We examine and compare two documentary films about old and new minorities in Norway, in light of the notion of national fantasy (Berlant 1991) as a “narrative support” for the nation and its subjects (Fortier 2008). We analyse Under en annen himmel [Under another sky] (Mikkelsen 2011) and Frivillig tvang [Willingly coerced] (Rolfsen 2014). These documentaries explore national identity and belonging in relation to Kven and Norwegian-Pakistani communities. Both documentaries were produced by members of their respective communities and share “insider” perspectives. In this presentation we address how narratives and meanings in these documentaries provide evidence of the ways in which Norwegian society makes sense of itself and its ‘others’, in relation to the concept of a national fantasy of homogeneity.

Norway’s relation to its others is built on a self-image as a “markedly homogeneous” country before more recent overseas migrations in the early 1970s (Bjørklund and Bergh 2013). The myth of homogeneity ignores Norway’s longstanding immigration history and complex relationship with ethnic and indigenous minorities, including the Kvens who are people of Finnish heritage living in Northern Norway. Kvens are a white minority who have historically been racialized (yet slightly differently to the Sámi population), and subject to harsh Norwegianisation policies. Immigration from Pakistan to Norway began in the 1970s, and the Norwegian-Pakistani community represents a sizable segment of the overall population of migrants and their descendants.

We argue that the stories of family in Under en annen himmel challenge the fantasy of the nation by reviving the markers of a past Kven identity as potentially still available to Norwegians with Kven heritage. In contrast, the family narratives in Frivillig tvang uphold the fantasy by symbolically ejecting non-assimilated Norwegian-Pakistanis from the boundaries of the state. Despite it giving a voice to Norwegian-Pakistanis who resist assimilation, this resistance is negatively framed.

We imagine that old and new minorities can learn from each other, and in conclusion we discuss past and present assimilation policies. Assimilation has personal, familial and communal costs. The documentaries remind us of this, and of the moral bankruptcy of the fantasy of the homogenous and ‘whole’ nation.

Priscilla Ringrose is Professor of Gender Studies and of French Literature at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Her research interests include migration and gender, education and integration, paid domestic labour, Islamic fundamentalisms and postcolonial francophone literature. She currently leads a Research Council of Norway funded project Language, Integration, Media: a majority-inclusive approach to integration relating to citizen and non-citizen adolescents. She has edited and published several books and journal articles, including the co-edited Paid Migrant Domestic Labour in a Changing Europe (Palgrave MacMillan 2016). The conference presentation is based on a book chapter from the anthology ‘Undoing Homogeneity in the Nordic Region: Difference, Securitisation and the New Politics of Solidarity’, edited by Suvi Keskinen, Unnur Dís Skaptadóttir and Mari Toivanen (forthcoming).

Elisabeth Stubberud has a PhD in gender research, and is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Education and Lifelong Learning at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She is currently working on a research project on historical and contemporary coastal cultures in Northern Norway, focusing in particular on local knowledge, identity, migration, and belonging in Northern Norway. She has worked with and published on issues relation to youth, gender and sexuality, queer indigeneity, violence, discrimination and hate speech. Her research interests include feminist and decolonial methodologies, migration and belonging, and queer theory.

Priscilla Ringrose, Professor, Department of Language and Literature, Norwegian University of Science and Technology