melankoli är ett sätt att på djupet förstå den konfliktfyllda, paradoxala och nosta... more Begreppet vit melankoli är ett sätt att på djupet förstå den konfliktfyllda, paradoxala och nostalgiska situation som råder i vår tid. Detta melankoliska tillstånd har uppstått som en följd av förlusten av både det vita, homogena Sverige och det färgblinda, solidariska Sverige.
Forskarna Catrin Lundström och Tobias Hübinette menar i denna bok att sorgen över det gamla Sveriges borttynande präglar såväl höger som vänster och såväl antirasister som rasister, men att det i slutänden handlar om förlusten av samma nationella identitet.
Genom att skriva fram Sveriges samtidshistoria med storheterna ras och vithet i centrum försöker Vit melankoli förstå hur Sverige kunde gå från att ha varit ett av västvärldens mest rasbesatta länder till att bli dess mest generösa invandrarland -- och hur detta i sin tur fick ett abrupt slut efter 2015.
Boken kastar vidare ljus över de ojämlikheter som präglar dagens svenska samhälle i form av klyftorna mellan stad och land, vita och icke-vita samt rika och fattiga. Författarna presenterar en teori om den svenska vithetens utveckling under 1900-talet och framåt liksom hur den samspelar med klass och kön. Läsaren möter här infallsvinklar som utmanar invanda föreställningar och erbjuder nya insikter om svenskheten.
Makadam, 2017
Migration handlar inte alltid om en desperat jakt på en bättre framtid i Europa eller Nordamerika... more Migration handlar inte alltid om en desperat jakt på en bättre framtid i Europa eller Nordamerika. Genom intervjuer med svenska kvinnor som migrerat till sydvästra USA, Singapore och den spanska solkusten utforskar sociologen Catrin Lundström samtida västerländsk migration, som präglas både av de transnationella ras- och klassprivilegier som vita migranter bär med sig och av en särskild sårbarhet kopplad till kön. Här diskuteras den dynamik som formar vita migrantkvinnors liv som välbärgade hemmafruar, medföljande och livsstilsmigranter. En del av kvinnorna i studien har flyttat för kärleks skull, medan andra har rest för att arbeta eller studera under en begränsad period men sedan stannat kvar. Några är medföljande till sina utlandsstationerade män under ett antal år. Andra väljer att tillbringa pensionen i ett annat land med en annan livsstil. Catrin Lundström undersöker hur kvinnorna använder sitt medborgarskap och sin vita femininitet som tillgångar i sin transnationella migration, men också hur kvinnornas liv kompliceras av könade strukturer, heterosexuella normer och ekonomiskt beroende. Med sitt fokus på de lokala och globala aspekterna av den svenska vitheten fyller boken en lucka i litteraturen om migration och frilägger nya perspektiv på globalisering, diskriminering och transnationell mobilitet.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2014
The migrant is often thought of as a non-westerner in search for a better future in Europe or the... more The migrant is often thought of as a non-westerner in search for a better future in Europe or the United States. From a multi-sited ethnography with Swedish migrant women in the US, Singapore and Spain, this book explores the intersections of racial and class privilege and gender vulnerabilities in contemporary feminized migration from or within 'the West'. Through an analysis of 'white migration', Catrin Lundström develops theoretical tools to understand the dynamics that shape the women's lives as wealthy housewives, expatriate wives and lifestyle migrants. By shifting the gaze towards privileged migrants, Lundström illustrates how race shapes contemporary transnational migration and how white privilege is reproduced through family formation, expatriate geographies or 'international communities' in response to the shifting boundaries of whiteness in different national and regional settings. Looking at how whiteness migrates through a transnational lens the book fills a gap in literature on race and migration, presenting some of the complexities of the current global power relations and the contextual variations that surround these.
Vem får egentligen vara svensk? Hur länge ska man bo här innan man har bevisat sin svenskhet? und... more Vem får egentligen vara svensk? Hur länge ska man bo här innan man har bevisat sin svenskhet? undrar Marisol. För att vara svensk ska man se mer svensk ut än vad vi gör, säger Isabel som är adopterad från Centralamerika. Julia tycker att hon är lika svensk som sina innerstadskompisar, fastän hennes pappa är från Chile. Mariela kallar dem som blonderar håret och skaffar blå linser för "svensk-wannabes". Genom att intervjua en grupp unga kvinnor med bakgrund i Latinamerika boende i Stockholmsområdet belyser sociologen Catrin Lundström frågor om svenskhet och diaspora utifrån aktuella teoretiska diskussioner om kön, ras/etnicitet, klass, sexualitet och plats. Det är en skildring av de informella gränserna som omgärdar den svenska positionen, om varför man inte kan säga att man kommer ifrån Sverige fastän man är född här. Studien diskuterar hur föreställningar om ras och ursprung utgör centrala idéer i nationens gränsdragningar, och hur de formas i samspel med andra maktordningar. Svenska latinas. Ras, klass och kön i svenskhetens geografi rör sig i skärningspunkten mellan den lokala kontexten och globaliseringens processer, mellan vardagsrasism och politiska exilhistorier, mellan förorten och Bronx. Vi får inblick i berättelser om salsadiskotek, den kubanska revolutionens symbolik, hiphop-klubbar och svenska villaförorter. Måste man gilla salsa om man är latinamerikan? Varför lyssnar inte Violeta och hennes kompisar på popgruppen Kent? Är alla latinamerikaner vänster? Varför tror Fernanda att svenskar är rädda för henne? Studien har teoretiska rötter inom fälten kulturstudier, feministisk teori, kulturgeografi och latino/a studies som här placeras i en svensk kontext.
Articles by Catrin Lundström
Sociologisk Forskning, Dec 21, 2024
This article brings Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital into dialogue with critical race and w... more This article brings Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital into dialogue with critical race and whiteness studies and migration studies. It focuses on the ways in which whiteness as an analytical category is associated with a recognised set of privileges in terms of nationality, citizenship, knowledge, and mobility; assets that open up new ways of producing and reproducing cultural capital. As a kind of objectified and institutionalised capital, whiteness is materialised through institutions, passports and visa policies, all of which imply that individuals and groups classified as white can feel “at home” almost anywhere in the world. However, between a globalised history of racialisation linked to European colonisation and contemporary neoliberal competition, perceptions of whiteness are changing in transnational social space. In other words, whiteness as cultural capital is on the one hand intertwined with histories of colonial racial structures, and on the other hand it is challenged by global neoliberalism, where Asian notions of whiteness in particular cast European whiteness in a new light.
Sociological Forum, 2021
Racial colorblindness-the desire to not "see color"-or avoiding any use of the term "race" itself... more Racial colorblindness-the desire to not "see color"-or avoiding any use of the term "race" itself, has been an antiracist imperative in post-WWII Sweden in order to leave behind the prior era of eugenics and racial thinking. Through a multi-sited linguistic ethnographic study, this article examines how 46 returning Swedish expatriate women talk about race and whiteness in race-related experiences and interactions, using colorblind language. By analyzing the implicit contextual associations and dissociations made between race, language, subjectivity, and nation, a system of ideas and cognitive structures mapping perceptions and constructions of the world is exposed; of national belonging, racialized bodies, racial hierarchies, and perceptions of the West itself. In their migrant narratives, however, the categories used could be ascribed opposite meanings, depending on subjectivity and context. In this logic, language and nationality becomes "visible" or "hidden" depending on time and place, while "visible whiteness" can be associated with either an undesirable sense of difference or a set of unspoken privileges.
