List of abstracts
Racism and Anti-racism in the Nordic Societies
June 1-2, 2017,
Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden
Keynotes
Prof. Ghorashi Halleh
VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Rethinking Democracy & Solidarity in Late Modern Times
Many scholars argue that in late modern societies it is the rather invisible normalizing aspect
of power that is at work instead of visible and forceful forms of domination. In that definition,
power is not visible through the dominance of positions, but is shaping our actions through
discourses and invisible processes that become routine. Since the turn of the twenty-first
century we can observe a growing normalization of othering in many European societies. The
dichotomous construction of otherness through culture is a fundamental ingredient in the
current trend and is leading to exclusion. The culture (including religion) of migrants is
essentialized and imagined as absolutely different and inferior to the culture of natives. In
spite of the visible consequences of these othering practices, the discursive foundation of its
reproduction is taken for granted. It is particularly this process of normalization which severely
limits the possibilities of resistance against processes of othering in late modern times. I will
argue for the revitalization of the concept of democracy in order to rethink the possibilities of
resistance against normalized foundation of othering practices through engaged solidarity.
To do that, Judith Butler’s “strategy of subversive repetition” could be helpful, as well as other
forms of resistance.
Prof. Gardell Mattias
Uppsala University
Racialized technologies of terror and the affective dimension of ultranationalist
politics
According to international monitors, the level of terrorism and political violence in Sweden
has skyrocketed to unprecedented levels during the past two years. This essay explores two
critical aspects involved in this recent surge of ultranationalist violence in relation to the
racialized order of things. Firstly, it investigates the work that terrorism naming practices does
in producing the folk of the nation. As terrorism by judicial definition is a form of political
violence unleashed to “intimidate the population or a group thereof”, assigning – or abstaining
1
from assigning – the label “terrorism” to an incident of political violence directed against
civilians within a given territory, is to broadcast a racialized message of who properly belongs
to the population that may be terrorized. Terrorism naming practices may thus repeat the
exclusionary message inherent to ultranationalist political violence on the symbolic level.
Secondly, it explores the role of subjective violence in the ultranationalist attempt to “recreate”
a homogenous nation that never existed. While the literature on ultranationalist inspired hate
crime typically sees the perpetrators as “angry white men”, the ultranationalist activists
interviewed in this study typically claimed to act out of love, not hate. By examining how love
and hate may reinforce each other, this essay argues that ultranationalist hate crime is a form
of political violence that patrols the borders and identities it produces.
Dr. Murji Karim
The Open University, UK
Race Critique/Public Critique
The ways in which academic scholars conceive of and debate matters of race and racism
are matters of theoretical discussion, but they are also practical matters in contemporary
societies. What does or could the nature of that practical activity look like? While debates
about the relationship of scholarship to politics and publics are not new, they signify in
particular ways in our times when racism, xenophobia, and racial inequality in the everyday
social and political realities of contemporary societies are at a heightened level. As well as
Islamophobia, the resurgence of debate about forced migration, refugees, and race in
Europe, alongside the public furore about police brutality in the USA have spilled over into
political and policy campaigns such as Open Borders, Cities/universities of sanctuary and
made Black Lives Matter into a mainstream political question. At the same time the academy
itself has been brought into the spotlight through campaigns such as Rhodes Must Fall and
Why isn’t my professor black, while post-colonial and decolonial scholars have also raised
far reaching questions about the racialised history and precepts of disciplines such as
sociology. This wide span indicates that academic scholarship cannot position itself ‘outside’
of issues such as racism that it aims to understand and tackle, particularly academic labour
that seeks to be critical and engaged. There are several and overlapping ways of framing
forms of engaged scholarship from conventional public intellectual work, though to public
sociology, scholar-activism and race critical approaches. The aim of this presentation is to
historicise some of these debates in ways that centre the university and scholars as active
participants in public debates as well as objects of scrutiny. Drawing on my own engagement
as well as an account of the work of some others, I explore what making race critique into
public critique looks like and to suggest ways of developing this further.
