Feminisms in the Nordic Region: Neoliberalism, Nationalism and Decolonial Critique [1st ed.] 9783030534639, 9783030534646

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xvii
Contextualising Feminisms in the Nordic Region: Neoliberalism, Nationalism, and Decolonial Critique (Pauline Stoltz, Diana Mulinari, Suvi Keskinen)....Pages 1-21
Co-optation and Feminisms in the Nordic Region: ‘Gender-friendly’ Welfare States, ‘Nordic exceptionalism’ and Intersectionality (Pauline Stoltz)....Pages 23-43
Front Matter ....Pages 45-45
Gender, Citizenship and Intersectionality: Contending with Nationalisms in the Nordic Region (Birte Siim)....Pages 47-66
Changing Feminist Politics in a ‘Strategic State’ (Anna Elomäki, Johanna Kantola, Anu Koivunen, Hanna Ylöstalo)....Pages 67-88
‘Danishness’, Repressive Immigration Policies and Exclusionary Framings of Gender Equality (Christel Stormhøj)....Pages 89-109
Front Matter ....Pages 111-111
Nordic Academic Feminism and Whiteness as Epistemic Habit (Ulrika Dahl)....Pages 113-133
Indigenising Nordic Feminism—A Sámi Decolonial Critique (Astri Dankertsen)....Pages 135-154
Saami Women at the Threshold of Disappearance: Elsa Laula Renberg (1877–1931) and Karin Stenberg’s (1884–1969) Challenges to Nordic Feminism (Stine H. Bang Svendsen)....Pages 155-176
Front Matter ....Pages 177-177
“And They Cannot Teach Us How to Cycle”: The Category of Migrant Women and Antiracist Feminism in Sweden (Diana Mulinari)....Pages 179-200
Antiracist Feminism and the Politics of Solidarity in Neoliberal Times (Suvi Keskinen)....Pages 201-221
Rethinking Design: A Dialogue on Anti-Racism and Art Activism from a Decolonial Perspective (Faith Mkwesha, Sasha Huber)....Pages 223-245
Epilogue: We Should All Be Dreaming Vol. 3 (Maryan Abdulkarim, Sonya Lindfors)....Pages 247-250
Back Matter ....Pages 251-254

Citation preview

GENDER AND POLITICS SERIES EDITORS: JOHANNA KANTOLA · SARAH CHILDS

Feminisms in the Nordic Region Neoliberalism, Nationalism and Decolonial Critique

Edited by Suvi Keskinen · Pauline Stoltz Diana Mulinari

Gender and Politics Series Editors Johanna Kantola University of Tampere Tampere, Finland Sarah Childs Royal Holloway, University of London Egham, UK

The Gender and Politics series celebrated its 7th anniversary at the 5th European Conference on Politics and Gender (ECPG) in June 2017 in Lausanne, Switzerland having published more than 35 volumes to date. The original idea for the book series was envisioned by the series editors Johanna Kantola and Judith Squires at the first ECPG in Belfast in 2009, and the series was officially launched at the Conference in Budapest in 2011. In 2014, Sarah Childs became the co-editor of the series, together with Johanna Kantola. Gender and Politics showcases the very best international writing. It publishes world class monographs and edited collections from scholars  - junior and well established  - working in politics, international relations and public policy, with specific reference to questions of gender. The titles that have come out over the past years make key contributions to debates on intersectionality and diversity, gender equality, social movements, Europeanization and institutionalism, governance and norms, policies, and political institutions. Set in European, US and Latin American contexts, these books provide rich new empirical findings and push forward boundaries of feminist and politics conceptual and theoretical research. The editors welcome the highest quality international research on these topics and beyond, and look for proposals on feminist political theory; on recent political transformations such as the economic crisis or the rise of the populist right; as well as proposals on continuing feminist dilemmas around participation and representation, specific gendered policy fields, and policy making mechanisms. The series can also include books published as a Palgrave pivot. For further information on the series and to submit a proposal for consideration, please get in touch with Senior Editor Ambra Finotello, [email protected]. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14998

Suvi Keskinen  •  Pauline Stoltz Diana Mulinari Editors

Feminisms in the Nordic Region Neoliberalism, Nationalism and Decolonial Critique

Editors Suvi Keskinen Swedish School of Social Science University of Helsinki Helsinki, Finland

Pauline Stoltz Department of Politics and Society Aalborg University Aalborg, Denmark

Diana Mulinari Department of Gender Studies Lund University Lund, Sweden

ISSN 2662-5814     ISSN 2662-5822 (electronic) Gender and Politics ISBN 978-3-030-53463-9    ISBN 978-3-030-53464-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53464-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 Chapters 6 and 10 are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). For further details see license information in the chapter. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: dancingfishes / Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

The editors wish to thank all the contributors for their hard work and patience in the making of this volume. We are especially grateful for being able to include the dialogue ‘We should all be dreaming’ as the epilogue of the book—thanks very much Maryan Abdulkarim and Sonya Lindfors! We would also like to thank The Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils in Humanities and Social Sciences and the Nordic Council of Ministers by means of Nordic Information on Gender for the generous funding of the project ‘The Future of Feminisms in the Nordic Region’, which ran between 2016 and 2017. This enabled us to organize three workshops in Copenhagen, Lund and Oslo, which attracted a total of 48 participants from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the UK, the US, Germany and Canada. The participants included activists, researchers and researcher/activists. Thanks to everybody who participated in the workshops and inspired the discussions on the future of feminisms in the Nordic region and beyond! Our special thanks go to the wonderful keynote lecturers Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Rauna Kuokkanen, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Fakhra Salimi, Elizabeth Evans and Elisabeth Eide. In addition to this edited volume, the network has produced individual and collective publications, including the special issue ‘Feminism in the Nordic region’ in the online international feminist journal Labrys, edited by Beatrice Halsaa and Diana Mulinari. We wish to thank Beatrice for all her work in the network and for organizing the workshop in Oslo, together with her team at the University of Oslo.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Pauline would like to thank the administration at Aalborg University for being of great assistance in applying for funding and helping to coordinate the project, the network and the workshops. She would especially like to thank Julie Skibsted Larsen, Marianne Ellersgaard, Anna Stegger Gemzøe and Helene Møller Larsen. Diana would like to thank the staff and researchers at the Department of Gender Studies at Lund University. Suvi wishes to thank the researchers at The Centre for Research on Ethnic Relations and Nationalism for the community of intellectual curiosity and disobedient knowledge, as well as the Swedish School of Social Science at the University of Helsinki for providing a supportive research environment. Suvi also wants to thank the Academy of Finland for funding that enabled the work on this book (decisions 275032 and 316445).

Praise for Feminisms in the Nordic Region “By bringing questions of migration, indigeneity and de-coloniality to the forefront of feminist investigations, this important collection provides original insights into recent development of Nordic feminism. While situated in the Nordic countries, the volume will be of interest to anyone interested in how feminism has responded to neoliberalism, right-wing populism and gender conservatism. Significantly, the volume illustrates how new reconfigurations of solidarities can exist across differences—also in a time of exclusionary nationalism and racism.” —Rikke Andreassen, Professor of Culture and Media, Roskilde University, Denmark “This volume is a must-read for anyone interested in contemporary intersectional feminisms. It is a timely and original collection, breaking new ground in the field of gender and women* studies, critical migration and racism studies, Arctic indigenous studies, and design studies. The contributors critique the welfare state and the co-optation of feminisms into neoliberal and right-wing politics from an antiracist feminist perspective. They decolonise Nordic feminism through highlighting long-standing anti-colonial struggles by Sámi activists, connecting these to contemporary young Women of Color and Black feminist tactics of (dis)identification and anti-racist feminist intersectional struggles in the Nordic Region.” —Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Professor and Chair in General Sociology, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Germany “This vital collection addresses some of the most urgent questions facing feminists in the Nordic region and beyond. How to decolonise feminism? How to respond to the twin crises of neoliberalism and populism? How to resist racism and structural inequalities within the movement? This book provides unflinching analysis of power dynamics within feminism but is underpinned by a politics of hope. It is a must-read for those interested in the possibilities of feminist solidarity.” —Elizabeth Evans, Reader in Politics, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

Contents

1 Contextualising Feminisms in the Nordic Region: Neoliberalism, Nationalism, and Decolonial Critique  1 Pauline Stoltz, Diana Mulinari, and Suvi Keskinen 2 Co-optation and Feminisms in the Nordic Region: ‘Gender-friendly’ Welfare States, ‘Nordic exceptionalism’ and Intersectionality 23 Pauline Stoltz Part I Feminist Struggles over Gender Equality, Welfare and Solidarity  45 3 Gender, Citizenship and Intersectionality: Contending with Nationalisms in the Nordic Region 47 Birte Siim 4 Changing Feminist Politics in a ‘Strategic State’ 67 Anna Elomäki, Johanna Kantola, Anu Koivunen, and Hanna Ylöstalo 5 ‘Danishness’, Repressive Immigration Policies and Exclusionary Framings of Gender Equality 89 Christel Stormhøj ix

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Contents

Part II Decolonising Feminisms in the Nordic Region 111 6 Nordic Academic Feminism and Whiteness as Epistemic Habit113 Ulrika Dahl 7 Indigenising Nordic Feminism—A Sámi Decolonial Critique135 Astri Dankertsen 8 Saami Women at the Threshold of Disappearance: Elsa Laula Renberg (1877–1931) and Karin Stenberg’s (1884–1969) Challenges to Nordic Feminism155 Stine H. Bang Svendsen Part III Antiracism and Speaking the Truth to Power 177 9 “And They Cannot Teach Us How to Cycle”: The Category of Migrant Women and Antiracist Feminism in Sweden179 Diana Mulinari 10 Antiracist Feminism and the Politics of Solidarity in Neoliberal Times201 Suvi Keskinen 11 Rethinking Design: A Dialogue on Anti-­Racism and Art Activism from a Decolonial Perspective223 Faith Mkwesha and Sasha Huber 12 Epilogue: We Should All Be Dreaming Vol. 3247 Maryan Abdulkarim and Sonya Lindfors Index251

Notes on Contributors

Maryan Abdulkarim  is a writer and active participant in social discourse living in Helsinki, Finland. Abdulkarim and Eveliina Talvitie co-authored the book Noin 10 myyttiä feminismistä (10 myths about feminism), (2018). Abdulkarim formed the Silta collective together with Pauliina Feodoroff. Abdulkarim investigates the potential of radical dreaming in the ongoing project We Should All Be Dreaming with Sonya Lindfors. She was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, and grew up in Tampere, Finland. Ulrika Dahl  is a cultural anthropologist and professor of Gender Studies at Uppsala University in Sweden. Her interests are feminist and queer politics, critical race and whiteness studies, decolonial pedagogies, femininity, affect, and queer kinship and reproduction. Among her publications are the acclaimed books Femmes of Power: Exploding Queer Femininities (with Del LaGrace Volcano, 2008), Skamgrepp: Femme-­ inistiska essäer (2014) and The Geopolitics of Nordic and Russian Gender Research 1975–2005 (with Ulla Manns and Marianne Liljeström). Her articles have featured in Feminist Theory, Sexualities, New Formations, Paragraph, NORA, Somatechnics and European Journal of Women’s Studies, among other journals. Ulrika’s book project concerns queer kinship, desire and the biopolitics of gender, race and nation in Sweden.

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Astri Dankertsen  (Sámi/Norwegian), PhD, is an associate professor of Sociology in the Faculty for Social Sciences at Nord University, where she is a member of the research group for environmental studies, international relations, northern studies and social security. Dankertsen is also the leader of ELSA, Nord University’s network for ethnicity, gender equality and equity, named after the Sámi activist and politician Elsa Laula Renberg. She has worked on issues such as Sámi urbanization, Sámi melancholia, Sámi identities, decolonization, Sámi youth organizations, Sámi feminism, Indigenous perspectives and gender equality in academia. She is a deputy member of the board of the Norwegian Sámi Association, and is also board member of the Sálto sámesiebrre/Salten Sámi organization. She is also an active politician and is city council member in Bodø, Norway. Anna Elomäki  is a senior researcher in Gender Studies at the Tampere University. Her research interests include neoliberalization of gender equality policy in Finland and in the EU, the gendered and de-­ democratizing impacts of economic policies and governance, and feminist politics. Her work has been published in Social Politics, Gender Work and Organization and Journal of Common Market Studies, among others. Sasha Huber  (CH/FI) is a visual artist of Swiss-Haitian heritage, born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1975. She lives and works with her family in Helsinki, Finland. Huber’s work is primarily concerned with the politics of memory and belonging, particularly in relation to colonial residue left in the environment. Sensitive to the subtle threads connecting history and the present, she uses and responds to archival material within a layered creative practice that encompasses performance-­based interventions, video, photography and collaborations. She holds an MA from the University of Art and Design Helsinki. Presently Huber is undertaking practice-based PhD studies in the Department of Art and Media at the Zurich University of the Arts. Alongside her practice, Huber edited the book Rentyhorn (2010) and was co-editor (with Maria P.T. Machado) of (T)races of Louis Agassiz: Photography, Body and Science, Yesterday and Today (2010) on the occasion of the 29th Biennale of São Paulo. In 2018 Huber was the recipient of the State Art Award in the category visual arts given by the Arts Promotion Center Finland. Johanna Kantola  is Professor of Gender Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University. She is the PI of the ERC Consolidator Grant project Gender, Democracy and Party Politics in Europe

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(2018–2023). She is the author of various monographs and edited books including Gender and Political Analysis (with Emanuela Lombardo, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), Gender and the Economic Crisis in Europe (edited with Emanuela Lombardo, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), and The Oxford Handbook on Gender and Politics (edited with Georgina Waylen, Karen Celis and Laurel Weldon). Suvi  Keskinen  is Professor of Ethnic Relations and Nationalism at the Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki, Finland. She is working with a research project on postethnic activism and leading a larger project on intersectional border struggles and disobedient knowledge in activism. Keskinen has studied right-wing populism, public debates on migration and racism, ethnic/racial profiling and gendered violence. She has published several books and edited Special Issues, as well as journal articles in, for example, Social Politics, Nordic Journal of Migration Research, Critical Social Policy, Social Identities and Journal of Intercultural Studies. Anu  Koivunen  is Professor of Gender Studies in the Faculty of Social Science at Tampere University, on leave of absence from professorship in the Department of Media Studies at Stockholm University. She is the PI of Academy of Finland consortium Flows of power—media as site and agent of politics (2019–2022). She is the co-editor of The Power of Vulnerability: Mobilizing Affect in Feminist, Queer and Anti-racist Media Cultures (2018) and The Nordic Economic, Social and Political Model: Challenges in the 21st Century (forthcoming). Sonya Lindfors  is a Helsinki-based choreographer and artistic director who also works in the areas of facilitating, community organizing and education. In 2013, she received an MA in choreography from the University of the Arts Helsinki. She is the founding member and Artistic Director of UrbanApa, an inter-disciplinary and counter-­hegemonic arts community that offers a platform for new discourses and feminist art practices. Lindfors’s recent stage works ‘We Should All Be Dreaming’ (2018), ‘COSMIC LATTE’ (2018) and ‘Soft Variations’ (2019) centralize questions around blackness and otherness, black body politics, representation and decolonial dreaming practices. Lindfors has been awarded several prizes, the latest of which being the international Live Art Anti Prize 2018. During the season 2017–2018 Lindfors was the house choreographer for Zodiak—The Center for New Dance.

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Faith  Mkwesha  is a researcher and lecturer at the Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki, Finland. Her PhD is on representation of gender and the nation in Zimbabwe, and African literature and culture from a postcolonial perspective, from Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Her research interests are literary, cultural and African studies from decolonial, postcolonial, black feminist and gender perspectives. She is a social justice activist who founded the black feminist organization Sahwira Africa International, and is the Executive Director of Sahwira Africa International Cultural Centre in Finland. She conducts anti-racism activism, launching online petitions to influence policy and initiate discussions on representation and racism. She is a Zimbabwean living and working in Finland. She was born in Zimbabwe, and worked in universities in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Diana  Mulinari is Professor of Gender Studies at Lund University, Sweden. Her research interests centre on issues of gender, inequality and visions of gender justice (and resistance to these visions). Central to Mulinari’s research is to understand how gender and sexuality, class and ‘race’/ethnicity do the social and make the political at the crossroads of personal lives: diverse forms of belonging and national and transnational institutions. Questions of colonial legacies, Global North / Global South relations (with special focus on Latin America) and racism, as well as the diversified forms of resistance to and organization of old and new forms of power, have stayed with her through all the work she has done. Birte  Siim is Professor Emeritus, Aalborg University, Denmark. Her recent publications include ‘The Politics and Act of Solidarity: The Case of Trampoline House in Copenhagen’ in Baban, F and Rykiel K (eds) Fostering Pluralism through Solidarity Activism in Europe: Everyday Encounters with Newcomers (forthcoming with S.  Meret); ‘Inclusive Political Intersections of Migration, Race, Gender and Sexuality— The Cases of Austria and Denmark’ in NORA.  Nordic Journal of Gender and Feminist Research, 2019 (with B. Sauer); Citizens’ Activism and Solidarity Movements: Contending with Populism (ed. with A.  Saarinen and A.  Krasteva), Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Diversity and Contestation over Nationalism in Europe and Canada (ed. with J-E.  Fossum and R.  Kastoryano), Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; ‘Gendering European welfare states and citizenship—revisioning inequalities’, in P. Kennett and N. Lendvai-Benton (eds.); and Handbook of European Social Policy, 2017 (with A. Borchorst).

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Pauline Stoltz  is an associate professor in the Department of Politics and Society and a member of the FREIA Center for Gender Research at Aalborg University in Denmark. She holds a PhD in political science from Lund University and an associate professorship (docent) in political science from Malmö University, both in Sweden. Between 2013 and 2015, she was Chief Editor of Nora—Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, and she is Editor of the Gendering Asia book series at NIAS Press. She was Coordinator of the network on The Future of Feminisms in the Nordic Region (2016–2017). Recent publications include the monograph Gender, resistance and transnational memories of violent conflicts (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) and, together with Beatrice Halsaa and Christel Stormhøj, a book chapter on ‘Generational conflict and the politics of inclusion in two feminist events’ in Elizabeth Evans and Eléonore Lépinard, eds., Intersectionality in Feminist and Queer Movements: Confronting Privileges (2019). Christel  Stormhøj  PhD, is a sociologist and associate professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Business and the Center for Gender, Power and Diversity, Roskilde University, Denmark. Her major fields of research include feminist and queer theory, citizenship and social justice from a gender, sexuality and migration perspective; feminist and LGBTQ activism and politics; social critique; and the religion/secularity divide. She is involved in research projects on feminist activism and changing conditions for identity formation in the Nordic region and on threats against democracy and civil rights (minority and women’s rights) in Europe. Stine  H.  Bang  Svendsen is Associate Professor at the Norwegian University for Science and Technology, Department of Teacher Education. Her academic background is in gender and cultural studies, and her work focuses on race and racism, and gender and sexuality in education and its cultural contexts. Her work engages with the decolonizing options in basic and higher education. Hanna Ylöstalo  is a senior lecturer in Sociology in the Department of Social Research at the University of Turku, Finland. Her research interests include neoliberalization of the Nordic welfare state, gendered economy— society relations, and work and organizations. She has published her work in a range of journals including Policy & Politics, Critical Sociology and International Feminist Journal of Politics.

List of Figures

Fig. 11.1 Fig. 11.2 Fig. 11.3

Faith Mkwesha during a demonstration in front of the Plan International office in Helsinki. 7.5.2018. (Photo: Sasha Huber. © Sasha Huber, re-used here with kind permission) 236 Huber, Sasha & Suukko, Petri Saarikko, 2015. (© Sasha Huber and Petri Saarikko, re-used here with kind permission) 238 Sasha Huber, “Strange Fruit”, installation with 200 pineapples, 2011. (© Sasha Huber, re-used here with kind permission)240

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CHAPTER 1

Contextualising Feminisms in the Nordic Region: Neoliberalism, Nationalism, and Decolonial Critique Pauline Stoltz, Diana Mulinari, and Suvi Keskinen

Elle Marja: [to Njenna] ‘Don’t yoik at school…’. Sami Blood (2016) Khaled: ‘Listen. I fell in love with Finland’. The Other Side of Hope (2017)

Sámi Blood [Sameblod] (2016) is a Swedish film, written and directed by Amanda Kernell. P. Stoltz (*) Department of Politics and Society, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] D. Mulinari Department of Gender Studies, Lund University, Lund, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] S. Keskinen Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2021 S. Keskinen et al. (eds.), Feminisms in the Nordic Region, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53464-6_1

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The Sámi are the only recognised Indigenous people in Europe, and they live in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. The first aforementioned quote is from a moment in the film Sámi Blood [Sameblod] when 14-year-old Elle-Marja and her younger sister Njenna attend a nomad school in the 1930s—this is a boarding school for Sámi children. Here, a Swedish teacher teaches the children Swedish, and lets them know their place in Swedish society. A ‘yoik’ or ‘joik’ is a traditional form of song in Sámi music. To speak Sámi—or, as Elle-Marja explains to her sister, to yoik at school—will result in beatings which need to be avoided. Amanda Kernell found inspiration for the film in her memories of stories by her grandmother. The film follows the character of Elle-Marja (who later calls herself Christina), as she navigates Swedish assimilationist education policies for Sámi children. The children are taught Swedish but refused higher education due to racist policies that position them as inferior. Additionally, Elle-Marja has to deal with her family and the Sámi community’s expectations about her behaviour. In other words, the film questions the relation between indigenous rights as human rights and the human right to education for Sámi children on the one hand, and on the other, how Swedish colonial policies have impacted Sámi peoples. It does this by describing and considering what happens to Ella-Marja’s hope for a just and equal future as we move through the 1930s to the beginning of this century. In the Finnish film The Other Side of Hope (2017), directed by Aki Kaurismäki, Syrian refugee Khaled applies for asylum in Finland, but hides in a restaurant, after his asylum application has been denied. However, Waldemar, the restaurant owner, offers him both a job and refuge, and helps him look for his missing sister. Waldemar shows a form of solidarity, in contrast to the racist thug who nearly stabs Khaled to death. Similar to the aforementioned film and quote, there is a tension between hope and despair, and between solidarity and profound self-interest. The politics of hope and solidarity are two recurring themes in this edited volume about feminisms in the Nordic region. The book is the result of a Nordic network on ‘The Future of Feminisms in the Nordic Region’ (2016–2017). Five Nordic universities—Aalborg University (Department of Politics and Society/FREIA), Lund University (Centre for Gender Studies), University of Oslo (Centre for Gender Research), Roskilde University (Department of Society and Globalisation), and University of Turku (Department of Sociology)—received funding from

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NOS-HS and the Nordic Council of Ministers/NIKK) to organise a series of workshops. Coordinated by Pauline Stoltz, Suvi Keskinen, Diana Mulinari, Beatrice Halsaa, and Christel Stormhøj, these workshops gathered a diverse group of participants who were encouraged to identify and discuss the commonalities and specificities of feminist movements in the Nordic countries; the present status of state feminism (Hernes 1987); and the transnational relations within feminist communities. How, we ask, do feminist movements react to global crises such as the economic crisis of the last decade, with its roots in neoliberal capitalism, and austerity politics as its initial outcome? How do feminist movements position themselves in the face of the rise of right-wing populism and the extreme right movements that have flourished in the last two decades in Europe? We might also add among the crises of our times the others inevitably appearing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic that is unfolding at the time of writing. How do feminist movements react to increasing gender and class inequalities, and blatant racism? Which challenges are faced by feminist movements and feminist activism in other social movements, such as antiracist and indigenous movements, in the Nordic countries today? The Nordic gender political landscape has changed dramatically from the 1930s of the film Sámi Blood to the 2010s of The Other Side of Hope. The institutionalisation of parts of the feminist movement and the women’s movements in the Nordic countries (and globally) has made central questions around relevant strategies of cooperation, the risks of cooptation, and what forms of resistance to state and international organisations should be prioritised by feminist politics and research. Topics regarding sexuality, ethnicity, race, citizenship, and religion have moved from being peripheral to (most) feminist movements to being at the centre of politics. This has transformed the political landscape in the Nordic region. Antiracist, queer, and transgender activists have expressed the need to rethink gender, racial, and sexual politics. Gender politics regarding care, power, and resources need to be reformulated to consider more carefully the intersection of gender with different axes of inequalities (see Siim and Stoltz 2015; Stormhøj 2015; Nyhagen Predelli and Halsaa 2012; de los Reyes and Mulinari 2005; Keskinen et al. 2009). In other words, these new contexts involve challenges for the strategies and ideas of feminist movements in the Nordic countries as regards ideas about hope, solidarity, gender equality, and social justice, both at home and abroad.

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Feminisms in the Nordic Region and Beyond Many of the questions we discussed in the network were not unique to the Nordic region. It is, for example, difficult to claim that austerity politics in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis strengthened neoliberalism (Perugini et al. 2019), and that rising trends of populism and nationalism are typical Nordic phenomena. We recognise resistance to feminism in the Nordic region today (e.g. Keskinen 2013; Mulinari and Neergaard 2014; Svendsen 2015) that is commensurate with other parts of the world. Graff et al. (2019) engage in discussions about the role of cultural understandings of gender and sexuality as articulated by the ‘global Right’. They identify similar trends in different parts of the world, arguing that anti-­ feminism is a central value of the global Right, and essential to how it mobilises support. Other researchers have pointed out the need to differentiate between the intertwined processes of neoliberalism, right-wing populism, and gender conservatism, as well as to identify more clearly the influence of different actors and their diverse agendas (Verloo 2018; Verloo and Paternotte 2018; Paternotte and Kuhar 2018). However, there is little comparative exploration of how resistance to feminism or interpretations of gender equality work in different contexts across the Nordic region (but see Stoltz and Hvenegård-Lassen 2013). We could potentially relate such studies of anti-feminism to studies which situate feminisms as hegemonic over time, and analyse whether anti-­ feminism targets all feminists, or isolates and scapegoats specific types of feminisms, such as antiracist, postcolonial, or queer feminism. While we have not conducted systematic investigations, a quick look at the publications in Nordic gender studies journals and the programmes of Nordic gender studies conferences indicates that antiracist, postcolonial, indigenous, and queer feminisms have (together with masculinity studies) become a central part of feminist themes and narratives in the early 2020s. This implies a clear change compared to, say, the 1970s or the 1990s, although the situation and the timespan of how feminisms have developed in the Nordic countries differ to some extent. The contributions in this book bear witness to the same trend, with questions of migration, (anti) racism, and (de)coloniality being placed at the forefront in most of the chapters. The strong emphasis on questions of migration, (anti)racism, indigeneity, and (de)coloniality can be interpreted as a sign of changing feminist narratives, and the hegemonies embedded in and upheld through them.

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The use of the notion of hegemonic feminism identifies the power to define the narratives of feminist and women’s movements, and suggests that we can understand such hegemonic narratives through the perspective of intersectional inequalities and narrative struggles amongst a multiplicity of narratives (Stoltz 2020). In the period between the 1960s and 1990s, often referred to as feminism’s second wave, hegemonic feminist narratives in the Nordic region marginalised the narratives of antiracist feminists, queer and trans* feminists, and indigenous feminists. This in turn limited the space for other feminist knowledges and politics, as well as hindering possibilities for seeing other worlds. Additionally, such hegemonic narratives narrowed feminist visions to (binary) gender equality frames that were often grounded in a subordination to capitalist market logics (through normative understandings of the emancipatory capacity of paying women for some forms of labour), and the transformation of men taking some responsibility for care work. In understanding feminism as a floating signifier (Davis and Evans 2016), in this volume we seek to explore how feminism as an idea, a project, and a community of belonging is produced and given meaning by actors inside and outside of feminisms, but also, how feminism is acted upon in different contexts in the Nordic region. This could also be of interest for those outside of the region, since there might be similarities and differences between different parts of the world. What, after all, do we know about the narratives, ideas, identities, discourses, mobilisations, strategies, disagreements, and solidarities of feminists in the Nordic region over time? What do we know of their current hopes for the future? Participants in the workshops of the network have written the chapters in this book after having been encouraged by the editors to write about what they felt to be important. As a result, we examine how feminist projects and movements seek to find new forms and redevelop agendas, and we highlight the different orientations, dilemmas, and tactics of feminisms in the Nordic region. The contributions investigate how feminism is articulated within neoliberal policies and economic practices, but also how it provides a basis for resistance to such processes and rationalities. We analyse how feminist ideas, identities, and movements intertwine with notions of race, racism, racialised class inequalities, and nationalism; we ask what kinds of demands for decolonising feminist knowledges and politics are enunciated, and how they are presented in and outside academia. The chapters detect ongoing processes and topics of dispute within feminist projects and movements, and trace their journeys through cross-­movement mobilisations.

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Situating Feminisms in the Nordic Region We agree with Verloo and Paternotte (2018) that feminist research should aim at situating, contextualising, and localising analyses, while simultaneously seeking to develop theoretical and methodological tools to make sense of transnational and global tendencies. The analysis by Paternotte and Kuhar (2018) draws attention to the different political actors promoting anti-gender ideologies and politics in Europe, identifying the main groups as the conservative right, the Catholic Church, and right-wing populism, all of which have their specific agendas and wield different impacts, depending on their national contexts. They also show how historical trajectories and political traditions in Central and East Europe, South Europe, and North-West Europe result in diverse coalitions and agents in anti-gender campaigns. In turn, Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Tuzcu, and Winkel point out how struggles against anti-genderism and protests against austerity measures in Europe seem to unfold in parallel, but without referring to each other. We agree with them that this is unfortunate, since debates on anti-genderism and anti-austerity have underestimated the dimension of racism in shaping gender relations and processes of capital formation (Gutiérrez Rodríguez et al. 2018, p. 140). Given the variety of discussions and concepts in international research literature (e.g. Eriksson 2013; Graff et  al. 2019; Verloo and Paternotte 2018; Corredor 2019), the contributions in this book do not adopt one specific theoretical approach or seek to provide a premeditated understanding of how gender relates to neoliberalism, nationalism, and coloniality. Instead, the writers draw on different traditions and concepts to (1) explore the different meanings given to the concepts; (2) elaborate on the bridges different scholars provide; and (3) locate these understandings within the transformation of the ‘Nordic welfare model’ and feminisms in the Nordic region. The contributions both support and question the argument of Verloo and Paternotte (2018) that the current political situation in Europe is characterised by increasing polarisations in politics, and an increased politicisation of gender and sexuality. It is evident that polarisations are visible in mainstream politics and media discourses, but the narratives of antiracist feminists and indigenous feminists in this volume point towards several continuities in the structures and processes of both oppression and resistance. The mobilisation and resurgence of racialised and minoritised subjects and indigenous peoples also develop through their own logics,

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and how the movements create alliances across differences is not always dependent on or reflective of the polarisation trends in broader society. Internationally, the Nordic countries are well known for their strong (binary) gender equality policies, state feminism, and the ‘Nordic welfare model’ (Hernes 1987; Borchorst and Siim 2002; Melby et al. 2008; Siim and Skjeie 2008). Often, gender equality rankings—such as the Global Gender Gap index (GGG)—are employed in the politics of reputation of nation states, and turned into nation branding; the Nordic countries are often amongst the highest-ranking nation states. Taking Iceland as her starting point, Einarsdóttir (2020) recently argued that this is a flawed exercise, since the definition of gender equality that can be derived from the GGG index is a narrow one. It is based on selective data and sophisticated calculations, which incorrectly give the impression of scientific accuracy. Moreover, the rankings of countries are often interpreted in a shallow and superficial way, particularly when it comes to the top-performing country. The public relations potential—which the ranking offers the best-­ performing countries—enables and facilitates nation branding in ways that can be unfortunate (Einarsdóttir 2020, p. 9). The authors in this volume argue in different ways that such regional branding is based on national identities developed around being the ‘good’ and ‘successful’ agents of globalisation, combining idea(l)s of egalitarianism and support for women’s rights ‘at home’ with images of being the progressive bearers of human rights and peace-building in the Global South. Several scholars have critically examined such branding and self-­ images as ‘Nordic exceptionalism’ (e.g. Loftsdóttir and Jensen 2012; Sawyer and Habel 2014), while others have sought to identify ignored colonial histories—conceptualised as ‘colonial complicity’—and their implications for the racial structures and cultural imaginaries of today’s Nordic societies (e.g. Keskinen et al. 2009; McEachrane 2014; Höglund and Burnett 2019; Andreassen and Ahmed-Andresen 2014). In recent decades, social conflicts over the meaning of citizenship, nationhood, and belonging have increased, and their racialised elements have become more visible. Postcolonial feminists have highlighted how notions of gender equality are frequently used to define boundaries between those who belong to the nation and those who do not (de los Reyes et al. 2002; Keskinen et al. 2009; Martinsson and Mulinari 2018; Keskinen 2018). At the core of these discourses lies a projection of ‘bad’ patriarchies tethered to distant places and to racialised bodies. Since the 1960s, the Nordic countries have constructed their national identities on

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notions of humanitarianism, gender equality, and egalitarianism. The tensions between rhetoric and practices in the implementation of these notions can be grasped today in the shifts towards increasingly repressive and strict migration and refugee policies, and in the systematic forms through which, on the one hand, a division of labour is racialised, and on the other, how urban segregation follows racialised class lines. Several public policies in the region based on the notion of ‘risk groups’ have been developed during recent years. These specifically target racialised women through assumed cultural differences. These policies also increase the criminalisation of racialised men, while simultaneously silencing issues of poverty, institutional racism, and exclusion.

Feminism, Neoliberalism, Nationalism, and Decolonial Critique The Nordic welfare regime has gone through considerable changes in recent decades as a result of neoliberal policies—and to a certain extent, austerity measures. The welfare state and its future is a central feminist question due to the large number of women working in the public sector and the redistribution of wealth and care that it has provided. There are different positions among feminists in relation to how feminists should understand and respond to the establishment of neoliberal policies as part of gender and welfare regimes. We contend that different groups of feminists give diverse and even antagonistic meanings to the crisis of the Nordic models of gender and welfare, which are further examined in this book. Neoliberalism is a contested concept, and scholars in the anthology use it in diverse ways. Some of them do not use it at all, or limit how and when it is used, because they consider the term as having lost its strength as an analytical tool. Our understanding of neoliberalism bridges the fields of political economy (e.g. Harvey 2005) and cultural studies (e.g. Gill and Scharff 2011); we offer a reading of neoliberalism as a societal vision that features the market and its profits as fundamental principles for social organisation. While the shift towards neoliberal economic policies and cultures has happened globally, and had already begun in some parts of the world at the end of the 1970s and 1980s, its impact began to be felt in the Nordic region in the 1990s. In the Nordic region, a specific and powerful ideological shift has been identified in public discourse, from prioritising notions of solidarity and rights, towards fostering a binary opposition

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between successful (productive) citizens and those identified as a burden to the welfare state (e.g. Keskinen 2016). Central to this transformation is a radical decrease in the redistributive ability of the state—class (and particularly racialised class) inequalities have increased in profound ways (Therborn 2018). Ethno-nationalists provide an explanation of the crisis of the welfare state that moves away from the neoliberal policies that they support, towards the construction of migrants as a threat to the nation (e.g. Norocel 2017; Keskinen 2016). Gender—or rather (binary) gender equality— played an essential role in this articulation. Fundamental to the construction of the ‘dangerous other’ is the construction not only of homogenous Nordic nation states (Keskinen et  al. 2019), but also of a homogenous women’s movement with similar agendas and demands. These emerging feminist voices have identified a decoupling of gender equality from feminism that makes it possible to be in favour of gender equality (both in a neoliberal and ethno-nationalist sense) while at the same time being against feminism as a transnational project of social justice (Martinsson and Mulinari 2018). A key area to which the anthology Feminisms in the Nordic Region aims to make an original contribution is in studying the intersections between feminism, neoliberalism, and ethno-nationalism. At the core of these tensions are public debates about the relation between gender equality and multiculturalism, and about women’s rights and respect for cultural diversity. In order to understand the rapid rise of right-wing populism and increasingly aggressive anti-immigration online campaigns that capitalise on racist and exclusionary nationalism, it is important to contextualise them in the long histories of racial and colonial power relations embedded in the Nordic societies. Consequently, a second contribution concerns these relationships, and we make the link between antiracism and decolonising critiques of feminisms, as well as linking the struggles of migrant and refugee persons to those of indigenous activists, placing these in the sightlines of changing hegemonic forms of feminism throughout the region. Nordic researchers have identified a variety of movements that resist racism and European border control policies, best exemplified by the ‘refugees welcome’ movements and mobilisations against racism and neo-­ Nazism (Ålund et al. 2017; Seikkula 2019). Beside these more high-profile forms of social protest, everyday struggles against ethnic discrimination and segregation have diversified in both form and content (Schierup et al.

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2006). These heterogeneous but vital responses embody not only a resistance against racism, but an extension of visions, strategies, and practices towards social inclusion and solidarity, which cultural theorist Paul Gilroy would grasp through the concept of conviviality (Stoltz et al. 2019; Gilroy 2004). As the contributions in this volume illustrate, within such everyday resistances and new movements, the emerging forms of feminism play a central role. Inspired by a number of feminist interventions (Funk 2013; Bhandar and Ferreira da Silva 2013), we argue that the analyses presented in this book challenge political philosopher Nancy Fraser’s historical narrative— that locates the feminist movements in Western Europe and North America—as legitimating neoliberalism (Fraser 2013). Larger—although not all—sections of feminist, queer, and women’s movements in the Nordic region have defended and supported the social-democratic-­ inspired Nordic model of welfare and equality (Esping-Andersen 1990) against neoliberal discourses and practices. While it can be argued that feminisms in the Nordic region have been fractured by a number of theoretical and political debates regarding racism, sexuality, and the binary categorisations of women and men, there has existed a deep recognition of the need to defend and expand the Nordic model amongst most groups of feminists. Furthermore, we would like to challenge Fraser’s classification of contemporary feminism as marginalising issues of redistribution: in the Nordic context, both antiracist and queer feminists link redistribution and recognition in diverse ways, in solidarity with refugees, and when addressing increasingly precarious forms of employment. Following a number of feminist critiques of Fraser’s model, we question her assumption of a homogenous feminist movement during the 1970s. Both lesbian and migrant women were highly present in the feminist struggles in the Nordic region, even if their voices—as well as those of indigenous feminists and trans* activists—were excluded in the genealogies of ‘Nordic feminism’ (Dahl et al. 2016). These issues are of central concern to at least parts or sections of the feminist movements in the Nordic region. They emphasise the aforementioned point: that dimensions of racism in shaping gender relations and processes of capital formation are important to investigate (Gutiérrez Rodríguez et  al. 2018, p. 140), perhaps especially in the context of the situated links that can or cannot be made between feminism, neoliberalism, nationalism, and colonialism in the Nordic region.

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Feminist Politics of Solidarity and Hope Metaphors, concepts, or discourses of ‘woman/women’ or ‘gender-­ friendly’ welfare states have indicated a form of feminist success, since they imply that the collaboration has led to high levels of gender equality (Hernes 1987). Feminist scholars and activists have, as indicated, at the same time felt ambiguous about the analytical depth behind such ‘gender-­ friendliness’. Postcolonial, antiracist, and indigenous feminists have been critical of the widespread claims that the Nordic nation states are world champions when it comes to gender equality, democratisation, and egalitarianism, while simultaneously claiming to be exempt from the histories of imperialism and colonialism in Europe that have influenced the formation of national identities (Keskinen et al. 2009; Loftsdóttir and Jensen 2012; Garner 2014), and which is also discussed as ‘Nordic exceptionalism’. Critics of ‘women-friendly’ welfare states and ‘Nordic exceptionalism’ often emphasise the usefulness of intersectional approaches to the study of inequalities and privileges in the Nordic region, and in feminist mobilisations, discourses, ideas, and projects. These ambiguous feelings about the relations between states and social movements make co-optation a fundamental question. Consequently, after this introduction, Pauline Stoltz will in her chapter address feminisms in the Nordic region from the perspective of co-optation research. Starting from a perspective critical of ‘gender-friendly’ welfare states, ‘Nordic exceptionalism’, and different uses of intersectional approaches, Stoltz presents a two-dimensional approach to the study of co-optation. She defines co-optation as the controversial politics of inclusion and exclusion, and stresses the importance of disentangling the analytical from more normative political dimensions in the study of co-optation. There is nothing inherently wrong with controversies, she argues, but it can be productive to uncover the complexities of controversies in order to find better strategies for feminist struggles for social justice and equality. In other words, a careful consideration of the nuances of controversies—especially amongst potential allies—is a prerequisite for a politics of hope. The production of hope is a necessary part of political struggles that seek to create social change, while also being crucial for the development of communities that enable a coming together and practising of solidarity (Martinsson and Mulinari 2018). This way of understanding the politics of solidarity draws attention to the process of living with differences, and

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questioning stable categorisations and presumed homogeneous cultures. It not only refers to such notions spread in ethno-nationalist politics and othering public discourses, but also the possible reifying of the ‘good’ radical subjects that can be created in feminist, antiracist, and trans* politics. We understand the politics of hope as living and working with the messiness of everyday intersectional politics—and even enjoying it (Gunaratnam 2003)—despite the controversies, conflicts, and disagreements that are an essential part of living with differences and convivial forms of life (Gilroy 2004). Hope is essential for feminist politics in times characterised by the precarity of life and rising inequalities (de los Reyes and Mulinari 2020), produced by neoliberal policies and exclusionary nationalism. The politics of hope and new reconfigurations of solidarities are also needed to tackle the unequal division of resources and cultural traumas resulting from the colonisation of indigenous lands, racial classifications, and long-term assimilation policies that the Sámi people and ethnoracially defined minorities, such as the Roma, were subjected to during the development of the modern state. The production of a ‘homogeneous nation’ was achieved through repressive, marginalising, and assimilatory policies towards these groups (Keskinen et al. 2019). While partly differing and contextually specific, the state’s actions towards post-1960s migrants and their children also bear similarities to current state policies and practices, especially in this age of securitisation and ‘crimmigration’ policies. The new politics of solidarity that Keskinen, Skaptadóttir, and Toivanen (ibid.) argue for would seek reparations for such historically formed and current inequalities, but also build on an understanding of the inequalities created by neoliberal capitalism and its increasingly gendered and racialised class structure. The new politics of solidarity would depart from an understanding of social justice that acknowledges cultural and economic injustices, be they the result of unequal global power relations, policies towards indigenous or minority groups with a long-term residence within the Nordic region, or class structures. Such politics of solidarity could provide hope for differently marginalised groups, and create visions of a more positive future for society more broadly.