Sociologisk Forskning, 2018
This article discusses the experiences of Swedish migrant women who are returning to Sweden after... more This article discusses the experiences of Swedish migrant women who are returning to Sweden after having lived abroad for a period of their lives. Most of them have been situated outside the formal labour market during their time abroad and been occupied with family related work. The aim of this article is to analyse how political ideals formulated around work, gender equality and income redistribution, encounter the constructions of Swedishness, gender and heterosexuality in these women’s stories. When living abroad, the women were provided for by their husbands. Yet, their positions as “trailing spouses” had had severe impact on their opportunities for reintegration into the labour market as well as for their future – or current – pensions. The article discusses the political and sociological consequences of women’s economic dependence, primarily in terms of welfare state distribution and pensions by asking: In what ways are returning migrant women situated in-between a global labour market and the Swedish welfare system in relation to migration, gender and gender equality?
NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 2019
Emerging from the concepts of white cosmopolitanism and white cosmopolitan femininity, this artic... more Emerging from the concepts of white cosmopolitanism and white cosmopolitan femininity, this article analyses “cosmopolitan narratives” of Swedish migrant women who lived abroad for an extended period and eventually returned to Sweden. Based on eight months’ ethnographic work, including 46 in-depth interviews with migrants who had returned in Sweden, the article explores how national boundaries are both maintained and traversed in the construction of a “world citizen”. It is argued that the women’s self-identification with a cosmopolitan ethos is structured by whiteness, nationality, and class that grants uninterrupted mobility and “worldliness”. As symbolic bearers of the Swedish nation, national ideals act on the white women’s bodies internationally, in ways that both uphold and re-inscribe the nation into the global. Thus, apart from obscuring global inequalities, white cosmopolitan femininity is imbricated in both national and global politics as a place where global structures reconnect with the white nation, thereby enabling Swedish migrants to re-install themselves into contemporary global settings as self-defined cosmopolitan subjects.
European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2019
This article examines intra-European relations in narratives of Swedish lifestyle migrants living... more This article examines intra-European relations in narratives of Swedish lifestyle migrants living permanently or part-time on the Spanish Sun Coast. It pays particular attention to the complexities of Swedish migrants’ cultural identities and patterns of self-segregation in the Spanish society by investigating the following questions: How do boundaries of social networks that Swedish lifestyle migrants participate in, or interrelate, with a sense of ‘likeness’? In what ways are the formation of these ‘international’ networks mediated through ideas of cultural similarity and parallel difference, and how do such notions both override and uphold boundaries tied to social, cultural and racial divisions? It is argued that the formation of so-called ‘international communities’ on the Spanish Sun Coast tend to cluster mainly north-western European lifestyle migrants, which calls for an analysis of ‘orientations’ towards a certain ‘likeness’, and the function of these spaces and communities as spaces of ‘institutional whiteness’ that work as a ‘meeting point’ where some bodies tend to feel comfortable as they already belong here. The social and cultural boundaries that surround these communities destabilises the idea of a common, culturally homogeneous European identity and display intra-European racial divisions mediated through discourses of cultural differences. What appears is a south–north divide built upon a deep Swedish postcolonial identification with Anglo Saxon and north-western European countries and cultures, and a parallel dis-identification with (the former colonial powers in) southern Europe.
Scandinavian Studies, 2017
89.2.0151?seq=1&cid=pdfreference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to acces... more 89.2.0151?seq=1&cid=pdfreference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
Scandinavian Studies, 2017
Nordic whiteness has a privileged place in the history of race, reflected in constructions of whi... more Nordic whiteness has a privileged place in the history of race, reflected in constructions of white Swedish femininity as the embodiment of beauty and purity. This article examines Swedish migrant women’s gender and nation-specific experiences of Nordic whiteness when moving from a dominant discourse of colour-blindness in Sweden to overt racial privilege in southwestern United States. As the women altered from being professionals to upper-middle-class homemakers or stay-at-home mothers, their gendered and classed experiences of whiteness involved a shift in their experiences of ‘being white’. The study is based on a year of ethnographic work in a network for Swedish women living abroad, including in-depth interviews with 33 migrant women and three of their husbands, all of whom move to the US from the 1940s onwards. Migration from Sweden to the United States involved a transition from white normativity to exotic Swedishness, including the embodiment of a kind of hyper-whiteness linked to the history of the Nordic race in the US. The article takes an empirical view of the contemporary embodiment of Swedish hyper-whiteness in the United States and analyses its historical traces from a critical whiteness studies perspective.
Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 2017
'The migrant' tends to be imagined as a non-privileged, non-white, non-western subject in search ... more 'The migrant' tends to be imagined as a non-privileged, non-white, non-western subject in search of a better future in Europe or the United States and as such is a pre-constituted subject shaped by notions of marginalization and poverty. What kinds of stories are obscured by this recurrent image of 'the migrant' and how do such categorizations hamper the analysis of privilege, belonging and white normativity within studies of migration? Why are some individuals not regarded as migrants despite their migrant status? Why are other individuals seen as migrants and thus denied their national belonging in spite of their formal status as national citizens? The article develops analytical tools on migration, belonging and citizenship, with particular attention to (a) autochthony and belonging, (b) race and citizenship and (c) white capital.
Social Identities, 2014
After the election in Sweden in 2010, the racist Sweden Democrats party entered parliament. Post-... more After the election in Sweden in 2010, the racist Sweden Democrats party entered parliament. Post-election reactions and discussions were largely preoccupied with the issue of how the presence of a racist party in the Swedish parliament disturbs the country's exceptionalist image and privileged position – both in the West and in the non-Western world – as humanity's avant-garde and beacon for antiracism. This article aims to understand the current situation in Sweden from a critical race and whiteness studies perspective. We regard contemporary Sweden as a ‘white nation in crisis’, and diagnose Swedish society as suffering from a ‘white melancholia’. In order to disentangle and shed light upon what is perceived to be mourned and what is seen as being lost for the future, the article offers an historicised account of three principal phases, stages and moments of Swedish nation-building and whiteness; ‘white purity’ (1905–1968); ‘white solidarity’ (1968–2001); and ‘white melancholy’, from 2001 onwards. The analysis also takes into account how these three nation-building projects and hegemonic whiteness and racial grammar regimes are interrelated, and intersect with the different gender and class relations; racial formations; minority discourses; and various political ideologies and affective structures characterising these three periods.
Social Identities, 2014
After the election in Sweden in 2010, the racist Sweden Democrats party entered parliament. Post-... more After the election in Sweden in 2010, the racist Sweden Democrats party entered parliament. Post-election reactions and discussions were largely preoccupied with the issue of how the presence of a racist party in the Swedish parliament disturbs the country's exceptionalist image and privileged position – both in the West and in the non-Western world – as humanity's avant-garde and beacon for antiracism. This article aims to understand the current situation in Sweden from a critical race and whiteness studies perspective. We regard contemporary Sweden as a ‘white nation in crisis’, and diagnose Swedish society as suffering from a ‘white melancholia’. In order to disentangle and shed light upon what is perceived to be mourned and what is seen as being lost for the future, the article offers an historicised account of three principal phases, stages and moments of Swedish nation-building and whiteness; ‘white purity’ (1905–1968); ‘white solidarity’ (1968–2001); and ‘white melancholy’, from 2001 onwards. The analysis also takes into account how these three nation-building projects and hegemonic whiteness and racial grammar regimes are interrelated, and intersect with the different gender and class relations; racial formations; minority discourses; and various political ideologies and affective structures characterising these three periods.
Eurozine, 2011
Sweden's post-war image as frontrunner of egalitarianism and antiracism contains more than a trac... more Sweden's post-war image as frontrunner of egalitarianism and antiracism contains more than a trace of national and racial chauvinism, argue two whiteness studies scholars. As myths of the better Sweden fade, both Right and Left are consumed by "white melancholy".
NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 2011
European Journal of Womens Studies, 2011
This article examines Swedish migrant women to the United States. It asks how racially privileged... more This article examines Swedish migrant women to the United States. It asks how racially privileged European migrants adapt to US racial and gender hierarchies that require them to relinquish their economic security and gender autonomy in a neoliberal state? Drawing upon interviews and focus group discussions with 33 Swedish women and three of their spouses, and participant observation between 2006 and 2008 in a network for Swedish speaking women living in the US, the article discusses how a group of 'white' migrant women who arrive in the US with an ideology of gender egalitarianism negotiate a more socially conservative and economically vulnerable lifestyle, as the wives (and potential ex-wives) of upper-middle-class men. The article argues that while Swedish women benefit from their racial and social privileges in the US they lose their sense of economic security, acquiring new anxieties that make them reluctant to renounce their Swedish citizenship which they conceive of as a 'flexible' resource.
Natur & Kultur, 2022
Den färgblinda skolan – ras och vithet i svensk utbildning behandlar vad begreppen ras och vithet... more Den färgblinda skolan – ras och vithet i svensk utbildning behandlar vad begreppen ras och vithet har att säga om dagens svenska skola. Utgångspunkten för boken är att Sverige numera härbärgerar västvärldens mest heterogena elevsammansättning efter USA, inte minst gäller det den rasliga och etniska mångfalden liksom religiös och språklig mångfald. Samtidigt har den svenska skolan på rekordtid kommit att utvecklas till västvärldens mest segregerade och ojämlika skola.
Hur kan tvillingbegreppen ras och vithet hjälpa oss att förstå detta nya Sverige och det genomsegregerade svenska utbildningsväsendet?
Routledge, 2023
Since its foundation as an academic field in the 1990s, critical race theory has developed enormo... more Since its foundation as an academic field in the 1990s, critical race theory has developed enormously and has, among others, been supplemented by and (dis)integrated with critical whiteness studies. At the same time, the field has moved beyond its origins in Anglo-Saxon environments, to be taken up and re-developed in various parts of the world – leading to not only new empirical material but also new theoretical perspectives and analytical approaches. Gathering these new and global perspectives, this book presents a much-needed collection of the various forms, sophisticated theoretical developments and nuanced analyses that the field of critical race and whiteness theories and studies offers today. Organized around the themes of emotions, technologies, consumption, institutions, crisis, identities and on the margin, this presentation of critical race and whiteness theories and studies in its true interdisciplinary and international form provides the latest empirical and theoretical research, as well as new analytical approaches. Illustrating the strength of the field and embodying its future research directions, The Routledge International Handbook of New Critical Race and Whiteness Studies will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities with interests in race and whiteness.
Routledge, 2023
Race in Sweden is an introduction to, and a critical investigation of, the Swedish relationship t... more Race in Sweden is an introduction to, and a critical investigation of, the Swedish relationship to race in the post-war and contemporary eras. This relationship is fundamentally shaped by an ideology of colourblindness, with any kind of race talk being taboo in public discourse and everyday language use, and in practice forbidden in official and institutional language.
A study of a country which was until recently strikingly white but has become extremely diverse, yet where the legacy of Swedish whiteness co-exists with a radical, colourblind, antiracist ideology, Race in Sweden will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities with interests in race and ethnicity, whiteness and Nordic studies.
Makadam, 2020
Begreppet vit melankoli är ett sätt att på djupet förstå den konfliktfyllda, paradoxala och nosta... more Begreppet vit melankoli är ett sätt att på djupet förstå den konfliktfyllda, paradoxala och nostalgiska situation som råder i vår tid. Detta melankoliska tillstånd har uppstått som en följd av förlusten av både det vita, homogena Sverige och det färgblinda, solidariska Sverige.
Forskarna Catrin Lundström och Tobias Hübinette menar i denna bok att sorgen över det gamla Sveriges borttynande präglar såväl höger som vänster och såväl antirasister som rasister, men att det i slutänden handlar om förlusten av samma nationella identitet.
Genom att skriva fram Sveriges samtidshistoria med storheterna ras och vithet i centrum försöker Vit melankoli förstå hur Sverige kunde gå från att ha varit ett av västvärldens mest rasbesatta länder till att bli dess mest generösa invandrarland -- och hur detta i sin tur fick ett abrupt slut efter 2015.
Boken kastar vidare ljus över de ojämlikheter som präglar dagens svenska samhälle i form av klyftorna mellan stad och land, vita och icke-vita samt rika och fattiga. Författarna presenterar en teori om den svenska vithetens utveckling under 1900-talet och framåt liksom hur den samspelar med klass och kön. Läsaren möter här infallsvinklar som utmanar invanda föreställningar och erbjuder nya insikter om svenskheten.
Makadam, 2017
Migration handlar inte alltid om en desperat jakt på en bättre framtid i Europa eller Nordamerika... more Migration handlar inte alltid om en desperat jakt på en bättre framtid i Europa eller Nordamerika. Genom intervjuer med svenska kvinnor som migrerat till sydvästra USA, Singapore och den spanska solkusten utforskar sociologen Catrin Lundström samtida västerländsk migration, som präglas både av de transnationella ras- och klassprivilegier som vita migranter bär med sig och av en särskild sårbarhet kopplad till kön. Här diskuteras den dynamik som formar vita migrantkvinnors liv som välbärgade hemmafruar, medföljande och livsstilsmigranter. En del av kvinnorna i studien har flyttat för kärleks skull, medan andra har rest för att arbeta eller studera under en begränsad period men sedan stannat kvar. Några är medföljande till sina utlandsstationerade män under ett antal år. Andra väljer att tillbringa pensionen i ett annat land med en annan livsstil. Catrin Lundström undersöker hur kvinnorna använder sitt medborgarskap och sin vita femininitet som tillgångar i sin transnationella migration, men också hur kvinnornas liv kompliceras av könade strukturer, heterosexuella normer och ekonomiskt beroende. Med sitt fokus på de lokala och globala aspekterna av den svenska vitheten fyller boken en lucka i litteraturen om migration och frilägger nya perspektiv på globalisering, diskriminering och transnationell mobilitet.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2014
The migrant is often thought of as a non-westerner in search for a better future in Europe or the... more The migrant is often thought of as a non-westerner in search for a better future in Europe or the United States. From a multi-sited ethnography with Swedish migrant women in the US, Singapore and Spain, this book explores the intersections of racial and class privilege and gender vulnerabilities in contemporary feminized migration from or within 'the West'. Through an analysis of 'white migration', Catrin Lundström develops theoretical tools to understand the dynamics that shape the women's lives as wealthy housewives, expatriate wives and lifestyle migrants. By shifting the gaze towards privileged migrants, Lundström illustrates how race shapes contemporary transnational migration and how white privilege is reproduced through family formation, expatriate geographies or 'international communities' in response to the shifting boundaries of whiteness in different national and regional settings. Looking at how whiteness migrates through a transnational lens the book fills a gap in literature on race and migration, presenting some of the complexities of the current global power relations and the contextual variations that surround these.