2
Dr. Keskinen Suvi
University of Turku
The Threat of Separatism? Challenging White Hegemony through Postethnic Activism
New kinds of activism has emerged in the Nordic countries, in which mobilisation occurs on
basis of being racialised as ‘other’ or non-white (by the surrounding society) instead of
organising around ethnic group membership. This ‘postethnic activism’ has developed
through social media platforms, local action groups, residence area based activities and art
movements. In societies where the racial formation has been based on white hegemony the
response in the public sphere has been divided: while some media sources have provided
space for the activists to contribute with texts and programmes, the challenging of taken-forgranted notions of nation, race and gender has also led to harsh attacks on individual activists
and (what is perceived as) identity politics. Especially the separatist forms of organising have
stirred up not only racist online commentators but many journalists, politicians and
researchers. Based on interview, observation and media data gathered in Sweden, Denmark
and Finland, this presentation explores the different choices and motivations that activists
present for using separatist and inclusive strategies, as well as how they shift between
different activities and identity categories. By developing both spaces with their own
rules/focus and entering mainstream media platforms the activists are changing the racial
politics and the politicisation of the social in the Nordic countries.
3
Bangstad Sindre
Researcher II, KIFO, Institute For Church, Religion- and Worldview Research,
Oslo, Norway
Resisting/Resistant Islamophobia: Norway and the Securitization of Muslims in
the Post 22/7 2011 Era
The ‘securitization of Islam’ , and the distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Muslims have in
recent years become increasingly dominant paradigms for ‘understanding’ Muslims and
Islam in Norway. The current inflections of ‘Islam in liberalism’ (Massad2015; Devji 2016) in
Norway severely narrows the space for open and public contestation and critique of
Norwegian domestic and foreign policies on the part of Norwegian Muslims, and impede a
recognition of the dynamics of racialization, racism and discrimination that many Muslims in
Norway experience. I will in this presentation explore the rise of the ‘securitization of
Muslims’- paradigm in Norway since 2011 – especially in the context of the most right-wing
Norwegian government since World War II demonstrating an overwhelming interest in
‘counter-radicalization’ measures targeting Muslims rather than right-wing extremists after
2012 - and its wider repercussions for Norwegian Muslims in the form of the creation of
‘suspect communities.’
Custódio Leonardo
Tampere Research Centre for Journalism, Media and Communication (COMET)
Local Anti-Racism Media Activism in the Global Digital Age: Comparing Tactics to
Raise Marginalized Voices in Brazil and Finland
What does comparing efforts to raise marginalized voices in different societies tell about
citizens’ uses of digital media for political participation in the global digital age? This paper
presents a multi-sited ethnographic research that compares how victims of racism in Brazil
and Finland engage in media activism to speak up and participate in local public debates.
From a citizen-centered approach, the main objective of this 2-year study is to analyze the
conflicting dynamics between established public spheres and the formation of counterpublics
in distinct sociopolitical, economic and cultural contexts. This research demonstrates how indepth approaches to local uses of digital media against racism can make fundamental
contributions to a more nuanced understanding of the potential and limitations of digital media
for the promotion of citizens’ political participation in different societies around the world.
4
Fredriksson Malin
Åbo Akademi University, Finland
Negotiations of Racist Hate Crimes in the Criminal Justice System in Finland
In the year 2015, a 52 % increase in suspected hate crimes was reported to the police
authority in Finland. The judicial measurements criminalizing hate crime are important means
to fight against xenophobia and racism, since these have an important function in maintaining
the ideals of equality and societal security in a democratic society. However, the ground of
the enhancement of punishment is not often applied in hate crimes, since it is difficult to
identify and prove the existence of hate motive. The openness of laws requires the law
enforcement agents to shape policies and internal practices to determine how decisions
should be made and implemented. Cultural understandings, ethical values and views on
human nature occur in the criminal justice system, as in society at large, and shape decisionmaking, organizational culture etc. Hate crimes can be regarded as a response to the
perceived threat of ‘the other’. Although the practices of the criminal justice system are
supposed to protect the fundamental rights of individuals, and particularly those of the
minorities and vulnerable groups, they also contribute to ‘making difference’ by (re)producing
normative identities and minority positions, such as categories of race, ethnicity, and religion.