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Feminist Struggles over Gender Equality, Welfare, and Solidarity This book is divided into three sections. In different ways, these continue explorations of controversies around the politics of inclusion and exclusion in relation to feminisms in the Nordic region, while putting neoliberalism, nationalism, and decolonial critique on the agenda when discussing feminist strategies for the future. The first section is entitled ‘Feminist struggles over gender equality, welfare, and solidarity’. The three chapters in the section address how Nordic welfare states continue to reinforce democratic deficits and exclusions by means of public policies that benefit certain gendered groups more than others. They pay specific attention to the actions and reactions of feminist actors regarding austerity politics, new forms of governance, and nationalisms in the wake of the financial crisis, and the crisis related to the reception—or welcoming—of refugees in the 2010s and today. The section starts with a chapter by Birte Siim, who addresses new forms of ethno-nationalisms that are challenging gender equality and solidarity. Using theories on social movements, citizenship, and intersectionality, she analyses the conditions for citizens’ activism against racism, discrimination, and ‘othering’ within the Scandinavian context. Focussing on the Danish case, Siim analyses whether gender issues and feminist politics are part of antiracist strategies and claims of women activists, or if gender is ‘forgotten’ along the road. How, we can wonder, can cross-­ movement mobilisations foster inclusive solidarities against exclusionary nationalisms? The chapter by Anna Elomäki, Johanna Kantola, Anu Koivunen, and Hanna Ylöstalo puts the shifting relationship between feminist politics and the welfare state in 2010s Finland in focus. During this decade, efforts to dismantle the welfare state in the name of austerity, marketisation initiatives, and competition policies intensified. By adopting a new form of governance relations, they argue, the Finnish welfare state has moved in the direction of becoming what they call a ‘strategic state’, in which economic imperatives overrule other political concerns. This new form of governance refers to a particular form of neoliberal and managerial governance that aims to make government decision-making processes strategic by narrowing down policy objectives, and aligning them explicitly with fiscal objectives. Elomäki and her colleagues show how this ‘strategic governance’ has also influenced the relations between feminists and the state.

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This has resulted in the strengthening of so-called governance feminism, as well as intersectional forms of feminism, amongst others. The final chapter of the section, by Christel Stormhøj, explores how and why the dominant politics of gender equality in Denmark defines Muslim and migrant women as an anomaly in need of reform. By analysing policies, party programmes, and interviews with representatives of migrant women’s organisations on gender equality and integration, Stormhøj reveals how neoliberal and right-wing ethno-nationalist parties converge in exploiting gender-equality deficits for labour market, anti-­ Muslim, and welfare-chauvinist interests, and demonstrates how these organisations both resist and comply with these agendas. She shows how the dominant politics of gender equality operates to assimilate and/or exclude ‘the other’, and how the racialisation of gender-equality deficiencies serves strategic functions.

Decolonising Feminisms in the Nordic Region The second section explores the contribution of scholars working at the crossroads between decolonial and queer knowledge frames, with a special focus on the production of feminist knowledges. The three chapters in this section address feminist knowledge production and genealogies of Nordic feminism. They bear witness to the need to decolonise feminist thinking, narratives of political mobilisation, and understandings of gender. Building on Black feminism, decolonial perspectives, and indigenous feminism, the contributors provide a thorough investigation of the coloniality of knowledge and power as it takes place in the Nordic region, with its specific colonial histories and racial relations. The chapters highlight how coloniality has enshrined a continued dependency on ways of thinking, dividing, and making sense of the world that are based on the logics of Eurocentric modernity (Tlostanova et  al. 2019), but also how the ‘pluriversality’ of knowledge (e.g. Reiter 2018) has always been an important part of feminist projects, and continues to be so in the present. Ulrika Dahl’s chapter contributes to the ongoing discussions about Nordic academic feminism through an examination of whiteness as an epistemic habit. It asks why and how this field continues to assume and reproduce whiteness as its naturalised point of departure and orientation when forming a Nordic feminist ‘we’. In a largely conceptual manner, Dahl draws on a lived archive of 15 years of participant observation in ‘Nordic’ academic feminism as it has taken shape at conferences, in

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network and research meetings, in classrooms, and within public debates. Building on the work of Sara Ahmed, Sirma Bilge, Lena Sawyer, Marta Cuesta, and Diana Mulinari, Dahl proposes that whiteness can be understood as an epistemic habit of and within Nordic academic feminism. To that end, the chapter sketches a framework for understanding how whiteness is habitually and epistemically reproduced in broader logics of narration about the field, in forms of assembly, and in responses to critiques of racism. Thus, whiteness is not simply a question of over-representation of white bodies, it is also about the orientations and comfort of white bodies, and about how some critiques and stories become understood as ‘ours’ and others not. The chapter by Astri Dankertsen discusses how to make space for Sámi feminist perspectives, within both Sámi research and Nordic feminist research. The author explores how both patriarchal and colonial power continue to shape the lives of Sámi women, and argues that there is a need for a feminist decolonial critique that destabilises the taken for granted silencing of Sámi women’s perspectives, in both Sámi research and Nordic feminist research. Dankertsen argues that to do so, we need to move beyond the traditional ways of defining feminist perspectives, and include Indigenous perspectives on land, water, health, rights, and identities. This will enable the highlighting of how it is possible to create a common ground for both Sámi perspectives and feminist perspectives. The relative lack of Sámi feminist perspectives is paradoxical, given the fact that both intersectional and postcolonial perspectives have made an impact on feminist research today. Sámi women are also increasingly educated, and hold a strong position within both academia and activism, and within Sámi society as a whole. Stine Helena Bang Svendsen examines the challenges posed by Sámi feminism to the hegemonic narratives of Nordic feminism. Examining the work of two remarkable Sámi women activists—Elsa Laula Renberg and Karin Stenberg—Svendsen argues for the need to recognise their knowledges about the gendered nature of racism and colonialism. The chapter argues that the pervasive absence of Sámi and Inuit contributions in Nordic feminism should be regarded as an expression of the coloniality of these projects, and that engaging seriously with the anti-colonial scholarship proposed by authors such as Elsa Laula Renberg and Karin Stenberg prompts the reconsideration of both key historical narratives of feminism in the Nordic region and their foundational assumptions regarding gender as a social phenomenon. In Svendsen’s analysis, the politics of gender

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equality that is characteristic of Nordic feminism is seen as a threshold of disappearance, under which the political projects of the colonised women and the working-class women were erased from feminism.

Antiracism and Speaking the Truth to Power The final section of the book engages with racial formations in the Nordic countries, with a particular focus on contemporary processes of racialisation, and the diversity of ways through which these processes are identified, challenged, and acted upon by powerful feminist visions. In recent decades, the forms of banal nationalism and femonationalism—which exist at the core of representations of the Nordic welfare model, to the detriment of international solidarity and human rights— have been challenged by two powerful social movements relevant to the development of feminist theory in the region: the mobilisation of the Sámi people in defence of land and water (see section II), and the mobilisation of racialised migrants and refugees to obtain labour and citizenship rights. While the notion of colonial complicity (Keskinen et al. 2009) challenged the amnesia that denies the centrality of diverse forms of colonialism in the development of the Nordic nation states, the notion of a ‘Nordic’ racial formation provides a reading of the region that explores the role of the category of race in the process of capital accumulation, and the establishment of the Nordic welfare states, which have been shaped through the over-exploitation of migrant labour forces within Global North and Global South relations. Suvi Keskinen’s point of departure is the establishment and expansion of antiracist feminism in the last decade throughout the Nordic region, with new groups, media sites, and public events organised, especially in the large cities. The author examines antiracist feminist and queer of colour activism in which the main or sole actors belong to groups racialised as non-white or ‘others’ in Nordic societies. A fundamental argument developed in this chapter is the central role and potential of these emerging social movements in the reconfiguring of political agendas and tackling pressing societal issues, due to its capacity to overlap and connect the borders of antiracist, feminist, and (to some extent) class-based politics. Faith Mkwesha and Sasha Huber focus on feminist antiracist activism from a decolonial perspective in the field of cultural production. The authors analyse racialised and racist representations in Finland, and propose interventions from a decolonial perspective. They propose a number

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of strategies in the field of representation to create non-stereotypical and demeaning racist images, in order to challenge and transform positively racialised representational practices. Diana Mulinari explores continuity and change in the construction of the category of migrant women in Sweden, suggesting both continuity and radical changes in the Swedish racial formation regarding the shift of location from subordinated inclusion within the social democratic welfare regime to violent assimilation within the actual situation at the crossroads between neoliberalism and ethno-nationalism. The author also analyses the vital role that the category plays in the identity construction and political agenda of young women with migrant backgrounds who identify themselves as antiracist feminists. The four authors included in this section have much in common. They move fluently between theoretical arguments and political agendas, working within the tradition of intellectual activism (Collins 2019). Moreover, they think through and reflect on a number of concepts relevant to the analysis of feminist movements and feminist futures. Keskinen develops the concept of ‘postethnic activism’ to refer to activism in which political mobilisation is based on a shared understanding of being racialised and classified as an outsider to the nation, despite often being born and/or raised in the Nordic societies. She further argues for the usefulness of theorising the neoliberal turn of racial capitalism as the societal condition in which feminist activism takes place. Mkwesha and Huber read their experience of Finland through concepts such as the white saviour complex, white fragility, and racial illiteracy to grasp the specificity of the ways through which racism is given meaning and acted upon. Mulinari argues for the need to understand racism as a structural phenomenon, suggesting a reading of the concept of intersectionality through an analysis of the Swedish racial formation. While the authors share a common epistemological frame and locate themselves within similar theoretical traditions, their methodological frames differ. Mulinari uses critical discourse analysis to examine the construction and reproduction of the category of migrant women in Sweden, while Keskinen works with both participant observation and in-­depth interviews in her critical dialogue with her research subjects. Mkwesha and Huber develop an original methodological frame that combines a dialogue between the authors, testimonies of their experiences, and antiracist political practices.

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These four authors identify the central need to talk back (hooks 2015/1989) or to speak truth to power (Collins 2019). Keskinen’s careful analysis of the narratives of postethnic activists speaks not only about resistance, but also about the creation of new agendas and coalitions. Mulinari comes to similar conclusions in her dialogue with antiracist activists of migrant backgrounds, challenging the category of migrant women, and highlighting their ability to create forms of inclusive solidarity. Finally, Mkwesha and Huber invite us to explore (and to participate in) antiracist art practices that both deconstruct racist representations and create new ways of defining the social. In other words, these three authors are deeply inscribed within epistemologies of hope (de los Reyes and Mulinari 2020) that acknowledge both the power of racial capitalism and heteropatriarchy, and the power of the collective dreams evolving from the promises of antiracist feminisms in the Nordic countries.

References Ålund, A., Schierup, C. U., & Neergaard, A. (2017). Reimagineering the nation. Essays on twenty-first-century Sweden. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Andreassen, Rikke & Ahmed-Andresen, Uzma. (2014). I can never be normal: A conversation about race, daily life practices, food and power. European Journal of Women’s Studies 21: 3, 25–42. Bhandar, B., & Ferreira da Silva, D. (2013, October 21). White feminist fatigue syndrome. A reply to Nancy Fraser. Critical Legal Thinking. Retrieved March 18, 2020, from http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/10/21/ white-feminist-fatigue-syndrome. Borchorst, A., & Siim, B. (2002). The women-friendly welfare states revisited. NORA—Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 10(2), 90–98. Collins, P. H. (2019). Intersectionality as a critical social theory. Durham: Duke University Press. Corredor, E. (2019). Unpacking “gender ideology” and the global right’s antigender countermovement. Signs, 4(3), 613–638. Dahl, U., Manns, U., & Liljeström, M. (2016). The geopolitics of Nordic and Russian gender research 1975–2005 (Södertörn Academic Studies 66). Huddinge: Södertörn University. Davis, K., & Evans, M. (Eds.). (2016). Transatlantic conversations: Feminism as travelling theory. London: Routledge. de los Reyes, P., Molina, I., & Mulinari, D. (2002). Maktens (o)lika förklädnader. Stockholm: Atlas.

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de los Reyes, P., & Mulinari, D. (2005). Intersektionalitet : kritiska reflektioner över (o)jämlikhetens landskap. Stockholm: Liber. de los Reyes, P., & Mulinari, D. (2020). Hegemonic feminism revisited: On the promises of intersectionality in times of the precarisation of life. NORA— Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research. https://doi.org/10.108 0/08038740.2019.1705905. Einarsdóttir, Þ. J. (2020). All that glitters is not gold: Shrinking and bending gender equality in rankings and nation branding. NORA—Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research. https://doi.org/10.1080/0803874 0.2020.1745884. Eriksson, M. (2013). ‘Wronged white men’: The performativity of hate in feminist narratives about anti-feminism in Sweden. NORA—Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 21(4), 249–263. Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fraser, N. (2013). Fortunes of feminism. From state-managed capitalism to neoliberal crisis. London: Verso. Funk, N. (2013). Contra Fraser on feminism and neoliberalism. Hypatia, 28(1), 179–196. Garner, S. (2014). Injured nations, racialising states and repressed histories: Making whiteness visible in the Nordic countries. Social Identities, 20(6), 407–422. Gill, R., & Scharff, C. (2011). New femininities: Postfeminism, neoliberalism and subjectivity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Gilroy, P. (2004). After empire. Melancholia or convivial culture? London: Routledge. Graff, A., Kapur, R., & Walters, S. (2019). Gender and the rise of the global right. Signs, 44(3), 541–560. Gunaratnam, Y. (2003). Researching ‘race’ and ethnicity. London: Sage. Gutiérrez Rodríguez, E., Tuzcu, P., & Winkel, H. (2018). Introduction: Feminisms in times of anti-genderism, racism and austerity. Women’s Studies International Forum, 68(May–June), 139–141. Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hernes, H. M. (1987). Welfare state and woman power: Essays in state feminism. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press. Höglund, J., & Burnett, L.  A. (2019). Introduction: Nordic colonialisms and Scandinavian studies. Scandinavian Studies, 91(1–2), 1–12. hooks, b. (2015/1989). Talking back. Thinking feminist, thinking black. New York: Routledge. Keskinen, S. (2013). Anti-feminism and white identity politics—Political antagonisms in radical right-wing populist and anti-immigration rhetoric in Finland. Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 3(4), 225–232.

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Keskinen, S. (2016). From welfare nationalism to welfare chauvinism. Economic rhetoric, welfare state and the changing policies of asylum in Finland. Critical Social Policy, 36(3), 352–370. Keskinen, S. (2018). The ‘crisis’ of white hegemony, neonationalist femininities and antiracist feminism. Women’s Studies International Forum, 68(May– June), 157–163. Keskinen, S., Skaptadóttir, U. D., & Toivanen, M. (2019). Narrations of homogeneity, waning welfare states, and the politics of solidarity. In S.  Keskinen, U. D. Skaptadóttir, & M. Toivanen (Eds.), Undoing homogeneity in the Nordic region. Migration, difference, and the politics of solidarity (pp. 1–17). London: Routledge. Keskinen, S., Tuori, S., Irni, S., & Mulinari, D. (Eds.). (2009). Complying with colonialism. Gender, race and ethnicity in the Nordic region. Farnham: Ashgate. Loftsdóttir, K., & Jensen, L. (2012). Whiteness and postcolonialism in the Nordic region. Farnham: Ashgate. Martinsson, L., & Mulinari, D. (2018). Introduction—Transnational feminism: A working agenda. In L.  Martinsson & D.  Mulinari (Eds.), Dreaming global change, doing local feminisms. Visions of feminism, global North/South encounters, conversations and disagreements. Abingdon: Routledge. McEachrane, M. (2014). Afro-Nordic landscapes. Equality and race in Northern Europe. New York: Routledge. Melby, K., Ravn, A., & Carlsson-Wetterberg, C. (Eds.). (2008). Gender equality as a perspective on welfare: The limits of political ambition. Bristol: Policy Press. Mulinari, D., & Neergaard, A. (2014). We are Sweden Democrats because we care for others: Exploring racisms in the Swedish extreme right. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 21(1), 43–56. Norocel, C. (2017). Åkesson at Almedalen: Intersectional tensions and normalization of populist radical right discourse in Sweden. NORA—Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 25(2), 91–106. Nyhagen Predelli, L., & Halsaa, B. (2012). Majority-minority relations in contemporary women’s movements. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Paternotte, D., & Kuhar, R. (2018). Disentangling and locating the “global Right”: Anti-gender campaigns in Europe. Politics and Governance, 6(3), 6–19. Perugini, C., Žarković Rakić, J., & Vladisavljević, M. (2019). Austerity and gender inequalities in Europe in times of crisis. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 43(3), 733–767. https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/bey044. Reiter, B. (2018). Pluriverse. The geopolitics of knowledge. Durham: Duke University Press. Sawyer, L., & Habel, Y. (2014). Refracting African and Black diaspora through the Nordic region. African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, 7(1), 1–6.

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Schierup, C. U., Hansen, P., & Castles, S. (2006). Migration, citizenship, and the European welfare state. A European dilemma. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seikkula, M. (2019). (Un)making ‘extreme’ and ‘ordinary’ whiteness. Activists’ narratives on antiracist mobilisation in Finland. Sociological Review, 67(5), 1002–1017. Siim, B., & Skjeie, H. (2008). Tracks, intersections and dead ends. Multicultural challenges to state feminism in Denmark and Norway. Ethnicities, 8(3), 322–344. Siim, B., & Stoltz, P. (2015). Particularities of the Nordic: Challenges to equality politics in a globalized world. In H.  Pristed Nielsen & S.  Thidemann Faber (Eds.), Remapping gender, place and mobility: Global confluences and local particularities in Nordic peripheries. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. Stoltz, P. (2020). Globalization, intersectional inequalities and narrative struggles. In P. Stoltz, Gender, resistance and transnational memories (pp. 23–48). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Stoltz, P., Halsaa, B., & Stormhøj, C. (2019). Generational conflict and the politics of inclusion in two feminist events. In E.  Evans & E.  Lépinard (Eds.), Intersectionality in feminist and queer movements: Confronting privileges. London: Routledge. Stoltz, P., & Hvenegård-Lassen, K. (2013). NORA 20th anniversary (1993–2013) special issue on “Feminist resistance—Resistance to feminism” ‘Editorial’. NORA—Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 21(4), 245–248. Stormhøj, C. (2015). Crippling sexual justice. NORA—Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 23(2), 79–92. Svendsen, S. H. B. (2015). Feeling at loss: Affect, whiteness and masculinity in the immediate aftermath of Norway’s terror. In R. Andreassen & K. Vitus (Eds.), Affectivity and race: Studies from Nordic contexts (pp.  133–149). Farnham: Ashgate. Therborn, G. (2018). Stratification requiescat in pace: Paradigm shift from ‘stratification’ and mobility to inequality. In R.  Elízaga (Ed.), Facing an unequal world. Challenges to global sociology (pp. 42–51). London: Sage. Tlostanova, M., Thapar-Björkert, S., & Knobblock, I. (2019). Do we need decolonial feminism in Sweden? NORA—Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 27(4), 290–295. Verloo, M. (2018). Varieties of opposition to gender equality in Europe. London: Routledge. Verloo, M., & Paternotte, D. (2018). The feminist project under threat in Europe. Politics and Governance, 6(3), 1–5.

Films Sami Blood [Sameblod] (2016) The Other Side of Hope [Toivon tuolla puolen] (2017)

CHAPTER 2

Co-optation and Feminisms in the Nordic Region: ‘Gender-friendly’ Welfare States, ‘Nordic exceptionalism’ and Intersectionality Pauline Stoltz

The historical collaboration between the (welfare) state and social movements in the Nordic region has made co-optation a fundamental question. The tension between co-optation and social justice has been at the core of empirical studies of such areas as labour movements and migrant organizations in Sweden, and there have been debates about the institutionalization of the women’s movement in the Nordic region (Schierup et  al. 2018; Bergqvist et al. 1999). However, it may come as a surprise that few studies have explored feminisms in the Nordic region from the perspective of the research field of co-optation. This is unfortunate, since gender scholars both within and outside the region have long argued for the fruitfulness of the nexus between different types of democracy and gender and sexual equality (Rai 2003; Dahlerup 2006; Stoltz et  al. 2010; Siim and Stoltz 2015; Liinason 2018).

P. Stoltz (*) Department of Politics and Society, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2021 S. Keskinen et al. (eds.), Feminisms in the Nordic Region, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53464-6_2

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‘Co-optation’ can capture the ambiguities that feminist scholars and activists can simultaneously express when considering persistent metaphors, concepts or discourses of ‘woman/women-friendly’ or ‘gender-friendly’ welfare states (Hernes 1987; Stoltz et al. 2019; Kantola and Verloo 2018; Siim and Stoltz 2015; Melby et al. 2008; Siim and Skjeie 2008; Borchorst and Siim 2002). These, which I refer to as metaphors, indicate a form of feminist success, since they imply that the collaboration between states and social movements has led to high levels of gender equality. However, the Nordic welfare states have simultaneously reinforced democratic deficits and serious exclusions by benefiting certain gendered groups, while leaving others disadvantaged. Such critique rather indicates a form of failure that requires our serious attention (see, e.g., the chapters in the first section of this volume). Postcolonial, anti-racist and indigenous feminists have been critical of what Keskinen et  al. (2009) refer to as ‘colonial complicity’, and what, relatedly, Loftsdóttir and Jensen (2012) describe as ‘Nordic exceptionalism’. Both studies combine national myths about democratization and egalitarianism in the Nordic region with the idea that this region is the exception to the rule that imperialism and colonialism in Europe have influenced the formation of national identities. According to these critics, a denial of racial discrimination and colonial violence exists alongside racism in Nordic societies. In the context of hegemonic feminisms in the region, this has historically led to the marginalization of mobilizations by refugee and migrant women, as well as Sámi and Inuit feminists (see, e.g., Keskinen, pp. 195–215; Bang Svendsen, pp. 149–170). Critics of ‘women-friendly’ welfare states and ‘Nordic exceptionalism’ often emphasize the usefulness of intersectional approaches to the study of inequalities and privileges in the Nordic region and in feminist mobilizations, discourses, ideas and projects. They highlight the importance of investigating whiteness as an epistemic habit and the expressions that racism can take (Dahl, pp. 108–127; Keskinen, pp. 195–215; Mulinari, pp. 173–194). However, there are also political and academic controversies over the uses of intersectional approaches when such approaches have travelled across the world. This has involved issues concerning the de-­ politicizing of the notion, the ignoring of ‘race’ and the co-optation of neoliberalism (de los Reyes and Mulinari 2020; Lykke 2020; Tomlinson 2018; Carbin and Edenheim 2013; Bilge 2013). Starting from a critical perspective on ‘gender-friendly’ welfare states, ‘Nordic exceptionalism’, and different uses of intersectional approaches, I

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present a two-dimensional approach to the study of co-optation—defined as controversial politics of inclusion and exclusion. I stress the importance of disentangling analytical dimensions from normative political ones in the study of co-optation. Feminism is a community of belonging, an idea and a political project, and, as such, it is a floating signifier (Davis and Evans 2016). Intersectional and unequal power relations amongst self-defined feminists can influence when and how the politics of inclusion and exclusion become controversial, including who and what makes these politics controversial, when and where. At the same time, the normative political question of ‘why’ the ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘how’ and ‘when’ of inclusion and exclusion in feminist politics becomes controversial in particular cases is crucial. There is nothing inherently wrong with controversies, but it can be productive to uncover their complexities in order to find better strategies for feminist struggles towards social justice and equality.

‘Gender-friendly’ Welfare States and ‘Nordic exceptionalism’ Researchers often describe the core of the particularities of feminisms in the Nordic region as including references to historical collaborations between Nordic states and feminist movements. Nowadays, descriptions of Nordic societies as ‘woman/women-friendly’ or ‘gender-friendly’ are often seen as strong on metaphors but weak on analytical capacity, but they are still widely used (Kantola and Verloo 2018, p.  209; Siim and Stoltz 2015; Borchorst and Siim 2002; Hernes 1987, p. 15). They capture a form of feminist success in which, as an outcome of feminist struggles, agendas for gender equality have been included in the social-democratic-­ inspired ‘Nordic model’ of welfare (Esping-Andersen 1990). The characteristics of what political scientists call the governance relations between states and non-state actors can change over time. For example, in this volume Elomäki, Kantola, Koivunen and Ylöstalo address the shifting relationship between feminist politics and the state in Finland during the 2010s, when Finnish state-centred feminism faced a new situation, as the state appeared for a moment to have turned its back on gender equality. Simultaneously, across the region, this Nordic model has functioned as an emerging gender normalizing and stabilizing structure. Feminist researchers have pointed out that gender-equality policies have

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normatively regulated heterosexuality and positioned the nuclear family at the core of their concerns (Giritli Nygren et al. 2018). Postcolonial feminist scholars have highlighted problems with the use of gender equality by ethno-nationalist and value-conservative social movements and political parties. They have studied how these actors redefined gender equality as a Western and Scandinavian value (Mulinari, pp. 173–194; de los Reyes et al. 2002; Keskinen 2012). These studies implicitly or explicitly relate feminisms in the Nordic region to ideas about Nordic exceptionalism (Loftsdóttir and Jensen 2012). Similarly to ‘women-friendly’, ‘Nordic exceptionalism’ is also a strong metaphor that is weak on analytical capacity. I argue that Nordic exceptionalism has two elements. First, it relates to national myths about democratization and egalitarianism in the Nordic region, which make the Nordic welfare states the exception to the rule that welfare states originate from long traditions of struggles against inequality. There are variations across the region (Keskinen et al. 2019), but let me exemplify with the case of Sweden. Bengtsson (2019) argues that it is commonplace amongst historians and social scientists to consider the Swedish version of the ‘Nordic model’ of welfare and equality as being the logical end result of a long historical trajectory of egalitarianism extending forward from early-­ modern free peasant farmers, or a peculiar Swedish political culture that was always egalitarian and consensus-oriented. Political parties and a wider interested community also embrace this national myth. However, challenging this, Bengtsson shows that the factual basis for this myth is weak and that Sweden in 1900 had some of the most unequal voting laws in Western Europe, and more severe economic inequality than the United States. Rather, the well-organized popular movements that emerged after 1870, with a strong egalitarian counter-hegemonic culture and unusually broad popular participation in politics, lie at the roots of twentieth-­century egalitarianism in Sweden (Bengtsson 2019). Gender researchers have pointed to the related national myths about gender equality in Sweden. The critique of this myth is similar to that of the ‘gender-friendly’ welfare state (Martinsson et al. 2017). Second, Nordic exceptionalism is based on the idea that the Nordic region is the exception to the rule that imperialism and colonialism— including racial and gendered policies in overseas colonies—deeply influenced the formation of European national identities. In the dominant white Nordic self-representation of the region and its individual states, the colonial history of being both colonizer and colonized was peripheral to

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that of the rest of Europe (Keskinen 2019; Keskinen et al. 2019; Loftsdóttir and Jensen 2012; Loftsdóttir and Björnsdóttir 2015; Martinsson et al. 2017). In the Nordic region, this has led to similar paradoxes as those described by Wekker in a Dutch context. These concern a forceful denial of racial discrimination and colonial violence, which paradoxically co-exist alongside racism. It results in narratives of ‘white innocence’ and ignorance about the colonial past amongst the white population, which consequently safeguards white privilege (Wekker 2016). We can also recognize this in feminisms in the region (de los Reyes and Mulinari 2020; Andersen et al. 2015). Dankertsen (pp. 129–148) and Bang Svendsen (pp. 149–170) challenge such ‘innocence’ about the past, present and future of Nordic colonial structures in relation to the pervasive absence of Saemieh/Sámi and Inuit politics and thinking in Nordic societies in general, and in feminisms specifically. Keskinen (pp. 195–215) addresses how antiracist feminists react to racialization processes, which structure whiteness as being good, unmarked and unproblematic. ‘White innocence’ is a problem because it does not provide any opportunity to reveal positions of power and privilege and thus makes it difficult to address the politics of solidarity amongst feminists.

Intersectionality Diversely situated feminists often use intersectional approaches in their critiques of hegemonic versions of feminism. However, the uncritical use and de-politicization of intersectionality and the relation between intersectionality and the concept of (white) privilege in the study of feminist and queer movements can be controversial. Recent debates, both inside and outside the Nordic region, testify to this (de los Reyes and Mulinari 2020; Evans and Lépinard 2020; Lykke 2020; Tomlinson 2018; Carbin and Edenheim 2013; Bilge 2013). Evans and Lépinard point out that feminist and queer activists can often present intersectionality discourse as a necessity and as a proxy for being inclusive. In such cases, activists assess ‘good’ activist practices in relation to this norm, especially in the matter of the inclusion and representation of racialized women and queer activisms. However, empirical research shows that when intersectionality is weak or absent, activists do not necessarily replace it with other strategies of inclusion. This raises questions about when and why social movements take up intersectionality, and especially about how this process influences its

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appropriation and implementation (Evans and Lépinard 2020, pp. 289–291). It is important for my argument that we ask whether or when we can observe a process of co-optation of intersectionality. Do activists in the Nordic region use intersectionality as a byword for good practice, or as a tool to maximize funding opportunities, thereby transforming it into an empty buzzword that reproduces privilege? Can we recognize the use of political intersectional approaches in the Nordic region as a co-optation by right-wing populist and extremist mobilizations, in the same way as we can see this elsewhere in Europe (Sauer et al. 2017)?

Co-optation as a Controversial Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion Scholars have studied co-optation using different methods and in relation to several different types, but have rarely based their approaches on the particularities of Nordic feminisms. Therefore, although some of their findings are useful, others have their limitations. I acknowledge that I will here be painting a picture of co-optation research based on only a few sources and with a very broad brush. Unfortunately, I cannot do justice to individual contributions or broader debates, but my intention is to discuss how co-optation as a tool can help us to understand at least some of the complexities of the politics of inclusion and exclusion in feminisms as these are addressed in this book. One understanding of co-optation relates the concept to ideas about feminist successes and failures and/or to the assessment of ‘good’ activist practices in relation to specific norms. Governance relations between state and non-state actors can signal a form of feminist success, when political parties incorporate feminist concepts or discourses of gender equality and social justice and these eventually end up in national legislation, such as in ‘gender-friendly’ welfare states or in human-rights instruments at the United Nations as an outcome of feminist struggle. However, we may ask: When is this process a successful institutionalization of a social movement and when is it a failure, which we can call co-optation? Is the employment of feminist concepts, ideas and discourses by nationalist or neoliberal forces a success or failure? There are several pertinent issues here, relating, first, to social movement successes and failures, second, to the assessment

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of practices of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feminists and, third, to definitions of co-­ optation and related concepts, such as appropriation. Let me start with appropriation, which is a contested concept in several disciplines within the humanities and social sciences. Social anthropologists Busse and Strang (2011) make one suggestion for how to define appropriation by understanding it as relating to ownership, or the act of making something one’s own. This concerns not only the appropriation of things that had no previous owner, but also the process of coming to own objects that previously belonged to others and are acquired through some form of exchange or inheritance. We can frame some of these actions as positive in terms of agency and creativity, and others as negative, such as theft, or even extremely negative, such as enslavement or appropriation through violence. We can understand acts of appropriation and communicating and upholding ownership as processual rather than static (Busse and Strang 2011, p. 4). There can be a certain amount of overlap between particular definitions of appropriation and co-optation. Feminist political scientists de Jong and Kimm, in their research agenda for the study of the co-optation of feminisms, defined the concept of co-optation as ‘the appropriation, dilution and reinterpretation of feminist discourses, and practices by non-feminist actors for their purposes’ (de Jong and Kimm 2017, p. 185). Here, appropriation is part of a broader definition of co-optation. The normative political aim of de Jong and Kimm, as well as of other feminist scholars, when they study co-optation, is to address their disappointments, concerns and dilemmas in relation to specific phenomena that can be framed as ‘co-optation’, in order to effectively struggle against them. De Jong and Kimm position this specifically in the context of anxiety over feminism’s vulnerability to co-optation by neoliberalism, following, amongst others, the work of Fraser (de Jong and Kimm 2017; Fraser 2013). Eschle and Maiguashca, in turn, suggest that contemporary scholarship on feminist organizing in a neoliberal age is structured by a dichotomous understanding of feminism as either co-opted or resistant. They find this unfortunate, because it circumscribes our empirical understanding and political imagination (Eschle and Maiguashca 2014, 2018). In other words, they point to issues relating to feminist successes and failures as well as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feminists, but also focus on the importance of situatedness and context in thinking about co-optation. Based on this, my own definition of co-optation as controversial politics of inclusion and exclusion emphasizes that there is always controversy and

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a sense of unease related to the concept. I argue that co-optation is an outspoken negative and normative political concept. The person who uses the word ‘co-optation’ is making an accusation. This is different from the definition of appropriation given by Busse and Strang (2011), which argues that we can associate with appropriation in positive or neutral ways as well as negative ones. I cannot further develop the comparison with appropriation, due to lack of space, but my point is that it is not possible to see co-optation as either positive or neutral: it is always only negative. Consequently, I would like to stress the importance of disentangling analytical from normative political dimensions in the study of co-optation, and the related importance of self-reflexivity and transparency about the normative political position of the researcher. As I will develop below, the definition of co-optation given by de Jong and Kimm (2017) and the point about dichotomous understandings of feminism developed by Eschle and Maiguashca (2018) acknowledge the importance of disentangling analytical dimensions from normative political ones. Rather than doing so in passing, I argue that it is important to stress this action, because it will help us to relate empirical observations about co-optation processes to normative political struggles for equality and social justice.

A Two-Dimensional Approach to the Study of Co-optation Let me raise two points here and suggest two steps in reaction to these points. First, feminist scholars of co-optation have recently emphasized the importance of focusing on analytical questions, but there are differences in which questions these scholars suggest that we ask. Eschle and Maiguashca (2018) focus on the ‘who’ and ‘where’ of co-optation in feminist organizing against neoliberalism, but they leave aside questions of ‘what’. Korteweg, on the other hand, in her study of gendered racialized migrations, settler nation-states and postcolonial difference, focuses on questions of ‘who’ and ‘what’, and leaves aside questions of ‘where’ (Korteweg 2017). De Jong and Kimm provide us with a long list of analytical guiding questions. These concern the importance of asking questions about definitions, objects, actors, conditions, mechanisms, aims, effects, intentions, openness and responses to co-optation. These questions encourage us to be sensitive to the appropriateness of different

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methods in the study of different types of co-optation, as shown in Table 2.1 (de Jong and Kimm 2017). As a response to this point, as a first step, I suggest that we ask not only ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘where’ (similar to Korteweg and Eschle & Maiguashca), but also ‘how’ and ‘when’. I assume that feminism is a floating signifier and an open-ended process, and that these questions can help us to analyse controversial aspects of the politics of inclusions and exclusions in specific political contexts. This broader perspective reformulates questions about actors (who), objects (what), conditions (where and when) and mechanisms (how) posed by de Jong and Kimm (2017), and identifies these as analytical. I return to their remaining themes below, where I discuss my normative political approach. A second point is that de Jong and Kimm, as well as Eschle and Maiguashca, focus on co-optation in feminist organizing as this relates to neo-liberalism, while Korteweg considers co-optation in public debate and political engagement as this relates to nationalism. This point resonates Table 2.1  Analytical guiding questions Definitions

How can we define co-optation? When can co-optation be said to have been achieved or have failed? Is it absolute or can it be partial? Objects What exactly is being co-opted? Discourses, actors, concepts, frames, symbols, methods, strategies? Actors By whom? What kind of actors (i.e., political or commercial)? What is the role of the co-opted actor in the process of co-optation? Are there third parties involved? Conditions What are the preconditions for co-optation? What prompts co-optation? What makes it succeed or fail? Mechanisms What are the mechanisms of co-optation? What are common or divergent mechanisms of co-optation between disparate fields? What are the stages of co-optation? Aims For which purpose? What is the relation to the ‘original’ aim (contra, diverting)? Effects What are the effects of co-optation on the co-opted/co-opting element? What is gained/lost? What is (re-)produced? Intentions What is the role of intention, deliberation or happenstance in the co-optation process? Openness What leaves the object of co-optation vulnerable to, open to or complicit with its co-optation? What is not or cannot be co-opted? What is left out? Responses What are the responses to co-optation? How can co-optation be averted or resisted? Source: de Jong and Kimm (2017), Table 1 on p. 195

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with the findings of Elomäki and Kantola in their recent thinking about the theorizing of feminist struggles, based on the current political context in Finland. They argue that ‘… women’s organizations and feminist actors focus on one point of the triangle of neoliberalism, conservatism, and nationalism instead of engaging with the intersections and coalitions of the three projects’ (Elomäki and Kantola 2018, p. 337). They also argue that the compartmentalization of neoliberalism from nationalism, and additionally from conservatism, leads to limited feminist analysis of political context and policies. In general, this means that the background to feminist struggles might concern any political project that could be relevant at some point in time (the question of ‘when’), anywhere in the world (‘where’). Consequently, I would like to argue that thinking about co-­ optation in the context of feminist organizing and the Nordic welfare states requires that we not only relate to neoliberalism, conservatism and nationalism but, given the context of the social-democratic-inspired ‘Nordic model’ of welfare (Esping-Andersen 1990), also to the social-­ democratic and colonial roots of these states. This brings me to my second step. I suggest that we can fruitfully relate analytically open questions in the study of controversies over feminist politics of inclusion and exclusion to a normative political dimension of co-­ optation. I base the assumption that feminism is a floating signifier on the empirical observation that self-declared feminists (as well as those who could empirically and normatively be perceived as non-feminists or anti-­ feminists) can and will argue about the meaning of feminism and gender in any way they like. Analytical questions about the ‘who’ of co-optation relate to normative political questions about agency and the intentions— the ‘why’—of actors. In addition, the ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ of co-optation relate to normative questions about power, privilege and resistance in the practices and effects of co-optation, and how and why to react to these effects. This second dimension captures the remaining questions about definitions, aims, effects, intentions, openness and responses that de Jong and Kimm listed in their overview.

Co-optation and ‘Gender-friendly’ Welfare States Let me return to the Nordic context and develop the way in which my two-dimensional approach to co-optation can help us to analyse the controversies we can recognize here. I would like to start with the critique made by feminist scholars and activists of the ‘gender-friendly’ welfare

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states and the analytical question: ‘Who’ are the relevant actors in a study of co-optation in the context of ‘gender-friendly’ welfare states? Several actors may be involved in co-optation, but the ones who we can potentially identify depend upon the definition of co-optation employed and whether this encompasses relations that are internal or external to feminism. I think there is benefit to be gained from studying co-optation in relation to controversies around processes that are both internal and external to feminisms. De Jong and Kimm suggest that we ask who the actors are who co-opt or are co-opted, and whether there are any third parties involved (de Jong and Kimm 2017, p. 195). This is not an entirely open series of questions because, in their definition of co-optation, they focus on practices and processes employed by non-feminist actors (de Jong and Kimm 2017, p. 185), thereby highlighting the external relations between feminist and non-feminist actors. Eschle and Mauiguishca, in turn, point out that scholarship on feminist organizing in a neoliberal age is structured by a dichotomous understanding of feminism as either co-opted or resistant, and feminists as either ‘bad girls’ or ‘good girls’ (Eschle and Mauiguishca 2018). Here, co-optation is an internal affair amongst feminists, who disagree about strategies and political agendas. When we study feminist activism and mobilization, it is useful to analytically separate an identification of feminist actors from an identification of the ‘addressees’ of feminism, who might be non-feminist or anti-­ feminist actors or bystanders who could potentially be convinced to support feminist causes. When we study co-optation, it can also be relevant to analyse struggles over who considers who to be and not to be a feminist and who considers who ‘good’ or ‘bad’ at being a feminist. However, I think the question regarding intentions and ‘why’ the ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘how’ and ‘when’ of inclusion and exclusion in feminist politics become controversial in particular cases is most productive, because identifying this means that one can do something about it. We can ask, for example: What and who counts as internal and external in the case of the ‘gender-friendly’ welfare state of Finland? The Finnish feminist movement, according to Elomäki, Kantola, Koivunen and Ylöstalo (pp. 67–88), has historically been characterized as relatively weak by feminist researchers and activists and in relevant public debate. The movement’s actors have relied on institutionalized cross-party collaborations between women’s organizations and close relationships with the state in order to obtain gender equality. This state-centred strategy has

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achieved some successes because key feminist actors have shared the same framings of political problems. However, they argue that ‘The downside is that the Finnish feminist movement runs the risk of becoming co-opted by state discourses and practices’ (Elomäki, Kantola, Koivunen & Ylöstalo, pp. 67–88). This raises the questions: Who were the feminist movement actors who were co-opted, and who or what represented the state? Elomäki and colleagues discuss how recent changes in the relations between ‘feminist actors’ and the state have influenced how different actors politicize gender issues. The labelling of actors also raises questions about how we should deal with changes over time (the ‘when’), and how NGO-ization, institutionalization, professionalization and de-politicization challenge movement identities and imaginations of activism, privilege, power and resistance (Ylöstalo 2020; Paternotte 2016; Lang 2012). In addition, it brings me to the sites of co-optation (the ‘where’), which may, but need not, be located within institutions such as the state. Eschle and Maiguashca point out that the underlying thread in approaches to co-optation is that two processes pose a threat to feminist struggles and that these work hand in hand: the institutionalization of feminism and neoliberalism. But, starting from a Global North/Global South perspective, they argue: ‘an overwhelming focus on Northern-based and internationalised institutions of global governance as sites of agency “doing” neoliberalism in the South, means that the political possibilities of extra institutional spaces remain hidden from view’ (Eschle and Maiguashca 2018, p. 228). Consequently, they urge us to take seriously the micro, meso and macro levels of feminist co-optation and resistance, and to consider where feminist activism takes place (Eschle and Maiguashca 2018, p. 226). In other words, the site of co-optation does not need to be a political institution or a feminist organization, such as an umbrella organization that works on a regular basis with governmental and international organizations. It can also be located elsewhere, including in advertisements, campaigns, literature, exhibitions and other forms of popular culture. Mkwesha and Huber (pp. 216–238) address the controversies around the representation and related treatment of a pregnant 12-year-old Black girl-­ child from Zambia, Africa, called Fridah, who acted as a model in a fundraising campaign by Plan International Finland, entitled ‘Maternity Wear for a 12-Year-Old’. Although the important aim of advancing children’s rights and equality for girls is central to Plan International, this campaign led to demonstrations and petitions in which actors such as Sahwira Africa

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International, the Finnish Children’s Ombudsman and UNICEF challenged the way in which the girl had been used as a figure in the campaign. This concerned both the way in which she was exposed to a broad public and issues relating to financial compensation. Spivak famously wrote about the lack of female voices in disputes over the British abolition of the rite of widow sacrifice (so-called sati) in India during the colonial period. She captured the problem in the phrase ‘white men saving brown women from brown men’ (Spivak 1993, p.  93). Mkwesha and Huber discuss how a similar image of the gendered relations between colonizers and colonized matters today in this particular context of Finnish—African relations.