Vem får egentligen vara svensk? Hur länge ska man bo här innan man har bevisat sin svenskhet? und... more Vem får egentligen vara svensk? Hur länge ska man bo här innan man har bevisat sin svenskhet? undrar Marisol. För att vara svensk ska man se mer svensk ut än vad vi gör, säger Isabel som är adopterad från Centralamerika. Julia tycker att hon är lika svensk som sina innerstadskompisar, fastän hennes pappa är från Chile. Mariela kallar dem som blonderar håret och skaffar blå linser för "svensk-wannabes". Genom att intervjua en grupp unga kvinnor med bakgrund i Latinamerika boende i Stockholmsområdet belyser sociologen Catrin Lundström frågor om svenskhet och diaspora utifrån aktuella teoretiska diskussioner om kön, ras/etnicitet, klass, sexualitet och plats. Det är en skildring av de informella gränserna som omgärdar den svenska positionen, om varför man inte kan säga att man kommer ifrån Sverige fastän man är född här. Studien diskuterar hur föreställningar om ras och ursprung utgör centrala idéer i nationens gränsdragningar, och hur de formas i samspel med andra maktordningar. Svenska latinas. Ras, klass och kön i svenskhetens geografi rör sig i skärningspunkten mellan den lokala kontexten och globaliseringens processer, mellan vardagsrasism och politiska exilhistorier, mellan förorten och Bronx. Vi får inblick i berättelser om salsadiskotek, den kubanska revolutionens symbolik, hiphop-klubbar och svenska villaförorter. Måste man gilla salsa om man är latinamerikan? Varför lyssnar inte Violeta och hennes kompisar på popgruppen Kent? Är alla latinamerikaner vänster? Varför tror Fernanda att svenskar är rädda för henne? Studien har teoretiska rötter inom fälten kulturstudier, feministisk teori, kulturgeografi och latino/a studies som här placeras i en svensk kontext.
Sociologisk Forskning, Dec 21, 2024
This article brings Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital into dialogue with critical race and w... more This article brings Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital into dialogue with critical race and whiteness studies and migration studies. It focuses on the ways in which whiteness as an analytical category is associated with a recognised set of privileges in terms of nationality, citizenship, knowledge, and mobility; assets that open up new ways of producing and reproducing cultural capital. As a kind of objectified and institutionalised capital, whiteness is materialised through institutions, passports and visa policies, all of which imply that individuals and groups classified as white can feel “at home” almost anywhere in the world. However, between a globalised history of racialisation linked to European colonisation and contemporary neoliberal competition, perceptions of whiteness are changing in transnational social space. In other words, whiteness as cultural capital is on the one hand intertwined with histories of colonial racial structures, and on the other hand it is challenged by global neoliberalism, where Asian notions of whiteness in particular cast European whiteness in a new light.
Sociological Forum, 2021
Racial colorblindness-the desire to not "see color"-or avoiding any use of the term "race" itself... more Racial colorblindness-the desire to not "see color"-or avoiding any use of the term "race" itself, has been an antiracist imperative in post-WWII Sweden in order to leave behind the prior era of eugenics and racial thinking. Through a multi-sited linguistic ethnographic study, this article examines how 46 returning Swedish expatriate women talk about race and whiteness in race-related experiences and interactions, using colorblind language. By analyzing the implicit contextual associations and dissociations made between race, language, subjectivity, and nation, a system of ideas and cognitive structures mapping perceptions and constructions of the world is exposed; of national belonging, racialized bodies, racial hierarchies, and perceptions of the West itself. In their migrant narratives, however, the categories used could be ascribed opposite meanings, depending on subjectivity and context. In this logic, language and nationality becomes "visible" or "hidden" depending on time and place, while "visible whiteness" can be associated with either an undesirable sense of difference or a set of unspoken privileges.
Sociologisk Forskning, 2018
This article discusses the experiences of Swedish migrant women who are returning to Sweden after... more This article discusses the experiences of Swedish migrant women who are returning to Sweden after having lived abroad for a period of their lives. Most of them have been situated outside the formal labour market during their time abroad and been occupied with family related work. The aim of this article is to analyse how political ideals formulated around work, gender equality and income redistribution, encounter the constructions of Swedishness, gender and heterosexuality in these women’s stories. When living abroad, the women were provided for by their husbands. Yet, their positions as “trailing spouses” had had severe impact on their opportunities for reintegration into the labour market as well as for their future – or current – pensions. The article discusses the political and sociological consequences of women’s economic dependence, primarily in terms of welfare state distribution and pensions by asking: In what ways are returning migrant women situated in-between a global labour market and the Swedish welfare system in relation to migration, gender and gender equality?
NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 2019
Emerging from the concepts of white cosmopolitanism and white cosmopolitan femininity, this artic... more Emerging from the concepts of white cosmopolitanism and white cosmopolitan femininity, this article analyses “cosmopolitan narratives” of Swedish migrant women who lived abroad for an extended period and eventually returned to Sweden. Based on eight months’ ethnographic work, including 46 in-depth interviews with migrants who had returned in Sweden, the article explores how national boundaries are both maintained and traversed in the construction of a “world citizen”. It is argued that the women’s self-identification with a cosmopolitan ethos is structured by whiteness, nationality, and class that grants uninterrupted mobility and “worldliness”. As symbolic bearers of the Swedish nation, national ideals act on the white women’s bodies internationally, in ways that both uphold and re-inscribe the nation into the global. Thus, apart from obscuring global inequalities, white cosmopolitan femininity is imbricated in both national and global politics as a place where global structures reconnect with the white nation, thereby enabling Swedish migrants to re-install themselves into contemporary global settings as self-defined cosmopolitan subjects.
European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2019
This article examines intra-European relations in narratives of Swedish lifestyle migrants living... more This article examines intra-European relations in narratives of Swedish lifestyle migrants living permanently or part-time on the Spanish Sun Coast. It pays particular attention to the complexities of Swedish migrants’ cultural identities and patterns of self-segregation in the Spanish society by investigating the following questions: How do boundaries of social networks that Swedish lifestyle migrants participate in, or interrelate, with a sense of ‘likeness’? In what ways are the formation of these ‘international’ networks mediated through ideas of cultural similarity and parallel difference, and how do such notions both override and uphold boundaries tied to social, cultural and racial divisions? It is argued that the formation of so-called ‘international communities’ on the Spanish Sun Coast tend to cluster mainly north-western European lifestyle migrants, which calls for an analysis of ‘orientations’ towards a certain ‘likeness’, and the function of these spaces and communities as spaces of ‘institutional whiteness’ that work as a ‘meeting point’ where some bodies tend to feel comfortable as they already belong here. The social and cultural boundaries that surround these communities destabilises the idea of a common, culturally homogeneous European identity and display intra-European racial divisions mediated through discourses of cultural differences. What appears is a south–north divide built upon a deep Swedish postcolonial identification with Anglo Saxon and north-western European countries and cultures, and a parallel dis-identification with (the former colonial powers in) southern Europe.
Scandinavian Studies, 2017
89.2.0151?seq=1&cid=pdfreference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to acces... more 89.2.0151?seq=1&cid=pdfreference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
Scandinavian Studies, 2017
Nordic whiteness has a privileged place in the history of race, reflected in constructions of whi... more Nordic whiteness has a privileged place in the history of race, reflected in constructions of white Swedish femininity as the embodiment of beauty and purity. This article examines Swedish migrant women’s gender and nation-specific experiences of Nordic whiteness when moving from a dominant discourse of colour-blindness in Sweden to overt racial privilege in southwestern United States. As the women altered from being professionals to upper-middle-class homemakers or stay-at-home mothers, their gendered and classed experiences of whiteness involved a shift in their experiences of ‘being white’. The study is based on a year of ethnographic work in a network for Swedish women living abroad, including in-depth interviews with 33 migrant women and three of their husbands, all of whom move to the US from the 1940s onwards. Migration from Sweden to the United States involved a transition from white normativity to exotic Swedishness, including the embodiment of a kind of hyper-whiteness linked to the history of the Nordic race in the US. The article takes an empirical view of the contemporary embodiment of Swedish hyper-whiteness in the United States and analyses its historical traces from a critical whiteness studies perspective.
Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 2017
'The migrant' tends to be imagined as a non-privileged, non-white, non-western subject in search ... more 'The migrant' tends to be imagined as a non-privileged, non-white, non-western subject in search of a better future in Europe or the United States and as such is a pre-constituted subject shaped by notions of marginalization and poverty. What kinds of stories are obscured by this recurrent image of 'the migrant' and how do such categorizations hamper the analysis of privilege, belonging and white normativity within studies of migration? Why are some individuals not regarded as migrants despite their migrant status? Why are other individuals seen as migrants and thus denied their national belonging in spite of their formal status as national citizens? The article develops analytical tools on migration, belonging and citizenship, with particular attention to (a) autochthony and belonging, (b) race and citizenship and (c) white capital.
Social Identities, 2014
After the election in Sweden in 2010, the racist Sweden Democrats party entered parliament. Post-... more After the election in Sweden in 2010, the racist Sweden Democrats party entered parliament. Post-election reactions and discussions were largely preoccupied with the issue of how the presence of a racist party in the Swedish parliament disturbs the country's exceptionalist image and privileged position – both in the West and in the non-Western world – as humanity's avant-garde and beacon for antiracism. This article aims to understand the current situation in Sweden from a critical race and whiteness studies perspective. We regard contemporary Sweden as a ‘white nation in crisis’, and diagnose Swedish society as suffering from a ‘white melancholia’. In order to disentangle and shed light upon what is perceived to be mourned and what is seen as being lost for the future, the article offers an historicised account of three principal phases, stages and moments of Swedish nation-building and whiteness; ‘white purity’ (1905–1968); ‘white solidarity’ (1968–2001); and ‘white melancholy’, from 2001 onwards. The analysis also takes into account how these three nation-building projects and hegemonic whiteness and racial grammar regimes are interrelated, and intersect with the different gender and class relations; racial formations; minority discourses; and various political ideologies and affective structures characterising these three periods.
Social Identities, 2014
After the election in Sweden in 2010, the racist Sweden Democrats party entered parliament. Post-... more After the election in Sweden in 2010, the racist Sweden Democrats party entered parliament. Post-election reactions and discussions were largely preoccupied with the issue of how the presence of a racist party in the Swedish parliament disturbs the country's exceptionalist image and privileged position – both in the West and in the non-Western world – as humanity's avant-garde and beacon for antiracism. This article aims to understand the current situation in Sweden from a critical race and whiteness studies perspective. We regard contemporary Sweden as a ‘white nation in crisis’, and diagnose Swedish society as suffering from a ‘white melancholia’. In order to disentangle and shed light upon what is perceived to be mourned and what is seen as being lost for the future, the article offers an historicised account of three principal phases, stages and moments of Swedish nation-building and whiteness; ‘white purity’ (1905–1968); ‘white solidarity’ (1968–2001); and ‘white melancholy’, from 2001 onwards. The analysis also takes into account how these three nation-building projects and hegemonic whiteness and racial grammar regimes are interrelated, and intersect with the different gender and class relations; racial formations; minority discourses; and various political ideologies and affective structures characterising these three periods.
Eurozine, 2011
Sweden's post-war image as frontrunner of egalitarianism and antiracism contains more than a trac... more Sweden's post-war image as frontrunner of egalitarianism and antiracism contains more than a trace of national and racial chauvinism, argue two whiteness studies scholars. As myths of the better Sweden fade, both Right and Left are consumed by "white melancholy".
NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 2011
European Journal of Womens Studies, 2011
This article examines Swedish migrant women to the United States. It asks how racially privileged... more This article examines Swedish migrant women to the United States. It asks how racially privileged European migrants adapt to US racial and gender hierarchies that require them to relinquish their economic security and gender autonomy in a neoliberal state? Drawing upon interviews and focus group discussions with 33 Swedish women and three of their spouses, and participant observation between 2006 and 2008 in a network for Swedish speaking women living in the US, the article discusses how a group of 'white' migrant women who arrive in the US with an ideology of gender egalitarianism negotiate a more socially conservative and economically vulnerable lifestyle, as the wives (and potential ex-wives) of upper-middle-class men. The article argues that while Swedish women benefit from their racial and social privileges in the US they lose their sense of economic security, acquiring new anxieties that make them reluctant to renounce their Swedish citizenship which they conceive of as a 'flexible' resource.
European Journal of Women's Studies, 2011
This article examines Swedish migrant women to the United States. It asks how racially privileged... more This article examines Swedish migrant women to the United States. It asks how racially privileged European migrants adapt to US racial and gender hierarchies that require them to relinquish their economic security and gender autonomy in a neoliberal state? Drawing upon interviews and focus group discussions with 33 Swedish women and three of their spouses, and participant observation between 2006 and 2008 in a network for Swedish speaking women living in the US, the article discusses how a group of 'white' migrant women who arrive in the US with an ideology of gender egalitarianism negotiate a more socially conservative and economically vulnerable lifestyle, as the wives (and potential ex-wives) of upper-middle-class men. The article argues that while Swedish women benefit from their racial and social privileges in the US they lose their sense of economic security, acquiring new anxieties that make them reluctant to renounce their Swedish citizenship which they conceive of as a 'flexible' resource.
NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 2010
This article discusses methodological dilemmas in ethnographic research with first-generation Swe... more This article discusses methodological dilemmas in ethnographic research with first-generation Swedish migrant women living in the United States. From a (white) Swedish researcher perspective, it seeks to disentangle aspects of shared privileges between researcher and participants and constructions of white spaces in a non-Swedish context. What does it mean to pass as a white, middle-class Swede in research, and how are white privileges being upheld in such acting? How are class differences equalized when ethnography is conducted outside the national class system where internal hierarchies may be renegotiated? The article argues that the use of “methodological capital” (Gallagher 2000), such as embodied capital and passing strategies that might be necessary to reach specific groups of examination, may also reproduce structural privileges by not intervening into normative assumptions of race, class, gender, and sexuality. In these circumstances, the article inquires into what can be learned from studying privileged groups and, thereby, what may we fail to see.
Women's Studies International Forum, 2013
This article explores the tensions that arise when professionally educated Swedish migrant women ... more This article explores the tensions that arise when professionally educated Swedish migrant women relocate to a temporary expatriate wife status, with a particular focus on the transnational household as a “contact zone” between expats and migrant domestic workers in Singapore. Based on interviews and ethnographic work with 13 Swedish women and one month of fieldwork in the Swedish community in Singapore in spring 2009, the article investigates the women's altered positions as “trailing spouses” and employers from an intersectional perspective that highlights the politics of difference between women with regard to constructions of race, femininity and intimacy. In this context, the article explores how processes of globalisation, transnational migration and division of labour are played out between the different migrant women in the household sphere, thus broadening contemporary discussions by including privileged practices and positions in transnational migration. As expatriate wives, the Swedish women were often locked into conservative frames, oriented towards “family values”, negotiated in relation to (former) ideologies of gender equality and (new) power relations in the household sphere.
Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 2012
On the basis of 13 in-depth interviews with Swedish women and one month of ethnographic work in t... more On the basis of 13 in-depth interviews with Swedish women and one month of ethnographic work in the Swedish community in Singapore in 2009, this article examines how Swedish women, travelling from Sweden to Singapore as “expatriate wives” in the wake of their Swedish husbands, navigate gendered and racialised transnational spaces of domestic work and negotiating their changed identities as both housewives and employers of live-in maids in the household. How do the women justify their current division of labour in the light of Swedish national ideologies of work and Swedish ideals of gender and class equality?