Groglopo Adrián
Gothenburg university
The State and the Other
The aftermath of 9/11, the new doctrine of “war on terror” and the imperialist wars, sparked
a series of security/warfare policies in Western societies that reorganized the states’
regulation over their population at large and on the racialized “Other” in particular. Sweden,
well known for its welfare state, is a good example of this reorganization. It intensified the
role of the welfare state into a surveillance state based on the racial ordering. Migrants and
asylum seekers from the global South and Muslim communities have been targeted by state
surveillance politics of race, but also by the far-right movements that have been growing in
number and strength. Several state institutions and projects have been introduced among
the population to control and discipline in different ways, from militarization of the suburbs
where migrants are more represented, to specific projects that focus on “detecting” violent
personalities in migrant and Muslim communities, to projects that control and discipline the
racialized “Other” to become more “Swedish”. The aim of this article is to analyse the relation
and the reorganisation of the Swedish state to the racialized “Other”, specifically on the
relation to the Muslims and Muslim communities, and the production of state islamophobia.
5
Helakorpi Jenni
University of Helsinki
Troubling the Discourses Around the Demand for Knowledge about Roma and
Traveller Minorities in Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian schools
The presentation discusses and troubles the current discourses around the demand for
knowledge about minorities in schools. In the Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian education
and minority policies there is a demand that schools should have more knowledge about the
countries’ national Roma and Traveller minorities. These demands suggest that this
knowledge about the minorities would be the way to promote inclusion and to tackle
discrimination and racism the Roma and Travellers face in the education and the societies
more widely. The knowledge is also stated to contribute to the wider acknowledgement of the
histories and belonging of the Roma and Traveller minorities in the Nordic countries. This
presentation is based on two different data sets (a) interviews with 25 people who work to
promote the basic education of Roma and Traveller minorities in Finland, Sweden and
Norway and (b) materials that are designed for the schools by the authorities. Drawing on the
feminist theories of subject constitution and power as well as the critical theories of whiteness
and 'race' it is asked what kind of power relations and subjectivities are constituted in the
current discursive terrain around the demand for knowledge about minorities. It is also
discussed what the underlying assumptions about discrimination, racism and the Nordic
societies are in the discourses.
Himanen Markus
University of Turku
Police Property? Bulgarian and Romanian Street Workers’ Experiences of
Mistreatment and Ethnic Profiling by the Police and Security Guards in Helsinki
Many economically disadvantaged migrants from Romania and Bulgaria, of whom many
belong to the Roma minority, work in the streets of Nordic cities. The main reason for this
form of migration is racial discrimination in the labour market and restricted access to basic
services in South-East Europe. Instead of rights-based solutions, EU countries have reacted
to these migrations with securitized policies that have resulted in recurrent police stops and
forced evictions.
The presentation is based on an analysis of semi-structured group interviews with precarious
street workers from Romania and Bulgaria living rough in Helsinki (N=26), interviews with
NGO employees (N=6) and authorities (N=20). The research is made as a part of the project
“Stopped – Spaces, Meanings and Practices of Ethnic Profiling” (2015–2018).
The presentation discusses the experiences of the street workers: frequent police stops and
arrests, evictions and harassment by the security guards in the train stations and shopping
6
centres. Secondly, the presentation analyses the different interpretations of these encounters
made by the street workers, NGO employees and authorities. It argues that the targeting of
the street workers by the police and security guards is partly made possible through
intersection of their legal status, class position and ethnicity.