Co-optation and ‘Nordic exceptionalism’ It is not only sites of co-optation that matter, but also time, when we understand co-optation to be a process that takes place over a long period. The intentions of actors who are accused of co-opting or being co-opted can differ depending upon the period that is covered in a study. Eschle and Maiguashca (2018) link their thinking on co-optation and the intentions of actors to a problematic dichotomy between co-optation and resistance, which they capture in three common narratives in research on feminism and co-optation. First, feminist theorists such as Nancy Fraser tell a strong co-optation narrative when they argue that neoliberal capitalism has co-opted feminism by means of the NGO-ization and institutionalization of the feminist movement, and that gender ‘mainstreaming’ processes have served to de-politicize feminist claims (Fraser 2013). Second, in a more nuanced narrative, neoliberalism can appropriate a range of feminist discourses, ideas and claims, but this can lead to progressive change as well as new threats. Eschle and Maiguashca find this narrative to be more persuasive, since it provides a more sociologically sensitive and politically open-ended analysis. Third, however, they claim that in both strong and nuanced co-optations a counter-narrative hovers over the text, consisting of intersectional and transnational feminists who resist as an implicit ideal. Moreover, none of the three narratives offers explicit criteria for distinguishing between co-optation and resistance (Eschle and Maiguashca 2018, pp. 227–230). In response to this distinction between co-optation and resistance, I argue that it is more fitting to link a negative accusation of co-optation to a positive opposite, such as adaptation. In addition, I suggest that we link resistance not to co-optation, but to power and privilege. An analysis of

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resistance, power and privilege brings me in turn to the notion and approach of intersectionality. Controversies over ‘Nordic exceptionalism’ are not new (Kuokkanen 2019; Andersen et al. 2015; Knobblock and Kuokkanen 2015). The narratives described above about the long trajectory of egalitarianism and democratization in the ‘gender-friendly’ welfare states of the region urge, for example, Bang Svendsen (pp. 149–170) to ask us: Why are Saemieh women such as Elsa Laula Renberg (1877–1931) not the Sojourner Truths of Nordic feminism? Why do we see this exclusion of indigenous women’s perspectives and experiences in feminist knowledge production on feminist struggles for equality and justice? The question of what counts as ‘feminism’ was addressed in 1851 at the Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, USA, by the Black abolitionist and feminist Sojourner Truth in her famous speech entitled ‘Ain’t I a Woman?’ In this speech, she questioned assumptions that Black women could not count as women in women’s rights struggles (The Sojourner Truth Project n.d.). Since the 1980s, Truth’s speech has become a reference point in intersectional and Black feminist research and narratives about memories of feminist engagements with race and racism in the USA.  However, as Bang Svendsen points out, it is not possible to recognize the same kind of attention being given to the speeches of Elsa Laula Renberg in narratives about memories of feminist engagements with racism and colonialism in the Nordic region. The critique of what counted as hegemonic in feminism at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and the need to introduce intersectional approaches in Swedish feminist research, exemplifies how this can differ over time. Scholars such as de los Reyes and Mulinari (2005) have pointed out that understandings of inequality missed the simultaneous impact of power relations based on gender, sexuality, class and racism. These discussions emphasized the blindness to racism of Swedish gender studies and its location in a (post)colonial world (de los Reyes and Mulinari 2005; de los Reyes et al. 2002). Fifteen to 20 years later, intersectional approaches are more common in Swedish gender research and activism and issues of nationalism and racism are of central concern in many feminist struggles in the country, as they are in other parts of the region. In addition, attention to indigenous concerns has increased (de los Reyes and Mulinari 2020; Andersen et al. 2015; Siim and Stoltz 2014). This does not make the problems of racism or colonialism any less urgent today, as several chapters in this volume can testify (see chapters by Dahl; Bang Svendsen; Dankertsen; Mulinari; Keskinen; see also Kuokkanen

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2019). Siim (pp. 44–63) and Stormhøj (pp. 86–106) are concerned with what I would like to frame as reactions to co-optations of gender equality in ‘gender-friendly’ welfare states that expose problems with what I referred to earlier as ‘white innocence’ in the context of metaphors of ‘Nordic exceptionalism’. Siim addresses the ethno-nationalisms that she argues are challenging gender equality and solidarity in the Nordic region and she reflects critically upon the links between exclusionary nationalism and feminism. In her study, the actors who find these exclusions controversial are ‘women activists who are part of citizens’ activism against racism, discrimination and “othering”’ (Siim, pp. 47–66). Stormhøj (pp. 86–106) is concerned with how and why the dominant Danish politics of gender equality defines Muslim/migrant women as deficits in need of reform through state intervention. I interpret the actors who co-opt in this chapter as ‘neoliberal and right-wing ethno-nationalist parties [who] converge in exploiting gender-equality deficits for labour-market, anti-­ Muslim, and welfare-chauvinist interests’ (Stormhøj, pp. 89–109). The actors who find this politics of exclusion controversial are ‘minority women’s organizations [who] both resist and comply with these agendas’ (Stormhøj, pp. 89–109).

Intersectionality and the Future of Feminisms in the Nordic Region Co-optation can be quite the conversation killer between feminist scholars and activists in that it can be based in an unhelpful way on binaries, such as the juxtaposition of institutional politics with grass-roots activism, or internal and external in feminisms or an idealized, unco-opted feminist past versus a post-feminist present. Such binaries can generate a purist, nostalgic, backward-looking way of thinking about feminist activism, which can be alienating for mobilization purposes (Eschle and Maiguashca 2018, pp.  226–229; Newman 2013). Social movement outcomes are complex and consist of a variety of possible effects, both intended and unintended, leading to logical as well as contradictory effects that can create conflict or cooperation. Differences in opinion about the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘how’ of feminist activism are based on worldview, social location, identities and political agendas. Even so, not all controversies are bad, because these in turn can lead to change or the development

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of strategies to obtain change, both inside and outside of what differently positioned actors frame as feminism. There is a need to move forward from stories of origins identifying feminism as complicit with neoliberalism, such as that suggested by Fraser (2013), to stories of origins identifying feminism as a transnational movement with diverse genealogies and socio-historical roots. Several scholars have argued that the analytical position of Fraser is quite Eurocentric and based on the narrow analysis of very specific case studies in the Global North. It presumes a problematic ‘white innocence’, which does not engage with imperial and racialized histories of feminism and post-colonial feminist critique and which consequently uses a timeline that never was (Bhandar and Ferreira da Silva 2013; Roy 2017). This is why I argue that it is important to pay attention to notions of time, place, space and agency in considering accusations of co-optation and feminist and queer resistances to inequalities and injustices. This includes the realization that, for an investigation of co-optation in the context of feminisms in the Nordic region, it is important to relate not only to neo-liberalism, but also to social democracy, colonialism and nationalism. The results of such investigations will enable us to situate Nordic feminisms in comparative studies of resistances in other parts of Europe and the world, such as in the context of trends of right-wing populism and anti-feminism (see for example Paternotte and Kuhar 2018, on the disentanglement and locating of the Global Right). During contemporary times of recession and rising nationalist and misogynist movements in different parts of the world, political parties and governments in European states such as Poland or Hungary are attempting to undermine feminist accomplishments in their strivings for gender equality and social justice. Although it is also possible to recognize anti-­ feminism in the Nordic region, for example amongst specific political parties, it would be an exaggeration to treat these observations as identical to what is occurring in Poland or Hungary. In their comparison of Danish and Austrian activism against anti-­ feminism, anti-migration and racism, Sauer and Siim point out that there are differences between these mobilizations, and that these differences are influenced by dissimilarities in welfare and gender regimes as well as civil society traditions. This, they argue, emphasizes an attention to national contexts in both feminist and anti-feminist mobilizations. They suggest the use of intersectional approaches, with a particular focus on exclusive

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intersections of migration, race/ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality in this endeavour (Sauer and Siim 2020). I suggest that we can employ an intersectional approach not only in the study of feminist and anti-feminist mobilizations, but also in the study of co-optation. Hill Collins (2015) suggests two broader aspects of an intersectional approach that I think are fruitful: (1) Using intersectionality as an analytical approach to analysing social inequalities requires us to pay specific attention to contexts of time, place and space in the analyses of power relations. (2) Intersectionality as critical praxis emphasizes the importance of agency and reactions to social inequalities in the pursuit of social justice. This means that, just as practice should inform theory, theory should inform best practice. Hill Collins’ two aspects are reminiscent of my suggestion to consider analytical and normative dimensions in the study of co-optation. I propose that we analyse the intersectionality of social inequalities in the context of co-optation processes and relate the results to normative political questions about the ‘why’ in what is controversial about politics of inclusion and exclusion, and, relatedly, about how to react. This allows for more nuanced analyses of past and present struggles, but most of all it opens up the possibility of fruitful imaginations of future feminist scenarios. Rather than remaining at the level of accusations of co-optation, I encourage readers to consider how we can move forward. We can do this, for example, by bridging co-optation and intersectionality with the notion of scholarships of hope, in which academic knowledge is articulated with a political vision (de los Reyes and Mulinari 2020).

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Lykke, N. (2020). Transversal dialogues on intersectionality, socialist feminism and epistemologies of ignorance. NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research. https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2019.1708786. Martinsson, L., Griffin, G., & Giritli Nygren, K. (2017). Challenging the myth of gender equality in Sweden. Bristol: Policy Press. Melby, K., Ravn, A.-B., & Carlsson-Wetterberg, C. (Eds.). (2008). Gender equality as a perspective on welfare: The limits of political ambition. Bristol: Policy Press. Newman, J. (2013). Spaces of power: Feminism, neoliberalism and gendered labor. Social Politics, 20(2), 200–221. Paternotte, D. (2016). The NGO-ization of LGBT activism: ILGA Europe and the treaty of Amsterdam. Social Movement Studies, 15(4), 388–402. Paternotte, D., & Kuhar, R. (2018). Disentangling and locating the ‘global right’: Anti-gender campaigns in Europe. Politics and Governance, 6(3), 6–19. Rai, S. (Ed.). (2003). Mainstreaming gender, democratizing the state: Institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Roy, S. (2017). The positive side of co-optation? Intersectionality: A conversation between Inderpal Grewal and Srila Roy. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 19(2), 254–262. Sauer, B., Kuhar, R., Ajanovic, E., & Saarinen, A. (2017). Exclusive intersections: Constructions of gender and sexuality. In G. Lazaridis & G. Campone (Eds.), Understanding the populist shift: Othering in a Europe in crisis (pp. 104–121). London and New York: Routledge. Sauer, B., & Siim, B. (2020). Inclusive political intersections of migration, race, gender and sexuality: The cases of Austria and Denmark. NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 28(1), 56–69. Schierup, C.-U., Ålund, A., & Neergaard, A. (2018). ‘Race’ and the upsurge of antagonistic popular movements in Sweden. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 41(10), 1837–1854. Siim, B., & Skjeie, H. (2008). Tracks, intersections and dead ends: Multicultural challenges to state feminism in Denmark and Norway. Ethnicities, 8(3), 322–344. Siim, B., & Stoltz, P. (2014). Special issue on ‘Nationalism, gender equality and welfare: Intersectional contestations and the politics of belonging’. NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 22(4), 247–249. Siim, B., & Stoltz, P. (2015). Particularities of the Nordic: Challenges to equality politics in a globalized world. In H. P. Nielsen & S. Thidemann Faber (Eds.), Remapping gender, place and mobility: Global confluences and local particularities in Nordic peripheries (pp. 19–34). Farnham: Ashgate. Spivak, G.  C. (1993). Can the subaltern speak? In P.  Williams & L.  Chrisman (Eds.), Colonial discourse and post-colonial theory: A reader (pp.  66–111). Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

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Stoltz, P., Halsaa, B., & Stormhøj, C. (2019). Generational conflict and the politics of inclusion in two feminist events. In E.  Evans & E.  Lépinard (Eds.), Intersectionality in feminist and queer movements: Confronting privileges (pp. 271–288). London: Routledge. Stoltz, P., Svensson, M., Sun, Z. X., & Wang, Q. (Eds.). (2010). Gender equality, citizenship and human rights: Controversies and challenges in China and the Nordic countries. London: Routledge. The Sojourner Truth Project. (n.d.). Compare the speeches. Retrieved March 12, 2020, from https://www.thesojournertruthproject.com/ compare-the-speeches/. Tomlinson, B. (2018). Category anxiety and the invisible white woman: Managing intersectionality at the scene of argument. Feminist Theory, 19(2), 145–164. Wekker, G. (2016). White innocence: Paradoxes of colonialism and race. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ylöstalo, H. (2020). Depoliticisation and repoliticisation of feminist knowledge in a Nordic knowledge regime: The case of gender budgeting in Finland. NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research. https://doi.org/10.108 0/08038740.2020.1727008.

PART I

Feminist Struggles over Gender Equality, Welfare and Solidarity

CHAPTER 3

Gender, Citizenship and Intersectionality: Contending with Nationalisms in the Nordic Region Birte Siim

Introduction: Welfare Nationalism in the Nordic Context Feminist scholars have recently addressed changes in the way gender equality is articulated in national narratives as part of neo-nationalist claims in contemporary Europe. These are embedded in the constructions of both national and European identities. Increased migration to and mobility within Europe have contributed to challenging previous concepts of nationalism and populism, which were premised upon conservative family and gender politics centred on male leadership and women’s primary role as mothers (cf. Siim and Mokre 2013; Spierings and Zaslove 2015; Sauer et  al. 2017; Krizsán and Siim 2018, 54–56; Farris 2017). This chapter aims to add a Nordic dimension to the literature about neo-nationalist and right-wing populist theories. It will explore how the particular history,

B. Siim (*) Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark e-mail: [email protected]

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culture and ideology of the region have influenced ethno-nationalism and citizens’ activism against the anti-migrant consensus (Siim and Stoltz 2015; Mulinari and Neergaard 2014; Keskinen 2016). The main argument is that, in order to understand the articulation of gender by right-wing populist parties in the Nordic context, theories of nationalism focusing mainly on women’s symbolic role as mothers need to be revised. The gradual mainstreaming of right-wing populist (RWP) parties in the Nordic region makes it urgent to study the impact of neo-nationalism on the future of the Nordic welfare states’ gender politics, taking into account the political differences in the five countries’ welfare and migration politics (Brochmann and Hagelund 2012). The Danish People’s Party was the support party for the most recent Liberal-Conservative governments (2001–2011 and 2014–2019), the Norwegian Progress Party is currently in government, right-wing populist parties were in government in Finland during the period 2015–2019, and the Sweden Democrats gained more than 17 percent of the votes in the September 2018 election. These political changes have inspired the following research questions: How are claims about gender and family issues embedded in Nordic right-­ wing parties’ support for exclusive forms of welfare nationalism? How do these right-wing parties’ discourses on gender, women’s rights and the welfare state influence citizens’ (and women’s) activism against exclusionary nationalism? The theoretical part revisits feminist approaches in order to reframe the relations between gender, neo-nationalism and right-wing populism, reflecting on in/exclusionary notions of welfare nationalism within the particular Nordic contexts. The focus is on recent feminist approaches to reframing relations between right-wing populism, neo-nationalism and gender politics, such as the intersectional and femo-nationalist approaches. A special concern is the interface between immigration, race/ethnicity, sexuality and gender (cf. Puar 2010; Yuval-Davis 2011; Siim and Mokre 2013; Sauer et al. 2017; Farris 2017). The chapter proceeds as follows. The theoretical section briefly revisits some of the main arguments in feminist scholarship on gendered approaches to nationalism, with a special emphasis on studies that have contributed to (re)thinking gender and nationalism from intersectional and transnational perspectives (Yuval-Davis and Anthias 1989; Yuval-­ Davis 1997; Yuval-Davis 2011). Then it discusses recent feminist debates about the new forms of nationalism in contemporary Europe being

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articulated by right-wing populism (Siim and Mokre 2013; Sauer et  al. 2017; Krizsán and Siim 2018; Farris 2017). The second part focuses on the role of gender equality in the politics and rhetoric of contemporary right-wing nationalist parties in Scandinavia. The first section briefly illustrates relations between neo-nationalism, gender and right-wing populism in Scandinavia (the Danish People’s Party, the Norwegian Progress Party and the Sweden Democrats). It shows that the parties’ exclusive perception of citizenship is combined with a pragmatic acceptance of the values of gender equality and social rights embedded in the national hegemony (Mulinari and Neergaard 2014; Siim and Stoltz 2015; Siim and Borchorst 2017). The next section presents the results of a Danish case study of citizens’ mobilization against right-wing populism, racism and othering in civil-­ society organizations. This study draws on interviews with civil-society groups in the field of anti-racism and pro-migrants, focusing on the central actors and the main claims in the struggle against the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim consensus that has developed since 2001. It explores the challenges facing (female) civil-society activists seeking to integrate issues of anti-discrimination and anti-racism with gender politics and to create transversal solidarity around issues of immigration, race/ethnicity and gender. The closing section sums up the main arguments. It shows that, despite their differences, the three Scandinavian right-wing populist parties generally support liberal values of gender equality and sexual rights, often combined with a pragmatic acceptance of the welfare state and the heritage of Social Democracy. Arguably, this challenges the dominant approaches to gender of right-wing populism, emphasizing RWP parties’ support for conservative family politics and neo-liberal politics. It also raises normative issues about the potential for fostering inclusive solidarity to counter right-­ wing populism and neo-nationalism. The Danish study raises general questions about the conditions for creating transversal alliances against migration and racism in the Nordic context that include feminist claims for equality and solidarity.

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Reframing Gender, Citizenship and Nationalism: Theoretical Reflections Feminist theories have contributed to reframing relations between gender and the nation/nationalism in the global economy by focusing on the significance of gender and the family in national projects and on women’s agency in nationalist struggles (Thapar-Björkert 2013). Research on neo-­ nationalism/nativism and right-wing populism across Europe has inspired new feminist debates about reframing the relations between gender, nationalism, racism and neo-liberalism (Verloo 2018; Kantola and Verloo 2018; Farris 2017). This section first revisits Nira Yuval-Davis’ pivotal contribution to gender nationalism. Then it presents recent intersectional and femo-nationalist contributions to the gendering right-wing populism and neo-nationalism in contemporary Europe (Siim and Mokre 2013; Sauer et al. 2017; Farris 2017). Nira Yuval-Davis’ work has documented the multiple ways in which constructions of gender and gender equality are embedded in national histories, cultures and institutions. Yuval-Davis and Anthias (1989, 808) suggest that women participate in ethnic and national processes: (1) as biological reproducers; (2) as reproducers of the symbolic boundaries of ethnic and national identities; (3) as ideological reproducers of collectivities; 4) as the symbolic signifiers of ethnic-national differences; and 5) as participants in nation-building, and economic, political and military struggles. Yuval-Davis (2011) understands nationalism as a ‘politics of belonging’, concerned with the construction of boundaries of belonging, of a delineated collectivity that includes some people and excludes others (2011, 86–94). She proposes that an intersectional analytical perspective is crucial for empirical analysis of belonging/s and political projects of belonging. Her main argument is that ‘different political projects of belonging have different effects on different members of collectivities who are differently located and/or have different identifications and normative value systems’ (2011, 25). This approach makes a crucial distinction between belonging, which refers to an emotional attachment about ‘feeling at home’, and the politics of belonging, which concerns the construction of boundaries and the politics of in/exclusion of particular people, as well as social categories and groupings within these boundaries. It is concerned with the symbols and imagery of a population and emphasizes that it is not the figures of women/mothers alone that symbolize homelands,

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but rather the imaginary social relations and networks of belonging in which they are embedded (2011, 94–95). Yuval-Davis has also addressed the rise of ‘autochthonic’ or nativist politics of belonging, which are premised on claims to territories and states made according to the logic of ‘we were here first’, a crucial element in understanding exclusionary right-­ wing politics in Europe and elsewhere (2011, 99–109). The feminist approaches to nationalism that focus primarily on women’s roles as ‘mothers of the nation’, which are central to global and post-­ colonial studies of nationalism, religion and violence, have been criticized by post-colonial approaches. Some contributions have moved beyond the focus on culture, instead emphasizing the ‘politicization’ of women’s public and private lives and their roles in nation-building (cf. Thapar-Björkert 2013, 815–818). Finally, a growing body of literature has highlighted the meanings of gender in transnational migration processes (Benhabib and Resnik 2009), such as the gendered dimensions appearing in studies of security, conflicts and militarization (Hansen 2013).

Intersectional Approaches to Right-Wing Populism and Gender Politics The intersectionality approach has evolved through comparative studies of right-wing populism in contemporary Europe that examine the links between immigration and ethnicity/race, and gender and sexuality (Siim and Mokre 2013; Krizsán and Siim 2018), the links between racism and feminism (Keskinen 2018) and the rise of femo-nationalism (Farris 2017). This research has contributed to highlighting the interface between immigration, race/ethnicity, gender and sexuality, thus moving beyond women as ‘mothers of the nation’ (Siim and Mokre 2013, 2016; Mulinari and Neergaard 2014; de Lange and Mügge 2015; Sauer et al. 2017; Krizsán and Siim 2018). One comparative study of the intersections of gender and diversity1 in the European public spheres—based on elite interviews with political actors in EU member states, Turkey and Norway—distinguished between ‘exclusionary’ and ‘inclusionary’ framings of gender and diversity: ‘Exclusionary’ framings are premised on hierarchies according to 1  This study was part of the comparative research project Eurosphere: Diversity and the European public sphere. It was based on elite interviews with political actors in EU member states, Turkey and Norway. The results are published in Siim and Mokre 2013.

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nationality, ethnicity and religion, dividing women between ‘us’ and ‘them’, while ‘inclusionary’ intersectionality sees both equality and diversity as positive values that must be reconciled (cf. Siim and Mokre 2013, 34–35). Another European study compared exclusive intersections in the construction of gender and sexuality by RWP parties (cf. Sauer et al. 2017, 110–118). It identified different strategies: the first based on bio-political, ethno-nationalist and racist arguments in which homosexuality is understood as a sickness (and dangerous to the fabric of the nation); the second based on a pragmatic appeal to liberal values and good morals premised on a public/private division which allocates women and homosexuality to the private sphere; and the third was divided into homo- and femo-nationalist arguments in support of mainstream discourses on gender equality and homosexuality, and exclusive intersectionality directed towards Muslim migrants.2 A recent study of conflicts over gender, family, migration and mobility in right-wing populist parties’ agendas in the European Parliamentary Debates of 2014 shows that the selected RWP parties share exclusionary versions of nationalism favouring native citizens (cf. Krizsán and Siim 2018, 39–59). Immigration trumps gender and family issues, but the parties do not promote the male-breadwinner family model and do not share a common framing of family-issue-related equality.3 The support of elements of gender equality, such as women’s waged work and support for childcare, is rationalized with reference to nativist and reproductive justifications, but with arguments influenced by their national gender and family regimes. Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is the only ideological outlier, standing against both abortion and gender equality. Finally, Sara Farris’ reframing of intersections of feminism and racism (2017) draws on theories of nationalism as well as post-colonial and critical race studies in order to understand the new centrality of gender for right-wing nationalist parties in Europe. Farris claims that a 2  The first strategy was presented by the Greek Golden Dawn and the Bulgarian National Union, the second presented by the Freedom Party of Austria and the Italian Forza Nuova, and the third by the two Nordic right-wing populist parties, the Danish People’s Party and the True Finns (Sauer et al. 2017, 104–121). 3  The selected parties, the Danish People’s Party, the Dutch Party for Freedom, AfD, the Italian Lega Nord, the Croatian Party for Rights and the Jobbik Movement for a Better Hungary, represented Northern, Continental, Southern and Central Eastern European countries.

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femo-nationalist convergence exists between right-wing nationalists, feminists and femocrats who are engaged in a ‘rescue narrative’ of Muslim women, adding a European dimension to Spivak’s rescue narrative about ‘white men saving brown women’ (Spivak 1993, 93). This analysis rests on an empirical study of three RWP parties in Italy, France and the Netherlands,4 arguing that their adoption of the language of women’s rights and gender equality is influenced by the national, European or Western, context. It also shows that important differences exist between the parties’ pro-gay policies and homophobic language. The claim that femo-nationalism is premised on close links between racism, feminism and neo-liberalism needs to be further explored from diverse perspectives, including variations in migrant women’s integration in domestic and public care across Europe, as well as to the RWP parties’ different positions on the welfare states (Meret and Siim 2013a, b; Krizsán and Siim 2018). To sum up, feminist scholarship on gender in neo-nationalist parties’ politics in contemporary Europe generally agrees about the need to reframe nationalism and gender, but there is not yet any consensus about what the conceptual links between neo-nationalism, racism and neo-­ liberalism are (cf. Spierings and Zaslove 2015; Farris 2017). I propose that an intersectional approach has added to the understanding of transformations of neo-nationalism, racism and neo-liberalism and that the focus on political intersectionality has proved to be a fruitful approach for studying the intersecting discourses and policies of activists (Siim and Mokre 2018) and intersecting policies (cf. Borchorst and Teigen 2010; Siim and Borchorst 2017).

About Methods and Material The empirical part of this chapter addresses gender and neo-nationalism in the Nordic region (cf. Siim and Stoltz 2015; Mulinari and Neergaard 2014; Keskinen 2018; Siim and Borchorst 2017). The focus is on the framings of gender, family and welfare issues in three right-wing political parties in Denmark, Norway and Sweden: The Danish People’s Party [Dansk Folkeparti, DF], The Norwegian Progress Party [Fremskridtspartiet, FrP] and the Sweden Democrats [Sverigedemkraterne, SD].

4  The three parties are the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV), the French Front National (FN) and the Italian Lega North (LN) (cf. Farris 2017).

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This section first gives a brief overview of previous studies of the parties’ discourses and political framings and discusses how these articulations are embedded in the contexts of the various Scandinavian welfare states (cf. Siim and Stoltz 2015; Mulinari and Neergaard 2014; Meret and Siim 2013a; Siim and Meret 2016; Meret et al. 2017). Then it addresses the implications of these framings for citizens’ activism against anti-­ discrimination and racism based on studies of citizens’ diverse activism in contemporary Europe5 (cf. Siim et  al. 2018). The Danish case study addresses the conditions for a civic activism that is forging discursive transversal coalitions of civil society organizations against racism, discrimination and othering for inclusive solidarity. It aims to gain knowledge about the impact of the Nordic context on civic activism, and raise new questions about women’s activism as well as about potentials and barriers for transversal alliances between anti-racism and feminism in the particular Danish context. The in-depth study addresses activist groups fighting Danish right-­ wing populism, emphasizing the history and dynamics of right-wing actors, citizens’ mobilizing strategies, gender and welfare regimes and migration experiences (cf. Siim and Meret 2018, 28–29). The empirical material on civil society activists draws on document analysis, individual narratives and focus-group interviews with activists/groups in the field of anti-racism, anti-discrimination and pro-migration6 (Siim and Meret 2018). The present analysis includes five groups: Refugees Welcome in Denmark (RW),7 Trampoline House, a community house run for and by asylum-seekers founded 2010,8 the Friendly Neighbours (Venligboerne, VB), an informal network for local refugees founded in 2014,9 Black Lives Matter founded in 2016 (BLM)10 and the Castaway Souls of Denmark, a

5  The study was part of the European research project Hate-speech and populist othering through the racism, age and gender looking-glass, Siim, Krasteva and Saarinen, (Eds.) 2018. Citizens’ activism and solidarity movements in contemporary Europe: Contending with populism, Palgrave Macmillan. 6  The original analysis included focus-group interviews with activists from eight anti-discrimination and pro-migrant organizations and face-to-face interviews with ten activists (cf. Meret and Siim 2018). 7  http://refugeeswelcome.dk/. 8  https://www.facebook.com/trampolinhuset/. 9  https://www.venligboerne.org/¸http://venligboerne.dk/. 10  https://www.facebook.com/BlackLivesMatterDenmark/.

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refugee-led movement founded in 2016 in the so-called repatriation camp or ‘detention centre’11 (cf. Siim and Meret 2018, 32–43). The empirical emphasis is on four dimensions: (1) The main actors and forms of activism: Here the focus is on who the agent is; for example, activist groups/organizations/activists, and on the interactions between diverse groups, asking, do they involve native citizens/immigrants/refugees/asylum-seekers/men/women? (2) The strategies, framings and claims: Here the focus is on diverse strategies, such as everyday activism and political protests. It asks whether and how do these framings of anti-­ discrimination/anti-racism, pro-equality and pro-diversity include gender equality, women’s and sexual rights? (3) The intersections of differences within and between the groups: Here the focus is on whether and how the diverse organizations compete or cooperate. (4) The results of the activities: Here the focus is on the impact of the mobilization of citizens on civil society, the political culture and public policies.

Right-Wing Scandinavian Populism: Claims About Gender, Welfare and Immigration This section addresses contested claims about gender equality, the family and welfare issues in the discourses and politics of Scandinavian right-wing populist parties, exploring the interface between immigration, race/ethnicity and gender. Gender research has noted that right-wing parties in Europe often find creative ways to use/misuse gender equality as a liberal value that separates the modern majority from the oppressive, patriarchal immigrant Muslim minorities, for example calls to ban veiling, the hijab and the burka (Sauer et al. 2017; Farris 2017). Studies have also shown that right-wing Scandinavian parties such as the Danish People’s Party can combine anti-immigration policies with support for gender equality, women’s rights and the welfare state (Meret and Siim 2013a, b). Scholars have proposed that the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish welfare states present three different forms of universal ‘welfare nationalism’, limited to national citizens (cf. Brochmann and Hagelund 2011, 12). Brochmann and Hagelund’s work (Brochmann and Hagelund 2012) demonstrates that Scandinavian welfare nationalism, based upon democracy, citizenship and modernization, includes various levels of inclusivity and exclusivity in relation to different groups; such as native citizens,  https://www.facebook.com/Rejected-souls-of-DenmarkEurope-222564811413741/.

11

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minorities, European citizens and immigrant groups. They show that important variations exist between the three countries’ immigration regimes, between the ‘good’ Swedish policies, the ‘bad’ Danish policies and the Norwegian ‘in-between’ policies. They conclude that, despite the countries’ different approaches to immigration/integration, the three welfare states have failed to integrate immigrants of non-Western origin and their families into the labour market or to redefine equality policies in order to integrate the new immigrant groups as equal citizens (Brochmann and Hagelund 2011, 22). Over the last few decades, the universal welfare states have witnessed profound transformations in the political landscape. The ‘social democratic’ understanding of equality policies that dominated large parts of the last century, directed mainly towards class and gender, has come under pressure from increased globalization and immigration processes, and the Scandinavian countries have witnessed a growth in neo-liberal politics and new forms of social conservatism (Mulinari and Neergaard 2014; Siim and Stoltz 2015; Siim and Borchorst 2017). One issue is the links between right-wing populism, welfare politics and these parties’ relations to the heritage of social democracy. Studies suggest that Scandinavian right-wing populist parties have strong working-class profiles that may have affected their position on welfare issues (Meret 2010; Meret and Siim 2013b; Hellström et al. 2012; Widfeldt 2015). In the same vein, research shows that the Scandinavian RWP parties, DF, the FrP and the SD, all have similar articulations of gender equality and women’s rights, premised on support for such liberal values as freedom of expression, gender equality and LGBTIQ rights. These results suggest that the parties’ gender-equality discourses and policies resonate with the particular welfare and gender regimes embedded in the countries’ national narratives and politics of belonging (Meret and Siim 2013a, b, 93). This is confirmed by comparisons between the framings of gender equality, women’s rights and family values in the party programmes and manifestos of the two Scandinavian right-wing populist parties, the DF and Frp, with the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). They all hold exclusionary nationalist positions (cf. Meret and Siim 2013a), but the Danish and Norwegian parties combine their nativist discourses with an emphasis on liberal democratic values, including gender equality, women’s rights and sexual rights, while the FPÖ does not. The studies also emphasize the tensions inherent in the two Scandinavian parties’ positions on gender equality. The parties claim that

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gender-equality policies have gone too far and they oppose further policies directed towards the majority population, such as gender quotas, positive action or ‘gender mainstreaming’ policies (Meret and Siim 2013a, 85–90). The DF and FrP mainly support gender-equality issues directed towards ethnic minorities, especially Muslim women, such as a ban on genital mutilation, enforced marriages, honour killings and veiling (cf. Siim and Skjeie 2008), and gender equality is instrumentalized as an ethnic-­ minority issue. The picture is somewhat similar in Sweden. Here, gender equality is subordinated to the SD’s ideological anti-migration and Euro-sceptic stance. Mulinari and Neergaard’s (2014) study finds that the construction of who is perceived to be a citizen that is at the core of their social policy visions in a globalized world creates a contradiction in the definition of who deserves care. The ideology of the party thus illustrates a shift from universal care for all to care ‘for our own’, which is connected to the ambition to expand care for ‘our own’ native-born citizens. This is interpreted as a form of racist care with two variations: one is related to welfare chauvinism; the other is linked to an ethno-pluralist understanding whereby caring extends to the racialized other, who is encouraged to return to their home country, for their own good. The authors suggest that care becomes salient for two reasons: It plays a central role in the Nordic welfare states, and informants explain their participation in the party with reference to the positive value of caring rather than the negative value of racism. The SD informants in this study construct their exclusion and separation from the racialized other not only as caring for their own native-born citizens, but also as a way of preserving their purity from the ‘other’ (Mulinari and Neergaard 2014, 53–54). The authors conclude that it is important to identify the role that care has historically played in legitimating relations of power. This resembles the Danish People’s Party’s policies to expand the welfare state for ‘native-born’ citizens, which can be interpreted as an ‘exclusionary’ version of the hegemonic Danish ‘welfare nationalism’ (Siim and Meret 2016; Krizsán and Siim 2018). The framing of care for native citizens is thus connected, in both the Swedish and Danish case, to the welfare state, linked to various justifications that range from ‘positive’ values of care for natives to ‘negative’ values against the racialized other. The studies point towards both similarities and differences in the legitimation (and practical implementation) of welfare policies between and within the three Scandinavian RWP parties in relation to gender, sexuality and

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welfare issues. These need to be studied further, taking into account the differences in the countries’ immigration, welfare and gender policies.

An Intersectional Approach to Citizens’ Mobilization Against Right-Wing Populism, Racism and Othering This section explores how the particular Nordic welfare and migration histories, cultures and policies influence the conditions for civic activism, with an emphasis on the Danish context. It provides an overview of the main results from an exploratory Danish study of citizens’ mobilization against right-wing populism, racism and othering, part of the European RAGE-project12 (cf. Siim and Meret 2018). The focus is on analysing the potentials and problems of the activist groups’ strategies based on acts of solidarity and everyday activism—defined as acting with and for marginalized groups. In terms of agency, most of the activists were Danish citizens, among them many women and so-called first movers, that is, people with no previous experience of activism. The main claims of the selected civic organizations, Trampoline House (TH), RW, VB and Black Lives Matter Denmark (BLM), all address anti-discrimination, anti-racism, pro-­ migration and pro-LGBTIQ.  The self-organized asylum-seekers in the Castaway Souls of Denmark13 were an exception to the general picture that most activists are Danish citizens. Many activists refer to everyday activism, defined as ‘acting for and with’ marginalized groups, as a key strategy. Informants from TH, RW and BLM emphasized the tensions between activism aimed at improving the daily lives of refugees ‘here and now’ and long-term strategies ‘to change the whole system’, that is, by closing the asylum camps (TH, interview 1; RW, interview; BLM, interview). One example is Trampoline House, a community house run by its users. Here, the two founders offered the term ‘everyday activism’ as a way to form a bridge between these two strategies. The informants further emphasized that ‘hosts and guests’—founders and users of the 12  The analysis and results in this section are all based on empirical data from the RAGEproject Hate-speech and populist othering through the racism, age and gender looking-glass (cf. Siim and Meret 2018). 13  https://www.facebook.com/Rejected-souls-of-DenmarkEurope-222564811413741/.

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house—must learn to overcome racism and diversities in relation to gender, sexuality and religion within the house and live together with diverse political identities and interests (TH, interview 1 and 3). Some informants also experienced deep tensions between ‘the welcome culture’, which is based on solidarity and hospitality towards strangers, and political protests directed at critiques of Danish migration policies. This was the case for VB, which was initiated in 2014 by a female nurse from a small town in Northern Jutland, Hjørring, and then rapidly mushroomed to form local groups across the country.14 VB lived through a public conflict between the values of ‘hospitality’ and a few members’ active ‘political protests’ against the restrictive Danish migration/asylum policies. After intensive media debates between two local Facebook groups, one situated in Hjørring, in Jutland, and the other in Copenhagen, the two groups finally agreed to a compromise premised on an acceptance of local autonomy for VB groups and accepting diverse strategies to implement the three visions of ‘friendship, curiosity and respect for diversity’ (VB research interview). In terms of claims, the Danish RAGE-project identified an interesting contrast between the organizations’ framings and action repertoire: a large number of female activists are initiators, leaders and coordinator of the activities, yet, except for BLM, gender and female refugees’ issues were usually not part of the framings of the groups’ claims. RW, VB and TH mainly addressed gender, family and female refugees’ issues in terms of action rather than claims. One example is TH’s creation of ‘the women’s club’ as a safe space for refugee women and their children to meet and act together to learn new things. Another example is RW’s founding of a Facebook group in 201615 directed towards refugee women’s special problems, especially the stringent restrictions on demands for family reunification. The Danish situation is an example of fear of and discrimination against strangers, especially Muslims. Muslim women wearing the veil are the most discriminated-against group in Danish society and presently one third of refugees are women, and their situation should prompt more and better-­ organized activities directed at improving their situation and [helping them to] stay in the country. (RW research interview, 15 August 2017)  https://www.venligboerne.org/.  https://www.facebook.com/WRRoute/.

14 15

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These activities illustrate that Danish activists are increasingly aware that female migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers have special educational, employment and ‘family’ problems that need to be addressed and included in their organizations’ claims and strategies. Danish activism is mainly informal, and organized locally around the two largest cities, the capital Copenhagen and Århus, with the exception of VB’s local Facebook groups. The informants thus find it relatively easy to coordinate activities against right-wing populism, ‘othering’ and racism. Organizations/groups working on similar issues, such as those relating to LGBTIQ people and anti-racism, or as advocates for asylum-seekers and refugees, usually collaborate and support each other, sharing mutual knowledge about their areas of expertise, rather than competing with each other. Since TH is the only organization with its own premises, groups such as RW and BLM often meet in the house. The informants also refer to tensions between the political identities of activists who prioritize political ‘acts of resistance’ against immigration policies and activists who are primarily practising ‘acts of solidarity’ in support of vulnerable groups. The majority of activists are Danish citizens acting in solidarity with immigrants, LGBTIQ groups, refugees and asylum-seekers. A large number are female activists who are mobilizing for the first time in acts of solidarity with migrants and refugees in order to counteract racism and discrimination. Many activists see themselves as everyday activists acting ‘for and with’ vulnerable groups, fighting for their ‘right to have rights’. The political protests and self-empowerment of BLM and Castaway Souls represent exceptions to the general picture, since they both express ‘acts of resistance’ by participating in political protests against immigration policies. The short-lived radical protest of Castaway Souls initiated by non-­ status refugees illustrates the problems of activist citizenship run by non-status refugees, which is easily blocked by the authorities. In terms of results, our informants refer to a gap between their success in mobilizing ordinary people in civil society and their inability to prevent the mainstreaming of populism in the public debate and politics or in changing migration policies. They refer to feelings of powerlessness vis-à-­ vis the dominant framings of migration and asylum politics, although in some cases they do cooperate with local municipalities and business partners. In terms of mobilizing, most civil society organizations seem to be relatively successful, possibly influenced by the strong Danish tradition of organizing ‘from below’ in civil society. One example is the Friendly Neighbours, which since 2015 has spread rapidly across the country to

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more than 150 local groups with autonomy. Another example is TH’s strategy of democracy ‘from below’, premised on dialogue, mutual trust and respect for diversity, which is aimed at overcoming diversity within. This strategy aims to create solidarity across differences within the house but also to engage in public debates between ordinary people, civil society organizations and politicians, for example at the annual June meeting, Folkemødet, on the island of Bornholm. In summary, the Danish tradition of a strong voluntary sector and local democracy has probably been a favourable condition for civil society mobilizations against right-wing populism. The various kinds of activism can be interpreted as different forms of action by citizens, including acts of solidarity and friendship, as well as acts of resistance. The groups’ framing has mainly addressed anti-discrimination, anti-racism and refugees and asylum-seekers’ ‘right to have rights’. Their action repertories do point, however, towards a growing awareness of intersecting structures of inequality and othering. In terms of action, the gradual mainstreaming of anti-migration discourses may have strengthened the opposition, creating more favourable conditions for inclusive solidarity to mobilize across lines of immigration, race/ethnicity, gender and sexuality. The mainstreaming of anti-migration discourses thus contributed to creating new citizens’ initiatives and acts of solidarity. Recent events such as the successful ‘Citizens’ Initiative for the Future of the Children at Sjælsmark’16 illustrate the potential for activist groups to create counter-­ strategies based on transversal alliances between anti-racism and feminism around equality and diversity for inclusive solidarity/intersectionality. This chapter proposes that strategies focusing on gender issues could be a way of mobilizing feminist, women’s and other civil society groups against exclusionary nationalism that challenges the Danish narrative of a nation based on (gender) equality and solidarity.

16  Trampoline House started the campaign for the children of Sjælsmark. This encompasses several ways to act: street-level demonstrations, mobilization through social and traditional media, and the launching of a citizens’ proposal in December 2018 aimed at changing the law. In May 2019, it reached the necessary 50,000 signatures required to be discussed in Parliament: https://www.asylboernsfremtid.dk/borgerforslag/.

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Conclusions: Gender Equality, Social Justice and Inclusive Solidarity The political landscape of contemporary Europe and the Nordic region has been transformed during the last twenty years, and this chapter argues that feminist approaches to gender and nationalism should also be reframed in order to highlight the gendered aspects of neo-nationalism and exclusive notions of welfare. Feminist scholars have emphasized that notions of gender equality and individual rights have become part of right-wing European parties’ discourses, policies and belongings, and that Muslim minorities are often attacked ‘in the name of women’s rights’ (cf. Farris 2017). The chapter proposes that the particular Scandinavian cases examined here add new knowledge about how gender equality, family and welfare policies are embedded in contemporary neo-nationalist and RWP projects. The empirical part first analysed the claims made by three right-wing Scandinavian parties to demonstrate how liberal values of gender equality and women’s rights have increasingly replaced the previous conservative focus on the family and motherhood as dominant values in the neo-­ nationalist and right-wing politics of belonging. The analysis found that, despite variations, Scandinavian welfare and migration policies rest on contradictions: here, neo-nationalism is associated with positive valuations of gender equality, sexuality and women’s rights but premised on exclusionary distinctions between citizenship rights reserved for native citizens and demands for gender equality mainly directed towards migrant minorities. Right-wing nationalist parties claim that gender equality is mainly an ethnic-minority issue, and that such equality has already been achieved by the majority population. Ethnic minorities (especially Muslims) thus need to assimilate into the Scandinavian gender models, including integration through the labour market and public childcare. The argument in this chapter demonstrates that, despite the similarities among femo-nationalism premised on liberal notions of gender equality, sexuality and women’s individual rights in different parts of Europe, there are important Scandinavian particularities (Meret and Siim 2016; Farris 2017). The chapter claims that support for women’s and sexual rights, including the right to abortion, is embedded in the hegemonic version of an exclusionary welfare nationalism, not in demands for neo-liberal politics. Demands for public welfare and care ‘for our people’ have become

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integrated into the discourse and policies of these parties, although with different justifications. The chapters also asks: How does the Scandinavian welfare and migration context influence the conditions for activism against exclusive nationalism, racism and discrimination? This issue was explored through a case study of Danish citizens’ activism. The study addressed the challenges faced by the feminist struggles both for and against right-wing populism; the (lack of) attention to women’s lives in the action repertoires of civil society organizations; the (lack of) framing of women’s and gender issues and claims in the activists’ agenda; and the potential for transversal politics across issues of ethnicity/race, class and gender towards inclusive solidarity/intersectionality. Finally, my argument in this chapter has highlighted underlying tensions between the exclusive forms of citizenship rights and solidarity limited to nationals only, as expressed by nationalist right-wing parties, and the ideas of equal rights, justice and solidarity that are embedded in Nordic welfare and gender regimes. The chapter proposes that the struggle against exclusive articulations of neo-nationalism is a crucial element of contemporary democratic struggles for equality and social justice. The theoretical analysis has been premised on the need to develop inclusive intersectional approaches to reframing relations between (gender) equality and social justice. The chapter claims that the intersectional challenges to integrate feminist struggles for gender equality and justice with the present mobilization against racism and discrimination need to be examined further from the various particular Nordic perspectives. Arguably, it is crucial for future research to explore both the potential and problems involved in creating intersectional alliances in the Nordic region between feminist mobilizations and the anti-racist solidarity movement for inclusive and transnational solidarity in multilevel Europe (cf. Siim 2016).

