Table Of ContentWHITENESS AND POSTCOLONIALISM IN
THE NORDIC REGION
Studies in Migration and Diaspora
Series Editor:
Anne J. Kershen, Queen Mary, University of London, UK
Studies in Migration and Diaspora is a series designed to showcase the
interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary nature of research in this important field.
Volumes in the series cover local, national and global issues and engage with both
historical and contemporary events. The books will appeal to scholars, students
and all those engaged in the study of migration and diaspora. Amongst the topics
covered are minority ethnic relations, transnational movements and the cultural,
social and political implications of moving from ‘over there’, to ‘over here’.
Also in the series:
European Identity and Culture
Narratives of Transnational Belonging
Edited by Rebecca Friedman and Markus Thiel
ISBN 978-1-4094-3714-7
Migration, Citizenship and Intercultural Relations
Looking through the Lens of Social Inclusion
Edited by Fethi Mansouri and Michele Lobo
ISBN 978-1-4094-2880-0
Ethnicity and Education in England and Europe
Gangstas, Geeks and Gorjas
Ian Law and Sarah Swann
ISBN 978-1-4094-1087-4
Masculinity, Sexuality and Illegal Migration
Human Smuggling from Pakistan to Europe
Ali Nobil Ahmad
ISBN 978-1-4094-0975-5
Globalization, Migration and Social Transformation
Ireland in Europe and the World
Edited by Bryan Fanning and Ronaldo Munck
ISBN 978-1-4094-1127-7
Whiteness and Postcolonialism in
the Nordic Region
Exceptionalism, Migrant Others and National Identities
Edited by
KRISTÍN LOFTSDÓTTIR
University of Iceland, Iceland
LARS JENSEN
Roskilde University, Denmark
R Routledge
O
U
T
LED Taylor & Francis Group
G
E
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2012 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © Kristín Loftsdóttir, Lars Jensen and the contributors 2012
Kristín Loftsdóttir and Lars Jensen have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notices..
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only
for identification and explanation without intent to infringe .
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Whiteness and postcolonialism in the Nordic region : exceptionalism, migrant others and
national identities. – (Studies in migration and diaspora)
1. Nationalism – Scandinavia. 2. Exceptionalism – Scandinavia. 3. Group identity –
Scandinavia. 4. Scandinavians – Ethnic identity. 5. Scandinavia – Foreign relations.
6. Postcolonialism – Scandinavia.
I. Series II. Kristín Loftsdóttir, 1968– III. Jensen, Lars.
305.8’395-dc23
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kristín Loftsdóttir, 1968–
Whiteness and postcolonialism in the Nordic Region : exceptionalism, migrant others
and national identities / by Kristín Loftsdóttir and Lars Jensen.
p. cm.—(Studies in migration and diaspora)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-4481-7 (hardback) 1. Whites—Race identity—Scandinavia.
2. National characteristics. 3. Exceptionalism —Scandinavia.
4. Postcolonialism—Scandinavia. I. Jensen, Lars. II. Title.
HT1575.K75 2012
305.809—dc23
2012014351
ISBN 9781409444817 (hbk)
Contents
List of Contributors vii
Series Editor’s Preface xi
Introduction Nordic Exceptionalism and the Nordic ‘Others’ 1
Kristín Loftsdóttir and Lars Jensen
1 Colonial Discourse and Ambivalence: Norwegian Participants on
the Colonial Arena in South Africa 13
Erlend Eidsvik
2 Colonialism, Racism and Exceptionalism 29
Christina Petterson
3 ‘Words That Wound’: Swedish Whiteness and Its Inability to
Accommodate Minority Experiences 43
Tobias Hübinette
4 Belonging and the Icelandic Others: Situating Icelandic Identity in
a Postcolonial Context 57
Kristín Loftsdóttir
5 Transnational Influences, Gender Equality and Violence in Muslim
Families 73
Suvi Keskinen
6 Reading History through Finnish Exceptionalism 89
Anna Rastas
7 Danishness as Whiteness in Crisis: Emerging Post-Imperial and
Development Aid Anxieties 105
Lars Jensen
8 Bodies and Boundaries 119
Kirsten Hvenegård-Lassen and Serena Maurer
vi Whiteness and Postcolonialism in the Nordic Region
9 Intimacy with the Danish Nation State: My Partner, the Danish
State and I – A Case Study of Family Reunification Policy in
Denmark 141
Linda Lund Pedersen
10 Aesthetics and Ethnicity: The Role of Boundaries in Sámi and
Tornedalian Art 159
Anne Heith
Index 175
List of Contributors
Anne Heith is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the Department
of Culture and Media Studies, Umeå University, Sweden. Her latest book is Texts,
Media, Contexts (in Swedish, 2006). Between 2008 and 2011 she was a full-
time researcher in Border Poetics and Border Aesthetics at Tromsø University,
Norway. Her research focuses on the ways in which discursive constructions of
ethnicity, race, whiteness, gender, nation and globalization intersect in artistic
representations. Her recent publications include examinations of the function of
ethnification in Sámi and Swedish Tornedalian cultural mobilization.