Hokka Jenni
University of Tampere
Ironic Reflexivity, Emotional Engagement and ‘Post-Factual’ Discourse in Public
Considerations of Racism
Understandings of racisms are increasingly shaped and contested in the interactive everyday
cultures of digital media. Recent platforms studies have showed how commercial digital
platforms shape and control policies of publishing and therefore also understandings of
racism. In this networked media environment social and political action are characterized by
ironic reflexivity, affective orientations and commitments to ‘post-factual’ discourse. This is
why this study explores the ways in which racialized imageries and humour are articulated in
digital media and how they become circulated in various networks. By focusing on humorous
images and memes in the data, it investigates the affective economy (Ahmed 2004) of racism.
The data for this study is collected from Finnish online discussion forums, social media and
mainstream news platforms and analysed using both qualitative visual analysis and big data
analysis. The study is a part of research project 'Racisms and public communication in the
hybrid media system' funded by the Academy of Finland.
Kalsås Vidar Fagerheim
University of Agder
Historical Narratives on Romani and Roma in Educational Texts
In recent years, new forms of educational texts for primary and secondary schools have
appeared in Norway and Sweden, addressing aspects of the curriculum which the traditional
textbooks have overlooked. One such set of texts have specifically thematised the ethnic
minorities Romani/Travellers and Roma. In this paper, my aim is to examine how these texts
are addressing antiziganist attitudes and discriminatory practises. The main research
question is what historical narratives about Romani and Roma that is being mediated in these
texts. The narratives are further contextualised within the minority policy and educational
policy in Norway and Sweden. My objective is to expand our insight into how historical
knowledge and narrative strategies has been applied in order to create educational texts that
aims at counteracting racism and ethnic discrimination.
7
Kolankiewicz Marta
Lund University, Sweden
Closeness and Distance in Media Reports on the Trollhättan Attack
The paper explores the Swedish media reporting on the Trollhättan school attack, in which a
pupil and two staff of the school were killed and another pupil injured by a young man. The
day after the attack the police declared that the attack was a hate crime since the victims had
been selected because of their skin colour. I am interested in the first 24 hours after the
attack—the time from when the news about the attack breaks until the moment that a
hegemonic knowledge about the attack is established—and claim that the media played here
a special role in installing frames, through which the audience could look at the event.
Drawing on Judith Butler’s theory of frames and Lilie Chouliaraki’s theories of media
discourses as construing sufferings as being worthy or not of spectators’ pity, I identify three
different frames installed by the media in this time: of the compassionate spectatorship, of
threatening suburb and of a racist act. I analyse these frames and explore the possibilities
they offer for audiences in terms of establishing closeness or distance to the suffering other.
Kyrölä Katariina
University of Turku, Finland
Åbo Akademi University, Finland (from 1 June, 2017)
Queering Nordic Indigeneity: Collaborative Possibilities, Conceptual Interventions
The presentation introduces the research project Queering Nordic Indigeneity which is
located in the intersections of queer, posthumanist and indigenous feminisms and indigenous
media studies. The project interrogates contemporary media imageries of Sámi people as
well as Sápmi land in the context of Finland, Sweden and Norway and asks how such
imageries raise and mobilize questions of indigeneity in relation to non-normative sexuality
and gender. The presentation will consider the conceptual and political possibilities for a more
thorough enmeshment of queer feminist thought with indigenous studies in Sámi research.
What can queer and feminist indigenous studies conducted in other cultural contexts, such
as North America, contribute to Sámi studies in a Nordic context – and vice versa? How to
produce knowledge about imageries of Sámi in an ethical way? The presentation addresses
these questions through the example of the queer, post- or non-human, indigenous feminist
significance of the current debates around Sámi dress and its cultural appropriation
particularly in Finnish popular culture.
8
Palsa Lauri
University of Lapland, Finland
Media Literacy and Media Education as Ways to Challenge the Problematic Narratives
in Today’s Media Culture
Media plays an important role in today´s society. Media can be seen to have the ability to
produce narratives and discourse that maintain the impression of Nordic social cohesion and
cultural homogeneity. However, media also holds the keys to challenge them. Through the
different media we have the access to information, the tools to communicate with others and
also ways to express ourselves and to participate. In this workshop presentation the concept
of media literacy is discussed in the context of today´s media culture.