References Benhabib, S., & Resnik, J. (Eds.). (2009). Migrations and mobilities: Citizenship, borders and gender. New York and London: New York University Press. Borchorst, A., & Teigen, M. (2010). Political intersectionality: Tackling inequalities in public policies in Scandinavia. Kvinder. Køn and Forskning, 2–3, 19–28. Brochmann, G., & Hagelund, A. (2011). Migrants in the Scandinavian welfare state: The emergence of a social policy problem. Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 1(1), 13–24.

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Brochmann, G., & Hagelund, A. (2012). Immigration policies and the Scandinavian welfare state 1945–2010. London: Palgrave Macmillan. de Lange, S. L., & Mügge, L. M. (2015). Gender and right-wing populism in the Low Countries: Ideological variations across parties and time. Patterns of Prejudice, 49(1–2), 61–81. Farris, R. S. (2017). In the name of women’s rights: The rise of femo-nationalism. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press. Hansen, L. (2013). Security, conflict and militarization. In G. Waylen, K. Celis, J. Kantola, & S. L. Weldon (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of gender and politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hellström, A., Nilsson, T., & Stoltz, P. (2012). Nationalism vs. nationalism: The challenge of the Sweden democrats in the Swedish public debate. Government and Opposition: An International Journal of Comparative Politics, 47(2), 186–205. Kantola, J., & Verloo, M. (2018). Revisiting gender equality in times of recession: A discussion of the strategies of gender and politics scholarship for dealing with equality. European Journal of Politics and Gender, 1(1–2), 205–222. Keskinen, S. (2016). From welfare nationalism to welfare chauvinism: Economic rhetoric, the welfare state and changing asylum policies in Finland. Critical Social Policy, 36, 1–29. Keskinen, S. (2018). The ‘crisis’ of white hegemony, neonationalist femininities and antiracist feminism. Women’s Studies International Forum, 68, 157–163. Krizsán, A., & Siim, B. (2018). Gender equality and family in European populist radical-right agendas: European parliamentary debates 2014. In T.  Knijn & M.  Naldini (Eds.), Gender and generational division in EU citizenship (pp. 39–59). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Meret, S. (2010). The Danish People’s Party, the Italian Northern League and the Austrian Freedom Party in a comparative perspective: Party ideology and electoral support. SPIRIT PhD series. Aalborg: Aalborg University. Meret, S., & Siim, B. (2013a). Gender, populism and politics of belonging. In B. Siim & M. Mokre (Eds.), Negotiating gender and diversity in an emergent European public sphere (pp. 78–96). Basingstoke: Palgrave. Meret, S., & Siim, B. (2013b). Multiculturalism, right wing populism and the crisis of social democracy. In M. Keating & D. McCrone (Eds.), The crisis of European social democracy (pp.  125–139). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Meret, S, Siim, B., & Pingaud, E. (2017). Men’s parties with Women leaders. A comparative study of right-wing populist leaders Pia Kjærsgaard, Siv Jensen and Marine Le Pen. In G. Lazaridis, & G. Campani (Eds.), Understanding the populist shift (pp. 122-149). London, New York: Routledge. Mokre, M., & Siim, B. (2018). Negotiating Equality and Diversity: Transnational Challenges to European Citizenship. In J.-E. Fossum, R. Kastoryano & B. Siim, (Eds.), Diversity and Contestation over Nationalism in Europe and Canada (pp. 187-209). Palgrave/Macmillan.

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Mulinari, D., & Neergaard, A. (2014). We are Sweden democrats because we care for others: Exploring racisms in the Swedish extreme right. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 21(1), 43–56. Puar, J. (2010). Terrorist assemblages: Homo-nationalism in queer times. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Sauer, B., Kuhar, R., Ajanovic, E., & Saarinen, A. (2017). Exclusive intersections: Constructions of gender and sexuality. In G. Lazaridis & G. Campone (Eds.), Understanding the populist shift: Othering in a Europe in crisis (pp. 104–121). London/New York: Routledge. Siim, B. (2016). Feminist challenges to the reframing of equality and social justice. NORA—Nordic Journal of Gender and Feminist Research, 24(3), 196–202. Siim, B., & Borchorst, A. (2017). Gendering European welfare states and citizenship: Revisioning inequalities. In P.  Kennett & N.  Lendvai-Benton (Eds.), Handbook of European social policy (pp. 99–127). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Siim, B., Krasteva, A., Saarinen, S. eds. (2018). Citizens’ Activism and Solidarity Movements in contemporary Europe. Contending with Populism. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Siim, B., & Meret, S. (2016). Right wing populism in Denmark. People, nation and welfare in the construction of the ‘Other’, In G. Lazaridis, G. Campani, A. Benveniste (Eds.), The Rise of the Far-Right in Europe. Populist Shifts and Othering (pp. 109–136). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Siim, B., & Meret, S. (2018). Dilemmas of citizenship and evolving civic activism in Denmark. In B. Siim, A. Krasteva, & A. Saarinen (Eds.), Citizens’ Activism and Solidarity Movements in contemporary Europe: Contending with Populism. Cham: Palgrave/Macmillan. Siim, B., & Mokre, M. (Eds.). (2013). Negotiating gender and diversity in an emerging European public sphere. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Siim, B., & Skjeie, H. (2008). Tracks, intersections and dead ends: Multicultural challenges to state feminism in Denmark and Norway. Ethnicities, 8(3), 322–344. Siim, B., & Stoltz, P. (2015). Particularities of the Nordic: Challenges to equality politics in a globalized world. In S.  Faber Thidemann & H.  Pristed Nielsen (Eds.), Remapping gender, place and mobility: Global confluences and local particularities in Nordic peripheries (pp. 19–36). Farnham: Ashgate. Spierings, N., & Zaslove, A. (2015). Conclusion: Dividing the populist radical right between ‘liberal nativism’ and traditional conceptions of gender. Patterns of Prejudice, 49(1–2), 163–173. Spivak, G.  C. (1993). Can the subaltern speak? In P.  William & L.  Chrisman (Eds.), Columbia discourse and postcolonial theory: A reader (pp.  66–101). London: Harvester. Thapar-Björkert, S. (2013). Gender, nations and nationalisms. In G.  Waylen, K. Celis, J. Kantola, & S. L. Weldon (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of gender and politics (pp. 803–827). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Verloo, M. (Ed.). (2018). Varieties of opposition to gender equality in Europe. New York/London: Routledge. Widfeldt, A. (2015). Extreme right parties in Scandinavia. London/New York: Routledge. Yuval-Davis, N. (1997). Gender and nation. London: Sage. Yuval-Davis, N. (2011). The politics of belonging: Intersectional contestations. London: Sage. Yuval-Davis, N., & Anthias, F. (1989). Women-state-nation. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Links http://refugeeswelcome.dk/. http://venligboerne.dk/. https://www.facebook.com/BlackLivesMatterDenmark/. h t t p s : / / w w w. f a c e b o o k . c o m / R e j e c t e d - s o u l s - o f - D e n m a r k E u r ope-222564811413741/. https://www.facebook.com/trampolinhuset/. https://www.facebook.com/WRRoute/.

CHAPTER 4

Changing Feminist Politics in a ‘Strategic State’ Anna Elomäki, Johanna Kantola, Anu Koivunen, and Hanna Ylöstalo

Introduction Historically, the Finnish feminist movement has been characterised as relatively weak, and it has relied on institutionalised cross-party collaborations between women’s organisations, as well as close relationships with the state (Holli 2003; Kantola 2006). On the part of actors within the feminist movement, and also in public debates involving or relevant for feminist research, there has been an assumption that the ‘woman-friendly’ welfare state functions as a partner in advancing gender equality (see, e.g., Julkunen 2002). In the past, the state-centred approach has achieved many successes, largely because of shared framings of the political problems by key feminist actors (Holli 2006). The downside is that the

A. Elomäki • J. Kantola • A. Koivunen (*) Tampere University, Tampere, Finland e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] H. Ylöstalo University of Turku, Turku, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 S. Keskinen et al. (eds.), Feminisms in the Nordic Region, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53464-6_4

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Finnish feminist movement runs the risk of becoming co-opted by state discourses and practices. In the 2010s, Finnish state-centred feminism faced a new situation, where the state for a moment appeared to have turned its back on gender equality. After the 2007–2008 global economic crisis, governments made significant cuts to public spending, a move that intensified the retrenchment of the welfare state that had begun in the 1990s and increased economic inequality between women and men (Elomäki and Ylöstalo 2018). Austerity politics was accompanied with the intensification of other gendered neoliberal reforms: marketisation of public social and healthcare services, efforts to improve cost-competitiveness, and managerialist shifts in state governance. The political context of the 2010s was also underpinned by conservatism and nationalism, visible, for instance, in a resistance to gender equality policy and tightened immigration policies (Elomäki and Kantola 2018; Keskinen 2016). One of the more glaring signs of the state’s withdrawal from gender equality was the sidelining of gender equality goals from Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s right-conservative-populist government’s programme in 2015 (Elomäki et al. 2016). The programme contained only one sentence about gender equality: ‘Finland is also a land of gender equality’ (PMO 2015, 8). This all-too-brief, watered down statement reflected the common assumption in Finland that gender equality has already been achieved. In many countries, the dire political situation has had the paradoxical effect of strengthening, instead of undermining, feminist struggles (see Evans 2015). This has also been the case in Finland, where the field of feminist actors became more diversified, and the visibility of feminism in public debates increased, in the 2010s. The efforts of established women’s movement actors, such as state gender equality bodies and existing women’s organisations, have been complemented by those of new feminist actors and new forms of feminist activism: the Feminist Party, a feminist network at the Finnish Parliament, new feminist NGOs focused on anti-­ racism and men’s equality, citizens movements around specific issues, and individual feminist activists (Elomäki et al. 2020). In this chapter, we analyse the shifting relationship between feminist politics and the state in Finland in the 2010s, with the aim of providing new insights into this relationship in a changing political context. The most visible changes in the Finnish state in this decade were probably the intensification of efforts to dismantle the welfare state in the name of

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austerity, marketisation initiatives, and competition policies. Our chapter, however, focuses on a less visible shift in state governance, which we describe in terms of what we call strategic governance and the strategic state. In using the term strategic governance, we refer to a particular form of neoliberal and managerial governance that aims to make government decision-making processes more strategic by narrowing down policy objectives and aligning them explicitly with fiscal objectives. By adopting this sort of strategic governance in the 2010s, the Finnish welfare state has moved in the direction of becoming a strategic state, in which economic imperatives overrule other political concerns; this shift has, in turn, affected the relations between feminists and the state. We ask: i) How do different feminist actors operate in the strategic state? and ii) How are gender issues politicised in the strategic state by different feminist actors? We approach these questions through three different conceptualisations of feminist politics in Finland, namely, the idea of the velvet triangle, governance feminism, and intersectional feminism. We show how the network model of the velvet triangle is challenged in the context of the strategic state, while both governance feminism and intersectional feminism are strengthened. Our chapter draws on our earlier research on shifts in Finnish gender equality policy and feminism in the 2010s (Elomäki et  al. 2016, 2019, 2020; Elomäki and Kantola 2017, 2018; Elomäki and Ylöstalo 2017, 2018). The research material covers gender equality policy documents and written texts by key (established as well as newer) women’s and feminist movement actors from the 2010s, research interviews with gender equality actors and other government actors conducted in the framework of various research projects, and our own participant observations with respect to some of the described processes. This chapter complements our earlier research by focusing on the shifting relationship between Finnish feminist politics and the Finnish state.

Conceptualising Feminist Politics and the State: The Velvet Triangle, Governance Feminism, and Intersectional Feminism We argue that there are three alternative ways of conceptualising the relationship between feminist politics and the state in Finland, namely, in terms of the velvet triangle, in terms of governance feminism, and in terms of intersectional feminism. None of the three concepts alone captures the

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complexity of relationships involved; neither are they to be seen as accounts of separate phases of a chronological development. Rather they illuminate different aspects of the relationships among women’s movement actors, feminist politics and the state—and, for the purposes of this chapter, the relationship between feminist politics and the strategic state. Each conceptualisation brings a range of issues into the foreground and pushes other issues into the background. The idea of the velvet triangle conceptualises the division of labour between feminist actors outside and inside the state (Woodward 2004). It theorises feminist influence and power as a relationship among, first, civil society organisations, especially women’s organisations; second, feminist politicians and femocrats (feminist bureaucrats within the state government); and third, gender experts and researchers. It offers an account of the different forms of expertise and skills that each of these actors brings to gender equality policy: ‘technical knowledge’ and expertise; an understanding of how the political and policy-making systems work; and direct, experiential knowledge grounded in gendered lifeworlds. In this understanding, influence and success are reached when all the relevant parties work together and utilise the knowledge, skills, and expertise associated with the different angles of the triangle (Hoard 2015; Woodward 2004). Whilst not uncritically accepted in the Finnish context, the concept has had enough explanatory power to warrant a critical discussion highlighting problematic a priori assumptions about the numbers of actors involved (Holli 2003, 2006, 2008). For instance, in Finland, Holli argues that the political parties’ women’s organisations are a special case. She finds them to be the most active of the women’s groups and suggests that they should have a place in the triangle (Holli 2008, 175; see also Holli 2006, 137, and, for a recent critique of this view, see Kantola 2019). The velvet triangle concept also assumes a degree of stability that may not exist in these cooperation and partnership practices (Holli 2008, 177). The concept of the velvet triangle can, then, provide us with some useful background information about the Finnish context of feminist politics whilst not capturing all of its dimensions. By the 2000s, the Finnish ‘velvet triangle’ or ‘strategic partnership’ network (Holli 2006, 145) was based on cooperation among (i) state-based gender equality actors and women/feminist politicians (e.g., the Gender Equality Council, the Gender Equality Unit (TASY), the Ombudsman for Gender Equality, the Women MPs Network); (ii) established women’s organisations (The Coalition of Finnish Women’s Associations (Nytkis), The National Council for Women in Finland

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(NJKL), the Feminist Association Unioni, and the political parties’ women’s organisations); and (iii), to a lesser extent, gender equality researchers. The second, alternative conceptualisation is afforded by the idea of governance feminism (see Elomäki et al. 2019; Halley et al. 2018). As a concept, it implies a more critical assessment of the relationship between feminism and the state than that enabled by the idea of the velvet triangle. Governance feminism raises the question of whether feminist knowledge becomes compromised or co-opted when it engages with political processes, actors, and institutions, such as states, governments, and international organisations (Caglar et al. 2013). Governance feminism is one of several concepts, such as ‘market feminism’ and ‘crisis governance feminism’, that have been used to illuminate in their own distinct ways how feminism itself changes when it engages with neoliberal governance structures (Griffin 2015; Kantola and Squires 2012; Prügl 2011). At the core of these processes is the development of a particular kind of feminist knowledge: co-opted, governance-friendly expert knowledge, which fits with the prevailing logics of neoliberal governance (Griffin 2015; Prügl 2011). Notably, governance feminism has been markedly silent about the gendered underpinnings of global governance and financial governance, focusing instead on supporting institutional measures to enhance women’s participation (Griffin 2015, 66). The third important conceptualisation is afforded by the framework of intersectional feminism. With its roots firmly in Black and postcolonial feminisms and their diverse forms of critique and mobilisation (Crenshaw 1991; Hill Collins 2000), intersectional feminism has become an important concept in the Finnish context, too, in recent years (Keskinen et al. 2009). It questions the hegemonic Whiteness of Finnish feminism and women’s movements, and emphasises the voices and agency of Black and ethnic-minority women in culture, politics, and society. With a focus on gender diversity, it also puts transgender issues and sexual equality firmly on the agenda (Järviö 2020). In terms of feminist activism, intersectional feminism focuses on the diversity of agents and agendas, foregrounding independent agents. In the context of Finnish state feminism—that is, state-oriented feminist activism—intersectional feminism occupies a more autonomous space. It underpins the work done by a range of feminist actors that played key roles in the 2010s, including the Feminist Party, the anti-racist group Fem-R, and the feminist men’s association Miehet ry, as well as grassroots activists such as HELFEM and Feminist Forum. In addition, cultural actors and products have brought some of the ideas

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developed by intersectional feminism into broader public discussion (Elomäki et al. 2020). Myra Marx Ferree defines feminist politics as actions that aim to transform unequal gendered power relations, norms, and practices through the politicisation of gender issues (Ferree 2006; Kantola and Lombardo 2019). Through such ‘politicisation’, feminist politics is always rooted in political contestations around the meaning of gender and its intersection with other forms of inequality. These contestations allow for the expression of different voices and the inclusion of new issues in the political agenda. The three conceptualisations just reviewed, however, show that feminist politics itself can be defined in different ways. It can, for instance, have different aims and goals in relation to the state, involve different sets of actors, and use different tools and methodologies. As researchers, we are interested in the meanings that feminist politics takes on vis-à-vis political processes—for example, in relation to changes in the state. Accordingly, in the remainder of this chapter, we explore in more detail just how changes in the state shape the forms assumed by feminist politics in political processes. In the next section we briefly describe the shift towards a strategic state that is the focus of our analysis, and we then move on to a discussion of how this shift has influenced feminist politics and feminist actors in Finland. In the first instance, we discuss how state feminism in the strategic state challenges the networks conceptualised as a velvet triangle. We then examine the concomitant strengthening of governance feminism in the strategic state. Finally, we show how the recent crises and changes in Finland have resulted in the emergence and visibility of new feminist actors, best conceptualised in the terms afforded by—and as an impact of—intersectional feminism.

Towards a Strategic State in Finland? Feminist political science research has identified a tendency towards ‘changing state feminism’, which involves changes both in state practices and in feminism (Kantola and Outshoorn 2007; Kantola and Squires 2012). Changes within state practice include the mainstays of neoliberal state reform: embracing new public management, the take-up of competition policies, the enrolment of economic actors—especially think tanks, business consultants, and economists—in executive decision-making processes, and the allocation of increasing authority to finance and economy ministries (e.g. Kantola and Kananen 2013). Corresponding changes

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within feminism include giving primacy to those feminist claims that are complicit with a market agenda (Kantola and Squires 2012), reinforcing the ‘economic case’ for gender equality by highlighting the macroeconomic benefits of gender equality (Roberts 2015), professionalising feminist knowledge in governmental institutions (Hoard 2015; Kantola and Squires 2012), and cooperating with the private and third-sector actors who have become key partners of states in promoting gender equality (Olivius and Rönnblom 2019). Meanwhile, the tools and techniques that follow the logic of neoliberal governance—audits, best practices, gender mainstreaming, gender-impact assessments and indicators—have become central in gender equality policy, making gender equality policy itself a technocratic, administrative enterprise (Alnebratt and Rönnblom 2016; Prügl 2011). Here, we focus on a specific shift in state governance, namely, the increasing emphasis on what is termed ‘strategic governance’. Strategic governance is a form of managerial governance that can be defined as a systematic attempt to use managerial techniques in order to develop overarching policies (see Kantola and Seeck 2011). As a form of neoliberal governance, strategic governance can be placed on a continuum with the earlier New Public Management Reforms that aim to make public governance more efficient. Ideas related to strategic governance originated in business management literature, and have been advocated by international institutions such as the OECD as a way to make governments able to function in a fast-changing environment (Mykkänen 2016; Ylöstalo 2019). The aim has been to make government policy-making more strategic and agile by, for example, narrowing down policy objectives and explicitly aligning them with fiscal objectives. In Finland, discussions about the need for a more strategically oriented government had already begun in the 1990s, and since then strategic prioritising and more strategic political steering processes have been the aim of several central government reforms (Mykkänen 2016). The largest reform in this regard has been the strategic governance reform implemented by Prime Minister Sipilä’s conservative-right government (2015–2019) at the beginning of its term. The reform changed the format of government talks and the form of the government programme as well as its implementation process, but also the way policy areas like gender equality policy are steered (Elomäki 2019; Mykkänen 2016). One of the most visible concrete changes was that Prime Minister Sipilä’s government set a long- and short-term ‘strategic vision’ for Finland

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and organised its work around a limited number of horizontal ‘strategic objectives’ and concrete measures to reach these objectives. This has meant a shift from the earlier way of thinking about policy through different administrative sectors (e.g., social affairs and health) and policy fields (e.g., gender equality) (Elomäki et al. 2016, 308). Under the Sipilä government, the emphasis on strategic governance has also facilitated austerity measures by strengthening the already prominent idea of the primacy of fiscal and economic policy over other policy goals. Strategic governance has also involved authoritarian features, as it has aimed at a stronger and more fast-acting executive arm (Elomäki 2019). Strategic governance can also be seen as a further shift towards technocratic, evidence-based governance. In Finland, policy-making has steadily become characterised by governing through knowledge, and this tendency strengthened throughout the 2010s, partly due to managerial governance reforms that tend to emphasise evidence-based policy (Ylöstalo 2019). In line with this development, civil servants tend to be well-educated, and the state has strong institutional mechanisms for examining societal problems and inventing policy solutions via knowledge, or forms of expertise. As previously stated, experts (such as researchers and consultants) have also been enrolled in policy-making to an extent that has given rise to questions of ‘shadow government’ and ‘consultocracy’ (Kantola and Seeck 2011; Ylönen and Kuusela 2018). Feminists in Finland as well as internationally have been quick to exploit the emphasis on evidence-based policy. They have supported their claims with supposedly ‘value-free’ and ‘objective’ knowledge. In doing so, they have tended to abandon contentious modes of advocacy and replace them with evidence-based claims (Kantola and Squires 2012). In what follows, we analyse further how the shift towards strategic governance has influenced feminist politics and feminist actors in Finland. We start with established actors—feminists within the state in charge of gender equality policy and established women’s organisations—and move from there to new feminist actors.

State Feminists in the ‘Strategic State’ In terms of gender equality policy, the most visible consequence of the initial strategic governance reform in Finland was that gender equality disappeared from the Sipilä government’s agenda (Elomäki et al. 2016). The 2015 ‘strategic government programme’ that focused on a few

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horizontal priorities instead of sectoral issues was the first in 20 years that did not set gender equality goals and measures. The programme contained only one sentence about gender equality: ‘Finland is also a land of gender equality’ (PMO 2015, p. 8). With this statement reflecting the common assumption in Finland that gender equality has already been achieved, the idea of strategic prioritising, combined with the conservative and nationalist ideologies and the explicit anti-feminism of some of the government parties, pushed gender equality off the political agenda. It effectively challenged the conceptualisation of the velvet triangle discussed above. Strategic governance reform affected feminist bureaucrats more than other feminist actors. Feminist state actors in Finland have for a long time suffered from a lack of resources and weak institutional status (see, e.g., Holli 2006). Strategic governance as implemented by Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government limited their scope for action even further. Yet feminist state actors adapted to strategic governance without visible resistance. For example, when TASY prepared the government’s Action Plan for Gender Equality (Ministry of Social Affairs and Health 2017), it was instructed by the government to draw up a plan that would, in line with the overall aims of strategic governance, be a short paper focused on a limited number of objectives. As a result, the Action Plan was a brief, unconvincing document that sidelined many long-term gender equality themes and goals, such as the equal sharing of care responsibilities. The analysis of existing gender inequalities in Finland prepared by TASY was omitted from the Action Plan, and there was no room for reflecting on the broader meaning of gender and gender equality (see Elomäki and Ylöstalo 2017). In terms of politicising gender, the state feminists’ room for manoeuvre was affected by the ideologies of the government parties as much as by strategic governance as such. While the Action Plan for Gender Equality adopted to some extent an intersectional perspective, most of its references to migrant women were initiated by the Finns Party and were based on an idea of gender inequality as a problem of ‘others’ (Askola 2017; Kantola and Lombardo 2019). Policies to promote trans rights were excluded from the Action Plan for Gender Equality due to the resistance of the Finns Party and the Center Party. Strategic governance has therefore intensified a governance-friendly gender equality policy, in which policies for establishing gender equality have been adapted to the demands of neoliberal governance, despite the weakening effects on the policies themselves (Elomäki and Ylöstalo 2017;

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Kantola and Squires 2012). In this context, feminist state actors can be seen as governance feminists who, instead of addressing existing gender equality problems and power relations, embrace the tools of ‘good governance’ and focus on setting goals and measuring success. However, it is important to note that not all state feminist actors have a similar relationship to the state, and that not all of them have reacted to the new context in a similar way. For example, the Ombudsman for Equality (Tasa-­ arvovaltuutettu), an independent authority in charge of supervising compliance with gender equality legislation, took a more active role that extended from supervising compliance to raising awareness of gender equality problems and politicising gender issues more broadly (see, e.g., Tasa-arvovaltuutettu 2018).

Established Women’s NGOs: Weakened Impact and New Forms of Politicisation The strategic governance reform weakened the impact of at least some of the key established women’s organisations, as their traditional influence channels and networks became ineffective. Government negotiations have been an important channel for the women’s NGOs to influence the state. In the context of strategic governance, however, their gender equality claims represented minor details, for which there was no room in a strategic-­government programme focusing on a few horizontal priorities. Political ideologies also contributed to this outcome: the Finns Party, one of the three governing parties, has built its very identity in opposition to feminism, and in government talks it lobbied for men’s rights (Askola 2017; Kantola and Lombardo 2019; Palonen and Saresma 2017). Furthermore, established women’s organisations have largely relied on their strategic partnership with state gender equality bodies and initiatives, whose powers the strategic governance reform limited. The organisations have been less inclined to partner with economic actors or those in charge of the political steering of ministries. At the same time, other influence channels, such as formal consultation processes, have become less effective. The Sipilä government’s authoritarian mode of political steering, which entailed a disregard of the normal law-drafting process, meant that consultations and hearings during policy-making became even more symbolic than before (Elomäki and Ylöstalo 2018).

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Through emphasising the role of the economy in the political agenda, strategic governance has also contributed to an internal paralysis within two key networking organisations in the larger ecology of women’s NGOs in Finland: Nytkis and NJKL. It has been difficult for these two organisations to engage with governmental assertions about the primacy of the economy, given their close links to political parties and their reliance on cross-party collaboration (Elomäki and Kantola 2017; see also Holli 2006). This problem became apparent in the inability of either organisation to provide a strong critique of austerity—despite its clear gender impacts. In Nytkis, representatives from the governing parties blocked direct criticism of the government and of the necessity of austerity. The result was that instead of questioning austerity, Nytkis merely criticised the lack of any gender-impact assessment of the proposed spending cuts (Elomäki and Kantola 2017, 2018). Nytkis’ critique was thus aligned with the technical and co-opted feminist knowledge typical of the mode of governance feminism that does not question the gendered underpinnings of financial governance (cf. Caglar et al. 2013; Griffin 2015). By contrast, the more independent Feminist Association Unioni (Naisasialiitto Unioni) was able to take a critical stance towards austerity initiatives; however, its limited resources and intense engagement with other topics, such as ways to promote resistance to increasing nationalism and racism, made an in-­ depth critique of austerity difficult for that organisation as well (Elomäki and Kantola 2017, 2018). Established women’s organisations have thus struggled to find new ways to work in the strategic state and make themselves relevant in this context. One example of the difficulties involved can be seen in the pro bono work done for Nytkis by a communications agency in spring 2015. The agency, which on its website describes its mission, using concepts of strategic governance, as that of providing the services of ‘a visionary communications agency with a focus on strategy’, offered to help Nytkis advocate for the gender-impact assessment Nytkis had called for. The company advised Nytkis to influence policy by swaying public opinion instead of through contacts with policy-makers. The proposals included focusing on social media and creating a hashtag; shifting from technical expert language to concrete examples, infographics, and humorous memes; replacing ‘complaining’ with constructive solutions to policy problems; and focusing on how an assessment would benefit individuals, including men as well as women. Nytkis never followed these proposals, with the organisation’s failure to do so suggesting that the proposed new ways of

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engaging with the state were too far from its own self-­understanding or sense of mission. It is possible, however, to perceive some shifts in the way established women’s organisations have politicised gender issues, in their efforts to bring gender equality back to the political agenda and to maintain, or restore, their own relevance. There is some evidence that the organisations have embraced the approach of governance feminism, as suggested, for example, by their arguments about the economic benefits of gender equality. For instance, NJKL argued in its critique of the Sipilä government’s weak Action Plan for Gender Equality that ‘gender equality creates a sustainable basis for economy and growth’ (Elomäki and Kantola 2018). The most visible shift, however, is the way Naisasialiitto Unioni has embraced anti-racism and intersectionality in its work—for example, by framing itself as an anti-racist organisation (ibid.). In contrast, the two networking organisations have had problems framing racism and LGBTQI rights as feminist issues, although NJKL has recently more openly supported LGBTQI issues. In any case, the efforts of established, state-oriented women’s organisations to integrate the concerns of intersectional feminism indicate that the organisations are not only trying to make themselves relevant to the state they aim to influence, but also reacting to shifts in the field of feminism itself.

New Platforms, New Agendas While state actors and established women’s organisations have been forced to renegotiate their close cooperation with the strategic state, a number of new actors have emerged to participate in, and reinflect, the ongoing feminist struggle in politics, among NGOs, and in the public sphere. The new actors are diverse and cannot be described as a unitary movement; rather, they represent a new wave of feminisms that has introduced novel forms of activism and that utilises new platforms for organising and action. Importantly, the new platforms are used to introduce new issues and approaches as well as new faces for feminism—illustrating the diversity conceptualised within the framework of intersectional feminism. Many of the new feminist actors challenge the gender-based organisation of the established equality actors, mobilising around feminism as a more inclusive label than gender, and sometimes making it a point to reject binary conceptions of gender. Whereas the membership of Feminist Association Unioni is still restricted to ‘all women, respecting

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self-definition’, despite long-standing efforts by members to open the membership to men, new feminist organisations or groupings are open to all genders. While Profeministimiehet (Profeminist men) was founded in 1999 as a men’s organisation explicitly intended to ‘support feminism, to act in favour of feminist goals and to give men food for thought’, Miehet ry (Men) was established in 2018 as a forum for all who, ‘regardless of gender’, wish to ‘support equality and promote non-discrimination’ (http://miehetry.fi/). Meanwhile, in the field of parliamentary politics, the feminist network at the Finnish Parliament emerged in 2016 as a cross-­ party platform to promote gender equality issues beyond the traditional Women’s MPs Network. When it was launched, the feminist network with high-profile male MPs as members received considerable public attention, but since then it has kept a low profile. As demonstrated by critical feminist scholarship, Nordic gender equality policies have been characterised by nationalistic impulses, participating in a sense of self-pride and thereby marginalising critical voices (Dahl et al. 2016; Keskinen et al. 2009; Martinsson et al. 2016). In Finland, the traditional platforms of gender equality activism have remained largely White-oriented. By the same token, because of how state bodies and policy areas are structured, issues of racism tend to be discussed as a separate agenda rather than as connected with issues of gender equality (Keskinen et al. 2009; Tuori 2009). Recently, however, the new actors have brought these issues together in the field of feminism. Introducing into the Finnish language the notion of the ‘brown girl’, writer and media producer Koko Hubara has delineated non-Whiteness as a positive identity and mobilised it as a position of social and political critique (Hubara 2017). With this notion, Hubara and other ‘brown girls’ not only make racialisation visible but also call into question the traditional gender equality actors. They ask: Who is being represented by these actors, and whose voices remain unheard? Explicit commitment to intersectional feminism is another key feature of many new feminist organisations and groupings that promote feminist activism in ways that extend beyond the established women’s movement in Finland. Building on the long legacy of mobilising class politics within women’s movements (Lähteenmäki 2000; Sulkunen 1989), and extending feminist engagements with LGBTQI activism that began in the 1960s (Mustola and Pakkanen 2007), the new actors emphasise intersectionality, highlighting, at the same time, the meanings of racialisation for feminist politics. Questions of intersecting differences had been voiced previously

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by Roma activists and Sami women, who perceived themselves as distant from the mainstream Finnish women’s and gender equality movements (Kuokkanen 2004; Seikkula and Rantalaiho 2012; Valkonen 2009). Likewise, since the 1990s, immigrant women’s organisations have foregrounded concepts of intersectionality (Pyykkönen 2007). In the 2010s, new actors integrated questions of indigeneity and anti-racism into feminist agendas, thereby challenging the premises and dominant concerns of the established women’s NGOs, gender equality initiatives, and also feminist academics, addressing and contesting blind spots in the established, White, majoritarian discourse of equality. Among the new actors, Fem-R, founded in spring 2018, labels itself ‘a feminist and anti-racist civil society organisation’ and aims ‘to increase the voices of racialised people in Finnish society and to build an equal and safer Finland for all people’ (http://www.fem-r.fi/in-english/). Likewise, Miehet ry (Men) is committed to issues foregrounded by intersectional feminism and anti-racism, as are recent expressions of grassroots activism like HELFEM, which is a local, Helsinki-based action group of ‘feminist activists, artists, writers and professionals’. As part of the annual meeting sponsored by the Feminist Forum, the group organised an event with the title ‘No Whites Allowed’, establishing a temporary ‘safe space’, meeting room, and peer-support space for non-White feminists (see https://helfemhki.wordpress.com/ and http://www.femf.net). As a gesture of making visible and critiquing mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion, the action was met with both appreciation and criticism. The form of activism embodied in the event, while presenting social critique and raising awareness about racism, was focused on community-making, creating safe spaces, and establishing platforms for action, instead of being directed towards or aiming to influence policy-makers with respect to any particular issue. In the field of representative politics, these tendencies to foreground feminism rather than women and to highlight questions of intersectionality are most evident in the founding of the Feminist Party in June 2016, following a Swedish model (Blombäck and de Fine Licht 2017; Cowell-­ Meyers 2017). The party foregrounds non-discrimination as the core of its political agenda; hence gender, in this context, is no longer the primary dimension of feminist analysis. While operating in the field of representative politics and campaigning for parliamentary elections, and thereby cooperating within the framework of the ‘strategic state’, the Feminist Party distinguishes itself from traditional equality actors by advancing a

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critique of nationalism and racism in its policies, and indeed explicitly profiling itself as a counter-movement to nationalism (Elomäki and Kantola 2018). As this example, too, suggests, although the agenda of the new activism—going beyond gender, focusing on intersectionality and antiracism, questioning binary conceptions of gender—may overlap and interact with the agenda of traditional gender equality actors, the new actors also clearly break new ground by challenging the key premises of nationalism, Whiteness, and binarised gender ideologies. Whereas some of the new actors have assumed the form of registered associations or even political parties, others have chosen more flexible forms of organisation that do not involve elected bodies, bylaws, annual meetings, and auditing. Beyond associations, open civic movements have emerged; these movements have encouraged and mobilised individuals to participate in temporary campaigns, in which decisions are made via social media-based work groups or open meetings. Instead of issuing statements and participating in governmental or parliamentary hearings in the manner of traditional women’s organisations, some of the new actors focus on organising events, promoting public debates, and inviting mobilisation through hashtags. In Finland as well as elsewhere, social media and other digital platforms are an increasingly important arena for many of the new actors (Banet-Weiser 2018; Rottenberg 2018). Hashtags such as #Olentodistanut (#IHaveWitnessed) by Fem-R, and #lääppijät (#Harassers), have invited the documentation of racism and sexism in people’s everyday lives, encouraging social media users to make visible and identify themselves in structures of power. Social media have also been used to make global campaigns local. Thus, in 2011, slut marches were arranged in many Finnish cities following the transnational call against blaming victims for rape, and in 2017 #metoo brought the issue of sexual harassment into the public sphere in an unprecedented manner. While established women’s organisations and other civic movements have campaigned around these issues for a long time, by promoting legislation and claiming resources for prevention, counselling, and women’s shelters, in public discussions and debates, digital and popular feminisms gain more attention. New forms of activism have also revivified classic feminist issues, such as the gender-based pay gap. A Facebook-based ‘popular movement’ emerged in March 2018 as a response to the journalistic revelation of an unofficial ‘gentleman’s agreement’ in the capital area of Helsinki, Espoo, and Vantaa. The agreement was for daycare centres not to pay higher

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salaries when competing for competent teachers in a situation where there are hundreds of vacancies and a severe shortage of professionals. Ei leikkirahaa! (No play money!) started as a Facebook group that organised local demonstrations in the capital area; however, giving rise to a nationwide political argument, it became a general frame of reference for public debate on the gender-based pay gap (Koskinen Sandberg forthcoming). This same issue, traditionally addressed by established gender equality actors and labour organisations, has also been challenged by corporate feminist activism. Thus, in August 2017, the Finnish textile brand Finlayson launched a campaign granting a discount to female clients due to the gender-­based pay gap. Proposing that women were to pay only 83 cents on the euro when buying company products, the campaign aroused a heated debate and was banned as discriminatory. Hence, even though many feminist scholars have been critical of ‘business feminism’ as the result of a neoliberalisation of feminist movements (e.g., Prügl 2015; Roberts 2015), this campaign gave more public visibility to classic feminist claims than any hearing or report by traditional gender equality actors. Furthermore, it suggests the political potential of corporate responsibility rhetoric—and also the role of governance feminism. Alongside these new forms of collective action, feminist agency has also become publicly visible through individuals, feminist activists in the media, and even feminist celebrities. These modes of feminist agency echo the developments identified and labelled in the United Kingdom and in the United States as postfeminism (Gill 2016; McRobbie 2009), third-wave feminism (Evans 2015), or neoliberal feminism (Rottenberg 2018), but they could also be described as a new wave of feminist cultural agency in the age of mediatised politics. In Finland, feminism has a range of new faces beyond representative politics or traditional organisations, not least because of the unprecedented number of popular books on feminism and gender issues published in the period 2016–2018.1 Despite employing new forms of activism, the new actors have not altogether rejected the state as a partner. Instead, many actors continue to make claims by utilising the relatively easy access to policy networks offered 1  2016 saw the publication of a pamphlet authored by the TASAN!-network (Juntumaa et  al. 2016), as well as books such as Let Go! A Guide to a Funnier Life (Meriläinen and Särmä 2016). In 2017, Brown Girls was published by Koko Hubara, and in 2018, 10 Myths about Feminism, a new anthology of feminist activism by Swedish-speaking Finns (Nyman 2018), along with two books on the Finnish #metoo-debates and Dammen brister appeared.

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by the velvet triangle, responding to invitations to testify before governmental bodies, and participating in the activities of governance, such as hearings and workshops. The new feminist men’s association, for example, was met with enthusiasm as an ally by established gender-policy actors, resulting in the new association being quickly integrated into the velvet triangle. Another example of the new actors’ partnerships with the state is the Feminist think tank Hattu (Hat), which emerged in 2015 as a feminist action group. This group demonstrates, paradoxically, both a distinct mode of activism and an affinity with state feminism. The think tank presented three persons, former MP Rosa Meriläinen, political scientist Saara Särmä, and journalist Johanna Vehkoo, all openly displaying an attitude of shamelessness and breaking with the social tactfulness and decorum sometimes associated with the velvet triangle. This was epitomised in their main ‘product’, namely, ‘feminist swearing nights’ entailing open-mic occasions for loud social and political protests. Inviting unshameful bad behaviour in a safe context, these events enabled both therapeutic acting-out and local community-building for feminist collectivities. Paradoxically, suggesting the affinity between the activists and politicians as well as the power of co-­ optation, the swearing nights have been recruited by state-funded Finnish Institutes in London and Brussels to promote gender equality as the country brand of Finland. Ideas about independent, anti-governance feminist rebellion and the Nordic velvet triangle converge when the state funds events like swearing nights. The new feminist actors that emerged in the 2010s have thus chosen different strategies in relation to the changing state; they have also politicised new issues and addressed the shortcomings of established feminist organisations. The new wave of actors can best be conceptualised as a mode or expression of intersectional feminism (see also Evans and Lépinard 2020). While many have focused on increasing the visibility of feminist projects in the public sphere through new forms of activism, others have been integrated into more traditional strategic partnerships with state feminists looking for ways to make themselves relevant for the strategic state. Still others have been co-opted, it seems, by the state, as it seeks to brand itself through feminism. It is worth asking, however, which actors are invited to participate in these strategic partnerships. For instance, while the feminist men’s rights association Miehet ry has been welcomed by state feminists and the media alike, the anti-racist association Fem-R has not been welcomed to the same extent.

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Conclusions We conclude with a note on the relationship between governance and party politics. The sidelining of gender equality during Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government was followed by a sharp reversal of course. In the spring 2019 parliamentary elections, the Social Democratic Party became the largest party—albeit by only a small margin over the next-largest party, the Finns Party. Further, the openly feminist Green Party was another clear winner of the election, and the proportion of women in the parliament became the highest of all time (46.5 percent). At the time of writing, 34-year-old Sanna Marin has just been elected as the new Prime Minister, four out of five government party leaders are women, and 12 out of 19 ministers (63 percent) are women. Although the ideas of strategic governance have continued to define the government’s work, issues of gender equality were highlighted in the government programme put forward by the new red-green coalition government. This turn of events illustrates that governance is thoroughly politicised and connected to party political ideologies and power relations. Strategic governance does not in itself push gender equality policy aside; rather, it can serve the political ideologies of government parties, whatever those ideologies may be. In the case of the current left-green government, strategic governance was bent so as to provide space for gender equality in the government programme—not as an independent policy sector but as a horizontal priority that fits the logic of strategic governance. The new gender equality-friendly government has re-empowered state feminists and established organisations, which saw many of their long-term goals finally taken on board.

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CHAPTER 5

‘Danishness’, Repressive Immigration Policies and Exclusionary Framings of Gender Equality Christel Stormhøj

Introduction In recent decades, gender equality has been mobilized in nationalist projects to distinguish between the modern, gender-equal majority and the traditional, patriarchal minority, emblematically Muslim migrants (de los Reyes et al. 2002; Andreassen 2005).1 Such representations are especially salient in the Nordic countries. Both in international comparisons and in terms of their own self-understanding, a notion of a Nordic gender-equal paradise is invoked (Holli et  al. 2005; Lister 2009). Although gender equality has never played such a pivotal role in the Danish, formerly 1  I use the term ‘Muslim/migrant’ because policies and laws applying to migrant women are often implicitly designed to target Muslim women, although they also affect other groups of female migrants and native-born citizens. I employ the term ‘minority’ because this is commonplace in the Danish context, both in official documents and among organizations of migrant women. Obviously, power dynamics are involved in the construction of minority groups.