Anna Rastas (Dr.Soc.Sc) is Research Fellow at the School of Social Sciences and
Humanities at the University of Tampere, Finland. Her doctoral dissertation (2007)
examined racism in the everyday life of children and young people. She has co-
edited books on racism and multiculturalism and is the author of several articles
and chapters on racialized relations and identities, transnational subjectivities,
whiteness in Finland, representations of Africans and African diaspora in Finland.
Her other research interests include literature for children, critical childhood and
youth studies and ethnographic and participatory research methods.
Christina Petterson is a postdoctoral research fellow at the research project
Gender as a Category of Knowledge at Humboldt University in Berlin. She has
a Master of Theology degree from Copenhagen and a PhD in Cultural Studies
from Macquarie University in Sydney. Her research focuses on the colonialism,
missions, race, sexuality, class, and the role of Christianity in eighteenth-century
Europe.
Erlend Eidsvik is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography at the
University of Bergen and a participant at the interdisciplinary research programme
In the Wake of Colonialism at the same university. His research interests include
Nordic encounters on the colonial arena, with a geographical emphasis on Southern
Africa.
Kirsten Hvenegård-Lassen is Associate Professor at Roskilde University,
Denmark. She is attached to the research group Intercultural Studies and the
interdisciplinary Centre for Gender, Power and Diversity, and teaches the BA and
MA programmes in Cultural Encounters. She has a PhD in Minority Studies from
the University of Copenhagen. Her research focuses on migrancy with a special
viii Whiteness and Postcolonialism in the Nordic Region
emphasis on intersecting mechanisms, categorizations and discourses of inclusion
and exclusion.
Kristín Loftsdóttir is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Iceland.
She received her PhD in anthropology from the University of Arizona (2000).
She has published several books and articles internationally. Among her books are
Teaching ‘Race’ with a Gendered Edge (co-editor 2012), The Woman Who Got a
Spear on Her Head: The Strangeness of Methodology (in Icelandic, 2010). Her
research focuses on Icelandic identity formation in the context of the economic
crisis, in addition to a critical investigation of whiteness in relation to international
development, issues relating to mobility, pastoralism and Icelandic racialized
identity.
Lars Jensen is Associate Professor at Cultural Encounters, Roskilde University.
He has worked and published in postcolonial studies for two decades, and is one of
three editors of the Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures: Continental
Europe and its Empires. He is currently finishing a manuscript on postcolonial
Denmark, which examines how Denmark has dealt with its colonial history and
how contemporary Denmark’s post-imperial anxieties over migration reflect this
broader history.
Linda Lund Pedersen is a PhD student in Gender Studies at the London School of
Economics and Political Science. Her current research areas include the political/
existential philosophy of Hannah Arendt in regard to debates on others and nation
state in a Danish context, exemplified through family reunification policies and
regulation of Muslim women’s attire. She is also interested in the emergent field of
postcolonialism and critical race/whiteness studies in Nordic/European contexts.
She has published and edited book chapters, articles, journals and anthologies.
Serena Maurer received her PhD in Women Studies at the University of
Washington in 2006, where she was a Lecturer in 2006–2007. From 2007 to 2010,
she was Visiting Lecturer in Cultural Encounters in the Department of Culture and
Identity at Roskilde University in Denmark as well as Affiliate Assistant Professor
with the University of Washington’s Women Studies Department. She is currently
preparing a programme on immigration in Italy and Spain for the University of
Washington Education Department and working with schools in Seattle, WA, USA
to develop anti-oppressive modes of education.
Suvi Keskinen is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Research at the
University of Turku, Finland. She has conducted research on gendered violence,
media representations and multicultural politics. Her research interests include
postcolonial feminism, politics of belonging, nationalism and racism. She has
published widely in Finland and internationally. Among her publications are
the co-edited book Complying with Colonialism: Gender, Race and Ethnicity in
List of Contributors ix
the Nordic Region (2009, Ashgate), and the articles Troublesome Differences –
Dealing with Gendered Violence, Ethnicity and ‘Race’ in the Finnish Welfare State
(2011, Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention)
and Limits to Speech? The Racialized Politics of Gendered Violence in Denmark
and Finland (2012, Journal of Intercultural Studies).
Tobias Hübinette has a PhD in Korean Studies from Stockholm University, is a
Reader in Intercultural Education at Södertörn University and works as a researcher
in Migration Studies at the Multicultural Centre, Sweden. He has published within
Asian studies and adoption studies, and cultural studies and postcolonial studies,
and his current research concerns critical race and whiteness studies within a
contemporary Swedish and Nordic context.