In this presentation I examine the concept of media literacy particularly from the perspective
of conceptual diversity. The extent and diversity of media literacy can be seen, at the same
time, as strengths or weaknesses of the concept. From this perspective media literacy can
be seen as a way to understand and challenge problematic narratives. However, more
conceptual discussion is needed. The presentation is based on a currently on-going
dissertation research.
Ruotsalainen Nelli
University of Turku
How to Conduct Antiracist Research while ‘White’
In my research, I examine the ‘invisible norms’ of whiteness and how they are maintained,
but also challenged, by actors in the feminist movement in Finland. I investigate bell hooks’
(1984, 56) assertion that “many white women*… may not have conscious understanding of
the ideology of white supremacy and the extent to which it shapes their behavior and attitudes
towards women* unlike themselves”. I am interested in detecting the central modes this
takes, but I am most interested in exploring the possibilities for actors who benefit from white
privilege to challenge and provide alternatives to practices and meanings that reproduce
racialized power relations within the feminist movement. In this paper I explore
methodological questions that direct antiracist research from a position of racial privilege. I
approach the methodological choices through what Adale Sholock’s calls “methodology of
the privileged” and “epistemic uncertainty” (2012), as practices that must accompany the
researcher, and also the actor in the feminist movement, who seek to move from antiracist
intentions to antiracist impacts.
*While hooks uses “wo men” I use “feminists” and understand this as a form of selfidentification that is not bound to a person’s gender or lack thereof.
9
Sager Maja and Kolankiewicz Marta
Lund University, Sweden
The Court as an Emerging Arena for Struggles against and about Racism – an
exploration of feminist and critical theoretical frames
In this paper we sketch the theoretical and analytical framework for a new research project
entitled “The Court as an Emerging Arena for Struggles against and about Racism”. The
project intends to explore courts as an emerging arena on which political and social
contestations over racism take place in Sweden. This will be done through an in-depth
analysis of several high-profile cases in which political struggles against and about racism
have moved into courts. The purpose of the project is to understand what kind of space courts
provide for protection from and debate about racism, and how different forms of activism
involving anti-racism, but also racism, are mobilized in courts.
The project is situated in a few different theoretical fields, central among these is the field of
feminist and anti-racist theories of justice and in particular debates on the use of – and
limitations to – law as a tool in emancipatory struggles. In this paper, we present an overview
of this field with particular focus on issues that are relevant for our project and on specificities
of the Swedish context.
Schwenkenberg Alexander
Viadrina University Frankfurt
“Deradicalisation Policies in Denmark and the Netherlands”
The thesis wants therefore to explore how state agencies, primarily agencies deploying firstline practitioners in Denmark and the Netherlands understand the problem of „radicalisation“,
develop policies and react according to their understanding. It wants to analyse how these
policies are delivered on the street and how these actions are being filtered back to the public.
The governing ideas of these programs can derive either from institutional tradition, academic
research, political debate, personal experience or from all of these factors to varying degrees.
The policies themselves are understood again through the same filters and framings. They
generate experiences which again are being filtered according to these frames and ultimately
influence public perception.
The two countries selected share a couple of parameter; yet they also differ in important
regards. Obviously, both countries are West European parliamentarian democracies in which
Islam is first and foremost a migrant religion, having come to these countries primarily with
migrants from Muslim majority countries. Both boast of what could be called a deeply layered
welfare state. Both countries boast elites which are committed internationalists and whose
members often possess an education from abroad, even if the countries themselves attract
10
little scientific interest from outside. Both countries have also seen massive parliamentarian
representation of right-populist parties for which “Islam” is an evermore important topic.