C. Stormhøj (*) Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 S. Keskinen et al. (eds.), Feminisms in the Nordic Region, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53464-6_5

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social-democratic welfare regime as it did in the Swedish one (Martinsson et al. 2017), yet this regime integrates women, located in the two-sex family, into paid work (Borchorst and Siim 2008), and in so doing particularly benefits white, middle-class and heterosexual women. Later, Nordic neoliberal and right-wing ethno-nationalist parties appropriated the sign of women’s rights to produce exclusionary discourses along racial lines, to reassert national identity and make stricter integration demands on migrants (e.g. Hübinette and Lundström 2011; Hvenegaard-Lassen and Maurer 2012; Stormhøj 2015).2 Gender equality has become rearticulated in market terms as ‘diversity’, that is, as a resource to foster economic growth, by neoliberalism (Lentin and Titley 2011), and by ethno-nationalism as a national value separating ‘us’ from ‘them’ (Meret and Siim 2013). Concurrently, some women’s organizations engaging with government become entangled in these agendas (Elomäki and Kantola 2018). Taking Denmark as my case, I analyse how and why the nationalized and racialized politics of gender equality defines Muslim/migrant women as deficits in need of reform through state intervention. I focus on four aspects of this politics: (a) its historical trajectory; (b) how it facilitates assimilation by images of gendered migrants approximating Danishness; (c) the contradictions, silences and double standards present in the gender-­ equality politics of neoliberal and right-wing ethno-nationalist parties, and how this politics relates to nation-building; and (d) the ambiguous responses of some minority women’s organizations. The chapter shows: (i) how images of model migrants serve to reshape ‘the other’, and glorify Denmark; (ii) how the racialization of gender-equality deficiencies serves important strategic functions; (iii) how, despite differences in agendas, neoliberal and right-wing ethno-nationalist parties converge in exploiting gender-equality deficiencies for labour-market, anti-immigration and welfare-­chauvinist stances; and (iv) how racialized minority women’s organizations both resist and comply with this politics. The chapter adds to two emerging fields of study within Nordic feminist scholarship: critiques of how neoliberal and ethno-nationalist parties, each in their individual ways, exploit the idiom of gender equality, and the racialized effects of this (e.g. Edenheim and Rönnblom 2012; Mulinari and Neergaard 2014; Keskinen 2017); and research on the stances of 2  Scholars have argued that the official policy term ‘integration’ conceals power asymmetries between the Danish state and migrant groups, as the latter are increasingly required to assimilate into a ‘Danish’ way of life and in so doing to abandon their distinctiveness (e.g. Mouritsen 2015).

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women’s organizations on these agendas (Elomäki and Kantola 2018; Liinason and Cuesta 2016; Liinason 2018). My contribution builds upon and expands previous critiques offered by Nordic feminist and queer scholars, arguing that gender-equality policies rely on nationalist and racialized notions; reproduce hetero- and cis-normative ideas of gender and family relations key to nationalist projects; mask gaps between rhetoric and practice; and reduce women’s emancipation to engage in paid work within a capitalist labour market (de los Reyes et al. 2002; Stormhøj 2003; Borchorst and Siim 2008; Dahl 2010; Martinsson et al. 2017; Nygren et al. 2018). From a Nordic perspective, Denmark has the most restrictive immigration policy (Brochmann and Hagelund 2012), which intensified during the 2001–11 and the 2015–19 neoliberal–conservative governments (The Liberal Party (V), The Conservative People’s Party (KF) and, from 2015, the Liberal Alliance (LA)) collaborating with the xenophobic Danish People’s Party (DF) (Jønsson and Petersen 2012; Jørgensen and Thomsen 2016). It is the politics of these governments that are the focus here.3 Danish gender-equality policy, premised on equal opportunities and rights, has historically stimulated women’s paid work, attempted to reconcile work and family life, and has recently promoted a dual-earner model and men’s role in caring. However, labour-market needs and concerns about children, rather than gender equality, have been the key drivers (Borchorst and Siim 2008). Compared with Sweden and Norway, Denmark has the weakest institutionalized gender-equality regime, a feature that has intensified with neoliberalization.

Governmentality, Neoliberalization of the Welfare State, Nationalism and Racism Conceptualizing the governance of Muslim/migrant women as workers, citizens and mothers, I draw upon governmentality studies, and supplement this with insights from post-colonial feminist, critical race and queer scholars. Neoliberal governmentality emerged during the 1980s and 1990s (Foucault 2008), and operates through marketization and an interventionist approach by which the state mobilizes populations and companies 3  In June 2019, a Social-Democratic minority government, depending on the support of the Social-Liberal Party, the Socialist People’s Party and the Red–Green Alliance took office, while The Danish People’s Party lost seats. Although the Social-Democratic Party signalled a ‘hard line’ on immigration prior to the election, it is an open question (November 2019 when finalizing this text) as to whether there will be a shift due to pressure from the more humanitarian supporting parties.

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to participate in global competition (Rose 2008). Foucauldian thinking on neoliberal government revolves around problem construction, knowledge and forms of power that allow individual freedom (Foucault 1991). Governing takes place by defining, for example, Muslim/migrant women’s low participation in paid work as a problem according to specific objectives and norms (i.e. lacking in self-reliance and not making a sufficient economic contribution), and by categorizing the target group in certain ways by means of knowledge (i.e. lack of appropriate skills and victims of sexism), which invoke the need for interventions with effects on both individual and collective conduct. Normalizing power operates through knowledge and technologies (i.e. the curtailing of rights), which are organized into relatively stable institutional practices, such as gender-­ equality policy and legislation (Dean 1999). Since the 1990s, the Danish developed welfare state has been restructured into a neoliberal welfare state (Pedersen 2011). Workfare strategies (the subordination of social policy to economic demands for greater labour-market flexibility and lower public costs) played a key role (Torfing 1999). Increasingly, immigration policies have become workfare policies that operate to differentiate between migrants according to their perceived value and allocate rights on that basis (Andersen and Pedersen 2007; Jørgensen and Thomsen 2016). Neoliberalism promotes the notion of a free individual who is responsible for themselves (Rose 2008). It operates to secure the ends of government, which conceives of the population as a resource to be used and optimized (Dean 1999). While freedom of choice and diversity (with the latter seen as a source of profit in the market) are celebrated, neoliberalism orchestrates its own forms of normalization and exclusion by directing subjects against certain normative subjectivities and effecting a division between desirable and undesirable subjects (Rose 2008). Muslim/migrant women need reforming in order to conform to an ideal of Danish womanhood based on norms of self-reliance and equality in intimacy, work and politics, alongside heteronormative, secular, middle-class, white standards (de los Reyes et al. 2002; Stormhøj 2003; Mouritsen 2015; Nygren et al. 2018). Because government acts on free individuals, resistance is always possible. Still, freedom as resistance simultaneously opposes and affirms dominant power relations (Foucault 2000). According to postcolonial feminist scholars, racism involves constructing certain groups of people as inferior according to racial markers and, recently, to cultural, religious and national signs of their undesirability,

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alongside the practice of their exclusion or assimilation (Anthias and YuvalDavis 1992, 11–12). While colonialism and racism are often disavowed in Nordic countries (Keskinen et al. 2009; Loftsdottir and Jensen 2012), the racism here relies on the colonial legacies formative of Europe, operating by casting Europe, including the Nordic region, as the summits of Enlightenment and civilization, whereas other regions are seen as lagging behind and uncivilized (de los Reyes et  al. 2002). Current anti-­Muslim racism in Denmark relies on such notions. Anthias and Yuval-Davis (1992, 29) argue that different nationalisms pertaining to the European context are related to racism, each with their own mechanism for inclusion/exclusion.4 Staat-nation is based on common citizenship and acquiring state citizenship is the most inclusive mode of joining a community. Still, migrants’ actual inclusion/exclusion in Denmark depends on economic resources and rules of naturalization and immigration (Mouritsen 2015). Kulturnations are held together by shared culture, language and history. Becoming a member requires assimilating into this ‘essence’ of the nation. Volknationalism is based on the origins of a specific people, establishing strict borders of membership and solidarity between ‘us’ and ‘them’ (outsiders and enemies). It produces the most exclusionary version of the nation. Such nationalisms, which provide the basis for racialized exclusions, are found among the former ruling Danish parties, as the analysis will show. In understanding the role of gender equality in redefining ‘Danishness’, postcolonial feminism foregrounds gender relations and the traditional family as crucial to nationalist projects (McClintock 1995). Queer scholars (Berlant and Warner 1998) stress the nation-building role of the specifically heteronormative family, which metaphorically serves as the nation in miniature (McClintock 1995). In particular, the white, native-born, heteronormative, middle-class family is conceived as the most ‘worthy’ family, privileged in terms of social rights and encouraged to procreate (Yuval-­ Davis 1997; Tuori 2009).5 In contrast, Muslim/migrant families are cast as (threatening) ‘others’. 4  Feminist scholars, particularly those from the Global South, approach nationalism in a different way. Key critiques focus on some Western feminisms’ complicities with Western imperialism and racism, which are oppressive to many women; and ignorance of feminism in the Global South, where feminist struggles sometimes become entangled with national liberation movements, and other times oppose national patriarchies (Jayawardena 1986; Grewal and Kaplan 1994). 5  Recently, segments of the normalized, white, well-off lesbian/gay population have been inscribed into the institutions of family and nation (Puar 2006).

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Understanding the racialization of gender equality, critical race theories offer the twin concepts of the sexualization of racism and the racialization of sexism (Hernton 1969; Mann and Selva 1979). The latter refers to the ways in which racism operates through the representation of sexism as the exclusive domain of Muslims/others. The former foregrounds the gendering of racism, casting racialized men as oppressors and threats, and women as victims and sexual property.

Materials and Methods The analysis is based on selected policy documents on gender equality and integration, party programmes, government manifestos and plans (2001–11 and 2015–19),6 interviews with representatives of minority women’s organizations, and previous studies. Included are Reports and Action Plans for Gender Equality, abbreviated to RAGE.7 They are produced by government actors to evaluate past initiatives and plan new programmes aimed at solving social problems. Partly, these problems reflect the priorities of the former neoliberal–conservative government, and partly they are issues that have top priority among the public. Party programmes issued by the three parties that previously formed a coalition government, the Liberal Party (V), the Conservative People’s Party (KF) and the Liberal Alliance (LA), and their supporting party, the Danish People’s Party (DF), offer insights into a programmatic level of politics: how they represent social problems and frame their own position. Government manifestos and plans provide the same type of information. The interviews were carried out with two representatives of minority women’s organizations, the Intercultural Women’s Council (Interkulturelt Kvinderåd: IKR) and The World’s Women in Denmark (Verdens Kvinder i Danmark: VKDK).8 They were selected because they are both involved in governmental policies and challenge them.9

 See appendix.  Gender-equality policies were introduced in Denmark in 1976. The Ministry of Equality was established as a separate policy unit in 1999 and issued its first Report and Action Plan in 2000/01. 8  I refer to the interviews by these abbreviations. 9  In Denmark, minority women’s groups and organizations act either outside or within state agendas, with only a few doing both. 6 7

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My method is informed by Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the Problem? Approach’ (WPR) (2009), which is a method for analysing policy.10 Rather than understanding policies as responses to ‘ready-made’ social problems, they are seen as actively producing representations of problems and solutions. The approach focuses on which specific representations become dominant and why, how they are challenged, and what definitions are closed off. Focusing on the question of gender equality, I draw on the following six guidelines (Bacchi 2009, 48), tailoring them to my research questions and objectives: • What’s the problem with gender equality among Muslim/migrant women represented to be within specific governmental thinking? How do these ways of thinking overlap and/or compete? • Which values and presuppositions are constitutive? And how do gender, race, culture, religion and nationality intersect in these representations? • Which developments and decisions bring about the dominant representation(s)? • What are the silences and contradictions? • What effects are produced by specific representations, by encouraging/discouraging specific ways of life and benefiting/harming specific social groups? • How/where are dominant representations disseminated and/ or resisted? The analysis is divided into four sections dealing with: (i) the Danish historical and political background of the current dominant politics of gender equality; (ii) ‘othering’ processes related to images of ‘model migrants’; (iii) contradictions, silences and double standards formative of the gender-equality politics of the previous neoliberal–conservative governments (2001–11 and 2015–19), supported by the right-wing ethno-­ nationalist party; and (iv) how some minority women’s organizations both comply with and resist this politics.

10  Because Bacchi’s method is based on the philosophical premises of governmentality studies, the criterion of consistency is safeguarded. A recent version of WPR (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016) adds the dimension of self-critique, which I bracket here.

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Lines of Descent of the Present Dominant Problem Representations This section builds on gender-equality policy and governmental programmes on integration. Currently, gender-equality deficits are represented as racialized, caused by the patriarchal ‘culture/religion’ of Muslims/migrants that turns the intimate sphere into a breeding ground for women’s oppression (GPMD 2003b, 11–13, 15; WMRMI 2011, 2; RAGE 2018, 1, 9). Statistics are used to enumerate lacks associated with Muslim/migrant women, such as low levels of education and participation in paid work, and thus state intervention is legitimized (GPMD 2003b, 13; RAGE 2016, 9). Racial difference is produced by evoking ‘special reasons’ for these lacks, the ‘distinct needs’ of Muslim/migrant women as victims, and by comparison with the norm (white, Danish, heteronormative, middle-class, secular, ‘liberated’ womanhood) figuring as the unmarked category of ‘woman’ (GPMD 2003a, 33–34; RAGE 2009, 20–23, 2018, 1). Misogyny is cast as a Muslim problem, and Muslim women as mere victims, while the men are oppressors. This dominant representation is traceable from the mid-1990s (Hvenegaard-Lassen 2002). Cleavages in the Centre-Left government (1993–2001)11 and the salience of ‘hardliners’ among the Social Democrats implied the development of social policy and immigration policy towards workfare frames (Jønsson and Petersen 2012, 123). In particular, Muslim/ migrant women’s low labour-market participation was problematized (Jønsson and Petersen 2012, 127). The founding of the xenophobic DF in 1995, and demands for restrictions on entry and social rights, coming from both this party and neoliberal and conservative ones (V and KF) (Jørgensen and Thomsen 2016, 336), contributed to the hardliners’ success. The ‘defeated’ position (‘humanitarian’ Social Democrats, other coalition parties, and the Left (The Socialist People’s Party and The Red– Green Alliance)) revolved around concern for the needs of migrants and refugees (Mouritsen 2015, 66). The ‘hard line’ on immigration intensified under the neoliberal–conservative governments (2001–11 and 2015–19), and, combined with 9/11, culture/religion took centre stage. These governments pursued five tracks, which all included Muslim/migrant women as target groups: (i) integration via the labour market (GPMD 2003b, 11–37; MG 2016, 53); (ii)  This included the Social-Democratic, Social-Liberal, Centre-Democratic and ChristianDemocratic Parties. 11

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assimilation into Danish values, including gender equality (GPMD 2003a; MG 2016); (iii) restriction on entry through strategies of ‘controlled immigration’ based on migrants’ perceived value (MPMD 2001, 12–13; MG 2016, 53); (iv) restriction on access to benefits for migrants to strengthen work incentives (MPMD 2001, 12–13; MG 2016, 53); and (v) securitization (Ceyhan and Tsoukala 2002), linking together ‘welfare fraud’, ‘crime’ and ‘terrorism’, to safeguard the nation (MPMD 2001, 12). With the heightened security risks during the previous decade, border control and concerns about segregation became new priorities (MG 2016). Remedying the culture/religion-induced lack of gender equality, a crossdepartmental programme on women was launched in 2007 (WMRMI 2011). Social-Liberals and the Left have repeatedly criticized the ‘hard line’ for infringing on human rights conventions, and producing poverty and marginalization (Jønsson and Petersen 2012, 133–137). Recently, consensus on the main issues of immigration, including the racialization of sexism, has reigned, as Social Democrats and, to an extent, People Socialists have taken up the ‘hard line’.

Images of ‘model migrants’ This section is based on governmental programmes and manifestos, party programmes and gender-equality policy. The previous government (2015–19) portrays the twin desires for border control and assimilation like this: Uncontrolled immigration (…) produces economic problems and value conflicts (…). Foreigners wanting to live here should comply with our rules (…). They are to be met with robust demands, expected to respect Danish democracy, Danish culture, and the Danish welfare model. Denmark should remain a country for those who have the capacities and willpower to become integrated (…). Paid work is the path to successful integration in our communal country. (MG 2016, 53–4)

Gender equality figures as a national value. Yet, the presence of Muslim migrants appears to be a threat: There is the risk that gender equality achieved in Denmark may be backsliding, if we do not defend it (…). Norms relating to men’s and women’s equal rights and moral equality apply to all citizens of Denmark—regardless of the time one has spent in the country. (MG 2016, 82–3)

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To meet the requirements of becoming ‘Danish’, migrants are expected to accumulate ‘Danishness’ like a form of national capital. Although society is articulated as a joint venture (‘communal’), highlighting a notion of shared responsibility (public and personal) for ‘integration’ and holding out the promise of belonging (all are called ‘citizens’), nevertheless, assimilation is premised on self-responsibilization and othering. Becoming ‘Danish’ depends on individual willpower and capacities that rely upon neoliberal ideas of individuality and self-responsibility (Rose 2008). The public is relieved of responsibility, and assimilation (in the official lingo, ‘integration’) aims at maintaining the status quo. Both assimilation and the desirability of Danish values are assumed. Inequalities between the migrant minority and ‘settled’ majority associated with a relationship of guest and host (Hervik 2015), or colonized and colonizer (de los Reyes et al. 2002), are left unproblematized. Despite the promise of belonging, the migrant is ‘othered’: Assimilation presupposes migrant difference that has to be ‘detoxified’ and replaced with ‘Danishness’. Migrant difference is also produced by representing migrants as problematic. Still, within the dominant national imaginary, otherness does not stick to all migrants in the same way (Ahmed 2004): Images of model migrants coexist with those of the suffering/vulnerable migrant and those of absolutely undesirable migrants, the ‘draining’ migrant and the ‘threatening’ migrant. Four types of state intervention correspond with these images: encouragement by a facilitating state, support/control by a saviour state, discipline by a correcting/reforming state, and surveillance/criminalization by a punishing state. This chapter focuses only on model migrants.12 Images of model migrants, that is, those most closely approximating (a hegemonic) ‘Danishness’, are present throughout the entire material. In RAGE, they range from young women having succeeded in choosing education, careers and partners for themselves (e.g. RAGE 2003, 4), through young men having chosen gender-non-traditional education (e.g. RAGE 2009, 20), to model parents, not least mothers, actively taking part in civil society, paid work and the schooling of their children (e.g. RAGE 2014, 10). These are images of migrants heroically overcoming obstacles to belonging to the national community and liberating themselves from repressive and outdated patriarchal relations (de los Rayes et  al. 2002). 12  Images of the other migrant types have been extensively researched. See Ceyhan and Tsoukala (2002), Bracke (2012), Keskinen (2017) and Jørgensen and Thomsen (2016).

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Such images serve various functions: (i) As tools facilitating power, they help to encourage other migrants to follow their paths. (ii) Although differences will always stick, they serve to normalize the most desirable migrants, in the sense of economic and cultural desirability to the host country. The figure of the desirable migrant is acclaimed by the previous governing coalition and DF, the immigration agendas of which overlap in terms of border control, welfare chauvinism and assimilation (DF 2002, 2009; KF 2012; LA 2016; V 2006).13 (iii) They reproduce the hierarchy between ‘us’ and ‘them’ by migrants’ conversion to ‘Danish’ values. In so doing, they confirm the superiority of European civilization and legitimize racism. (iv) Representing images of success, they assist in glorifying Denmark by reproducing the dominant self-image as an inclusive and non-racist country. By the same token, (v) they support the notion of the responsible and enterprising individual. The next section builds on party programmes and I examine the role of gender equality and family in nationalist projects.

Contradictions, Silences and Double Standards Whereas the racialization of gender-equality deficiencies serves anti-­ Muslim stances across neoliberal and ethno-nationalist thoughts, the 2015–19 governing parties (with the exception of LA) and DF have never given gender equality any particular attention. There is a chapter on gender equality in DF’s 2009 party programme that was not present before, and which disappears again in the 2017 programme. This programme states: In actuality, Denmark has achieved gender equality, although there are still challenges (…). Lack of gender equality among foreigners in Denmark and improvement of the conditions of oppressed women worldwide, in particular in the Islamic countries, are important issues (…). Migration from Islamic countries in particular has brought other, feudal family patterns to Denmark. They conflict with the views on gender roles, women’s position, and gender equality that are common in Denmark. (DF 2009, 7)

The Volk-nationalism of DF, with its exclusionary racism, casts Muslim gender relations as threatening, and Muslim migrant women as ‘a welfare burden’ (DF 2009, 2). In the 2017 programme, gender equality is used  On welfare chauvinism, see Jørgensen and Thomsen (2016).

13

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to frame only immigration and integration policy. The party distinguishes between its main interest, keeping migrants out, and the interest in migrant labour power and reducing welfare ‘drains’, implying that Muslim/migrant women living in Denmark are required to contribute economically. V’s (2006) and LA’s (2016) programmes include paragraphs on (gender) equality, while it is completely absent from KF’s (2012) programme. At this formal level of analysis, there is a contradiction between the parties’ alarmism on gender-equality deficiencies among Muslims/migrants and the generally low priority or even neglect that they give the issue. While V and LA declare their full support for equality between the sexes, their policies are limited. For example, they oppose the introduction of affirmative-­ action remedies, perceiving them as discriminatory. Rather, individual skills and responsibilities are seen as the appropriate means. Stressing that anti-discrimination legislation and common civil rights are (already) guaranteed, they approach (gender) equality in a narrow, legalistic way, revealing it as entirely formal. LA’s programme reads: [The role of] liberal politics is to guarantee the equality of citizens in a legal sense (…). Politicians should not decide on measures to guarantee parity on boards of directors or other industries. Rather, LA wants to abolish any affirmative action remedy (…) seeing it as a threat to equality. (LA 2016, 19)

These parties bypass, or even oppose, equality of outcome that, in actuality, would foster gender equality in such areas as paid and unpaid work. Correspondingly, they silence the existence of deep-seated structural inequalities of gender. There is a contradiction between, on the one hand, promoting a model family, epitomized by the white, middle-class, hetero- and cis-normative family with small children, and valorising traditional gender positions, and, on the other hand, approaching gender equality through an (ultra-) liberal individualistic line, based on individual liberty and responsibility and a principle of no state interference. Other tensions are nested within this. By treating ‘The Family’ as a monolith, this contradiction is further intensified, and individual freedom becomes abstract. Under the heading of ‘Family life with freedom of choice’, V (2006, 6) evokes the notion of ‘The Family’ as the locus of ‘decision-making and choice’, whether in terms of ‘child rearing’, or ‘distribution of parental leave’. Here, notions of no state interference and state neutrality also clash with the state

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promotion of a model family. Recognizing different family forms in order to gain legitimacy by appearing modern, yet, by repeatedly establishing a model family in words and/or images, this acknowledgement remains purely notional and inconsequential (KF 2012, 13; V 2006, 6). The Volk-nationalism of DF, and the mixture of Staat- and Kultur-­ nationalism found in V and KF (in different propositions), which establish borders along lines of race, class, sexuality and gender identification, promote one particular family as ‘worthy’ of nation-building. DF declares: The family is the bedrock of society (…). Although other family arrangements can provide good frameworks for bringing up children, marriage [before the introduction of gender-neutral marriage] is still the natural basis. Other ways of living should not be favoured (…). The nuclear family is one of the most important family values. (DF 2009, 5)

Both V’s and KF’s programmes present photos of modern, well-off, white, hetero- and cis-normative and coupled families with children as emblematic. V clearly states (before the picture is inserted in the text) that ‘Not’ “but” The “Family” is the foundation of society’ (2006, 6). On the front page of KF’s programme, we encounter the family photo (one of several of the same family), and the preamble’s first sentence reads: ‘The Family is the basis of a well-functioning society’. On the following pages, ‘The Family’ is represented as ‘a natural community’ and placed in a national history and social space: ‘Our society is the product of millennia of history (…), and we should respect the culture and institutions that we have created’ (KF 2012, 7, 9). These photos and texts establish this specific family formation as nation-building and exclude other formations that are (too) traditional, queer, gender-nonconforming, Muslim and/or working class. Situating ‘The Family’ within national time and space, DF and KF also produce a narrative of continuity: ‘Danishness’ is closely linked with the white, heterosexual family. Racial difference also operates in representations of how women are expected to organize work and family life. On this issue as well, convergence is found between the parties. Muslim/migrant women are urged to participate in education and paid work and use public day-care in order to become emancipated. Generally, their culture/religion is understood as denying individual choice and agency (DF 2002, 2017; KF 2012). In turn, white women are represented as rational, autonomous and modern (DF 2002, 2009; V 2006). This dualism is poorly substantiated and leads

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to double standards. While the dual-earner scheme is the norm, all four parties fully support women if they themselves want to be primary caretakers (and housewives). In the case of white, heterosexual families, the women themselves have to decide how to organize their lives. When making ‘gender-traditional’ choices, they are neither to be blamed, nor are such preferences associated with a Danish ‘gender-conventional’ culture. In contrast, Muslim/migrant women who do not follow the requirements are likely to suffer economically (Mouritsen 2015). Some women’s organizations share in implementing gender-equality and ‘integration’ policies. Based on my interviews, I examine how representatives of minority organizations reproduce and/or challenge the premises of these policies.

The Double Role of IKR and VKDK IKR and VKDK are civil-society organizations (CEOs) engaged in empowering migrant women (Sharma 2008). Both organize women of different ethnicities and nationalities, with IKR dominated by women from the Middle East and VKDK by Eastern Europeans. Following Diani’s (1992) distinction between loose and formalized groups, VKDK serves mainly as a loose support network for sharing experiences, information and other resources concerned with the difficulties of ‘integration’. It receives irregular public funding for various projects and collaborates ad hoc with other CEOs on gender-equality issues (VKDK, 1–2, 12). IKR is an established umbrella organization that speaks for several minority women’s associations, receives regular funding to provide counselling for migrant families/women, and cooperates routinely with established majority women’s organizations and government (IKR, 1–2, 28). These organizations compete with each other for funding, public attention and the recruitment of members (VKDK, 8, 13). To support the expansion of equal rights to women and racialized minorities (IKR, 1; VKDK, 9), and to achieve funding, legitimacy and representation, they are involved in governmental programmes on ‘integration’ and gender equality, although on a different scale. On the other hand, they oppose the premises of these programmes for various reasons, based on the different social positions of their core members14: 14  Currently, Muslim migrants are the main victims of racism, whereas many Eastern Europeans are able to pass as white (Lapina 2018).

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We help oppressed ethnic-minority women to become independent and self-confident (…). There are many prejudices about women’s oppression. But they aren’t true. We attend to our work. We’re strong women…like other [Danish] women (…). All women have resources, but some don’t have the opportunities to use them (…). We serve as role models [for other ethnic women], teaching them the rules, how society operates, and about their obligations and rights. (IKR, 2–3)

State agendas are both enabling and disciplinary (Rose 2008): In emancipating Muslim/migrant women, IKR becomes entangled with civilizing practices of care and rescue and in doing so reproduces the superiority of the majority lifestyle (see also Martinsson et  al. 2017). Concurrently, it represents Muslim women as on a par with ethnic Danish women in terms of being resourceful, and embraces feminist ideals, understanding empowerment and claims to equal rights as key in liberating women. And both the IKR and VKDK interviewees challenge feminism as a Western project, telling about their experiences with struggles for women’s rights in their countries of origin (IKR, 2; VKDK, 3). Entanglement is not to be mistaken for co-optation. Rather, ambiguous practices and effects are at play, making it impossible to separate resistance and compliance, agency and the proper exercise of freedom under neoliberal (and ethno-nationalist) conditions (Sharma 2008). Due to the conflation of the category of female migrants with that of Muslim women, other migrant women risk invisibility: We want to show our resources. We’re strong women, not only Muslim housewives (…). Politicians see us as objects, but we’re subjects (…). There are two types of migrant women: victims, or those who transcend their culture, the heroes. Between these, there are a lot of women (…). These representations influence our situation as normal women (…). In my association, women also need help with language skills, the tacit rules of the labour market and more. But they never get it. Only victims and heroes get that (…). We’re told to manage ourselves (…). Muslims are given all the attention. (VKDK, 12–13)

Obviously, rivalry between organizations is present in this representation of Muslims. Yet, the ‘hyper-visibility’ of Muslims does result in the neglect of other migrants. Moreover, the desire to appear ‘normal’ may bear on two issues: escaping the burden of racial and sexual stigmas; and complying with the norm of self-responsibility that is at play in demands for assimilation:

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Female newcomers should share in becoming integrated. They should be ready for that. [VKDK] opens the door for them (…). Look at all the opportunities and turn to it yourself (…). I think Denmark shows solidarity (…). No, it’s not racist (…). One shouldn’t be passive (…). As a person, I oppose positive discrimination, for example, not serving pork in day-care, women-­ only arrangements at swimming baths etc. We need common rules (…). They shouldn’t make demands, but adapt to Danish traditions. (VKDK, 16–17)

Various ways of challenging the racialization of gender-equality deficiencies occur. In resisting the racialization of sexism, the IKR interviewees have a keen eye for the whiteness of the problem: ‘Lack of gender equality is also found among the Danish majority. Being involved in trade-­ union work, I know there are huge problems with equal pay’ (IKR, 7). In refuting the link between racial difference and gender-equality deficits, and the cultural/religion-related framing of this lack, alternative representations are mobilized: We’re all Danes (…): You [the interviewer] are ethnic. Ethnic Dane and ethnic minority. We want to be part of society. There are intercultural ­similarities between Danish women and minorities (…). Above all, we fight for women’s rights. (IKR, 4–5)

The ‘we’re all of ethnic origin’ argument implies that both majority and minority gender cultures are problematic for women, although the ‘depth’ of patriarchy is different. Still, the similarities trigger common struggles for women’s rights, embodied by formalized cooperation with majority CEOs. The interviewees also highlight socio-structural factors, such as a lack of economic resources, lack of employment, and institutionalized racism, as the causes of these deficiencies (IKR, 5, 25). Often, the appropriation of gender equality for racist positions implies that IKR faces dilemmas: its criticism risks being lumped together with the attacks of the former governing coalition and DF, or it risks accusations of forsaking migrant women. Sometimes, IKR succeeds in both criticizing gender oppression within minorities and also objecting to racism. Resisting the recent ban on wearing the niqab (and other ways of covering the face) in public, the IKR women also challenge patriarchal prescriptions demanding that women cover up in public: Why do they [the previous government and DF] target women and not men? Why should men be free, whereas women are made responsible for men’s sexuality? (…) A woman should wear what she likes. It’s her choice and it’s a free country. (IKR, 21)

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While the meanings of veiling etc. are contested and contextual (Rosenberger and Sauer 2012), paradoxically, by banning the niqab, the previous government and DF are reinforcing patriarchal relations that treat women as sexual objects.

Conclusions This chapter has expanded previous understandings of the operations, causes, and challenges to the nationalization and racialization of gender-­ equality deficiencies in Denmark and similar countries. Its main findings are: this racialization had already started in the mid-1990s, yet accelerated during neoliberal–conservative plus ethno–nationalist rule (2001–11 and 2015–19). Images of model migrants approximating Danishness help to promote assimilation and glorify Denmark. The deployment of a gender-­ equality deficit for racist stances serves strategic functions, including the legitimization of restrictive policies vis-à-vis Muslims/migrants, confirming the (self-)image of Denmark as a gender-equal country, alongside hierarchizing and/or excluding Muslims/migrants based on their economic value and/or cultural/religious proximity. The agendas of the neoliberal– conservative coalition parties and their supporting ethno–nationalist party overlap in their favouring of controlled migration. V, KF, and LA all endorse an agenda of economic growth that is interested in migrant labour power, border securitization, and the curtailing of welfare rights, while demanding (some) assimilation. DF’s ethno-nationalism both converges towards and competes with these concerns. The rival agendas include demands for full assimilation and the containment of competition between migrants’ labour power and that of ‘natives’. Both are driven by the desire to keep migrants out. These parties’ instrumentalization of gender equality reveals itself in the gap between their alarmism on failing gender equality among Muslims/migrants and their low priority or neglect of the issue; and by the presence of racialized double standards that operate to support gender-traditionalism among white, Danish, heteronormative families. Minority women’s organizations are engaged in empowering migrant women within the premises of governmental agendas. Yet, they are challenging the racialization of gender-equality deficiencies and the notion of feminism as an exclusively Western project, alongside re-signifying notions of migrant womanhood.

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Appendix: Primary Sources No. Document title

Source

Year

1.

Prime Minister’s Department Danish People’s Party

2001 MPMD

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

Manifesto of the Government: Growth, Welfare and Innovation Party Programme Report and Action Plan for Gender Equality 2001/02 Government’s Policy on Integration and Foreigners Government’s Visions and Strategies for Better Integration Report and Action Plan for Gender Equality 2002/03 Report and Action Plan for Gender Equality 2003/04 Report and Action Plan for Gender Equality 2004/05 Party Programme Report and Action Plan for Gender Equality 2005/06 Report and Action Plan for Gender Equality 2006/07 Report and Action Plan for Gender Equality 2007/08 Party Programme Report and Action Plan for Gender Equality 2008/09 Report and Action Plan for Gender Equality 2009/10 Report and Action Plan for Gender Equality 2010/11 Women’s Programme 2007–

18. Party Programme 19. Report and Action Plan for Gender Equality 2014/15 20. Manifesto of the Government: For a Freer, Richer and Safer Denmark 21. Party Programme 22. Report and Action Plan for Gender Equality 2015/16 23. Party Programme 24. Report and Action Plan for Gender Equality 2016/17 25. Report and Action Plan for Gender Equality 2017/18

Prime Minister’s Department (2003a) Prime Minister’s Department (2003b)

Abbreviation

2002 DF 2002 RAGE 2003 GPMD 2003 GPMD 2003 RAGE 2004 RAGE 2005 RAGE

Liberal Party

2006 V 2006 RAGE 2007 RAGE 2008 RAGE

Danish People’s Party

2009 DF 2009 RAGE 2010 RAGE 2011 RAGE

Ministry for Refugees, 2011 WMRMI Migrants and Integration Conservative People’s Party 2012 KF 2015 RAGE Prime Minister’s Department Liberal Alliance

2016 MG

Danish People’s Party

2017 DF 2017 RAGE

2016 LA 2016 RAGE

2018 RAGE

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Loftsdottir, K., & Jensen, L. (Eds.). (2012). Whiteness and postcolonialism in the Nordic region. London: Routledge. Mann, C., & Selva, L. (1979). The sexualization of racism: The black as rapist and white justice. The Western Journal of Black Studies, 3(3), 168–177. Martinsson, L., Griffin, G., & Nygren, K. G. (Eds.). (2017). Challenging the myth of gender equality in Sweden. Bristol: Polity Press. McClintock, A. (1995). Imperial leather: Race, gender and sexuality in the colonial contest. London: Routledge. Meret, S., & Siim, B. (2013). Gender, populism and politics of belonging: Discourses of right-wing populist parties in Denmark, Norway and Austria. In B. Siim & M. Mokre (Eds.), Negotiating gender and diversity in an emergent European public sphere (pp. 78–96). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Mouritsen, P. (2015). En plads i verden. København: Gyldendal. Mulinari, D., & Neergaard, A. (2014). ‘We are Sweden Democrats because we care for others’: Exploring racisms in the Swedish extreme right. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 21(1), 43–56. Nygren, K.  G., Martinsson, L., & Mulinari, D. (2018). Gender equality and beyond. Social Inclusions, 6(4), 1–7. Pedersen, O. K. (2011). Konkurrencestaten. København: Hans Reitzels Forlag. Puar, J. (2006). Terrorist assemblages: Homonationalism in queer times. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Rose, N. (2008). Governing advanced liberal democracies. In P. Miller & N. Rose (Eds.), Governing the present (pp. 199–218). Cambridge: Polity. Rosenberger, S., & Sauer, B. (Eds.). (2012). Politics, religion, and gender: Framing and regulating the veil. London and New York: Routledge. Sharma, A. (2008). Logics of empowerment: Development, gender and governance in neoliberal India. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Stormhøj, C. (2003). Critical reflections on state-regulated heteronormativity in the Scandinavian countries. Lambda Nordica, 9(1–2), 38–56. Stormhøj, C. (2015). Gender equality, gay rights and the Danish politics of belonging. In European Consortium for Political Research, General Conference. Montreal: ECPR. Retrieved from http://ecpr.eu/Events/PaperDetails.aspx?P aperID=24908&EventID=94. Torfing, J. (1999). Workfare with welfare: Recent reforms of the Danish welfare state. Journal of European Social Policy, 9(1), 5–28. Tuori, S. (2009). Postcolonial and queer readings of ‘migrant families’ in the context of multicultural work. In S.  Keskinen, S.  Tuori, S.  Irni, & D.  Mulinari (Eds.), Complying with Colonialism: Gender, race and ethnicity in the Nordic region (pp. 155–170). Farnham: Ashgate. Yuval-Davis, N. (1997). Gender & nation. London: Sage.

PART II

Decolonising Feminisms in the Nordic Region

CHAPTER 6

Nordic Academic Feminism and Whiteness as Epistemic Habit Ulrika Dahl

Is Swedish feminism passively ethnocentric or has Swedish feminism actively worked to privilege white women? (Mulinari 2001, 14)

Introduction A few years ago, I received an invitation to a symposium in Finland entitled A critique of our own: On the epistemic habits of academic feminism.1 The theme of the gathering was timely, in line with the growing interest in historiographies and methodologies of academic feminism (Lykke

1  This chapter has been slow and challenging in its gestation and conception. I thank the organisers of the conference, especially Marianne Liljeström for the concept, the editors of this volume for their comments, and in addition, I thank Lena Sawer, Asynja Gray, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Clare Hemmings and Sara Ahmed for encouragement and dialogue around these ideas.

U. Dahl (*) Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 S. Keskinen et al. (eds.), Feminisms in the Nordic Region, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53464-6_6

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2017)2 after two decades of institutionalisation, topics I had spent considerable time researching (Dahl et al. 2016). Moreover, the organising metaphor was intriguing. What, I wondered, might an epistemic habit be and do, especially when academic feminists located in and from Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the UK and the US gather around at a conference. A habit is “something that you do often, sometimes without knowing that you are doing it”3 and epistemic means “of or relating to knowledge or the study of knowledge.”4 These Cambridge Dictionary definitions suggest that epistemic habits are the ordinary and taken for granted dimensions of what, in this case, academic feminists do, frequently and without reflection in “our” relationship to knowledge. Certainly, academic feminists organise and attend conferences, present and hear “new” ideas, and publicly relate to the (study of) knowledge of others. A feminist community or institution might be understood as the effect of the habit of assembling feminists on different “scales,” and as such, inevitably, around some bodies of flesh and knowledge and not others. As ways of relating to knowledge, epistemic habits manifest in and structure the mundane daily work of feminist academics, in how we design syllabi and what we include, and  in how we tell the stories of “our” field in introductory articles or lectures. In textbooks, syllabi and scholarly articles, and especially in stories of the origins and development of Nordic academic feminism and gender studies, theorists, ideas and bodies are, for instance, routinely assigned geopolitical origin, meaning and belonging, again some being described as more “relevant” and “close” than others (cf Dahl et al. 2016). Epistemic habits are also (reflected in) the creation of citational chains and canons (Hemmings 2011), in habitual assessments of merits and definitions of excellence in recruitment,5 in research questions, data and examples, and manifest in seminar spaces, classrooms and grading. 2  In this chapter I understand academic feminism as the “multiple types of theorizing, researching and teaching, which have managed to establish platforms in universities and academic institutions in many countries during the past four decades” that is premised on “academic theory and practice as having been established with a basis in links to political activism outside of the academy, but also as a result of activism within the academy” (Lykke 2017, 1). 3  http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/habit, last accessed 8 January 2020. 4  https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/epistemic, last accessed 8 January 2020. 5  Indeed, we might think of what Philomena Essed (2004) has coined “cultural cloning” in relation to epistemic habits (of whiteness).

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Arguably, insofar as “we” are brought together by an object (gender) and a problem (sexism), a foundational epistemic habit that is crucial to “our” critique as academic feminists, is the challenge to “male” perspectives in science and to objectivity. We could argue that we have no other shared habits, that  indeed,  feminists relate to scientific knowledge in a range of epistemological ways and are disciplined into different epistemic habits depending on training, institutional comfort and longitude. While reflexivity around “positionality,” both in epistemological and identitarian terms, is often assumed to be a shared epistemic habit, the meaning, content and effect of narrating “positionality” may not be. Paying attention to one’s entanglements in relations of power as a researcher can result in confessions, standpoints, deconstructions, disidentifications, affirmations or declarations that in turn perform different functions and repeat different habits. As the aforementioned symposium invitation indicated, one persistent epistemic habit of academic feminism is of course the invocation of unity and a shared “we.” Indeed, Ulla Manns’ work on Nordic women’s studies/gender studies shows that from its “origins” in the 1970s and onwards, a range of investments have been made in creating a collective, distinctly “Nordic” sense of the field (Dahl et al. 2016). My own research has shown how in the institutionalisation of the field from the late 1990s onwards, the “habit” of producing stories about the uniquely “Nordic” has grown in importance, partly as an effect of the geopolitical organisation of geopolitical knowledge itself. I found that the “Nordic” and thus by extension its “we” often  refers simultaneously or interchangeably to at least three different things. First, it refers to a geopolitical location where shared features are in fact naturalised effects of proximity (see Ahmed 2007). Second, it refers to empirical research in or about gendered phenomena in that geographic location, such as gender equality, LGBTQ issues, literature and so on, almost always focusing a naturalised majoritarian population. Third, “Nordic” is a descriptor of scholars who are “from” that region. The latter refers to researchers located at universities in the Nordic region and again typically scholars whose racial and national “origin” is “Nordic.” All three, I would argue, tend to collapse place and race, almost always rendering Nordicness synonymous with whiteness. We know that topics, organisations, forms of symposia and conferences, and who is invited to speak or attend and why can and frequently do generate “critique” in academic feminism. For instance, the Nordic feminist forum in 2014 (Cuesta and Mulinari 2018; Martinsson 2016), the

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National Swedish Gender Studies conference in 2016 (Haritaworn 2016) and a range of events around intersectionality (Lewis 2013; Lutz et  al. 2011) have engendered heated debate about the subjects and objects of academic feminism. While hardly intentional or unique, through invocations of the contested terms “we” and “us,” the symposium on epistemic habits in Finland created a kind of academic feminist universality assembled around a particular understanding of “critique,” that did not include considering which bodies and topics were assembled to discuss these very questions, until the very end. Arriving as a surprise, this to my mind illuminated a quintessential epistemic habit of Nordic academic feminism, namely whiteness. Why does Nordic academic feminism continue to assume and reproduce whiteness as its naturalised point of departure, including for its “we”?.  Sara Ahmed (2007)  has proposed that  whiteness can be understood as a habit, an orientation, and an inheritance. In this sense, it trails behind and recedes from it’s own view. Extending this argument and charged by the question posed by Diana Mulinari in 2001 that opened this chapter, I here consider whiteness as an epistemic habit of Nordic academic feminism in terms of whiteness. My approach is queer, not only because I am queer, but in the sense that I seek to render strange some taken for granted ideas of Nordic academic feminism. The chapter is also queer in that it is not the result of a specific (funded) research project with a set methodology and bounded empirical material. Rather, I draw on a lived archive of 15 years of participant observation in “Nordic” academic feminism as it has taken shape at conferences, in network and research meetings, and in classrooms and public debates. Akin to Ahmed’s approach, I draw on an archive “assembled out of encounters, taking form as a memory trace” and thus “my archive is also my world, my life-world, my past as well as present” (Ahmed 2010, 19). Chicana feminists contend that the ways in which the queer body in particular is always racialised and lived at and through multiple borders constitutes theories in the flesh (cf. Cuesta and Mulinari 2018, 981). It is certainly an epistemic habit to insist that one’s research and writing should or does offer something new. Rhetorical and citational strategies and ways of telling stories are designed to crave, do and reward that. It is important to stress that what I aim to illuminate here is not news, especially not to those for whom the epistemic habits of whiteness are extremely visible and often violent. Quite the opposite. Moreover, white feminists’ resistance to acknowledging white privilege, or efforts to move beyond

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simple acknowledgements of antiracism into serious engagements with questions of race, has already been extensively studied by scholars, activists and citizens in the Nordic region (Cuesta and Mulinari 2018; De los Reyes et al. 2002; Habel 2011; Keskinen 2018; Lundström and Teitelbaum 2017; Sager and Mulinari 2018; Sawyer 2006). This modest conceptual contribution comes out of engaging with a long tradition of scholarship from black feminists, feminists of colour and critical whiteness scholars. My aim is to extend interpretation rather than to claim it, and to take seriously the urgent need to decolonise Nordic Academic feminism. As Chandra Talpade Mohanty noted at a workshop of Nordic feminists, feminist work always requires “putting your body on the line,” which often “involves deep reflection, listening and collaboration that is counter to what academia usually reward.6” This includes thinking carefully about epistemic habits and how they are reproduced and manifested. While I move with the privileges of Nordic whiteness in the world and in academic feminism, I often feel queer and out of place in relation to a Nordic academic “we,” not only due to my “foreign” training, but because I refuse to habitually use whiteness as an innocent point of departure, or invest in it as an institution and orientation. If whiteness persists by habitual reproduction and maintenance of the invisibility of whiteness to itself, a step towards breaking such a habit might be a willingess to interrogate what “we” do, sometimes without knowing it. 

