Coordinator(s): Laura Maria Führer and Sabina Tica (Department of sociology and human geography, University of Oslo, Norway)
Across the Nordic region, whiteness is bound up with naturalized national belonging, whereas non-white bodies are often read as ‘bodies out of place’. This being said, racialization is far from a uniform social process. For example, (non-) whiteness acquires meaning in different ways across national contexts, various social arenas, and in interaction with other categories of difference (class, gender, sexuality, etc.). Furthermore, there is considerable debate among scholars as to how racialization should be defined and theorized. One way to remedy this is by discussing various empirical cases.
This session investigates:
1) Empirical case studies that shed light on the construction of (non-) whiteness in different local contexts and in relation to various social categories.
2) How these processes can be conceptualized and theorized.
We welcome papers addressing questions such as: How does (non-) whiteness function in different contexts (e.g. sports, schools, political organisations, fields of art, etc.)? Regarding racialization, what are commonalities across Nordic countries, and what are idiosyncrasies of national or local cases? Which theoretical concepts – such as racialization, race, visibility, phenotype, and whiteness – are most analytically promising for different empirical cases?