Yet, the countries also differ in important aspects. Though both countries have a strong
political tradition rooted in Protestant Christianity, the large Catholic minority in the
Netherlands prompted the development of a very different conception of identity. Whereas
in Denmark the idea of an exclusive ethnic identity of Danishness developed in
contradistinction to what was increasingly understood to be “foreign” German influence in the
19th century, in the Netherlands at the same time the concept of pillarization was developed,
i.e. a concept of segregation along denominational and political lines under a shared “roof”.
In the course of my research, the project has moved steadily away from the pragmatics of
deradicalisation to the large questions which the work-shop is dealing with; this project has
bearing on the following of your guiding workshop questions: How are notions of cultural/
religious/racial homogeneity created and challenged in policies, media and civil society
organising? What kinds of processes of securitisation and desecuritisation can be detected
in Nordic societies? How are questions of security discussed in relation to racialized
minorities, urban areas and gender?
Seikkula Minna
University of Turku, Finland
Activists’ Varying Conceptions of Racism and Anti-Racism
In Finland, racism has moved from an ignored theme to centre of societal discussions.
Reciting pan-European anti-immigration racist agenda has shaped the public debate since
2008. At the same time, concerns to recognize and condemn racism have been voiced in the
same arenas.
Under recent years anti-racism has been deployed among others by people reacting to
heightened presence of the extreme right, as well as by those demonstrating solidarity to
newly arrived migrants and those articulating of Black, Brown and Muslim identities in the
Finnish context. However, as previous academic work suggests, conceptions of racism and
anti-racism are far from unanimous. How is racism conceived by people from various
backgrounds and distinct anti-racist communities?
The paper explores conceptions of racism and anti-racism through interviews with activists.
The focus is in particular on how racism is connected to or disconnected from the continuum
of coloniality reproducing the world dived to west and the rest through racialized borders
among other things.
11
Thapar-Björkert Suruchi & Philipson Isaac Sarah
Thapar-Björkert, University of Uppsala
Philipson Isaac, Institute for Future Studies, Stockholm
‘Curfew, Stun Guns and Rubber Bullets’: Unpacking Structural Violence in the
Militarization of the Suburb
The political discourse surrounding the Husby uprisings in 2013, brought centre-stage the
‘monopoly of violence’ held by the Swedish state and its functionaries, particularly the police.
Embedded within the racialised and gendered topography of suburban Stockholm are
representations of certain areas as “social risks” and ‘non-white’ bodies in need of
surveillance and discipline (Ericsson 1991). Suggestions of introducing stun guns, rubber
bullets and curfews are some examples of such disciplining practices. These discourses
frame our empirical data, which draws on the Alliansen press conference in Husby 2016, the
following party leader debate in Agenda (SVT) and a police report on “vulnerable areas” and
“social risk” (2016). We unpack our empirical work through the theoretical lens of structural
violence which supports covert structures of inequality and which are difficult to identify
because they are naturalized and normalized. Building on and critically engaging with the
work on Galtung (1969, 1990, 1985), Klienman (2000), Arendt (1964), Farmer (2000, 2006)
and Scheper-Hughes (1999), we explore mechanisms which support and nurture what
Franco Basaglia (1996) refers to as invisible ‘peacetime crimes’. We analyse three theoretical
themes of structural violence: a) Assaults on Dignity and Integrity b) Silencing Suffering and
c) Inequality of Power and Distribution of Resources, to demonstrate the processes
militarization of the suburb.
Our work draws on VR funded project: Civil Society and Deliberative Democracy: Suburban
Riots in Sweden and Civic Associations Representation of Marginalisation in Public
Discourse
Tryggvadóttir Helga
University of Iceland
Asylum Seekers’ Experience of Racism and Racist discourse in Iceland
In recent years there has been a growing number of people seeking asylum in Iceland. While
waiting for an answer to their asylum claim they live there and strive to become part of
Icelandic society. One of the factors that might influence their integration in Icelandic society
is racism and racist discourse. I will discuss how asylum seekers and refugees in Iceland
experience racism, based on participation research and interviews with asylum seekers.