Journal of Intercultural Studies, 2010
This paper examines gender- and nation-specific forms of capital through migration. It focuses on... more This paper examines gender- and nation-specific forms of capital through migration. It focuses on first-generation Swedish women moving to a new social and political landscape in the USA, typically from upper- and middle-class environments in Sweden. Their migratory experiences are used as a departure to analyse how former class positions are being re-enacted (or not) in the neo-liberal USA. The study, conducted from 2006 to 2008, is based on in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with 33 women and three of their spouses and participant observations in a support group for Swedish-speaking women in the Western region of the USA. Using an intersectional analysis, it is suggested that Swedish women are located in contradictory class positions in the USA in terms of the loss of social and cultural capital, access to the social democratic welfare state and a dependence on racialised labour in a different social geography. It is argued that the women's class privileges are shaped, transformed and reproduced through their capacities to re-invest their cultural and embodied forms of capital in marriage and by marking a distance to subordinated groups, often other migrant women, thereby mirroring the unequal relations between (migrating) women in a global arena.
Tidskrift för genusvetenskap, 2010
This article examines different expressions of gender and whiteness in a transnational context th... more This article examines different expressions of gender and whiteness in a transnational context through first-generation Swedish migrant women’s narratives of bodies and cultural identities, when moving and re-installing themselves in the altered social, racial and political landscapes of the United States and Singapore. Their specific migratory experiences are used as a departure to analyze the ways in which gender- and nation-specific forms of capital may be converted through migration. The central inquiries in the article are concerned with how Swedish women experience their bodies, as migrant bodies, and how embodied privileges move and are being re-invested in two racially different contexts. The study, conducted from 2006– 2009, is based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions with almost 50 women in the western part of the United States and Singapore, all of them being members of a support group for Swedish-speaking women, and three of their spouses. In addition, I have conducted participant observations in several Swedish-related arenas in the two countries. It is argued that white privileges often remain normalized and invisible for the informants themselves, but while Swedish femininity is highly valued in the United States, it is represented as a non-normative whiteness in the Singaporean context. Thus, by looking at how Swedishness is being re-installed in non-Swedish contexts, the article contextualizes migrating Swedishness and whiteness and contributes with a transnational perspective on whiteness, which carries a potential to destabilize an idea of whiteness as a homogeneous entity.
Gender Place and Culture. A Journal of Feminist Geography., 2010
This article examines young Latina women's interactions in the urban landscape of Stockholm, with... more This article examines young Latina women's interactions in the urban landscape of Stockholm, with a particular focus on white, middle-class areas, and how social difference and racial positioning are produced in and through the processes of urban segregation. Although Stockholm consists of different multiethnic and middle-class white suburbs, a discourse of sharp division between ‘the suburb’ and the inner-city is prevalent in the daily press. Here ‘the suburb’ is either portrayed as dangerous or exotic. This article is based on qualitative research with 29 young Latina women living and attending schools in both the suburban and inner-city areas. This approach facilitates an understanding of how gendered, racialized and classed aspects of segregation are embodied in multiple directions and how mechanisms of spatial exclusion prevail in predominantly white areas – often seen as ‘neutral’ or non-racialized areas. In conclusion, in order to capture the realities of young people's lives within materialized discourses of race and space, I argue that it is crucial to include white settings in the analysis, and experiences of exclusion.
Este artículo examina las interacciones de jóvenes mujeres latinas en el paisaje urbano de Estocolmo, prestando particular atención a las áreas de clase media blanca, y cómo la diferencia social y el posicionamiento racial son producidos en los procesos de segregación urbana y a través de ellos. Auque Estocolmo consiste en distintos suburbios multiétnicos y de clase media blanca, en la prensa diaria prevalece un discurso de una clara división entre “el suburbano” y el centro de la ciudad. Aquí “el suburbio” es descripto ya sea como peligroso o como exótico. Este artículo está basado en una investigación cualitativa con 29 jóvenes latinas viviendo y estudiando en los suburbios y en el centro de la ciudad. Este enfoque facilita la comprensión de cómo aspectos de la segregación que están cruzados por el género, la raza y la clase social, se encuentran corporizados en formas múltiples, y cómo los mecanismos de exclusión espacial prevalecen en las áreas predominantemente blancas – a menudo vistas como “neutrales” o como áreas no racializadas. En conclusión, para captar las realidades de las vidas de la gente joven dentro de discursos materializados de raza y espacio, sostengo que es crucial incluir a los ambientes blancos en el análisis y las experiencias de exclusión.
The Routledge International Handbook of Transnational Studies, 2024
The concept of white capital corresponds to embodied and institutionalized forms of cultural capi... more The concept of white capital corresponds to embodied and institutionalized forms of cultural capital, possible to convert across social space. The value of such white capital depends on context, history, and power. Bodies that qualify as white can usually move and cross borders with ease. This includes white, Western migrants who tend to arrive with a set of privileges in terms of class, nationality, citizenship, and profession that open up new ways of producing and re-producing cultural and other forms of capital. Privileges of whiteness connected to institutions, passports, or bodies are, accordingly, contingent forms of capital for migrants who are socially classified as white. In the wake of a globalized history of race and European colonialism, however, white groups are positioned differently. Thus, not all whitenesses are recognized as transnational white capital. Whereas white Western migrants have access to mobility rights, orientations, and opportunities, Argentinian, Japanese, or Iranian whitenesses are not necessarily identified and/or convertible as capital transnationally. In this logic, whiteness as cultural capital is intertwined with histories of postcolonial racial structures and contemporary neoliberal forms of globalization, meaning that some kinds of white capital are local or intersect with ideas about national belonging, while others are transnational and transferable forms of capital outside their national contexts.
Migration to and from Welfare States: Lived Experiences of the Welfare-Migration Nexus in a Globalised World, 2021
This chapter analyses how expatriate women navigate national political ideals formulated around g... more This chapter analyses how expatriate women navigate national political ideals formulated around gender equality and the dual-earner model upon their return to Sweden. The study is based on 46 in-depth interviews and participant observation conducted in a network for returning migrant women in Sweden. The vast majority were married to Swedish men working in transnational companies and had returned to Sweden due to their husbands’ completed expatriate contracts. As the women had been situated outside the formal labour market during their time abroad, they had no work experience or pensionable income in the Swedish welfare system, which is based on the idea that women and men share labour- and family-related work. Hence, their positions as ‘trailing spouses’ had a severe impact on their opportunities for reintegration into Swedish society. On the one hand, the women’s work enabled their husband’s mobility and working life in transnational companies. On the other, national social benefits did not take this (gendered) work into account. Thus, the women continued to depend on their husband’s income and private insurances back in Sweden, located in-between different ‘global’ market-based solutions and a national welfare system.
Kritiska gemenskaper: att skriva feministisk och postkolonial vetenskap., 2014
I en av slutscenerna av filmen Play av Ruben Östlund iscensätts ett drama mellan tre aktörer som ... more I en av slutscenerna av filmen Play av Ruben Östlund iscensätts ett drama mellan tre aktörer som av en slump möts på ett torg: en vit man, ett svart barn och en gravid vit kvinna. Den vite mannen är i färd med att läxa upp det svarta barnet som har lurat vita pojkar, bland annat den vite mannens son, på deras mobiltelefoner. Mannen tar ett rejält tag i den svarta pojkens arm. När den svarta pojken skriker rakt ut säger mannen: ”Jag vill dig väl. Jag vill att du ska sluta med det här! Sadla om! Stick härifrån!”