Intersectionality and Whiteness as Epistemic Habit Fully outlining how whiteness operates as an epistemic habit in Nordic academic feminism requires more space than a short chapter allows”. The very creation of a Nordic feminist “we” has long been cast as a historical matter. That is, as an inheritance of historically female and heterosexual subjects of Nordic welfare states, of secular but (culturally) Christian nations characterised by “relative homogeneity” and proximity, making “Nordic” simply an identity effect (Halsaa 2001). The degree to which the invisibility of whiteness to itself continues to secure the racial implications of Nordicness is rarely made explicit however; Nordic whiteness is instead cast as exceptional, insofar as it claims to have no relationship to 6  Paraphrased from discussions at the workshop “From National to Transnational Feminist Movements” organised by the “Futures of feminism in the Nordic region” network in Lund, 10 March 2017.

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histories of race and racism (Habel 2011; Hübinette and Lundström 2014). Frequently, it is stated that not only is the “arrival” of others (Ahmed 2007) a recent phenomenon, the persistence of the hegemony of whiteness is historical. Whiteness relates to itself in epistemically habitual ways; when whiteness is cast in racial terms, it simultaneously provokes a “crisis” (Keskinen 2018) and a return to “innocence” (Wekker 2016) or to “ignorance” (Mills 2015) of its own history. In this section, I focus on one way of “relating to knowledge” that constructs Nordic “we-ness” as whiteness, namely the introduction of “new” theories. The past two decades of Nordic debate around intersectionality as a concept and approach to studying power and subjectivity is especially illuminating. As an example of the epistemic habit of whiteness, I here offer a close reading of one article published in 2003 in Kvinnovetenskaplig tidskrift, the National Swedish gender studies journal (Lykke 2003). I want to be clear that the point of this reading is not to critique a singular author; indeed that would be to turn whiteness into an individual problem of being  good or bad that prevents us from seeing its habitual forms (cf Hemmings 2011). Rather, the article is chosen because of its status as an introductory article that is frequently cited as a central or even singular “source” on intersectionality and because it engendered debate and still participates in Nordic discussions around the concept. If we understand intersectionality as at its core a challenge to the hegemony of whiteness in academic feminism, then how “it” gets understood and taken up in (hegemonic) Nordic Academic feminism matters for what kind of work it can do. Here I attend to rhetorical moves that are made “without thinking” and how they relate to whiteness as “innocence” and “good intention.” “Intersectionality—A useful concept for gender research” (Lykke 2003) is driven by an emphasis on national differences quite typical of Nordic feminism;  it  begins with an intra-Nordic comparison between Denmark as “home” and Sweden as “work” for the author. This “positionality” itself points to how for many (white) feminists, Nordic nationality remains unmarked white. The article departs from what was read as a threat to gender equality around the millennium, namely a growing attention to “diversity.” This story of how attention to relations of power beyond gender “threatens” gender equality is habitual, ordinary and persists in significant areas of Nordic academic feminism, including institutional discussions about syllabi changes and “equal opportunities.” Framed as an aim to “introduce” intersectionality as a “useful concept” for gender studies, most of the article’s references are from “Anglo American”

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feminism. The work of scholars who at that time had engaged and developed intersectionality in relation to Nordic feminism and politics is presented not as part of gender studies, but as examples of a growing attention to “multiculturalism” and “diversity.” The orientation towards Anglo American feminist theory, I argue, works to secure both  its importance and the possibility of insisting on a race-blind Nordic “difference” in relation to it.  Insofar as the Nordic region understands itself as devoid of colonial history or involvement in the enslavement and trade in humans, for instance, Nordic difference allows for a disavowal of certain geopolitically loaded ideas as not “relevant” (eg Widerberg 1998). The article presents a story of intersectionality wherein the concept itself does not originate in black feminism (cf Crenshaw 1991), but rather has many roots, an argument that has frequently been invoked since. Importantly, according to the author, any theory that considers more than one “category” exemplifies intersectionality: Marxist feminism is an “intersection” of class and gender, and “queer theory” of gender and sexuality. A range of texts addressing the subject of feminism, from the sexual difference theory of Rosi Braidotti and Luce Irigaray to Trinh T. Minh-­ ha’s and Donna Haraway’s in/appropriated other(s) are thus presented as examples of intersectionality and of “difference.” As I have argued elsewhere (Dahl et al. 2016), in the 1990s a series of new subjects “arrive” in Nordic academic feminism and they are treated quite differently. The field of masculinity studies is cast as a “welcome addition” and understood as “belonging” in gender studies. Queer theory is repeatedly cast as “coming from the US” and as bringing identity categories into crisis through deconstruction and by introducing of a range of gendered bodies and sexual subjects beyond heterosexual male and female. Yet, while queer theory transforms heterosexuality from a natural given into an ideological construct in need of study and explanation, “queer” does not necessarily bring queer and trans* bodies of flesh and knowledge to bear on  the construction of Nordic feminism itself. Rather, in hegemonic feminism, queer becomes “useful” in extending the idea that gender is a construction and to a growing number of contemporary projects that question “norms,” frequently without much effort to challenge their material and structural roots or consequences. In contrast, the arrival of intersectionality, black feminism and postcolonial theory to Nordic academic feminism is entangled with something called “diversity,” which is cast as brought by new waves of migration as a result of war and global neoliberal capitalism and also,  as “new.” Naturally, this challenges the

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national and regional exceptionality of Nordic academic feminism. What is profoundly curious is that this article does not address the specific critique and theoretical interventions formulated by black feminists of white feminists, such as challenges to a unified sense of “we” or critiques of racism in feminism. Without knowing it, and by claiming intersectionality as an outcome of plurality rather than as an epistemic critique, gender theory is instead expanded and absorbs intersectionality as its own. This is a frequently repeated rhetorical move that might be summarised as “feminism was always already intersectional” that clearly  works to whiten intersectionality (Bilge 2014). We learn from postcolonial and queer phenomenologists that habits are linked to the orientation of bodies, what has come before, what trails behind and how the world unfolds from where we are (Fanon in Ahmed 2007). In this article, the author contends that there are “good reasons to make space for intersectionality in feminist theory and practice” (Lykke 2003, 52).7 Along with the title’s emphasis on “usefulness,” this reveals an imagined audience, namely, those who need convincing and who ought to “make space,” rather than those for whom intersectionality might better describe experiences with multiple relations of power. While “making space for intersectionality” can be read as an intervention and a critique, a caution is also offered, namely that a key challenge with intersectionality is that it “opens the door for an analytical marching in of an endless row of power asymmetries (gender, class, ethnicity, age, sexual preference, nationality, profession, disability and so on)” which might be “analytically unmanageable” (Lykke 2003, 53). The image of a row of others who might march in and make things complicated for what appears to be feminists who prefer the focus to be gender, is quite striking. It suggests that a key point from black feminist theory, namely the impossibility of disentangling power relations and forms of discrimination and how this challenges theories of gender, is lost and that whiteness is secured as what “makes space” and “manages” analysis. Having set up her meta-reading of the multi-origins of intersectionality as a concept, the author then offers a series of recommendations to those who may want to consider its “usefulness.” These include making “choices” around which categories to use based in the specific research at hand, but the centrality of gender should always be maintained. Indeed, the author argues that intersectionality can open up for the possibility of 7

 All translations are mine.

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“a conversation about diversity that doesn’t lead to a situation where it is legitimate to ignore gender and power” (Lykke 2003, 53). No examples are presented of how “intersectionality” or “diversity” has led to gender being “ignored,” here or in any other critical discussions of intersectionality. Instead, by simply calling for caution and pointing to its “difficulties,” this frequently cited article ends up supporting a crucial objection to intersectionality, namely that it runs the risk of “forgetting gender,” by bringing focus to race and racism. This reading of intersectionality involves a selective reading of black feminist theory, where the critique of sexism in antiracist movements is highlighted but the critique of whiteness in feminism can be ignored. The author concludes by again addressing “gender equality feminists” (seemingly its audience) and insisting that such feminists “do not have to be afraid that diversity feminists will water down the struggle against the gendered power order” (Lykke 2003, 54). If we understand the Nordic version of gender equality as obstensibly the culmination of three modern Western theoretical paradigms of gender and power, namely liberal feminism’s arguments for rights, socialist feminism’s focus on labour division and class, and radical feminism’s emphasis on sexual violence against women, it is worth noting that these three are also repeatedly cast as the core theories in the history of Nordic and Western academic feminism. Of course, by now (Nordic) hegemonic feminism (Sager and Mulinari 2018) focused on gender equality and sexual rights has been extensively critiqued by black, postcolonial, queer, indigenous and critical race and whiteness studies feminists (Dahl 2014; De los Reyes et al. 2002; Habel 2011; Knobblock and Kuokkanen 2015; Mattsson 2010; Sawyer 2006). Yet, as is evidenced in many course designs and syllabi these critiques rarely lead to epistemological changes or new interpretations of feminist theory; rather, they are frequently presented as added perspectives. Insisting on the centrality of gender, questions of race and whiteness continue to be seen as secondary or optional. Despite its seeming good intentions, in this article, the epistemic habit of whiteness is reflected in who is being addressed—“equality feminists”. Whereas diversity feminists “bring in” postcolonial perspectives, the epistemic shift to decentre whiteness is lost via a recentring of gender and a seeming fear of the other, who is seen to threaten (white) feminism. The idea that intersectionality requires analytical “choices” has had many consequences, one of them being that in the Nordic region, many empirical studies by academic feminists continue to invoke race-blindness

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and frequently end up with predominantly white samples and data. If empirical data reveals racial homogeneity this is in turn frequently presented as a reason to exclude race as a category from the analysis, or to only address race in relation to those in a sample who are not white, leaving whiteness unexamined. Considering the critique launched by women of colour as optional, and considering race primarily relevant in relation to racialised subjects and not to whiteness itself reveals and secures whiteness as epistemic habit. It is clear that part of what makes whiteness “worldly’ is that as a category of experience it tends to disappear through experience (Ahmed 2007, 150), which in turn also makes whiteness both “universal” and “fragile” in the sense of being infinitely complex to itself (DiAngelo 2011). What does it mean for Nordic academic feminism when the main question put to intersectionality continues to be whether or not it is “useful”? Certainly, we know that it is not always “useful” for white feminists to consider a critique of racism within academic feminism, insofar as this requires challenging the centrality of whiteness to theories of gender and power, as well as the central place of white bodies within academic feminism. It might mean that if the audience for this article is a group called “gender equality feminists” which as a form of hegemonic feminism (Sager and Mulinari 2018) views questions of race as located “elsewhere” and not related to whiteness itself, certain epistemic habits are not to be challenged. It might also mean that for white feminists, intersectionality does not lead to reflections around how sexism or relations between feminists are related to questions of colonialism, capitalism and heterosexuality as systems that produce inequality, including in feminism. Rather, as an analytic mode, intersectionality, and thereby the question of race itself, is presented as posing “difficulty” and presenting arbitrary choices around categories of identity and power asymmetries that white feminists can make—or not. Finally and most importantly, by arguing that intersectionality has multiple origins, and at the same time is an offspring of gender studies, the fundamental epistemological challenges to structural racism in feminism, including the limitations of feminist concepts formulated from a white heterosexual middle-class majority position, can be ignored and the universality of white gender theory remains secure. By proposing that race and racism do not need to be included at all in intersectional analysis—unless there is a “reason” for it and that reason is largely that of addressing the “diversity” of others, whiteness remains the universal and

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general.8 If a core epistemic habit of white feminism is its investment in and attachment to gender oppression and subordination as the central and unifying factor, the black feminist challenge to this universality and its insistence that we must also interrogate privilege continues to meet resistance.

On Listening and Being Heard While this is an “old” article, it is important to note that the discussion about racism and its relation to Nordic and Swedish academic feminism began more than a decade before, including in the very journal in which it was published (Mulinari 2001). Around the millennium, the fields of postcolonial studies, black feminist studies and critical whiteness studies were growing, and thus the article generated debate in Sweden and beyond. Space limitations prevent a close analysis of this rich archive, and thus I only point to one crucial example. Three scholars took issue with the article and in particular with its description of some work, including their own, as examples of “diversity feminism” (De los Reyes et al. 2003). Beginning by challenging the author’s description of Denmark as a place where diversity talk overshadows discussions of sexism and describing Denmark as reactionary and racist, the response drew on postcolonial perspectives in offering alternative readings both of the geopolitical temporality of the Nordic region and of the approach to intersectionality. Interestingly, while this intervention was a formal engagement on a theoretical level, the author’s reply to this critique (Lykke 2003) made it personal. Addressing the critics with “dear first name,” repeatedly calling them “friends” and stating that she was sorry “if they perceived her reading of their book as negative” for this was not its “intention” (Lykke

8  Whiteness was the topic of a special issue of this journal. In its opening article, an invited overview of the field, critical whiteness scholar Katarina Mattsson took a very different point of departure, namely the crucial work of feminists of colour for understanding whiteness as a racial position and a structure of supremacy. Mattsson urges white scholars to critically reflect on their position, not simply through an inward-gazing politics of declaring an identitarian positionality (as Danish or Swedish or even “white”), but in terms of its potentially profound epistemological consequences (Mattsson 2010) Today, the field of critical whiteness studies has grown alongside and entangled in crucial work on Nordic colonialism, but like much of the intersectionality work done by feminists of colour in the Nordic region, this work is frequently presented as “perspectives” to be added or not.

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2003, 163), the author’s reply implied a friendly conversation with a shared goal. As Sarita Srivastava (2006) has illuminated, there is a tendency, especially in feminist organisations, for white women to emphasise personal feelings in the face of structural critique and demands for change. In the context of discussing “intersectionality,” personalising theoretical and political disagreement points to an epistemic habit of whiteness, namely the desire to return to universality: we all want the same thing (DiAngelo 2011). Yet, rather than viewing intersectionality as central to feminist scholarship on structural inequalities, and engaging with its critique, the author places these critics outside gender studies, at the very margin that postcolonial feminists such as Mulinari (2001) have discussed, again securing a difference between (white) feminist theory and postcolonial theory (which in this reading also includes black feminist theory). Repeating the argument that as a Dane living in Sweden, she is an “outsider within” and a “marginal subject,” the author secures Nordic identity and erases how such a movement is itself predicated on whiteness. Returning to the question posed by Mulinari at the beginning of this chapter, we might argue that when whiteness is an epistemic habit, Nordic academic feminism might be both passively ethnocentric and actively work to privilege white women, even if it is “without knowing it.” I point to this as one example of a much longer discussion about intersectionality, which since the early 2000s has seemingly avoided its crucial implications for feminist theorising, namely the critique of the (racial) subject of feminism in the Nordic region and Northern Europe. White authors have instead focused on the limits of metaphors, on whether it is a concept (Lykke 2003), a buzzword or a success story (Davis 2008), a complexity (McCall 2005), a black box (Lykke 2011), or a brilliant career (Lutz 2014), frequently concluding that it is a useful tool, in need of reconceptualisation (Staunæs 2003) and further theorisation (Lutz et  al. 2011), and often pointing to its “success” while downplaying race (for an exception, see Carbin and Edenheim 2013). Even if a routine statement with regard to intersectionality’s “travel” might suggest that “it was academically marginalised scholars and activists investigating the effects of racism, ethnicism and nationalism in combination with gender who embraced the concept in the first place” (Lutz 2014, 5), such a narrative suggests that studying other relations of power will make you marginal and ready to “embrace” a concept as it “arrives” on European or Nordic shores. Above

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all, white feminists frequently seem particularly eager to move beyond the critique of whiteness and instead focus on subjective exceptions (Staunæs 2003), point to “the other question” (Lykke 2011), insist on “new” intersectionalities (Lutz et  al. 2011) or simply repeatedly  declare the good intentions of white feminists. While theoretical discussion and development is arguably a core epistemic habit of academic feminism, when understood as an epistemic habit, whiteness entangled with making things personal and emotional works to secure the centrality of white feminist work rather than how to address the challenges launched by its critics. As Marilyn Frye has self-critically noted, “it is an aspect of race privilege to have a choice—a choice between the options of hearing and not hearing. That is part of what being white gets you” (Frye 1983, 111). I argue that it is an epistemic habit of whiteness to read critiques of whiteness within feminism as optional or additional perspectives rather than as central feminist dilemmas. Returning to the question of “we” and to the long history of critique of white feminism, it is worth noting that Hazel Carby’s (1982) classic article “White women Listen!” remains on many gender studies syllabi and is frequently cited in articles on intersectionality, critical whiteness studies and black feminist theory in the Nordic region. Yet, neither its titular demand nor its closing question, “of white feminists we must ask, what exactly do you mean when you say ‘WE’??” (Carby 1997, 52), has led to any serious structural or epistemic challenge of whiteness or to any sustained analysis of white privilege and supremacy in relation to racism in academic feminism. If the origin of gender studies and academic feminism is located in critical analyses of how sexism operates in the organisation of academia as well as in and across different epistemes, postcolonial critiques of the centrality of epistemic racism to formations of Western knowledge (Grosfoguel 2013) or even to Nordic academia are often framed as a matter of theoretical “choices.” Differently put: while critical historiographies of gender and sex as concepts are central to gender studies and academic feminism, how these theories naturalise heterosexuality or how the very categories themselves have emerged in intimate entanglement with histories of colonialism and racial science is frequently cast as a matter of “perspective.” Simultaneously presented as an offspring of gender studies, as already in need of improvement and as only electively concerned with racism, intersectionality thus does not challenge whiteness as epistemic habit. Instead, and to borrow the formulation of Sirma Bilge: “A tool elaborated by women of colour to confront the racism and

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heterosexism of White-dominated feminism, as well as the sexism and heterosexism of antiracist movements, becomes, in another time and place, a field of expertise overwhelmingly dominated by White disciplinary feminists who keep race and racialized women at bay” (Bilge 2013, 418).

Whiteness as Epistemic Habit Of course, when discussing whiteness here I do not mean an innate, essential bodily property. Ruth Frankenburg proposes that we can understand whiteness as “a location of structural advantage, of race privilege,” and as “a ‘standpoint,’ a place from which White people look at ourselves, at others, and at society” and a “a set of cultural practices that are usually unmarked and unnamed” (Frankenberg 1993, 1, emphasis mine). The last point illuminates how whiteness as epistemic habit relies on how it remains habitually unmarked and unnamed, how it persists as a “standpoint,” even in a setting where declarative reflexivity around standpoints is itself an epistemic habit. Let’s return to the event that inspired this discussion, and to the epistemic habit of organising academic feminist conferences. As Lena Sawyer (2006) argues, academic feminist spaces are often spaces where “whiteness-­ as-­knowledge is recognized, confirmed and legitimated.” As Cuesta and Mulinari (2018) have shown, the interruption of a black keynote speaker by neo-Nazis at the Swedish national gender studies conference in 2016 sharply illuminates how white-dominated feminist spaces take shape in the Nordic region. When organised around antiracism as a declaration and value, rather than engagements with and political struggles against racism on a daily basis, white-dominated feminism is more interested in “a ritualised confirmation of what could be termed ‘feel-good antiracism’, a subjective position that reinforces the moral superiority of whites as antiracists” (Cuesta and Mulinari 2018, 688) than in material and political change. Here we might learn from Shirley Anne Tate who theorises “racist actions as habits of the body” and, following Yancy, argues that “racism involves habitual, somatically ingrained ways of whitely-being-in-the-world, and systematically racist institutional structures of which [they are] partly a product” (Yancy in Tate 2014, 2483). This brings us to a particularly strong epistemic habit of (white) academic feminism, namely a (habitual) objection to arguments about white supremacy and privilege itself. Additional habits then emerge, such as disavowal. In “White Laughter,” Lena Sawyer (2006) describes how when racism or racist representations are addressed in white-dominated gender

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studies settings, an imagined antiracist feminist “we” is often created through what she calls “white laughter.” It is “tittering, laughing and sharing knowing looks” among whites, Sawyer proposes, that reflects “an effort to position oneself against such racist meanings.” Whilst attempting distance, this embodied and affective “we” does not centre those whose lives remain shaped by racism or challenge racism; rather, it coheres to re-­ establish the whiteness of such spaces. It seems that beyond its attachment to gendered subordination as (white) universality, perhaps the habitual unwillingness to recognise whiteness as epistemic is central to securing its status in academic feminism.

Conclusion By treating whiteness as an epistemic habit, in this chapter I have began to sketch a framework for understanding how whiteness is habitually and epistemically reproduced in broader logics of narration, assembly and response to critiques of racism. I have argued that whiteness persists as a set of epistemic habits that shape the orientation, assembly and comfort of white bodies, where some critique is understood as “ours” and other critique is not. At this point, the epistemic habit of objection comes to mind. Of course, one may object to my descriptions, question how I use “Nordic,” point me to other references, or ask for more “data”; indeed, scientific authority, even in academic feminism, is secured by accounting for how one’s empirical data has been assembled and analysed, for instance, the number of texts read or interviews conducted that “proves” the pattern or point. As queer and feminist scholars of colour know only too well, presenting “evidence” of racism, homophobia or even sexism rarely suffices to bring about change. Feeling “hurt” will not inevitably break the habits of whiteness or racism any more than “evidence” of the effects of bad habits makes people stop doing a range of harmful things. A critique of whiteness as habitual or epistemic could certainly simply reproduce whiteness and make it possible for whiteness to go back to its usual habit, simply by denying its habitual nature. Despite the violence and fatigue caused by whiteness as a power structure built on ignorance, innocence, fragility and goodness, it remains resistant to change. In the past 20 years and through the establishment of departments, degree programmes, journals, funding bodies, joint conferences and publications, Nordic academic feminism has expanded and coalesced. In that time (Nordic) hegemonic feminism (Sager and Mulinari

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2018) focused on gender equality and sexual rights has certainly been critiqued by black, postcolonial, queer, indigenous and critical race and whiteness studies feminists (Dahl 2014; De los Reyes et al. 2002; Habel 2011; Knobblock and Kuokkanen 2015; Mattsson 2010; Sawyer 2006); we might even say that such critiques are increasingly “included.” Yet, following the epistemic habit of Nordicness as whiteness, they remain added, optional perspectives rather than “a critique of our own.” How might a white-dominated Nordic feminist “we” address what we do “without knowing”? Here I have pointed to habits to remind us that they are repeated, shared and thus not easy to change. We know that the Nordic region is currently marked by aggressive neoliberal economic policies, growing racial and economic inequality, and increasing racism and fascism, coupled with a heightened emphasis on national values and contestations around immigration and integration. While the long-held idea that Nordic means white and white means Nordic has been repeatedly challenged (Lundström and Teitelbaum 2017), it may well grow stronger, including in academic feminism. As Marilyn Frye (1983) contends, the tendency among white women to only focus on equality with white men is constitutive of participation in racial dominance. As feminists of colour and black feminists often note, when confronted with structural racism, individual white women respond emotionally rather than through taking action, a habit that seems particularly detrimental at this moment. Frye (1983) notes that white women tend to come to issues of racism only when they are pressed by women of colour, and have the privilege of choosing whether or not to consider “our” epistemic habits (Frye 1983). Indeed, the common desire among white feminists to “be good” is epistemically entangled with ideas of whiteness as ontologically “good,” which in turn causes feelings of hurt in white people when they are called upon to acknowledge racial privilege or, worse, called racist. Importantly, she also argues that it can be “an important breakthrough” to realise that one belongs to a dominant group. Indeed, for Frye it was “breath taking” to “discover that in the culture I was born and reared in, the word ‘woman’ means white woman” (Frye 1983, 117). Whiteness as epistemic habit means this discovery is repeated over and over. In closing, let me say that whiteness as an epistemic habit might be called a “sweaty concept,” Sara Ahmed’s term for what “comes out of a description of a body that is not at home in the world” (Ahmed 2017, 13) and “out of a bodily experience that is trying” (ibid.). As a critical femininity scholar and queer kinship theorist, I frequently come up against

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routinised attachments to and formations around binary gender, investments in specific ideas and forms of (white) heterosexual femininity as the foundation of political demands and policies that in turn rely on unmarked ideas of heterosexuality and respectability, and on naturalised ideas of divisions of domestic and paid work that reflect middle-class sentiments. This suggests that an effect of whiteness as epistemic habit is that gender itself becomes a (reproductive) technology of whiteness. Differently put: in an epistemic sense, we might understand gender in Nordic feminism as the effect of habitual naturalisation of reproductive heterosexuality, able-­ bodiedness, binary gender, and middle-class tastes and manners, which are taken as invisible but central starting points, objects and goals for feminist theorising and politics that create worlds that do not accommodate all bodies. It can be a difficult task to attend to practices that are hard to name and mark. It is trying also because it runs the risk of reifying what I wish to illuminate and scrutinise, including the white tendency to assume the right to interpretation (Sawyer and Kuyerne Backström 2015). I would also argue that addressing the epistemic habit of whiteness can and should be trying, insofar as it demands that we not only reveal its violence but that we also scrutinise its consequences. After all, and again, the idea that whiteness persists as an orientation and habit through what white feminists do without knowing it, and thus as invisible within white-dominated feminism and other institutional forms of whiteness by being the innocent point from which the world unfolds for those who enjoy its benefits, is hardly news to those whose theories and insights this chapter draws on, to those who are frequently positioned outside of this invisible structure or who do not have the privilege of whiteness. It is clear that when it comes to challenging the growing white supremacist tendencies, changing white habits is both necessary and not enough; “we” will need more than critique; we need a different set of epistemic habits, and to my mind, these begin with a different set of citations, orientations, narrations and collaborations.

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Martinsson, L. (2016). Frictions and figurations: Gender-equality norms meet activism. In L. Martinsson, G. Griffin, & K. G. Nygren (Eds.), Challenging the myth of gender equality in Sweden (1st ed., pp.  187–210). https://doi. org/10.2307/j.ctt1t891mh.14. Mattsson, K. (2010). Genus och vithet i den intersektionella vändningen. Tidskrift För Genusvetenskap, 1–2, 7–22. McCall, L. (2005). The complexity of intersectionality. Signs, 30(3), 1771–1800. https://doi.org/10.1086/426800. Mills, C. W. (2015). Global white ignorance. In Routledge international handbook of ignorance studies (pp. 217–227). Taylor and Francis Inc. Mulinari, D. (2001). ‘Race’/ethnicity in a ‘Nordic’ context. A reflection from the Swedish borderlands. In A. Johansson (Ed.), Svensk genusforskning i världen. Nationella Sekretariatet för genusforskning: Gothenburg. Sager, M., & Mulinari, D. (2018). Safety for whom? Exploring femonationalism and care-racism in Sweden. Women’s Studies International Forum, 68, 149–156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2017.12.002. Sawyer, L. (2006). White Laughter. Slut, 1. Sawyer, L., & Kuyerne Backström, V. (2015). Vita skrattet. Ord Och Bild, 1–2, 95–104. Srivastava, S. 2006. “Tears, Fears and Careers: Anti-Racism and Emotion in Social Movement Organizations.” Canadian Journal of Sociology 31 (1): 55-90.. Staunæs, D. (2003). Where have all the subjects gone? Bringing together the concepts of intersectionality and subjectification. NORA—Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 11(2), 101–110. https://doi. org/10.1080/08038740310002950. Tate, S. A. (2014). Racial affective economies, disalienation and ‘race made ordinary’. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 37(13), 2475–2490. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/01419870.2013.821146. Wekker, G. (2016). White innocence: Paradoxes of colonialism and race. Retrieved from http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=4504051. Widerberg, K. 1998. “Translating Gender.” NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research 6 (2): 133–138.

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Open Access  This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

CHAPTER 7

Indigenising Nordic Feminism—A Sámi Decolonial Critique Astri Dankertsen

In this chapter, I will discuss how to make space for Sámi feminist perspectives, within both Sámi research and Nordic feminist research.1 This includes an understanding of how the decolonisation of both research and the feminist movement must become part of the theoretical debate on how knowledge is produced, how some voices get to participate while others are marginalised, and how this is tied to colonial structures of both the past and of present-day Nordic societies. I argue that a key reason why Sámi perspectives on Nordic feminism are important is that, while topics such as racism have been a part of feminism in the Nordic countries for a long time, within both the feminist movement and feminist research, Sámi perspectives have been almost invisible. As a Sámi feminist and researcher, I see the need to include Sámi feminist voices to a greater extent in both research and activism, and through this to address how Sámi women today 1  I want to thank the Indigenous writing group at the University of Washington, USA, organised by Jean M. Dennison and Josh Reid, for insightful comments on this chapter, in addition to their generous hospitality while I was a visiting scholar at that institution.

A. Dankertsen (*) Nord University, Bodø, Norway e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2021 S. Keskinen et al. (eds.), Feminisms in the Nordic Region, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53464-6_7

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are deeply embedded in multiple layers of colonialism and patriarchal structures that continue to affect both research and activism. The Sámi are a Finno-Ugric Indigenous people living in Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in Russia, and the only recognised Indigenous people in Europe. Traditionally, the Sámi have pursued a variety of livelihoods, such as reindeer herding, fishing, hunting and farming, but are now to a great extent highly educated and urbanised. From being considered a primitive and marginalised people, they are now moving towards a cultural, linguistic and political assertiveness, with Sámi institutions such as the Sámi Parliaments, Sámi University of Applied Sciences and Sámi media. While there is a tendency for the term “Indigenous” to be linked to a conqueror logic related to “who came first” to a territory, it is important to note that Indigenous is usually defined in terms of a specific relation to a state, not as “the first inhabitants”. While there have been many different theories about the migration routes, culture and genetic makeup of the early inhabitants of the Nordic countries and the origins of the Sámi people,2 this is not really very relevant in this context. The relevant history here is the early interactions between Sámi and Nordic people before the Nordic states were established, and the relationship between the Sámi people and these states today. Theoretical debates regarding colonialism in the Nordic countries have mostly been concerned with the cultures and societies of former colonies in non-European territories, while the Nordic countries in general have presented themselves as outsiders to colonial power relations (Mulinari et  al. 2009; Wekker 2016). This rose-tinted self-image of the Nordic countries as being “the good guys” in the world conceals the fact that these countries have taken part, and continue to do so, in colonial processes through cultural, political, material and economic ties to the Western world, and have played an active role in slave colonies, as well as the colonisation of Sápmi. As the Sámi scholar Veli-Pekka Lehtola (2015) points out, the colonisation of Sápmi was for a long time considered to be a reflection of unequal power relations, of the people being subjugated by culturally stronger peoples and overrun by modern society as an “inescapable fate”, more than “real” colonisation. 2  For more information about the early history of the Sámi, see for example Hansen, Lars Ivar & Bjørnar Olsen (2014). Hunters in Transition: An Outline of Early Sámi History. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers.

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An important question in this chapter is what a decolonial critique of Nordic feminism is from a Sámi perspective, and how this is articulated in the Nordic countries today. Decolonisation is a relevant debate in this context, and describes the ongoing theoretical and political processes related to the understanding of the impact of colonialism on Indigenous people, including colonial expansion, genocide and cultural assimilation. Above all, it is a concept that is often used to show how colonisation is not an unfinished business, but something that continues to privilege non-­ Indigenous voices (Smith 2012 [1999], 25). Adam Gaudry and Danielle Lorenz (2018) analyse the Indigenisation of academia through three concepts: Indigenous inclusion, which means increasing the numbers of Indigenous individuals in academia; reconciliation indigenisation,3 which means creating common ground between Indigenous and non-Indigenous ideals, creating a new broader consensus on how Indigenous and European-derived knowledge should be reconciled; and lastly decolonial indigenisation, which involves a fundamental reorientation of knowledge production based on balancing power relations and transforming the academy completely (Gaudry and Lorenz 2018, 218–219). These three concepts must be seen not as separate processes, but as different stages in the reorientation of the power balance between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. These concepts are also relevant when discussing Indigenous perspectives within both Nordic feminist academia and the feminist movement, because they show us that a decolonial critique within Nordic feminism must involve more than just the inclusion of marginalised voices; it must also include a complete transformation of feminist knowledge production and activism. Decolonising and Indigenising Nordic feminism is also something that involves a transformation of both Sámi activism and Sámi academia because feminist Sámi voices have often been silenced (Eikjok 2000; Kuokkanen 2007). A decolonial Indigenisation of Nordic feminism will therefore also be crucial for Sámi society as a whole, because silencing women’s issues risks silencing the ways in which “patriarchal and colonial norms have been entrenched in Indigenous communities” (Kuokkanen 2015, 283). As Maile Arvin, Eve Tuck and Angie Morrill point out, the feminist concerns of white women, women of colour, and Indigenous 3  Here it must be noted that truth and reconciliation commissions have started working in Norway, Sweden and Finland, and that the discourse of reconciliation will no doubt become increasingly important in the years to come.

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women often differ and conflict with one another. The issues that Indigenous women face must be seen in relation to the context of land and settler colonialism. Indigenous feminism must therefore be solved via decolonisation and sovereignty, not just parity (Arvin et al. 2013, 10). The issues of Sámi women can therefore not be separated from the settler colonial logic that all Indigenous people face. While colonialism is often understood as taking control of territories and resources, the logic of settler colonialism, according to Patrick Wolfe (2006), is the elimination of Indigenous people. By elimination, Wolfe does not necessarily mean liquidation, but also includes a variety of ways by which Indigenous people are erased, for example through forced assimilation policies, whereby Indigenous people have been forced in the past and present to forget their languages, traditional knowledge, societal structures and other cultural elements. From this perspective, colonialism is understood as a structure, not an event, that replaces Indigenous people and their societies with the dominant culture. We also need to take into consideration how colonisation impacts the lives of Sámi women, and how female Sámi voices have been excluded in both the past and the present.

Feminism and its Relevance to Sámi Decolonisation I will now discuss how Sámi feminist activists have been crucial in Sámi activism, and how this in turn can be understood as a way of fighting against the settler colonial logic of elimination (Wolfe 2006). As I have already discussed, the inclusion of Sámi perspectives can be understood through the three concepts of Indigenous inclusion, reconciliation indigenisation, and, lastly, decolonial indigenisation (Gaudry and Lorenz 2018, 218–219). These concepts are also relevant when talking about activism, because we need to consider how Sámi voices are included in both Sámi activism and feminist activism, and in what ways. While individuals may be included, this does not necessarily mean that their perspectives are included in a way that involves balancing power relationism, and a fundamental conceptual and ontological reorientation that includes Sámi women’s perspectives. Over the last few years, there has been increasing attention paid to feminist issues in Sámi society, by researchers, activists and the mainstream media. An example is the speech given by Liisa-Ravna Finbog at the Women’s March in Oslo on 8 March 2019, the first ever official speech at this march given by an Indigenous woman. The Women’s March in Oslo

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is an annual event that in 2019 attracted around 14,000 people. This is a good example of how young Sámi women are claiming space in the mainstream Nordic feminist movement. However, Sámi women’s activism is not new at all. As early as 1910, the Sámi pioneer Elsa Laula Renberg (1877–1931) organised the Sámi women’s organisation Brurskankens Kvinneforening, which launched the Sámi convention on 6 February 1917, a date that is celebrated today as the Sámi National Day. Renberg (2003 [1904]) was the first published female Sámi author, with her text Inför lif eller död? Sanningsord i de lappska förhållandena (Facing life or death? Words of truth in the Lapp situation) that dealt with a broad range of issues, such as rights to land and water and assimilation and educational opportunities for the Sámi people. For Renberg, cooperation between Sámi people in all countries, particularly Sámi women, was crucial for the Sámi movement (Bremmer 2012, 49). The invitation to the convention in 1917 thus actively included a special ruling that asked for Sámi women to be present (Bremmer 2012, 50). We can thus say that women’s organisations have been an important part of Sámi activism all along. Sámi women were heavily involved, for example, in activism during the period of the so-called Alta conflict during the 1970s and 1980s, a series of protests concerning the construction of a hydroelectric power plant on the Alta River in Finnmark in Northern Norway.4 The fight against Norwegianisation, neo-colonialism and the struggle for land and water became a crucially important part of Sámi activism during the 1970s and 1980s, with the Alta controversy being one of the most important struggles at the time. According to Beatrice Halsaa, Sámi feminists at the time therefore made an active choice to set aside their feminist agenda for the greater cause (Halsaa 2013). But is this the whole truth? Or does it involve too narrow a definition of Sámi feminism that does not take into account the logic of the elimination of settler colonialism, whereby Sámi feminism must always be seen in relation to the survival of the Sámi people as a whole? We can see traces of how Sámi women defined themselves in relation to feminist issues through how they were represented within the ethnopolitical movement during the period of the Alta conflict. Sámi women were heavily represented in the ethnopolitical 4  The most important protests were the activism at the construction site itself, with activists setting up a camp and blocking the machines, the hunger strikes outside the Norwegian Parliament in Oslo, and the occupation of the Prime Minister’s office by a group of Sámi women.

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movement in the 1970s and 1980s as being “strong” and “less repressed” than other Nordic women. This developed from a notion of Sámi society as more matriarchal than the patriarchal Norwegian society (Bremmer 2012, 78). We see that the ethnopolitical movement of the 1970s and 1980s made it difficult to mobilise around feminist struggles. While some feminine symbols were used in the movement, these symbols gave the focus on women a rather instrumental character. We can thus say that Sámi women were representing a kind of “mother earth” creation to serve the movement’s political and social needs, as a kind of strategic essentialism, a concept defined by Gayatri Spivak as “a strategic use of positivist essentialism in a scrupulously visible political interest” (Spivak 1985/1996, 214). We must, however, not underestimate the value of Sámi women within Sámi activism. They played an important role in the fight for Sámi rights in the movement, for example the group of Sámi women who occupied the Prime Minister’s office on 6 February 1981. The experience they had gained from organising and leading activist organisations, protests and events during the 1970s and 1980s also became important for the establishment of several Sámi women’s organisations during the late 1980s and early 1990s, such as Sáráhkká in 1988 and Sami NissonForum in 1993. The way in which Sámi women were constructed as strong and powerful within the Sámi movement during the 1970s and 1980s did not necessarily serve all the needs of Sámi women. While they clearly played an important role in Sámi activism at the time and, compared to other European women, Sámi women have historically held a strong position in their communities, this can easily turn into an effective way of silencing their voices. Jorunn Eikjok (2000) and Rauna Kuokkanen (2007) have raised this critique in a Sámi context, claiming that the ideal of strong Sámi women, and societies in which women have traditionally been equal to men, risks silencing Sámi women who advocate for women’s issues. Eikjok (2000) argues that colonialism and cultural impositions on Sámi society have ensured that formal legal rights to traditional industries and economic activities in Sámi communities are now connected to men, not women. Therefore, according to Eikjok, there is an alliance between colonial patriarchy and patriarchal structures in Indigenous communities that contribute to the weakening of Indigenous women’s position and knowledge. Gender relations in Indigenous societies are thus shaped by both masculinist and colonialist ideologies about gender and colonised people (Eikjok 2000, 120).

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Similarly, Kuokkanen (2007) addresses the myth of the Sámi as a peaceful people who never fought any wars. She claims that upholding this myth creates a blind spot to incidents within Sámi societies, where violence, incest, rape, sexual abuse and child molestation risk not being addressed in a serious or systematic manner. This critique does not imply that the stereotype of strong Sámi women has no roots in reality, but it does often involve positioning Sámi culture within a mythical past where colonisation and Christian ideas of hierarchical gender norms, female piety and humility did not exist, rather than raising important issues in Sámi societies today, such as violence and the sexual abuse of women (cf. Eriksen et al. 2015). In 2016, Árran Lule Sámi Centre in Divtasvuona/Tysfjord municipality in Norway held a seminar about the health effects of the forced assimilation policy in Norway. A woman from Tysfjord, Marion Anne Knutsen, chose to stream her own presentation directly on her Facebook page, and it instantaneously went viral (Matre and Mortensen 2017). She confessed to the audience about her own experiences related to her younger brothers’ deaths and the sexual assault and subsequent suicide of her mother. Her confession became the first of many personal stories and subsequent criminal charges and court cases from the Tysfjord community around sexual abuse, and dramatically changed the way in which Sámi society had to deal with issues related to sexual assault and abuse. The so-called Tysfjord case attracted considerable attention in both the Norwegian and international media, and forced the local community of Divtasvuona/ Tysfjord, the Norwegian Sámi Parliament and the Norwegian Government to draw attention to the explicitly gendered aspects of Sámi culture. While there had been debates about sexual assaults in Sámi communities before, the Tysfjord case coincided with some other important debates at the time, such as the #metoo movement against sexual harassment and sexual assault, and the need for Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) in Sápmi. This opened up space for new debates on Sámi women and feminism. Rolf Steffensen, a priest and politician who has worked in the region for many years, argued that it should go without saying that the TRC should look into the Tysfjord case. He stated in the media that: It will give space and attention to the violations and abuse that will not be prosecuted because of obsolescence, or not brought to court. In such a commission, the focus will be on the victims’ need for recognition and for

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the society’s need for knowledge and understanding of its own responsibility. (Steffensen in Aslaksen et al. 2018, my translation)

While women’s issues were left out of the activism of the 1970s and 1980s, we can now see a change in Sámi society, with the narrative of present-day Sámi struggles also including the oppression of women. The Tysfjord case was put on the agenda at a national level, creating a new space for defining a Sámi feminist agenda that was linked to decolonisation. The Tysfjord case is a good example of how decolonisation also involves fighting for the rights of Sámi women and children. We can see how women such as Marion Anne Knutsen and Liisa-Ravna Finbog are taking a stand against both the destructive forces within their own society and the silencing of Sámi women’s issues in mainstream Nordic feminism. Their actions serve as a symbol of Sámi women claiming space and speaking up, not only for Sámi women’s rights, but for the healing of Sámi society as a whole. As Kuokkanen argues, the repeating of the myth of Sámi women as strong becomes an excuse to remain passive, thus in turn becoming a means of accepting current circumstances. One should therefore, according to Kuokkanen, employ the notion of strong Sámi women as a proactive strategy of healing and transformation of not only women, but all of Sámi society (Kuokkanen 2007, 86–87). In this powerful sentence, Kuokkanen raises an important question about what is at stake if we fail to address these issues, and makes it clear that feminism is necessary as part of the decolonisation process in order to advance and rebuild Sámi communities. Rather than seeing feminism as irrelevant for Sámi societies, or as something that may stigmatise Sámi people even further (Eikjok 2000, 2007; Kuokkanen 2007), we can see how feminist interventions can be analysed as part of the healing and transformation of Sámi society. Reconciliation and decolonisation involve more than just inclusion (cf. Gaudry and Lorenz 2018, 218–219), they involve a total reorientation of the balance between indigenous and non-­ indigenous people, establishing common ground in order to create a broader consensus about how Indigenous and non-Indigenous people should be reconciled, and lastly a fundamental reorientation of the power relations within society as a whole, and between men and women.

