The idea of Sweden – and the Nordic region at large – as a global stronghold for equality and humanity is crumbling. The political situation in Sweden is tense, as in many other countries in Europe and the world. The parliamentary position of the populist right-wing through Sverigedemokraterna is secure. Meanwhile, the normalization of anti-immigratory and islamophobic discourse within and from the other established parties is consolidated – onwards since the austere response in 2016 to the so called refugee crisis – and explicitly racist/Nazi groupings like Nordiska Motståndsrörelsen have been highly visible in public spaces in the recent year(s). At the same time, a diversified antiracist milieu continues to emerge. New “refugees welcome” initiatives gather with older and similar projects – in practical support to refugees as well as in structural critique – and the critical conversation of structural racism, race and whiteness in Sweden continues to unfold. Race is being politicized from both the left and the right and it seems we are moving (at least partly) away from a long and solid (however, multifaceted) period of color-blindness, in which the image of Sweden as an exceptional space has been central. Sweden is being connected to the outside world, in mainly two conflicting ways: To the European and North-American national-ist/fascist/alt-right movements by the far-right, and by radical anti-racists – through for instance post-colonial and black-feminist critique – to the colonial globality of racial inequality. I am particularly interested in how the concept whiteness is mobilized and negotiated in antiracist projects and discourses, and how it resonates with ideas and discourses of class. An often-cited critique is that race and whiteness are theoretical concepts imported from USA which do not fit the Nordic situations, and which produce exclusive academic discourses. Can we incorporate this critique fruitfully in the production of analysis?

Lisa Karlsson Blom is a PhD candidate at Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO) at Linköping University in Sweden. Her dissertation project revolves around the questions of race, whiteness and class within antiracist discourses in contemporary Sweden. The project uses mainly qualititative methods with in-depth interviews at the core.

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