Feministiska interventioner: berättelser om och från en annan värld., 2006
The Routledge International Handbook of New Critical Race and Whiteness Studies, 2023
Since its foundation as an academic field in the 1990s, critical race theory has developed enormo... more Since its foundation as an academic field in the 1990s, critical race theory has developed enormously and has, among others, been supplemented by and (dis)integrated with critical whiteness studies. At the same time, the field has moved beyond its origins in Anglo-Saxon environments, to be taken up and re-developed in various parts of the world – leading to not only new empirical material but also new theoretical perspectives and analytical approaches. Gathering these new and global perspectives, this book presents a much-needed collection of the various forms, sophisticated theoretical developments and nuanced analyses that the field of critical race and whiteness theories and studies offers today. Organized around the themes of emotions, technologies, consumption, institutions, crisis, identities and on the margin, this presentation of critical race and whiteness theories and studies in its true interdisciplinary and international form provides the latest empirical and theoretical research, as well as new analytical approaches. Illustrating the strength of the field and embodying its future research directions, The Routledge International Handbook of New Critical Race and Whiteness Studies will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities with interests in race and whiteness.
Race in Sweden. Racism and antiracism in the world’s first “colourblind” nation, 2023
Race in Sweden. Racism and antiracism in the world’s first “colourblind” nation, 2023
Sveriges avrasifiering: Svenska uppfattningar om ras och rasism under efterkrigstiden., 2023
Färgblindhet, det vill säga viljan att inte ’se färg’ eller att direkt undvika att tala, eller tä... more Färgblindhet, det vill säga viljan att inte ’se färg’ eller att direkt undvika att tala, eller tänka, i termer av ras, har varit ett tydligt antirasistiskt imperativ i efterkrigstidens Sverige, framför allt sedan 1970-talet, i syfte att göra upp och lämna bakom sig den tidigare epoken av rashygien och rastänkande. Kapitlet tar den svenska färgblindheten som utgångspunkt för att förstå hur och med vilka omskrivningar och associationer som svenska kvinnor, som bott utomlands, under en längre eller kortare tid, talar om ras och vithetsrelaterade erfarenheter, och relationer till andra rasgrupper och minoriteter i olika delar av världen. Genom att analysera kontextuella associationer och dissociationer mellan exempelvis ras, språk och nation, blottläggs ett system av idéer och tankestrukturer som samtidigt kartlägger specifika uppfattningar om världen, så som av olika nationers ’utseenden’, implicita rashierarkier och västvärldens befolkningssammansättning. En analys av färgblindhetens språk visar hur olika kategorier kan få diametralt motsatta innebörder i skilda kontexter, sammanhang och interaktioner. Begrepp som ’invandrare’ och ’utlänning’ kan få skilda betydelser och innehåll beroende på om de relateras till vita eller icke-vita. Språk kan vidare vara ’synligt’ eller ’dolt’ beroende av tid och plats, och dess förgivettagna relation till nation, ras eller vithet. För denna grupp av i huvudsak vita kvinnor filtreras vitheten genom ett antal markörer, som det blonda håret, liksom av svenskheten i sig, och uttrycks genom (in)direkta val av sociala kontakter och relationer. Den synliga vitheten kan förknippas både med en oönskad känsla av skillnad, liksom med en uppsättning outtalade privilegier. Kapitlet undersöker hur svenska kvinnor försöker sätta ord på ras- och vithetsrelaterade migranterfarenheter genom ord som saknas.
Studier om Rasism: tvärvetenskapliga perspektiv på ras, vithet och diskriminering, 2018
”Migranten” uppfattas ofta som ett icke-privilegierat, icke-vitt, icke-västerländskt subjekt på j... more ”Migranten” uppfattas ofta som ett icke-privilegierat, icke-vitt, icke-västerländskt subjekt på jakt efter en bättre framtid i Europa eller USA, och är som sådant ett på förhand konstituerat subjekt som formas av föreställningar om marginalisering och fattigdom.
Vilka typer av berättelser döljs av denna ständigt återkommande bild av ”migranten” och på vilket sätt försvårar sådana kategoriseringar analysen av privilegier, tillhörighet och vit normativitet inom migrationsforskningen? Varför blir vissa individer inte betraktade som migranter, trots sin migrantstatus? Och varför blir andra individer betraktade som migranter och därmed nekade sin nationella tillhörighet trots sin formella status som medborgare? I det här kapitlet presenteras och utvecklas ett antal analytiska verktyg som rör frågor kring migration, tillhörighet och medborgarskap och med särskild tonvikt på endemism och tillhörighet, ras och medborgarskap samt vitt kapital.
Unveiling whiteness in the 21st century: Global manifestations, transdisciplinary interventions. In Deirdre Howard-Wagner, Veronica Watson & Lisa Spanierman (eds), Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014, 2014
In a country that prides itself as having accomplished a post-racial utopia, this chapter aims to... more In a country that prides itself as having accomplished a post-racial utopia, this chapter aims to understand the current situation in Sweden from a critical race and whiteness studies perspective. The chapter considers white melancholia as a form of white exceptionalism dominating national discourses after the last Swedish election in 2010, in which the racist party the Sweden Democrats entered the national parliament, discourse has been preoccupied with the issue of how this racist party disturbs the exceptionalist image of Sweden as a beacon for antiracism and everything that is considered to be good and progressive. Issues of race and whiteness, however, are taboo subjects. We regard contemporary Sweden as a white nation in crisis and diagnose Swedish whiteness as suffering from what can be conceptualised as a white melancholia.
To disentangle and shed light upon what is perceived to be mourned and what is seen as being lost for the future, the chapter offers an historicized account of what we consider the three principal phases, stages, and moments of Swedish nation-building, namely the white purity period between 1905-1968, the white solidarity period between 1968-2001 and the white melancholy period since 2001. We argue that Sweden is at the moment subjected to the double-binding power of Swedish whiteness in the sense that the disappearance of white Sweden, that is Sweden as a racially homogeneous nation, and the passing of good Sweden, that is Sweden as a politically progressive nation, are both perceived to be threatened and even under siege by the presence of people of colour within the Swedish body politic and state territory. Consequently, both the reactionary and racist camp, and the radical and antiracist camp, are mourning the contemporary crisis of the Swedish nation. Finally, we discuss the possibility of applying our analysis of Swedish whiteness and of white melancholia to other white nations in crisis, and the potential contribution it could make to the field of race and whiteness studies.
Geographies of Privilege. Edited By France Winddance Twine, Bradley Gardener., 2013
Southern Spain is one of the most attractive places in Europe for so-called lifestyle migrants to... more Southern Spain is one of the most attractive places in Europe for so-called lifestyle migrants to live and retire. Most of them come to the Spanish Sunbelt from Great Britain and the Scandinavian countries. The presence of Northern European migration is striking in the coastal towns of Fuengirola, Marbella, and Málaga. Stores or bars such as the London Pub, O'Hara's Irish Pub, Nordic Video, and Casa Nórdica, or organizations such as the Swedish Church, Club Nórdico, and the Swedish School, give a glimpse of the institutionalization of migrants' national identities. Along with the thousands of British, Norwegian, Danish, or Dutch migrants, about 65,000 Swedes spend part of the year, generally during the winter, on the Costa del Sol.