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Indigenising Nordic Feminisms—Inclusion or Exclusion? I will now consider how Sámi feminist voices are included in Nordic feminist research. While neither Sámi researchers nor feminist scholars in the Nordic countries have focused much on the development of a Sámi feminist perspective, there is growing interest among Sámi scholars, Sámi activists and Sámi stakeholders. However, the Nordic countries differ quite significantly when we look at how both Sámi studies and gender studies are organised, institutionally and financially. While both gender studies and Sámi/Indigenous studies are institutionalised in different ways in the Nordic countries, there is a tendency for these research fields not to be connected in any systematic way. In the Nordic countries, there are several gender research institutions, as well as several Sámi research institutions. There are, however, no formal institutions or research programmes that focus explicitly on Sámi feminist issues, nor are there very many scholars at the respective institutions who focus on such issues. There is also little interaction between those researchers working with Sámi-related issues and those working with gender- and feminist-related issues. However, the Future of Feminism in the Nordic Region Network that initiated this book represents an exception to this rule. As Kuokkanen points out, there is not an open resistance in Nordic feminism to Sámi perspective, but Nordic feminists do not engage actively with them either. A good example according to Kuokkanen is the ignoring and exclusion of Sámi feminist and Sámi women in conferences, with the NORA conference, Voices in Nordic Gender Research, in Denmark in 2014 an example of this (Kuokkanen in Knobblock and Kuokkanen 2015, 278). Sámi feminist issues have also frequently been ignored or forgotten at the most important conferences in the field of gender research. A plausible explanation for this is that, even though both Sámi studies and gender studies in the Nordic countries have been important fields of research for several decades now, there has been little overlap between these fields. When conferences like the NORA conference are planned, this means that those who are not directly associated with the field of gender research in the Nordic countries can easily be forgotten. The lack of inclusion of Indigenous women in Nordic gender research can be seen as an unintended, but still persistent, ignorance of the settler colonial elimination of Indigenous people. As a result of the critique in 2014, we can see a change

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in the way the NORA conference of 2019 was organised. On this occasion, they actively took action to include Sámi and Indigenous voices, and the Sámi and feminist researcher May-Britt Öhman was a part of the conference committee. Two of the four keynote speakers had Indigenous backgrounds: Rauna Kuokkanen (Sámi) and Kim TallBear (Sisseton-­ Wahpeton Oyate). If we look at the key concepts for the conference, we also clearly see that they want to engage to a greater extent with issues related to Sámi feminism. We can see the same tendency in the field of Sámi studies, where feminist and gender perspectives have not held a strong position. Since Indigenous feminism has not been an influential perspective within Sámi studies either, including Sámi voices at conferences such as NORA may not be enough. If there are only a few Sámi feminist researchers to include, this potentially creates a new problem. For example, there has been little or no focus within the Sámi research programmes funded by the Norwegian Research Council on gender-related issues, and there have been no large funded research projects with an Indigenous feminist perspective. In SAMISK III, the new programme launched in 2017, we can see that gender has also been included: This will entail greater focus on studying how identity and community-­ building have taken, and are taking, place, with emphasis on the diverse roles played by Sámi actors and their various connections with the public authorities and other population groups. (…) Here the program will encourage the use of both long and short historical perspectives, particularly when exploring the significance of Sámi identity in various places, at various times and in various contexts. (…) A focus on the complexity of the Sámi community as well as on gender may supplement these perspectives. (SAMISK III 2017)

We can see here that Sámi feminist voices push forward a new debate on feminism as a part of the Sámi decolonisation process. Through the process of trying to find common ground, we can see that both Sámi feminist scholars and other Nordic feminist scholars are trying to create common ground and, through this, develop a broader consensus between feminist and Indigenous ideals. We can categorise this as a process of reconciliation indigenisation that is more than mere inclusion in numbers (cf. Gaudry and Lorenz 2018, 218). While there is still a long way to go to achieve full Indigenous decolonisation, we can say that this is a good

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starting point for a process in which both Sámi scholars and Nordic feminist scholars can find common ground to discuss what reconciliation and decolonisation really mean.

Indigenous Feminist Perspectives I will now discuss how a feminist critique is important for Indigenous decolonisation in both academia and society in general. A decolonial critique from a Sámi feminist perspective not only means that the settler colonial societies have to change, it also involves a complete transformation of how Sámi society defines itself. While we can see that Sámi feminist perspectives are gradually becoming a more and more important part of Sámi politics and activism in general, there is still a need to explore how Sámi feminist perspectives in particular, and Indigenous feminist perspectives in general, can be defined from a theoretical point of view. According to Joyce Green (2007), a common claim that is used to reject Indigenous feminism from an Indigenous point of view is that it is un- or anti-­ traditional, not based on Indigenous traditional knowledge, and that many have voiced scepticism about what feminism has to offer Indigenous women, since it has largely emerged from privileged white women in the Western world, including a historical insensitivity to the impact of colonialism. This critique ignores the fact that tradition is neither monolithic nor axiomatically good, and that denying feminist voices within Indigenous societies and academia risks silencing important voices that can be beneficial for the future of Indigenous societies. When talking about Indigenous perspectives, the Indigenous scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith is a name that often comes up. In her influential book Decolonizing Methodologies, she explores the intersection of Indigenous activism and Indigenous research. According to Smith, decolonising methodologies is concerned with “‘talking back to’ and ‘talking up to’ research as an institution of knowledge that is embedded in a global system of imperialism and power” (Smith 2012 [1999], ix). In the foreword, she states that she wrote the book because she wanted to disrupt the relationships between the researchers (mostly non-Indigenous) and the researched (Indigenous), between colonised institutions of knowledge and colonised people, between academic theories and values and Indigenous perspectives, between institutions and Indigenous communities, and between and within Indigenous communities themselves (Smith 2012 [1999], x).

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Smith’s agenda is not only to change how research is being done in Indigenous societies, but also to change the values and practices of academic institutions, not dissimilar to what Adam Gaudry and Danielle Lorenz (2018) define as “decolonial indigenization”. According to Smith, many Indigenous researchers struggle to connect the demands of research on the one hand, and the demands and needs of their Indigenous communities on the other. She seeks to make space for Indigenous perspectives within academia by promoting different approaches and methodologies that are being developed to ensure that research on Indigenous people can be more respectful, ethical and useful to Indigenous communities and not only to the institutions and people of academia. Her project is to articulate an Indigenous research agenda that not only questions the ideals and practices that they generate, but serves as an alternative story: the history of Western research through the eyes of the colonised (2012 [1999], 2). Smith thus seeks to address issues regarding the colonial oppression of Indigenous people and how imperialism and colonialism are embedded in disciplines of knowledge. Through the perspectives of the colonised, we can develop new critical approaches to research that open up opportunities for more creative ways of talking about Indigenous groups and communities (Smith 2012 [1999]). However, it is not enough to include Sámi researchers. We must also, as Smith (2012 [1999]) reminds us, recognise that there are differences between different Indigenous groups, and that there are different layers of relationships and meanings within and between different groups. There is not one “truth”, but many. In a similar way, Rauna Kuokkanen (2000) insists that we need to move beyond postmodern or poststructuralist perspectives, because we need to address the colonial and political context of Indigenous people’s struggles. The very concept of “traditional knowledge” is problematic, because it “can suggest racist notions of a frozen culture giving rise to false views of authenticity” (Kuokkanen 2000, 418). We therefore need to critically analyse the concept of “Indigenous knowledge”; otherwise, we risk losing touch with reality and may “become as essentialist and or elitist as those whom we are opposing and challenging” (Kuokkanen 2000, 420). We need to avoid binary thinking that reproduces Indigenous people as “the other” of the West, as non-subject, disconnected from concrete experience and the possibility of change. Another aspect of the relationship between feminist theory and land and water in Indigenous feminist approaches is the spiritual. The spiritual

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dimension is often an intrinsic aspect when talking about Indigenous worldviews. A typical Indigenous critique of academic work is that it does not take into account the spiritual aspects of the social, the political or the juridical. Within Sámi studies as well, the focus on the gendered aspects of religious practices in Sámi societies in historical times is also something about which there have been small, but at the same time important, academic contributions. One Sámi scholar and activist who raised important issues from a feminist and gender perspective was May-Lisbeth Myrhaug.5 In the book based on her magister thesis6 I Máttaráhkkás fotspor (In Máttaráhkká7’s footsteps) (Myrhaug 1997), she rereads old historical sources on Sámi conditions from the position of a coastal Sámi and woman. In the preface, she writes that she wants to contribute to a knowledge production in which women and goddesses are made visible, and to show how Sámi women have played an important role both in cultural activities and as noaidis (shamans). According to Myrhaug, the gods and goddesses, the spiritual, humans, nature and natural objects, the feminine and the masculine, life and death, the past and the present, were all interconnected and part of a holistic world order. In her work, Myrhaug shows us the importance of feminist perspectives on spirituality in historical Sámi societies, and that this in turn can also be used for feminist movements within Sámi societies today. She presents a critique of what she calls “reversed cultural imperialism” (Myrhaug 1997, 10), whereby, rather than defining Sámi religion as something evil, one risks abusing and romanticising it in a “positive” way, idealising its views on nature and its feminine aspects in a way that creates a false image of harmony. Other researchers in the field of Indigenous research have also been engaged in the debate about colonial notions of Indigenous authenticity. Joanne Barker claims that international and state recognition of Indigenous 5  May-Lisbeth Myrhaug sadly passed away in 2017. I am extremely grateful for all of our conversations at the Sámi House in Oslo during my work on my master’s thesis. 6  The Magister’s degree in Denmark and Norway was an advanced research degree corresponding to the PhD in the Anglo-Saxon system. It became increasingly rare after the 1970s and has now been completely abolished and replaced by PhD degrees as a result of the implementation of the Bologna Process. 7  Máttaráhkká is one of the áhkkas, the Sámi goddesses. Máttaráhkká is the mother of the tribe, goddess of women and children, and it is she who gives humans their bodies. She is also, together with Sáráhkká, one of her three daughters, the goddess of fertility, menstruation, love, human sexuality, pregnancy and childbirth, and is popular among Sámi feminists.

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rights is connected to a certain kind of Indigeneity, defined in terms of “authenticity” that is often defined by otherness, as being “obsolete but for the costume” (Barker 2017, 3). Barker states further that imperialism and colonialism require Indigenous people to fit within the heteronormative archetypes of an Indigeneity that used to be authentic in the past, but now is something dead and gone (Barker 2017, 3). Research in both Indigenous studies and gender studies needs to move beyond essentialist, binary and static notions of indigenousness and gender. As I show in this chapter, important contributions have been made towards overcoming this, but there is still much work to be done. This also has implications for the study of gender and Indigenous societies and how we analyse the positions of the researchers and their relation to the societies within which they work and the gender with which they identify. All knowledge is situated, even marginal knowledge (Haraway 1988). The embodied nature of vision implies that we need to critically analyse, decode and deconstruct all positions, including marginal positions, since our vision will always be partial and limited. As Haraway claims, “Location is also partial in the sense of being for some worlds and not others. There is no way around this polluting criterion for strong objectivity” (Haraway 2004, 237). We need to avoid romanticising marginal positions and instead critically examine the research process and the position of the researcher. Rather than reproducing an image of the innocent Indigenous researcher, we need to include a more dynamic and critical perspective that gives space to different voices within Indigenous societies. However, it is important to remember that, while no position is innocent, some are more innocent than others, and we need to address how Indigenous voices have been silenced as part of colonisation and its impact on present-day society (Wolfe 2006) in the Nordic countries (cf. Mulinari et al. 2009). The way in which whiteness is constructed in the Nordic countries, where the position of the white majority is not acknowledged as a racialised/ethnicised position at all (cf. Wekker 2016, 2), renders privilege and colonisation invisible, and the privileged majority innocent. This critique is also related to other debates regarding Indigenous perspectives and their connection to other forms of knowledge, scholars and institutions. Some argue that contemporary theories on group action are insufficient for explaining the cultural and political organisation of Indigenous people, and that these theories fail to conceptualise the specific interests and needs of Indigenous communities. They claim that one

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should rather focus on developing theory and research that presents a coherent theoretical and methodological approach to the study of Indigenous peoples, and their communities, cultures and historical experiences (Champagne 2007, 353–354). Others argue that research and theories on Indigenous issues are fragmented and part of many disciplines. Rather than claiming that “terms like ethnicity, race, nation or post-­ modernism are doomed by their institutional genealogies” (Andersen 2009, 94), we need to take into account the fact that the problems do not simply evaporate if we just stop using these concepts, since the Indigenous critique of them is an important part of their theoretical development. A failure to account for the density of Indigenous societies in research will elevate the danger of producing a naïve and parochial Indigenous theoretical perspective: “Concepts—all concepts—are by definition schematic and as such are laughably simplistic in the face of the enormous complexity of human life” (Andersen 2009, 96). In a similar way, Jace Weaver argues that each view from traditional disciplines is limited and partial, and that Indigenous studies must draw together the various disciplines and methods “in order to achieve something approaching a complete picture of Natives, their cultures and experiences” (Weaver 2007, 74). We need to give Indigenous studies space for critique, and to include multiple perspectives in order to grasp the complexity of Indigenous societies. While I think that it is important to include Indigenous perspectives and concepts in research, we need a variety of such perspectives and concepts. Otherwise, we risk essentialising the complex issues that exist within Indigenous societies. If we want to work against the marginalisation of Indigenous perspectives in academia, we need to participate in the various debates within and across the various disciplines. Both Indigenous studies and gender studies include research and education that have emerged out of multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary concerns, without strong ties to the traditional disciplinary logic of academia. At the same time, their ties to various disciplines maintain an important space for the critique of academic practices in general. So how can we open up opportunities for a Sámi feminist perspective in academia, and how does this differ from other feminist perspectives? As I have shown in this chapter, both Indigenous studies and gender studies are fields that are often characterised by their strong links with movements outside academia, and the inclusion of knowledge production that takes place outside academia. To answer this question, it is highly relevant to look back to the agenda of the Sámi pioneer Elsa Laula Renberg. In her

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work, she focused on the activism of both women and men, rights to land and water, and the survival of the Sámi culture as a whole (Renberg 2003 (1904]). A Sámi feminist perspective should therefore also address rights to land and water and how, in turn, this is related to Sámi women’s issues. Indigenous feminism is also a perspective that is connected to colonial processes in the past and present concerning Indigenous claims to traditional territories, because Indigenous status is something that is defined directly in relation to traditional territories and the use of land, in addition to culture, practices and institutions. The significance of place, of land, of landscape and of other things in the universe, in defining the very essence of a people, makes for a very different rendering of the term essentialism as used by Indigenous peoples (Smith 2012 [1999], 77). In the same way, the Sámi scholar May-Britt Öhman claims her space as a feminist, scholar and activist, engaging in the protection of lands and waters, and in the future survival and decolonisation of Sámi territories and Sámi bodies (Öhman 2017, 152). Indigenous critiques of mainstream academic production also challenge the way in which we understand knowledge production, since they show us how mainstream academic ontology is inherently connected to our Western scientific culture, a perspective they share with other feminist critiques of scientific production and objectivity (Haraway 1988, 2004; Harding 1992). Harding writes that “to examine critically Western science from the perspective of this kind of history enables us to detect distorting assumptions structuring it that are shared by most Westerners” (Harding 1992, 584). There is therefore a need to develop visions of a decolonial transformation of Nordic knowledge production that includes both feminist and Indigenous perspectives, through creating common ground for reconciliation with academia that includes a balancing of power relations, transforming the academy completely (cf. Gaudry and Lorenz 2018, 218–219).

Concluding Remarks In this chapter, I have explored how we can make space for a Sámi decolonial critique in research on Nordic feminism. We need to move beyond hegemonic ways of defining feminist perspectives to include Indigenous perspectives. An important question in this chapter is what a decolonial critique of Nordic feminist research and activism is from a Sámi perspective, and how this is articulated in the Nordic countries today. As I have argued in this chapter, we need to find a way to include Sámi perspectives

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in Nordic feminism that moves beyond mere inclusion (cf. Gaudry and Lorenz 2018). We need to consider how Sámi feminist perspectives can be incorporated in a more fundamental way that involves more balanced power relations. I also point out that the lack of formal organisation within both activism and academia has been an obstacle to the development of Indigenous feminist perspectives within Sámi studies. While there are individuals and institutions both within and outside academia focusing on gender perspectives and Indigenous and Sámi perspectives, the differences between the Nordic countries and the extent to which these research fields have been organised could explain why this field of research has been relatively invisible. We need to consider how we can create common ground for both Sámi and feminist perspectives as a first step in the decolonial transformation of both feminist studies and academia as a whole. The lack of Sámi perspectives within Nordic feminist research and activism is quite paradoxical, given the fact that intersectional and postcolonial aspects of feminism have become an important part of feminist perspectives both within academia and among activists, especially in Sweden (de los Reyes et al. 2002; Mulinari and Räthzel 2007). Postcolonial critiques of Nordic feminism that simultaneously involve silencing Indigenous feminist voices, intentionally or unintentionally, risk maintaining the silencing of Nordic colonial complicity, that is, “the manifold ways in which North-­ European countries have taken, and continue to take, part in (post)colonial processes” (Mulinari et  al. 2009, 1). This in turn continues to legitimise the settler colonial elimination (Wolfe 2006) of Indigenous voices, including Sámi women in Nordic feminism. Therefore, the issues of Sámi women cannot be separated from the settler colonial logic that all Indigenous people are facing. A similar argument can be seen in the Sámi feminist scholar Rauna Kuokkanen’s work, when she states that: We are losing people through increased physical and sexual violence—suicides, mental illnesses, substance and alcohol abuse—but also through structural violence manifested in the lack of participation, further assimilation and integration into mainstream societies, and ultimately, the loss of what makes us Sami. (Kuokkanen 2007, 86–87)

A Sámi decolonial critique of Nordic feminism involves destabilising the taken-for-granted silencing of Indigenous perspectives and people, and opening up spaces for creating common ground between Sámi

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feminist perspectives and Nordic feminism. This will also benefit Sámi activism and academic critique, since an inclusion of Sámi feminist voices within Nordic feminism can also help in the fight against the ways in which patriarchal and colonial power still continue to shape the lives of Sámi women. To you, you young men and women, I want to say a word. Our people’s future lies within your hands. With your power shall our people and land be maintained. (Renberg 2003 [1904), 29)

References Andersen, C. (2009). Critical indigenous studies: From difference to density. Cultural Studies Review, 15(2), 97–115. Arvin, M., Tuck, E., & Morrill, A. (2013). Decolonizing feminism: Challenging connections between settler colonialism and heteropatriarchy. Feminist Formations, 25(1), 8–34. Aslaksen, E.  A., Paulsen, S.  P., Cubrilo, D., Eira, B.  R., & Hætta, K. (2018, January 6). Viktig at ofrenes historier blir sett, forstått og anerkjent. NRK Sápmi. Retrieved November 27, 2018, from https://www.nrk.no/sapmi/ tysfjord-saken_-_-viktig-at-ofrenes-historier-blir-sett_-forstatt-oganerkjent-1.13848166. Barker, J. (2017). Introduction: Critically sovereign. In J. Barker (Ed.), Critically sovereign: Indigenous gender, sexuality and feminist studies (pp. 1–44). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Bremmer, M. (2012). Changing role of Sámi women in reindeer herding communities: Northern Norway and the 1970–1980s women’s resistance and redefinition of movement. Saarbrücken: Lambert Academic Publishing. Champagne, D. (2007). In search of theory and method in American Indian studies. American Indian Quarterly, 31(3), 353–372. De los Reyes, P., Molina, I., & Mulinari, D. (2002). Maktens olika förklädnader. Kön, klass och etnicitet i det postkoloniala Sverige. Stockholm: Atlas. Eikjok, J. (2000). Indigenous women in the north: The struggle for rights and feminism. Indigenous Affairs, 3, 38–41. Eikjok, J. (2007). Gender, essentialism and feminism in Samiland. In J.  Green (Ed.), Making space for indigenous feminism (pp.  108–123). London: Zed Books. Eriksen, A., Hansen, K. L., Javo, C., & Schei, B. (2015). Emotional, physical and sexual violence among Sami and non-Sami populations in Norway: The SAMINOR 2 questionnaire study. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 43(6), 588–596. https://doi.org/10.1177/1403494815585936.

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Gaudry, A., & Lorenz, D. (2018). Indigenization as inclusion, reconciliation, and decolonization: Navigating the different visions for indigenizing the Canadian academy. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 14(3), 218–227. Green, J. (2007). Making space for indigenous feminism. London: Zed Books. Halsaa, B. (2013). Mobilisering av svart og samiske feminisme. In B. Bråten & C.  Thun (Eds.), Krysningspunkter. Likestillingspolitikk i et flerkulturelt Norge (pp. 209–253). Oslo: Akademika forlag. Haraway, D.  J. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599. Haraway, D. J. (2004). Modest_Witness@Second _Millennium. In D. J. Haraway (Ed.), The Haraway reader (pp. 223–250). New York and London: Routledge. Harding, S. (1992). After the neutrality ideal: Science, politics, and ‘strong objectivity’. Social Research, 59(3), 567–587. Knobblock, I., & Kuokkanen, R. (2015). Decolonizing feminism in the north: A conversation with Rauna Kuokkanen. NORA—Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 23(4), 275–281. Kuokkanen, R. (2000). Towards an ‘indigenous paradigm’ from a Sami perspective. The Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 20(2), 411–436. Kuokkanen, R. (2007). Myths and realities of Sami women: A post-colonial feminist analysis for the decolonization and transformation of Sami society. In J. Green (Ed.), Making space for indigenous feminism. London: Zed Books. Kuokkanen, R. (2015). Gendered violence and politics in indigenous communities. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 17(2), 271–288. Lehtola, V. P. (2015). Sámi histories, colonialism, and Finland. Arctic Anthropology, 52(2), 22–36. Matre, J., & Mortensen, T. (2017, January 14). Marions (29) kamp—ble Tysfjord-­ sakens ‘ansikt utad’. VG. Retrieved June 17, 2019, from https://www.vg.no/ nyheter/innenriks/i/26Pl4/marions-29-kamp-ble-tysfjord-sakensansikt-utad. Mulinari, D., & Räthzel, N. (2007). Politicizing biographies: The forming of transnational subjectivities as insiders outside. Feminist Review, 86, 89–112. Mulinari, D., Keskinen, S., Irni, S., & Tuori, S. (2009). Introduction: Postcolonialism and the Nordic models of welfare and gender. In S. Keskinen, S.  Tuori, S.  Irni, & D.  Mulinari (Eds.), Complying with colonialism: Gender, race and ethnicity in the Nordic region (pp. 1–16). Farnham: Ashgate. Myrhaug, M.  L. (1997). I modergudinnens fotspor. Samisk religion med vekt på kvinnelige kultutøvere og gudinnekult. Oslo: Pax forlag. Öhman, M.  B. (2017). Places and peoples: Sámi feminist technoscience and supradisciplinary research. In C. Andersen & J. M. O’Brien (Eds.), Sources and methods in indigenous studies (pp. 152–159). London: Routledge.

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Renberg, E. L. (2003 [1904]). Inför lif eller död?: sanningsord i de lappska förhållandena. Östersund: Gaaltije. Smith, L. T. (2012 [1999]). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous people (2nd ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Spivak, G. C. (1996 [1985]). Subaltern studies: Deconstructing historiography. In D. Landry & G. MacLean (Eds.), The Spivak reader (pp. 203–236). London: Routledge. The Research Council of Norway. (2017). Work programme 2017–2027: Programme for Sámi Research III (SAMISK III). Retrieved November 27, 2018, https://www.forskningsradet.no/prognett-samisk/Publications/12 29378700916. Weaver, J. (2007). More light than heat: The current state of native American studies. American Indian Quarterly, 31(2), 233–255. Wekker, G. (2016). White innocence: Paradoxes of colonialism and race. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Wolfe, P. (2006). Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research, 8(4), 387.

CHAPTER 8

Saami Women at the Threshold of Disappearance: Elsa Laula Renberg (1877–1931) and Karin Stenberg’s (1884–1969) Challenges to Nordic Feminism Stine H. Bang Svendsen Introduction: Decolonizing Feminist Archives Why is Elsa Laula Renberg not the Sojourner Truth of Nordic feminism? Why have the intellectual contributions of Saami  women, such as Elsa Laula, later Elsa Laula Renberg, and Karin Stenberg, in the early twentieth century, not been included in feminist engagements with race and racism in the Nordic region, and what can we learn about Nordic feminism from reading their works? Questions pertaining to what ‘counts’ as ‘feminism’ as well as how indigenous and racialized women’s struggles fit into this movement or not have been a key theme throughout academic feminist history (Coogan-Gehr 2011; Moreton-Robinson 2000). The origin of

S. H. B. Svendsen (*) Norwegian University for Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2021 S. Keskinen et al. (eds.), Feminisms in the Nordic Region, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53464-6_8

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this question is usually traced back to 1851  in North America, when Sojourner Truth posed the question of whether a black woman can in fact be a ‘woman’ (Truth and Gilbert 2016). The question points to the crucial role of race and colonialism in understanding gender and feminism. Mainstream Nordic feminists have engaged with these questions as results of the combined pressures of global feminist conversation and challenges voiced  by black, migrant, and Saami  women that from  the 1980s and onwards (Halsaa 2013). Scholarly work on colonialism, racism, and its implications for feminism was introduced into Nordic feminist discourse by Paulina de Los Reyes, Irene Molina, and Diana Mulinari’s work on intersectionality and postcoloniality at the turn of the twenty-first century (de los Reyes et al. 2002; De los Reyes and Mulinari 2005). Despite the by now considerable scholarship that grounds discussions of race and gender in the Nordic region, the most widely circulated theoretical resources regarding colonialism, racism, and feminism in the feminist archive today are by and large situated in North America and Great Britain. This is partly due to the externalization of racism and colonialism in the Nordic region, which is a significant part of Nordic exceptionalism (Keskinen et al. 2009, 2019; Loftsdóttir and Jensen 2012). It is also symptomatic of an academic practice that focuses on the migrant experience in ways that obscure the significance of local colonial histories and practices from view. In this chapter, I suggest that the pervasive absence of Saami and Inuit contributions in Nordic feminism should be regarded as an expression of the coloniality of these projects, and that engaging seriously with the anticolonial scholarship proposed by authors such as Elsa Laula Renberg and Karin Stenberg prompts the reconsideration of both key historical narratives of feminism in the Nordic region and their foundational assumptions regarding gender as a social phenomenon. The depiction of antiracist critique as a recent response to global migration in Nordic scholarship suggests that the colonial politics of Nordic nation states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were not addressed as racism and colonialism by colonised people in the region. The contributions of Elsa Laula Renberg (1877–1931) and Karin Stenberg (1884–1969) demonstrate that this is an erroneous assumption. The political analyses found in Laula’s book Inför lif eller död? Sanningsord i de lappska förhållandena (Before life or death? Words of truth in the conditions of the laps) (1904) and Stenberg and colleagues’ Dat läh mijen situd! Det är vår vilja: en vädjan till den svenska nationen från samefolket (It is our will! A plea to

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the Swedish nation from the Saami people) (1920) offer scathing critiques of the settler colonialism of the Swedish state at the time, suggesting several implications for the entire Nordic region today. As such, these works offer insight into the struggles of scholarly and activist feminist communities in the region today, a century after these powerful pleas to the Swedish state and people were published. Furthermore, the mode of intellectual-­ political work and politics of authorship that Laula and Stenberg engaged in offer examples of a feminist practice that sustains community and resists co-optation. Throughout this chapter, I engage with the epistemic ignorance (Kuokkanen 2007) to which Laula and Stenberg’s exclusion from the feminist archive attests, and discuss the implications of theorizing gender in the Nordic region. As Tlostanova, Björkert, and Knobblock pointed out, there is a need to account for the particular colonialism in the Nordic region in order to understand its co-constitution of race, class, and gender locally (Tlostanova et al. 2019). Coloniality describes the lasting influence of the principles of the division of people, labour, profit, and power that colonialism produced (Quijano 2000). Tlostanova, Björkert, and Knobblock describe coloniality as “a full dependence of the models of thinking, making, and interpreting the world based on the norms created and imposed by/in Western modernity” (2019, 290). Laula and Stenberg offer acute insights into the ways in which coloniality informed the racialization and domination of the Saami people at the turn of the century in Sweden through the politics of reindeer husbandry as well as racial knowledge, which will be addressed in more detail below. Decolonial feminist María Lugones pointed out that coloniality also has very significant implications for the conceptualization of gender (Lugones 2007, 2010). The production of racist social identities and the racialization of labour resulted in a situation in which ‘womanhood’ and ‘manhood’ have vastly different meanings for people of different races (ibid.). As several postcolonial, decolonial, and black feminist theorists have argued, Euro-American feminist theorizing has suffered from its failure to acknowledge both the specificity of white Euro-American womanhood and its conflation of this particular situated experience with that of otherwise racialized women (Crenshaw 1991; Lugones 2007; Moreton-Robinson 2000; Oyewumi 2002). Exploring the relationship between the Saami movement and the feminist movement at the turn of the twentieth century suggests that the political reference for the category of ‘woman’ has shifted over the last century, and these

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changes are important to consider in understanding how race, ethnicity, class, and gender have become co-constituted in Nordic countries. By highlighting Elsa Laula Renberg’s and Karin Stenberg’s theoretical and intellectual contributions in this chapter, I aim to contribute to the decolonization of the Nordic feminist archive. Linda Tuhiwai Smith argues that decolonization, “once viewed as the formal process of handing over the instruments of government, is now recognized as a long-term process involving the bureaucratic, cultural, linguistic and psychological divesting of colonial power” (2012: loc. 2140). The archive consists of the books we read and discuss, our reading lists and coursework, the stories we tell, and the type of knowledge that matters to us as feminist scholars and activists. The archive also consists of you and me: the people who inflect and transform what feminist scholarship and activism amounts to. Learning is finding yourself altered and changed in the effort to understand (Todd 2003). As Mi’kmaq scholar Marie Battiste pointed out, decolonization is a form of ‘collective conscientization’ that concerns who we are as much as it concerns what we know (Battiste 2013). In this same vein of thinking, epistemic ignorance should also be understood as a structure of thinking, feeling, and being that is at once personal, political, and scholarly (Ahmed 2004; Williams 1977). I am from Tråante in Saepmie, known in Norwegian as Trondheim, which is the largest city in the wider region where Elsa Laula Renberg and Karin Stenberg worked. In this region, the legacy of anti-Saami racism and colonial land theft that Laula and Stenberg address continues to have significance for Saami livelihoods today (Fjellheim 2020).  I have both Norwegian and Saami  heritage but have grown up Norwegian without any connection to the Saami culture or languages. Reading Elsa Laula’s 1904 book for the first time was a chilling experience because I was presented with evidence of my own colonial ignorance of both the land from which I come and the scholarship of race and gender in which I claim expertise. I knew well enough that there is and was no such thing as a white, homogenous, and non-colonial Nordic past that could explain the absence of race from Nordic feminism (Garner 2014; Keskinen et  al. 2009, 2019). However, I was not aware that there was an archive of antiracist critique targeting the Nordic nation states in Saami women’s writing from the corner of the world I call home. This gift was given to me by the Saami community that I have come to know as an adult.

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The (In)compatibilities of Anticolonial Struggle and Nordic Feminism At the turn of the twentieth century, colonizing and racist policies of land theft and the systematic devaluation of Saami  livelihoods produced an acute and dire political situation in the south of Sápmi, or Saepmie in the South Saami language.1 The colonial and imperial exploitation produced by European empires was at its height at the end of the nineteenth century. European intellectuals such as Max Weber offered explanations for European power based on theories of cultural and racial superiority (Herbjørnsrud 2016). The Swedish and soon to become Norwegian nation states had designed a series of policies in order to consolidate and continue the colonization of Saepmie in a modern light. The question of property was key in this process. In Norway, the constitution of 1902 required that a citizen must speak and write Norwegian and have a Norwegian name in order to own property in the kingdom (Ravna 2011). In Sweden, the border of agriculture2 was drawn first in 1867 and then was finalized in 1890. It demarcated which areas would (in theory but not in practice) be reserved for reindeer husbandry and which would be open for settlement and farming (Jernsletten 1998). Part of this arrangement was that the Saami population was not allowed to establish farms on land above the tilling line and were denied any hereditary rights or ownership of the land they had traditionally used for both farming and grazing (ibid.). The so-called lap tax land, which the Saami population had paid taxes to one or more nation states over the centuries in order to maintain, was effectively rendered state property. These reforms cast many Saami in the southern areas around the Swedish agricultural border into destitute poverty, as their traditional grazing areas or farm land was taken from them. All in all, Saami in the south were under tremendous pressure from Swedish crown policies as well as conflicts with settlers. In legal debates about land ownership, Swedish or Norwegian settlers systematically won at the expense of the Saami  (Jernsletten 1998). In addition, racializing theories and methodologies, including eugenics, physical anthropology, and social Darwinism, were at the forefront of the human sciences. The Institute for Racial Biology in Uppsala was aiming for excellency in the 1  I will stick to the term ‘Saepmie’ from here on, as we are dealing with the political legacy of the southern and Ume Saami regions. 2  Odlingsgränsen. See Lantto (2000).

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field, with the Saami  people as their objects of study alongside other racialised peoples such as the Roma, Finns, Kvæns, Tornedalians, and Norwegian and Swedish travellers (Kyllingstad 2014; Rudling 2014). Alongside this solidification of colonial power, social movements that fought for the right to security, access to property ownership, voting, and access to education were gaining momentum in the Nordic region. Elsa Laula and Karin Stenberg were central activists and writers in the anticolonial Saami national movement that organised in south Saepmie at this time and was formally organised in 1904 in Lapparnas Centralförbund. It is peculiar that the intellectual contributions of a figure who is as famous as Elsa Laula, later Elsa Laula Renberg, have not been circulated more widely. The sixth of February is celebrated every year as the Saami national day across Saepmie in remembrance of the convention for the Saami people held in Tråante in 1917. It was organized primarily by Brurskankens samiske kvinneforening, which Laula Renberg formed in 1910. She had, by then, moved to the Norwegian side of Saepmie and married Thomas Pedersen Toven, and together they took the name Renberg (Johansen 2015, 77). The riveting story of her life has been laid out in great detail in Siri Broch Johansen’s biography (2015). In 1917, her work of several years towards hosting a grand convention for the Saami was realized. In the invitation to this meeting, which over 150 participants attended, she wrote: Not a single woman should be missing in our association. We believe that when Saami women come together with the great objective of doing something for the people, they will soon find the means to contribute to reaching the goal, in their own way. (Laula Renberg quoted in Wuolab 2007, 71, my translation from the Norwegian)

This message, as well as her insistent call for the organization of the Saami people, forms the core of Laula Renberg’s recognized political legacy today. The following year, the first sizeable Saami political convention on the Swedish side of Saepmie was held in Staare, known in Swedish as Östersund. Here, the movement in which Karin Stenberg was central addressed their people’s struggles (Lantto 2018). Karin Stenberg was born in a Ume and

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a forest Saami community near Arvvesjávri.3 She was trained as a Saami teacher and graduated in 1904. Stenberg worked as a teacher, author, and Saami  activist throughout her life. She has been a  key figure in the Saami movement on the Swedish side as a founder of the Swedish Saami Association Samernas Riksförbund, the Saami Folk High School (1942), and the campaign for the preservation of the Saami church settlement in the centre of Arvvesjávri (Heith 2020). Lapparnes Centralförbund and Elsa Laula herself formed alliances with other organizations in their first year of operation (Jernsletten 1998; Uppman 1978). One of these alliances was with Frederika-Bremer-­ Förbundet (FBF), a women’s rights organization formed in 1884. The organization’s primary goal was women’s right to own property, vote, and receive education (Hultgren 1982, 36–37). These objectives were essentially the same as those Lappernas Centralförbund had for the Saami people (Laula 1904). FBF supported Elsa Laula’s work. Moreover, acknowledgements of Laula’s work in the FBF periodical Dagny in 1904 suggest that she was well-known in women’s rights circles (Johansen 2015, 27). Anne Wuolab also notes that Laula participated in courses and meetings related to the women’s movement at this time (2007, 68). Karin Stenberg also visited Stockholm and participated in meetings with Laula and others in 1905. The organization facilitated contact with several key political actors that would be of value to the cause (Johansen 2015, 27). That Laula saw the value in women’s organizing in addition to Saami community organizing was evident in her work on the Norwegian side of Saepmie after her move there in 1908. Although she had long championed the idea of a grand Saami convention, she needed the women she worked alongside in Brurskankens samiske kvinneforening to help achieve this goal (Johansen 2015, 120). Laula’s political work attests to the fact that there was organizational and political interaction between the struggle for Saami rights and the women’s movement. The similarities in the causes between the struggles of both Norwegian and Swedish women and the Saami struggle are evident in the three core issues of property owning rights, voting rights, and education. Furthermore, Laula actively utilised methods employed in the women’s movement, such as organizing at 3  Ume Saami is the name of the Saami language spoken in the area around the Ume River, which stretches from the mountains that form the border between Norway and Sweden, and ends near the city of Upmeje, or Umeå in Swedish. Ume Saami is one of nine Saami languages, but, in the southern region, only Ume and South Saami are spoken.

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women-only organizations. Was she not a feminist? The answer is a matter of definition. Sheila Rowbotham’s distinction between ‘women’s movements’ and ‘women in movement’ can help explain why Laula’s political work has not been interpreted as sufficiently feminist (Rowbotham 1992). She uses the term ‘women in movement’ to describe women who organise to achieve common objectives. ‘Women’s movement’, on the other hand, is reserved for those who use such organizations to make feminist claims and demands (Hernández Castillo 2016, 9; Rowbotham 1992). This distinction makes the question of relevance to feminism, a question of whether the politics claimed by such movements can be considered feminist. It goes without saying that the politics of Frederika-Bremer-­ Förbundet are widely understood as feminist, hence comprising a ‘women’s movement’. Laula’s work, on the other hand, has largely not registered as such, even though it is clear that her politics would benefit Saami women. R. Aída Hernándes Castillo has pointed out that Rowbotham’s distinction is particularly troublesome for indigenous feminism, since it tends to be communitarian in its objectives (2016). This was certainly the case in Laula’s and Stenberg’s political projects. Ina Knobblock and Rauna Kuokkanen explained that “Sámi feminism has focused on an intersectional analysis of the complex ways through which colonialism and racism have shaped and continue to shape gender relations within the community, as well as the positions and social realities of Indigenous women in the Nordic countries today” (2015, 275). Intersectionality, understood as the acknowledgement of intersecting power relations and their ability to position women in vastly different conditions of privilege (Crenshaw 1991), remains a fundamental challenge in Nordic feminism, because it continues to beg the question of what material and legal dispossession as well as racist dehumanization means for feminism. For Saami feminism, however, Laula’s and Stenberg’s work has been foundational.

Readings of Laula and Stenberg: A Keystone in Saami Feminist Literary Scholarship Anne Wuolab points out that neither Laula nor her contemporary Saami political author Karin Stenberg tend to be recognized as authors in Saami literary history (Wuolab 2017, 559). She suggests that the reason for this might be that they produced political writing in the form of pamphlets, but also because the radical critique of the Swedish state which they

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formulated has made their ideological legacy inconvenient to less confrontationally inclined parts of the Saami movement (Lantto 2000, 109; Wuolab 2017, 560). Saami feminist engagement with Laula’s work began with Laila Stien’s account in 1976 and was followed by the contributions of Vuokko Hirvonen (1998, 2008), Anne Wuolab (2007, 2017), and Siri Broch Johansen (2015). The first and most in-depth engagement with Elsa Laula’s and Karin Stenberg’s writing from a feminist perspective was published by Vuokko Hirvonen in North Saami in 1998, in Finnish in 1999, and in English in 2008. Hirvonen characterizes Laula and Stenberg as the great-­ grandmothers of Saami women’s writing, highlighting the ways in which their analyses foreshadow the postcolonial critique of colonial representations of racialized others (Hirvonen 2008). She writes that “these two women exposed the social structures that prevented the Saami from working and living as equals with the dominant population” (Hirvonen 2008, 80). Hirvonen’s analysis points to the combination of critiques of social Darwinist race theory as well as the critique of colonial legal structures and their material effects, which can be found in both Laula’s Inför lif eller död (1904) and Karin Stenberg’s Dat läh mijen situd! (1920). Anne Wuolab builds on this analysis when she focuses on Laula’s and Stenberg’s contributions as ideologues of the Saami struggle (2017). Their books were written through and by the activist community aiming for Saami rights and nationhood of which Laula and Stenberg were a part. They speak authoratively on behalf of the Saami people and could do so legitimately, as their ideas were anchored in the movement. At the time Elsa Laula published her book Inför lif eller död? Sanningsord i dom lappska förhållandena in 1904, she had already been central in the formation of the first Saami organization with the aim of mounting a political struggle at the national level in Sweden. The founding of Lapparnes Centralförbund, of which Laula was president, was coordinated with the publication of Inför lif eller död? on 10 August 1904 (Johansen 2015, 31). Dat läh mijen situd! (1920) represents an even more interesting case for the politics of authorship. Karin Stenberg began the book and served as its intellectual editor. It was compiled at her request by a Swedish ally, Valdemar Lindholm. Lindholm has traditionally been credited for the publication (see, e.g., Lantto 2000), despite very clear statements in the preface that the book expresses the views of Karin Stenberg. She attests to this in the preface:

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This book has come about on the initiative of myself and some other Sameh from Arvvesjávri. I, Karin Stenberg, have provided Mr. Lindholm with the stimulus to this work, and I assume all responsibility for the goals and opinions that appear in this book; at the same time I thank the author Valdemar Lindholm for the work he has done for this publication. (Stenberg 1920, 3, translated in Hirvonen 2008, 77)

She furthermore states that she, as a proud Saami woman, assumes responsibility as the editor of the book (ibid.). In addition, the preface includes statements from both Arvvesjávri and Árjepluovve Saami associations regarding their full support of the content of the book. That the book expressed the intellectual work of a collective is also evident in the overlapping of its content and that of the proceedings of the Staare Saami convention in 1918 (Lantto 2000, 109). In western, individualist, and masculinist politics of authorship, these aspects of collectivism have diminished the significance of Stenberg’s contribution and justified crediting Lindholm in her place. However, Vuokko Hirvonen importantly intervened against the tradition of discrediting Stenberg (2008). From a decolonial and indigenous perspective, however, these communitarian aspects contribute to the strengthening of the significance of both the text and Stenberg’s work. Stenberg’s practice provides an example of the ways in which decolonial scholarship can comprise part of the decolonial struggle that acknowledges the power of knowledge as belonging to the community.