I will also analyze the public discourse regarding asylum seekers and refugees, both through
newspaper articles and online comments, focusing on how the “Other” is constructed in
contrast with Icelandic identity. I will argue that the construction of the identity of the asylum
12
seeker as Other is both racialized and gendered, as well as homogenized, in the public
discussion.
In general, the online public discussion seems to differ from the experience that the asylum
seekers have of racism in Iceland. It therefore seems that much of the racist sentiments
expressed in Iceland is expressed online and in Icelandic, and therefore mainly directed
towards other Icelanders but less so directly towards the asylum seekers.
Vertelyte Mante
Aalborg University Copenhagen
The Conundrum of Racialization in Mixed Friendship Practices in Denmark
For the last decade the figure of ‘mixed friendships’ (blandede venskaber) has been
predominantly used in the integration narratives in Denmark. Underpinned by the imaginaries
of building bridges and intergroup bonding, friendship is pro-actively used as an inclusion tool
by municipal integration policy managers, governmental and non governmental institutions,
school teachers and pedagogues working with youth. The desire of ‘mixed friendship’
seemingly alludes to the ideals of multicultural society, equality and diversity and yet at the
same time is subscribed to racialized notions of cultural sameness, segregation and
incompatibility of cultures, which ‘mixed friendships’ are employed to solve. At the core of my
research I ask what does racialization process do to friendship, affectively and discursively,
and what roles and functions the process of friending play in constructing and countering the
processes of racialization? In this paper i will particularly look at how the narratives and
practices surrounding the figure of mixed friendship shapes the broader process of social
ordering. I seek to understand and explain the discursive and affective structures that inform
the ideas and everyday-life practices of ‘mixed friendship’ and claims making behind it. The
paper draws on ethnographic observations from several local municipality ‘friendship
projects’, as well as ethnographic work in one of the so called culturally diverse schools in
Denmark (including the interviews with youth, their parents and teachers).
Volen Evgenii
University of Turku, Sociology
Peculiarities of Belonging of Russian-speaking Minority in Finland in Condition of
Political and Economic Conflicts Between Russia and the EU.
Finland and Russia have rich common history, and no wonder, that Russian-speaking
migrants are the third largest group in Finland. We have already thoughtful research
background of cultural and social interactions. However, while the role of smaller migrant
groups (like Kurd and Arabs) is being actively researched, the phenomenon of belonging of
Russians in Finland remains still unclear. All the more reason, political and cultural processes
13
taken place in the Russian Federation and Ukraine have caused certain changes in different
migrant groups from the former Soviet Union in Finland.
In my project, I research how recent political and social changes in Russia have influenced
members of Russian-speaking minority in Finland, and how migrants have responded on
that. I am taking interviews among people of different social groups, like employees, students,
repatriates, who have Finnish roots. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA) and thematic
analysis, I analyse changes of sense of belonging of my interviewees and their expectations,
which, I believe, will help to understand phenomenon of belonging and migration in general.
Wieslander Malin
Linköping University
Controversy Diversity Discourses in the Swedish Police
The Swedish police’s official policies for diversity and social equality are recognised but also
called into question by internal forces, and diversity can thus be seen as complex and
contradictory in Swedish police. The paper deals with diversity in the interface between police
education, service and policy as the results are based on accounts of police trainees in their
final educational year which includes probationary service at a police station. The
contradictory diversity discourses reflect a struggle of a different ‘us’, which regulates the
conception of the ideal police, professional conduct and how policing should be performed.
Ideological ideals of equal rights become restricted in relation to a perceived notion of
a neutral authority but also to the mandate, realities and difficulties of police work. The
police mandate to uphold democratic rights is downplayed by the mandate to maintain order
in society. A conceptual framework is presented for understanding discourses and dilemmas
of diversity in the police. The paper also stresses that people draw on multiple discourses
legitimising claims for and against diversity. This calls for a focus on power and discourses
in use rather than people’s attitudes.
14