Rena hem på smutsiga villkor?: Hushållsarbete, Globalisering, Migration. Redaktörer Anna Gavanas & Catharina Calleman., 2013
Artikeln undersöker förekomsten av så kallade ”live-in-maids”, inneboende hembiträden, i svenska ... more Artikeln undersöker förekomsten av så kallade ”live-in-maids”, inneboende hembiträden, i svenska migranthem i Singapore utifrån ett kritiskt vithetsperspektiv. Dessa relationer används för att belysa de processer och praktiker som reproducerar sociala skiljelinjer och de könade och rasifierade normer som skapas i mötet mellan transnationella migrantkvinnor. Artikeln bygger på en månads fältarbete och intervjuer med 13 svenska kvinnor boende i Singapore, under 2009. De flesta av kvinnorna är medföljande, ”expatriate wives”, men högutbildade som tagit en paus från arbetslivet i Sverige. I artikeln ställs frågan hur dessa kvinnor använder nationella diskurser och ideologier om jämställdhet och jämlikhet i sina resonemang om sig själva som både medföljande och arbetsgivare. Hur resonerar de kring social jämlikhet och arbetares rättigheter som svenska arbetsgivare på en global marknad?
Om ras och vithet i det samtida Sverige. Red. Tobias Hübinette, Helena Hörnfeldt, Fataneh Farahani & René León Rosales., 2012
Julia: På ställen som jag går på oftast så är det ju… Om man är tjej så är det typ ett plus i kan... more Julia: På ställen som jag går på oftast så är det ju… Om man är tjej så är det typ ett plus i kanten om man har ett utländskt påbrå. Svenska killar som lyssnar på hiphop. Dom blir, tror på nåt sätt att dom blir… Speciellt mulattjejer är väl det bästa och sen kommer latinamerikanska tjejer så här på andra plats. Dom tror på nåt sätt, det är min teori, liksom att dom blir… Dom blir kanske lite mer svarta och lite mindre svenska om dom har en. Om dom i alla fall har en tjej som är på nåt sätt så här. Så då kanske det är… Eller det beror på vad man är ute efter. Jag är inte så mycket för att ragga killar liksom. Men det är kanske positivt där. Annars vet jag inte. Catrin: Det är lite så här street-cred på nåt sätt? Man tycker att man är lite mer… Julia: Ja. Det blir ju så. Ja, men dom är ju så. Det är just dom här svenska killarna som är så jävla svenska. Alltså riktigt så här rakade, lite spinkiga, vita hiphop-killar. Catrin: Medelklass. Eller? Julia: Ja, verkligen. Medelklass. Ja, men fan dom har inget hårt liv. Dom har inte växt upp i betongen så här, men om dom skaffar typ en tjej som i alla fall kanske har växt upp i betongen eller som i alla fall inte är vit så kanske dom blir lite mer… Äkta. Jag vet inte, men det verkar så ibland faktiskt […] Dom vill ju till New York och köpa coola hiphop-kläder och dom vill gå typ i Bronx och i Harlem och känna sig som… Ja, det är jättekonstigt.
Scandinavian Studies, 2017
This journal issue focuses on formations of Nordic whiteness as they are represented and negotiat... more This journal issue focuses on formations of Nordic whiteness as they are represented and negotiated through sociocultural production, interaction, and performativity. Our project derives from the assumption that Nordic whiteness—in historical and contemporary incarnations—is distinct from other forms and conceptions of white identity. Historically, schools and ideologies from eugenics to National Socialism have framed Nordics as the standarbearers of whiteness. Today, however, a profound rise in multiraciality in the region has challenged imaginaries that would frame Nordics as a white volk.
The Nordic context stands out as peculiar in many ways. On the one hand, Nordic countries tend to imagine themselves outside the history of racism and colonialism, nurturing an idea of Nordic exceptionalism. On the other, racism and segregation is sharply defining Nordic societies. Thus, despite official ideals of colour-blindness, questions of race and whiteness saturate contemporary literature, media, and music, as well as social and political life both within the Nordic countries and in images of Norden abroad. This special issue will shed light on how these ideas continue to impact the notion of Nordic whiteness mediated through ethno-nationalist politics, media representations, national imaginaries, and embodied representations within and outside the Nordic context.
The special issue constitute a cross-national and cross-disciplinary set of authors seeking to provide new understandings of Nordic whiteness in the light of a history of paradoxes. The articles reflect the similarities and differences between the Nordic countries and combine social, political and cultural perspectives that reflects how ideas of whiteness are reproduced but also challenged in a number of ways. They also explore how Nordic white identities and representations intersect with gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nationalism and class.
Women's Studies International Forum, 2013
The journal issue will focus on organizational and institutionalized expressions of transnational... more The journal issue will focus on organizational and institutionalized expressions of transnational lives and identities in global cities and hubs that have undergone vast economic and social transformations in recent years yet being located within the intersections of colonial legacies, traditionalism, nationalism and globalisation. Drawing on postcolonial theories and transnational/migration studies, we discuss economic and cultural hubs where postcolonial relations and belonging are negotiated through a variety of power structures and legacies of empires. This special issue focuses on case studies of transnational migrant women.
We suggest that women in these societies, while playing prominent roles in the work force and global economy, also juggle various positions of wife, mother, daughter and members of racialized cultural or national collectives. Looking at the ways in which women, located within global cities, negotiate gender and race/ethnic politics, we will explore transnational processes from below. This is an on-going process of interpretation and reworking social positions, and also navigating those positions and their meanings through cultural, educational and global discourses mediated subjectively.
We strive to understand, how do women negotiate work and culture in the new global occupational spaces given the important backdrop of postcolonial histories, culture, nationalism and global social forces (such as the global economy and consumer culture)? How are they engaging with issues related to work and life-long learning in the globalised economy, marriage, materialism, and global consumption? What are the cultural and educational resources that they draw on in their workspaces? What are the cultural and work barriers these women negotiate in redefining identity and occupational boundaries?
Scandinavian Studies, 2020
NORA. Nordic Journal of Feminist andGender Research, 2013
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2012
Nordic Journal of Migration Research NJMR, 2018
CHOICE Connect, 2014
Sociologist Lundström (Linköping Univ., Sweden) presents a sophisticated analysis of the ways tha... more Sociologist Lundström (Linköping Univ., Sweden) presents a sophisticated analysis of the ways that notions about gender, race, migration, class, and nation intersect to complicate and constitute one another. Drawing on fieldwork and interviews with Swedish women living in the US, Singapore, and Spain, Lundström traces the complexities of identities as they are linked to national and transnational inequalities, particularly the ways they are relational. The resulting rich analysis serves to unsettle takenforgranted notions about migrants and make visible whiteness and privilege, which have been underdeveloped in migration studies. Lundström also deepens understanding of whiteness and privilege in its contextually mediated and intersectional dimensions, particularly as they are negotiated with gender norms in Swedish culture and in each expatriate community. This smart book takes into account and engages with the most current and relevant academic literatures in whiteness, critical race studies, gender, migration, and intersectionality. That said, the book is somewhat uneven. Some sections are very academically dense, while others are only descriptive and could be deepened and better analyzed. Still, the book is very much a success and makes important contributions to its many interrelated fields, but is perhaps best suited to graduate students and academics already engaged in these conversations.
Sociologisk Forskning, 2017
Mikaela Sundberg, A sociology of the total organization: Atomistic unity in the French foreign le... more Mikaela Sundberg, A sociology of the total organization: Atomistic unity in the French foreign legion. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2015 Sociologisk Forskning, årgång 54, nr 1/2, sid 135-155. © Författarna och Sveriges Sociologförbund, ISSN 0038-0342, 2002-066X (elektronisk).
European Journal of Women's Studies, 2016
NORA Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 2015
The first conference on race and whiteness in Sweden with key notes from Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, R... more The first conference on race and whiteness in Sweden with key notes from Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Raka Shome, Jin Haritaworn, Ylva Habel, Astrid Trotzig, Adrián Groglopo, Kitimbwa Sabuni, Sissela Nordling Blanco, Victoria Kawesa and Nathan Hammelberg. Held at the Multicultural Centre in Botkyrka.