Property, Poverty, and the Racialization of the Saami People Inför lif eller död? (1904) conveys Laula’s analysis of the political situation in Sweden at the turn of the century and focuses on the problem of property ownership in the colonial Swedish state. Dat läh mijen situd! (1920) extends upon and substantiates these arguments based on the knowledge the Saami movement had acquired and produced in the 16 years between the publications. The primary claim of both the organization Lapparnes Centralförbund and Laula’s book Inför lif eller död (1904) was that the ‘lap tax land’ rightfully belonged to the Saami and had to be returned to them (Stien 1976; Uppman 1978; Jernsletten 1998). Secondarily, they moved to accept ownership rights to all land above the tilling line. The racial hierarchy of the pseudo-scientific racial sciences and their corresponding concepts of human development was the premise for the

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Swedish colonial states’ ill-treatment of the Saami people. According to Laula, the racial framework of this interpretation arrested any attempt at describing the Saami truthfully: One does not seek knowledge about the conditions of the lap population but considers their situation as an ancient blotchy tableau, alongside the Swede’s higher stage of culture. And, hence, the lap population are inscribed unjustly with cultural faults, which do not have their origin in our tribe but have been transferred to us by those higher cultured. (1904, 5)

This transfer of defects Laula was addressing was both symbolic and material in nature. Symbolically, the academic and popular knowledge production about the Saami, in Swedish racial logic, was premised on a projection of faults that originate in the Swedish racial consciousness. As Hirvonen has noted, this is one aspect of Laula’s contribution that foreshadows Edward Said’s argument in Orientalism (Hirvonen 2008, 79; Said 2003). In the material sense, this transfer of faults found its clearest illustration in the distribution of alcohol from Swedish traders to the Saami. In addition, land theft produced poverty, and a lack of education hindered the capacity for independence (Laula 1904, 6–13). For both Laula and Stenberg, resisting and mocking the ignorance of racializing accounts of the Saami was a central rhetorical tool. Swedish academics’ and politicians’ fictitious accounts of Saami lives, they argued, could only pass as true because the colonial state had systematically robbed Saami of the chance of a proper education4 while discrediting all Saami writers. The establishment of racial difference and hierarchy furthermore served to produce the idea that property rights could not be aligned with Saaminess. This, in turn, became an element in the racial segregation and purity policy the Swedish crown practised from the late nineteenth century (Lantto 2000). Only nomadic reindeer herding families would be acknowledged as Saami, and steadfast Saami were only allowed to own a symbolic number of reindeer. In this policy, the Saami experience from which Laula wrote in 1904 would not be recognized as properly Saami (Jernsletten 1998). The nomadic mountain reindeer herding Saami, which the Swedish crown wanted to preserve as a ‘pure race’, was, to Laula, a 4  The Swedish state closed down Saami-led education institutions from the seventeenth century onwards and established a separate ‘nomad school’ in 1913 in order to preserve the Saami race and prevent racial mixing. The nomad school did not qualify as higher education.

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colonial construct that served to racialize and romanticize the extremely challenging livelihood that colonization brought upon the Saami people. The preservation and racial purity policy was particularly destructive for the south and forest Saami communities on the Swedish side of Saepmie which Laula and Stenberg belonged to. For Peruvian sociologist Anibal Quijano, the key components of coloniality are the construction of race and the deployment of race as a principle in the division of labour among peoples and regions in the world. He writes: The racist distribution of new social identities was combined, (…), with a racist distribution of labour, and the forms of exploitation of colonial capitalism. Thus, each form of labour control was associated with a particular race. Consequently, the control of a specific form of labour could be, at the same time, the control of a specific group of dominated people. (Quijano 2000, 537)

The governance of reindeer husbandry in Saepmie that Laula and Stenberg critiqued illustrates the ways in which this process of the racialization of people and labour was decisive for Saami livelihoods. Considering the political context of Laula’s and Stenberg’s writings, Gunlög Fur writes: The state construed a group of subjects who dwelled in the mountains, remained nomadic in pursuit of a lifestyle that could not be reconciled with modern society, and they were defined as male. Sami women’s rights came to be defined as dependent on their relation’s to Sami men’s pursuits and manner of living, and thus remained invisible in the politics of the state together with all other non-reindeer herding Sami people. (Fur 2016, 77)

In this outline, Fur points out that state policies led to a racialization of identity and labour that was also gendered. In the case of Saami reindeer husbandry, colonization implied masculinization through state invalidation of women’s traditional ownership of reindeer (Kuokkanen 2009). The colonized subject, recognized as a Samieh reindeer herder, was seen as male, and women’s traditional positions in Saamieh society as equal members of the sijte5 with important economic functions were disregarded (ibid.). 5  A sijte is a traditional Saami organizational unit that collectively organizes work and resources among the families it includes.

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At the point in time Inför lif eller död and Dat läh mijen situd! were written, the people in Laula and Stenberg’s region had suffered the combined toll of timber logging, colonial settler encroachment on grazing land, and bad winters over many years (Laula 1904, 11). Those who tried to survive by farming were often, as in Laula’s family’s case, evicted from the farmland for which they had payed taxes over generations, because their property rights were given to settlers (Laula 1904; Jernsletten 1998). With such challenges, fewer and fewer individuals could sustain living off reindeer. When their herds diminished, they had nothing to turn to. Farming was ruled out due to property ownership issues, and wage labour was hard to acquire due to racism. The Saami people resorting to begging in the villages was, in Laula’s eyes, a tragic effect of this destitute situation. That their plight was explained away as stemming from innate laziness suggested an attitude that they/we were not only an inferior race but a dispensable one. Laula wrote: “Yes, one has even gone so far as seeing us as not worthy of being ranked among peoples or, in other words, deserving of the right to exist”6 (5). This quote illustrates the way in which Laula explained to her contemporaries that the racial colonial order not only ranked races and peoples but placed indigenous people in life-long situations of poverty, hopelessness, and extreme risk of death (Maldonado-Torres 2007). The difficulties in taking on reindeer husbandry as a livelihood in the south of Saepmie were also so evident to Laula that she could not imagine a future in it. At this point in her life, it seems that farming was the only option she could see other than destitute poverty: “It is a matter of time. Sooner or later, our entire people must turn to tilling the earth” (18). For Laula, the prospect of being ‘tied to the reindeer’ was not a prospect of freedom (ibid.). Freedom and flourishing was, for her, as it was in the modern mindset with which she was reasoning, tied to the right to own property. A decade later, however, her experience with living the admittedly hard life of reindeer husbandry on the Norwegian side of Saepmie had given her the hope and conviction that holding on to the nomadic practice was a viable route to survival for the Saami people (Johansen 2015). Laula’s book explains how racialization as a lower-standing race involves being subjected to violence that is material, physical, symbolic, and 6  My translation from the Swedish. Original: “Ja, man har därvid gått så langt at man därföre ansett oss ej vara värdiga att inrangeras bland folkslag eller med andra ord åtnjuta rättigheten att existera” (5).

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psychological in nature. For both Laula and Stenberg, the ideological dehumanization of their people was inseparable from the violence they suffered from settlers and the colonial state. This violence took the form of violence against the land they relied on for a living through logging and setting fire to woodlands. After a fire, Stenberg wrote, it takes reindeer moss 60–100 years to grow back. This is one of the ways that forest Saami were driven north of the so-called tilling line in the nineteenth century. Symbolic violence took form as the expectation that the Saami people were on the verge of extinction, and that their dwindling and death was to be expected. It was central in the racial imaginary that the racial hierarchy corresponded to a hierarchical construct of evolution, and hence that the most powerful races were also the most advanced. In this imaginary, the death of colonized peoples was considered a natural occurrence (whether inflicted by colonizers or not) (Fur 2016). As Fur (2016) has noted, the anticolonial agenda is clear in Karin Stenberg’s message: “It is not so strange that we Sameh cannot so easily be grateful for the colonization, which the Swedes—exclusively to their own advantage—have undertaken in Lappland” (Stenberg 1920, 28; see also Fur 2016, 77). In this sense, a decolonial perspective can be traced back to both Laula’s and Stenberg’s critiques of colonial land theft and racism, as well as their insistence on an actual future for the Saami people. In the face of the racist prophecy of extinction, Stenberg asks the rhetorical question “Do we have the right to live?” (p.  14). Alongside the powerful exclamation of a will for an independent future as Saami, which Stenberg articulated in 1920, she also fiercely condemned contemporary and future racist practices and beliefs: We Sameh will, however, not live as a dying tribe of savages, without purpose for the future and goals for our lives, in ignorance, destitution and filth. We will not be guinea-pigs for all kinds of social experiments and a field of experiments of sensationalist so called authors and scientists, who with their ‘truths about the lap’ depict us as a hoard of animals on the verge of extinction, and who will soon not exist outside the cages of Skansen7! (p. 25).

At the time Stenberg wrote this argument, physical anthropologists and racial biologists were also travelling to Saepmie to collect photographs and 7  Skansen is an open-air museum that exists to this day in Stockholm. Saami were on show here as well as in a number of other museums and exhibitions across Europe in the early nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Andreassen 2016).

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body measurements as data for their descriptions of the Saami race (Kyllingstad 2014). Recently, the feature film Sami blood (Kernell 2016) helped communicate some of these atrocities to the wider public. The fact that there was highly vocal contemporary Saami opposition to state-­ sanctioned racism has received far less attention. In order to challenge the idea that antiracism is ‘new’ in the Nordic context, it is crucial to show that there were indeed colonized people who perfectly understood racism in Nordic countries at the turn of the century and who explained its workings to anyone willing to listen.

Colonization, Property Rights, Race, and Gender Laula’s argument in Inför lif eller död (1904) and Karin Stenberg’s in Dat läh mijen situd! (1920) provide extensive theorization and substantiation of the racialization of property in the context of the Swedish settler state. Their explication of the property question illustrates not only the way in which Swedishness was a condition for acquiring property in Saepmie but also how this identity amounted to property in the sense that rules and regulations have been designed or overlooked to protect this group’s property interests. This argument foreshadows Cheryl Harris’ seminal work on whiteness as property in the North American context (1993). She wrote that “the settlement and seizure of Native American land supported white privilege through a system of property rights in land in which the ‘race’ of the Native Americans rendered their first possession rights invisible and justified conquest” (Harris 1993, 1721). Furthermore, she notes that “possession—the act necessary to lay the basis for rights in property— was defined to include only the cultural practices of whites” (ibid.). The Nordic nation states achieved this effect in part by ignoring the authority of the Saami sijte, which collectively administers property within the community (Bankes and Koivurova 2013). Another factor was that racism in the judicial system allowed for settlers to assume rights of possession over Saami farm land and grazing land that had been permanently settled by Saami families for generations. Indigenous Australian scholar Aileen Moreton-Robinson builds on Harris’ argument to outline the patriarchal nature of what she calls the ‘white possessive’ (Moreton-Robinson 2015). The acts of possession that patriarchal whiteness acknowledges are inherently white and masculine, as the system has barred both women and colonized people from claiming property rights. Moreton-Robinson notes that “White women, Indigenous

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women, and Indigenous men were excluded from designing and establishing the legal and political institutions that control and maintain the social structure under which Australians now live” (2015, loc. 1455). Also, in the Nordic nation states in the twentieth century, political enfranchisement was built on property rights and capital accumulation. The shared agenda of gaining the right to vote, education, and property ownership between the Saami and feminist movements at the turn of the twentieth century suggests that similar operations of patriarchal whiteness were also influential in these contexts. Introducing this chapter, I suggested that Laula’s and Stenberg’s analyses of colonialism have considerable implications for feminist scholarship in the Nordic region. By theorizing the relationship between race and property, Laula and Stenberg provided an explanation of how modernity offers vastly different options to Saami and Swedish women, respectively. The significance of this contribution can be highlighted with the help of Norwegian anthropologist Jorun Solheim’s work on gender and property in Northern European modernity (Solheim 2007). Solheim explains how the concept of human subjectivity, which was developed through colonial modernity, was also represented through the idea of the property-owning subject (Solheim 2015). The very idea of equality was premised on property rights (ibid.). Property-based suffrage was common in Northern Europe up until the late nineteenth century. In this cultural system, (married) women were viewed as objects rather than subjects of property in most jurisdictions. Solheim has argued that the historic constitution of ownership as masculine works as a cultural barrier against women’s ownership even today, because possession is symbolically masculine and bourgeoise (Solheim 2015). In light of Laula’s and Stenberg’s analyses, it is peculiar that Solheim does not address the fact that possession was also symbolically and legally constituted as white in the modern gender order which she outlines. Drawing on Laula and Stenberg, Solheim’s analysis can be expanded to show how the modern gender order in Northern Europe is also a colonial gender order, in which women’s access to full human subjectivity and their role in the gender system is thoroughly racialized. Such an analysis would resemble a decolonial feminist approach, where any gender analysis needs to account for the different genders that colonialism has produced through the racial labour division of capitalism (Lugones 2007).

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The Principle of Gender Equality as a Threshold of Disappearance Simply adding the insights that Laula and Stenberg offer to the archive of Nordic feminism does not sufficiently acknowledge the deconstructive work needed to accommodate decolonial thinking, however. While Moreton-Robinson highlights the shared dispossession between some white women and indigenous people in colonial patriarchal capitalism, quite a few white bourgeoise women also reap benefits. At the time Laula and Stenberg were engaged in Saami activism, the women’s suffrage movement in both Sweden and Norway was formulating the politics of gender equality. Gro Hagemann has explained how the disagreement between women’s rights activists and working women’s organizations in Norway led to the latter’s opposition to joining the women’s rights umbrella organization in 1904 (Hagemann 1977, in Bråten and Thun 2013, 18). The reason, Hagemann points out, was not merely a political disagreement, but a difference in interest based on experience (ibid.). For the working women, improving working conditions was simply more important than equality with men (ibid.), and they would not relinquish their demand for special protection in the name of equality. This disagreement exposed the ways in which gender equality was stratified by class. Similarly, a gender equality that was racially stratified suggested that Saami women should seek equality with dispossessed Saami men. It is unsurprising, then, that gender equality did not appear as a particularly interesting project for Saami women. However, the principle of equality between women and men did become constitutive of Nordic feminism and its discontents at this time (Solheim 2015). Following Solheim’s analysis, the principle of equality, understood as equality with the white bourgeoise male, was an equality that presupposed that women could become property-owning subjects and hence also liberal subjects on par with men (2015). In this reading, the modern colonial gender order has both a light and a dark side, where the possibilities for what is perceived as full human subjectivity from the white colonial viewpoint rests on the dispossession of colonized peoples (Lugones 2007). In this light, the politics of gender equality that were formed during first wave feminism could be seen as a threshold of disappearance (Coogan-Gehr 2011), under which colonized and working women’s political projects would be erased

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from feminism. The project of gender equality presupposed a gender position that would have access to private property if discrimination against women was removed. What could be considered to be disappearing in the discursive formation of what has come to be known as first wave feminism is the fact that property was already distributed along lines of race and class through the colonial project. Chandra Mohanty has built on Kelly Coogan-Gehrs’ analysis of the threshold of disappearance in feminist archives to suggest that the articulation of postmodernism and neoliberalism has produced the disappearance of “materialist histories of colonialism, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy” (Mohanty 2013, 972). The erasure of Laula’s and Stenberg’s contributions to understanding the ways in which racism and colonialism function in Nordic societies suggests that this aspect of the feminist discursive formation has a long tradition as well.

Conclusion: Epistemic Ignorance and Saami Women’s Writing Kuokkanen underlines that epistemic ignorance is active, sustained by dominant academic practices (2007, 66). These practices can be interrupted in order to place new demands on the scholarly conversation. Anne Wuolab has also suggested that gender researchers should contribute to focusing attention on Laula’s and Stenberg’s works (2017). Indeed, the failure to do so continues to erase Saami women’s contributions to understanding the co-construction of gender, race, class, and ethnicity in the Nordic region. Engaging with the work of Laula and Stenberg exposes the coloniality of dominant Nordic feminist projects and prompts responsibility for the circulation of colonial presumptions about gender and equality. Linda Tuhiwai Smith wrote that “there is a point in the politics of decolonization where leaps of imagination are able to connect the disparate, fragmented pieces of a puzzle, ones that have different shadings, different shapes, and different images within them, and say that ‘these pieces belong together”’ (2012, loc. 4059). For me, the work of Elsa Laula Renberg and Karin Stenberg has joined together important pieces of a puzzle concerning the co-constitution of race and gender in the Nordic region.

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Loftsdóttir, K., & Jensen, L. (Eds.). (2012). Whiteness and postcolonialism in the Nordic region: Exceptionalism, migrant others and national identities. Farnham: Ashgate. Lugones, M. (2007). Heterosexualism and the colonial/modern gender system. Hypatia, 22(1), 186–209. Lugones, M. (2010). Toward a decolonial feminism. Hypatia, 25(4), 742–759. Maldonado-Torres, N. (2007). On the coloniality of being. Contributions to the development of a concept. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 240–270. Mohanty, C.  T. (2013). Transnational feminist crossings: On neoliberalism and radical critique. Signs, 38(4), 967–991. Moreton-Robinson, A. (2000). Talkin’ up to the white woman: Aboriginal women and feminism. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. Moreton-Robinson, A. (2015). The white possessive: Property, power and indigenous sovereignty (Kindle ed.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Oyewumi, O. (2002). Conceptualizing gender: The eurocentric foundations of feminist concepts and the challenge of African epistemologies. Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies, 2(1), 1–9. Quijano, A. (2000). Coloniality of power, eurocentrism, and Latin America. Nepantla: Views from the South, 1(3), 633–580. Ravna, Ø. (2011). Samenes rett til land og vann, sett i lys av vekslende oppfatninger om samisk kultur i retts- og historievitenskapene. Historisk tidsskrift, 90(02), 189–212. Rowbotham, S. (1992). Women in movement: Feminism and social action. London: Routledge. Rudling, P.  A. (2014). Eugenics and racial biology in Sweden and the USSR: Contacts across the Baltic Sea. Canadian Bulletin of Medical History/Bulletin canadien d’histoire de la médecine, 31(1), 41–75. Said, E. W. (2003). Orientalism. London: Penguin. Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples (2nd ed.). London: Zed Books. Solheim, J. (2007). Kjønn og modernitet. Oslo: Pax. Solheim, J. (2015). Kjønn og kapital. In G. A. Alsos, H. Bjørkhaug, A. Bolsø, & E.  Ljunggren (Eds.), Kjønn og næringsliv i Norge. Cappelen Damm Akademisk: Olso. Stenberg, K. (Ed.). (1920). Dat läh mijen situd! Det är vår vilja: en vädjan till den svenska nationen från samefolket. Stockholm: Svenska Förlaget. Stien, L. (1976). Elsa Laula. En samisk foregangskvinne. Ottar, 88, 18–25. Tlostanova, M., Thapar-Björkert, S., & Knobblock, I. (2019). Do we need decolonial feminism in Sweden? NORA—Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 27(4), 290–295.

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Todd, S. (2003). Learning from the Other. Levinas, psychoanalysis, and ethical possibilities in education. New York: State University of New York Press. Truth, S., & Gilbert, O. (2016). The narrative of Sojourner Truth (Kindle ed.). Amazon.com: Amazon. Uppman, B. (1978). Samhället och samerna 1870–1925. Umeå studies in the humanities 19. Umeå: Umeå university. Retrieved May 15, 2020, from https:// www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:609433/FULLTEXT02.pdf. Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and literature. New York: Oxford University Press. Wuolab, A. (2007). Forfatteren Elsa Laula og boka ‘Inför lif eller död?’. Åarjel-­ saemieh = Samer i sør, 9, 67–78. Wuolab, A. (2017). Skrevet for livet. Samiske kvinner tar til orde på begynnelsen av 1900-tallet. In K. Andersson (Ed.), Sápmi i ord och bild II (pp. 558–573). Stockholm: On Line Förlag AB.

PART III

Antiracism and Speaking the Truth to Power

CHAPTER 9

“And They Cannot Teach Us How to Cycle”: The Category of Migrant Women and Antiracist Feminism in Sweden Diana Mulinari

Introduction In what is today a classic text, The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power, sociologist Stuart Hall argues that the idea of the West functions in three ways: (1) It allows us to classify society into different categories, being a tool to think with, framing certain knowledge regimes in motion. (2) It is an image or set of images: it represents (author’s italics) or it is at the core of a system of representation. (3) It provides a standard for comparison: it helps to explain difference (author’s italics) (Hall 1992, 186). Canadian postcolonial feminist scholar Sherene Razack (2004) identifies a close connection between assertions of cultural difference and racism, where the smallest reference to cultural differences between the European majority and people from the Global South (Muslims in particular) creates a chain of associations (the veil, female genital mutilation, arranged marriages, etc.).

D. Mulinari (*) Department of Gender Studies, Lund University, Lund, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 S. Keskinen et al. (eds.), Feminisms in the Nordic Region, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53464-6_9

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In Sweden the scholarly works of sociologists Alexandra Ålund (Ålund 1991) and Wuokko Knocke (1991) identify similar discourses on the construction of migrant women, through notions of fixed and monolithically cultural difference. Knocke (1991) suggests that Swedish research has served power-holders to reinforce, legitimize and manage “the problem” from an ethnocentric perspective, serving to keep migrant women at the borders of society and lowest down in the workplace hierarchy. The role of the media in the construction of the category of the migrant woman and the role of these Eurocentric constructions in regulating access to symbolic and material resources (Tesfahuney 1998; de los Reyes 2001; Mattsson 2001) have been extensively explored by postcolonial Swedish scholars. The aim of this chapter is to provide some analytical elements to understand both continuity and change in these representations, with specific focus on the dialectical relation between the field of cultural representation and the field of political economy. Theoretically, the analysis is framed through two dimensions of racism, exploitative and exclusionary, legitimated in recent decades through a grammar of caring racism. Methodologically, the chapter is inspired by Black /Chicano feminist tradition of intellectual activism (Collins 2012) accepting the dilemmas of “taking sides” (Armbruster and Laerke 2008). The chapter is crafted through two types of empirical material. First, it follows the category of migrant women exploring how antiracist identified feminists, many of them of migrant background aged between 25 and 30, act upon the category. Critical discourse analysis (Wodak and Meyer 2001) is the source of inspiration for the second section of the chapter that further elaborates on the construction of migrant women as a problem, a burden and a threat (Mulinari and Lundqvist 2017) in Swedish governmental policy documents over four decades.

Theoretical Frame Debates on intersectionality (Collins and Bilge 2016) have been central to Nordic feminist scholarship in recent decades. Stressing the key role of Black feminist contributions to the development of intersectionality, cultural theorist Gail Lewis (2013) links the silence on racism in European gender studies to geopolitical imaginaries that confine the impact of the category of race to particular places or historical periods. While analysis of class and gender relates to macrostructural processes of capitalism and

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patriarchy, racism continues (in a Nordic feminist context) to be read as a social category: as if racism could be a self-evident phenomenon, taken for granted, excluded from any conceptualization of structures, social systems or regimes. Racisms in this article are operationalized through the concepts of exclusionary and exploitative racism (Mulinari and Neergaard 2017) as two differential organizational modes that coexist in different constellations and hierarchies, forging a specific Swedish race regime. Exploitative racism operates through a process of racialization that legitimizes capitalist production of profit. Exploitative racism may be perceived as a practice ideologically framed in the win-win-win policies of managed migration. Exclusionary racism operates through violent boundary-making, and its extreme form is destruction and annihilation of the “other”. Exclusionary racism is at the core of the ethnonationalist Sweden Democrats’ worldview as well as in the discourses legitimating restrictive refugee policies in recent years (Sager 2016). The concept of caring racism identifies an emerging pattern of racist ideology that shifts from racism as a discourse of hate toward racism as a discourse of love (Ahmed 2003). Diverse types of racism (biological, cultural, competitive, color blind racism) are entangled with each other and target different populations (Bonilla-Silva 2013; DiAngelo 2018). Caring racism is framed by these diverse forms of racism but acts upon ideologies of love (for “our own”) and of care for others, through the legitimation of the need for coercion and repression toward those “others” in need of care. Finally, the concept of race formation (Omi and Winant 2014), as well as of a racialized social system (Bonilla-Silva 2015), provides a materialist conceptualization of racism that challenges notions of racism as an effect of other (more important) social processes or as prejudice.

Emerging Feminism, Emerging Feminist Visions In recent decades, scholarship on feminism in Scandinavia has identified a number of disagreements among feminist activists and feminist key actors regarding the conceptualization of gender and sexuality, the role of state institutions, and the meaning of nationhood, race and religion (Halsaa and Nyhagen 2016; Keskinen 2018). In Sweden a number of scholars have explored the emergence of new political subjects (Bremer 2011; Knobblock et al. 2015; Sawyer and Habel 2014; Martinsson 2016) that

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despite their diversity have included issues of colonialism, racism and non-­ binary activism in the feminist agenda (see Keskinen, pp. 199–219). The need to explore the category of migrant women in Swedish governmental documents evolved from the nearly systematic presence of the category in the narratives of young women, most of them with migrant backgrounds, that I collected between 2010 and 2014 through twenty-­ five in-depth interviews and three focus groups. These women, who are active in mobilizations and demonstrations against neo-Nazi and Sweden Democrat events in public spaces, returned again and again to the centrality of the category in shaping their lives and the lives of their communities.

“These White Feminists” The transcription that follows is from one of the three focus groups that gathered to discuss feminism and antiracism. More than 15 minutes passed with the young women making few comments and responding only briefly while I tried, in my position as coordinator, to pose questions that I thought could create a more fluent dialogue. However, everything changed when the term “white feminists” was introduced by one of the participants. You can read in the newspaper about Swedish men going abroad and getting back with migrant women that they treat violently, and the same week, the same week—we are speaking of the same week—we will go again with some white feminists on honor-killing or dangerous migrant men… (Noor) They [these white feminists] asked me if I could participate in one of their events, and it was so hilarious because they did not know what to say. I knew that they wanted somebody with the hijab but I played cool, and they asked me if I could bring some friends with me, and I said I could invite the queer migrant newcomers; some of them are from the Middle East. But they wanted the real thing … Some authentic girl isolated and exploited by her family … They never asked me again. (Leah) That is why they are always angry and disappointed with us. They have had access to these migrant women for decades, always smiling, always being thankful, and now we come and we do not smile and we do not have anything to thank them for… (Noor)

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The reader cannot hear the tape recording, but a supportive silence was expressed through bodily gestures, and humming in agreement took place after Noor’s first comment. The statement and the supporting frame grasps what appear to be a transgenerational fracture within Swedish feminism; its third “wave” seems to evolve through a shared criticism toward what this new generation often defines as the Swedish “white” feminist movement. The young feminists I spoke to illuminate racist myths on sexualized violence in other places and in other bodies. The boundary between “us and them” continues to be regulated through fantasies of violent patriarchies outside the nation. These “white feminists”, as the research subjects call them, seem to demand a specific performing of the category of migrant women, a doing of difference framed in colonial myths about the other that these young women contest by trying to create other possible subject positions and other feminist spaces. And they cannot teach us how to cycle.

This section of the conversation ends with laughter in the room: the last interpolation was from a young feminist with a skateboard in her arms. Despite the laughter, there is a serious challenge to the representations of migrant women that the participants in the focus groups experience to be highly present in sections of the Swedish feminist movement. A similar conversation took place in another focus group: These white feminists. They do not like what we are, how we dress, how we eat, how we feel. Every time they open their mouth it is to criticize us … They do not understand. They live in another world; they think the police is nice and that the racists are poor souls in need of education. (Andrea) They do not like our feminism. They do not feel solidarity because they do not see the world as we do. Well they feel solidarity with those poor migrant women oppressed, those that they are always searching for to participate in their projects and panels. (Nahid) Yes … Do you remember when we were invited to speak at the municipality and we wanted to put the issue of education and they went on and on with the hijab… (Andrea)

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I know. Either you tell them the story of how terrible your father and brothers are … or you will never be invited again. I don’t think it is racism it is only business; they need us for their projects. (Nahid) But … but … many of the elderly women working in solidarity with refugees that I met, they were part of the Swedish women’s movement … they told me that. (Bussi) Yes, of course, many of these “tanter” (aunties) are very kind, know a lot and are very brave. And you can trust them. I am not speaking about them. I am speaking about white feminists, the ones that are afraid of my father and your brother. (Andrea) Oh yes … those, no. Nothing to offer there. (Nahid)

A supportive silence took place after Andrea’s first comment. While the focus group is composed of nine young women, the voices of Andrea and Nahid are not only the ones most present but the ones the group seem to listen to and agree with. This made Bussi’s interpolation challenging the fixed construction of “white feminism” more relevant. To a certain extent the social location of these two groups of women from different generations may explain the fractures. While participants in the women’s movement in the 1970s enjoyed an expansion of the Swedish welfare state and forms of upward mobility through education within a social democratic welfare regime, this new generation has experienced one of the fiercest transformations toward a neoliberal economic and cultural regime. While the dialogue in the focus group confirms early scholarship on feminism and antiracism in Sweden, it also provides new insights. These activists illuminate and powerfully disapprove of a political economy of civil society organizations (NGOs) and municipality-driven “integration” projects and programs framed through forms of caring racism that often create stable employment for women categorized as belonging to the nation and seldom provide decent jobs for migrant women (McGlinn 2018). What is also vital in this conversation is Bussi’s concluding comment providing a less monolithic understanding of the “second wave”, through identifying the role of elderly women with experiences in the Swedish feminist movement engaged today in solidarity with refugees (Söderman 2019). Again, the humming supporting the argument, identifying the

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space of the solidarity movement as a transgenerational one. There was consensus among the participants in the focus group on the contribution of these “aunties” to the solidarity movement. However, Andrea’s interpolation re-inscribes the conversation within an earlier frame, this time by identifying forms of femonationalism (Farris 2017) in Swedish hegemonic feminism construction of migrant men as dangerous and violent.

Unpacking the Notion of “White Feminists” Feminist methodological interventions argue for the centrality of reflection processes in exploring the ways narratives about the social are constructed in the interaction between the researcher and their research subjects. The young feminists I spoke to took as a point of departure that in my location as an antiracist feminist researcher, I shared their criticism of the Swedish women’s movement. They were right (up to a certain point). I have contributed, together with other scholars, to exploring a number of shortcomings within Swedish (hegemonic) feminism in its lack of understanding of colonialism and racism (de los Reyes et  al. 2002; Cuesta and Mulinari 2018). However, the concept of hegemonic feminism (and not white feminism) illuminates (de los Reyes and Mulinari 2005) the presence of other feminist experiences. Gender scholar Ulla Manns (2018) argues that the ways in which the Swedish feminist movement has been represented often exclude experiences of radicalism. Sometimes I have felt uncomfortable by what I understood was a monolithic reading of this movement grounded in fixed understandings of whiteness. And I have tried to say so. You do not really understand … These women they are not anti-racist … They do not want your friendship, they will not invite you for dinner if you do no participate in their panels or in their projects in the municipality. They want to protect their privileges, and for that they do not need us, they do not need you, they need that those giving financial support continue to believe in that … in the category of migrant women, that we are the category. And they can get nasty if you do not accept the rules of their game, if you do not play the oppressed migrant women, they can get both disappointed and angry. These are the ones I call white feminists. (Louise)

The answer was quick, and occurred in an emotional regime of being tired of educating the researcher. Louise is trying to teach me the

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boundary between being accepted as a friend and being needed as a category. I told her that I really, really, understood the argument.

Intergenerational Dilemmas In some of the in-depth interviews, these arguments were elaborated further. Laleh is in her late twenties, is finishing a professional degree, was born and raised in Sweden, and her parents are political refugees from Iran: I was there once when they presented, I do not remember what; something about the Rödstrumpor (Redstockings) … More than hundred women … And they were so happy … Some of my friends got very angry at them but my parents come from Iran and I recognize what this is, this nostalgia, this living in the past … If somebody wants to be proud because they confronted their parents and had sex with a lot of people and marched against the war in Vietnam when they were in their twenties, I do not have nothing against. And I am thankful for their struggle. I do not want to be unfair. There are a lot of good things in this country that would not exist without their struggle. My parents, they were really defeated, they paid you cannot imagine the prices for struggling for a better world. This is not the case with white feminists in Sweden. But it does not matter. The problem is not that … the problem is that they do not want to live in our present, they resist to live in our present, they want to discuss the work and family balance, but most women I know are unemployed, and the ecosystem is dying. They do not want to fight for our future.

Laleh links the emotional regime of remembering within a nostalgic location of a past, a past where those doing the remembering are the central political subjects. She bridges her understanding through a reading of her own family, through her experience of her parents focusing on the political struggles in Iran. In her interpretation these are similar generational journeys confronting experience of loss and defeat. The research subject uses temporality in identifying the political conflict; for her it is about a resistance toward acknowledging how the world is experienced from a different location. In the third focus group the intergenerational fracture is acted upon in a different landscape: through feminists’ daughters who read their mothers’ strategies as forms of subordination that they themselves need to dis-­ identify from.

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Sometimes I get angry with my mother. And I know how much they have worked so that I could make it into the university … but I have to tell her, ‘stop smiling’ … you know, she is ‘The migrant woman’, the one with cakes for the fika [coffee-break]. (Andrea) My mother is also like that … she must have produced thousands of samosas … and if I say something, she gets into the same tune: ‘It is their country,’ blah blah blah. … She was a trained engineer when she came to Sweden and she was never able to work in her profession. But she did work and work and work. But I do not know, or rather I know, that smiling and making samosas have been the strategy to protect us. (Lilah)

The tape recording grasps how laughter at the beginning of the story is fractured by a silence that is both respectful and supportive. A laughter that is coded through irony and a silence that seems to frame a shared experience of these young feminists with migrant backgrounds that opens for a sensitive issue between migrant mothers and daughters. The term “migrant women” appears as something these young feminists feel their mothers were forced to act upon, a role to perform in order to survive. The connection between political economy and the classification system is clear in their stories, with no doubt about the connection between the category of migrant women and the over-exploitation of their mothers. There is, however, a tension in the emotional regime of remembering: both an acknowledgment that their mothers did whatever possible to create a future in an unfriendly landscape, and an anger toward what the daughters themselves experience as the level of subordination in Swedish society, what they read as an acceptance of the category of migrant women. The empirical material gathered was overwhelming in identifying this fracture, a fracture that needs to be reworked and healed in the future. Swedish antiracist feminism is evolving at the crossroads of a challenge to the category of migrant women, a struggle against exclusionary forms of racism but also exploitative ones, and a search and a commitment for other words, and other worlds.

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The Category of Migrant Women in Swedish Government Documents The category of migrant women is highly present in the stories of young antiracist feminists. It is both a childhood memory of how their mothers were treated by society and a codeword for the performance of subordination. I have turned my attention to Government Official Reports in order to grasp the genealogy of the category. Following the notion of topos (Wodak and Meyer 2001), the category of invandrar kvinnan (migrant woman) evolves as the central node through which systems of representation, articulation and meaning are created. The category of migrant women includes a number of terms in the Swedish governmental documents that reinforce the classification system as follows: 1. Migrant women: Finnish-speaking housewives. Women with foreign citizenship. 2. Migrant families: non-Swedish-speaking families, migrants homes, migrant households, labor migration families, migrant parents, migrant culture. Children and adults from other countries. 3. Children who are foreign citizens, second-generation migrants, mothers of migrant children. Non-Nordic children. These terms are at the core of strategies of color-blind racism that allow the participants to read otherness in what is represented as neutral descriptions of practices such as migration and households. The terms act as a central topos in racialization processes on the boundary between those who belong to the nation and those who do not, a topos that immediately transforms the practice of migration into a specific category of people aimed to legitimate Swedishness superiority framed through colonial fantasies (Erel 2011). The documents selected are at the crossroads of migration and family life, with topics such as daycare, schools, parenting education, social work interventions, children and “second generation”. In order to explore the variations, the material analyzed covers just over four decades, from 1970 to 2012.

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1960–1980: Migrant Women as a Problem—Exploitative Racism and Subordinated Inclusion This first period witnesses the expansion of the Swedish welfare state through policies aiming to support Swedish women’s integration into the labor market within a dual earner/dual career family model (Lundqvist 2011). It also witnesses the development of multicultural agendas and the establishment of migrant organizations that, despite shortcomings, struggle for migrant rights. While diverse forms of racism and racialization (anti-Semitism, settler colonialism, antiziganism) were established in the construction of the Swedish nation state, the 1970s and early 1980s are a relevant node in the ways through which labor migration became racialized, through the creation of categories of workers classified at the margins of whiteness (Frankenberg 1993). Notions of cultural difference between Swedish citizens and migrants, while present in this first phase, are framed within an expanding welfare state, inspired by a social democratic ideology of equality, social justice and solidarity with migrants and their families. Notions of cultural difference are written with a strong emphasis not only on the need to respect migrant cultures, but even to learn from them, as the following quotation illustrates: For the Swedish children, it is of great importance that they meet children and adults from other countries early on; and thus, in concrete terms, experience other perceptions, expressions, than the usual ones. There is a risk of solidifying class boundaries if migrant children are not integrated as soon as possible. There is a need to arrive at a more generous society, with increased understanding, tolerance and respect for differences in appearance, behavior, worldviews and opinions. (SOU. Swedish Government Official Report 1972: 26)

There is no doubt that these documents express a solidarity agenda regarding migrant women and that migrant women in many of these texts are understood as a fraction of the working class. It could be argued that the agenda is paternalistic and strongly based on a confidence in experts and state intervention, but it is also based on notions of dialogue with migrant organizations and, perhaps more importantly, on social policies aiming toward inclusion, respect and protection of what was defined as the “migrant family” through the expansion of social rights and citizenship to migrant populations and their children.

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General child support is paid under the legislation for Swedish children living in the country and for foreign residents living here, provided that the child is borne by someone living in the kingdom or the child or either of its  parents stay at least six months in the realm. (“Social Welfare”: SOU 1974: 39)

Location or, rather, close spaces with clear boundaries are a present metaphor in these documents. Migrant women/mothers are represented as fixed in the home—a space that is a problem per se, following Swedish feminist-inspired experts in the binary opposition between the home (as a repressive, isolated place) and paid work (as the road to emancipatory gender equality). There is no doubt that the definition of “the problem” is created and reinforced (Molina 2020) through the systematic repetition of the term “isolation”: It is not uncommon that many migrant women who have no stable position within the labor market are mostly isolated. A reason for this isolation is deficiency in the Swedish language. (SOU 1975: 153)

Until the beginning of the 1980s, the participation of migrant women in paid work exceeded that of Swedish women (de los Reyes 2000). How should this construction of differences and development of classification systems be understood? While Swedish women’s location in both the labor market and the family was understood through structural factors, migrant women’s location was analyzed in terms of what “she” is “lacking”: Among women of foreign nationality in Sweden, their engagement in paid work is greater than Swedish women’s. Many migrant women are active in low-paid employment or in market sectors with unsecure employment relations. Their inability to compete in the labor market is limited by their lack of education, insufficient knowledge of the Swedish language and ignorance of how society functions as well as their own rights and obligations. (SOU 1975: 58)

Racialization of migrant labor acted upon a classification system regulated through the modernity/tradition paradigm, through an organizational model of exploitative racism and subordinated inclusion that targeted both migrant women and migrant men. However, the construction of the migrant woman as a problem, framed through the myth of her “isolation” and the need to support her “liberation”, created a space in

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which emerging forms of Swedishness/whiteness evolved that denied the connection between their privileges and the over-exploitation of the migrant labor force. 1980–2000: Migrant Women as a Burden—The Commodification of Ethnicity In 1991, a center-right-wing government was elected, (re)affirming neoliberal concepts such as “freedom to choose” and “flexibility” (as opposed to the previous alleged rigidity of welfare service provision). Political science scholar Kristina Boreus (1997, 63) identifies how central terms such as “freedom” and “equality” were appropriated in the reframing of the neoliberal shift. Cutbacks in the welfare provision system were accompanied by the introduction of a workfare ideology. These measures should be understood not only as an issue of austerity policies responding to a time of financial crisis but as an introduction of a neoliberal regime (Duggan 2004; Harvey 2005; Hall 2011), a shift from state to market in all spheres of life, from a notion of welfare policies as rights to a notion of welfare policies as a burden on national economies (Therborn 2018). At the same time, during this period there evolved a number of important policies aimed at achieving gender equality, as well as policies aimed toward the integration of migrants, to a certain extent as an effect of European Union integration. A number of interrelated processes transforming the category of migrant women took place during this period, with an increasing racialization and location of “migrant” more strongly not only in “non-Western” parts of the world but also in specific places within the national body through the emergence of discourses on racialized neighborhoods: “förorter” (suburbs). Racialization shifted from a developmental paradigm (from tradition to modernity) toward an understanding of difference based on an essentialist and fixed notion of the others’ cultures, and others’ bodies located in specific places.  he Culturalization (and Racialization) of Social Inequalities T Conflicts over the meaning of culture and nationhood increased in policy debates, with larger groups of racialized citizens facing unemployment and discrimination in the labor market (Schröder et  al. 2000). Migrant women had been concentrated in manufacturing jobs, which made them a particularly vulnerable group. The drastic deterioration of the labor

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situation can be explained by the fact that the recession first impacted industrial employment, and thus reinforced earlier processes of discrimination regarding migrant women’s locations within the labor market. The increasing rates of ill-health among migrant women as an effect of the over-exploitation of which they had been the target in earlier decades were translated by both the media and mainstream academia as culturally coded responses: migrant women’s resistance to paid work in what was represented as a sophisticated labor market. Bad health, early pensioning-­ off and long periods of sick leave are explained with reference to cultural peculiarities (Knocke 2006, 59–60). The category of migrant women was transformed from victim to being forced into being a burden to the welfare state, introducing a language of economic costs and benefits that would be at the core of debates on migration in the following decades. “ Family Business” and Diversity as Commodity Neoliberal ideologies criticized the social democratic welfare state as clientelist and developed a number of policies creating discourses on the “migrant entrepreneur” that could solve both the high level of migrant unemployment and the “integration” of migrant families into Swedish society, transforming “culture” into a market commodity. In Sweden, the “Start Your Own” benefit was established in the late 1980s as a policy aiming to promote general self-employment activities. In her study of migrant family business in Sweden, Suzanne Mason (2003, 104) asserts that while many women enjoyed their work in the family restaurants, most of them would have preferred jobs more in line with their education, and that all municipal investments considered for women involve cooking, sewing, handicrafts, cleaning or other such tasks, none of which evolve toward inclusion in the formal labor market. Swedish labor market policies introduced or reinforced patriarchal relations within migrant communities, and migrant women were (once again) left outside gender equality policies.  ultural Distance and Cultural Conflict Paradigm: The Establishment C of Caring Racism To explain the marginalization or exclusion of migrant women and men within the labor market, while denying the centrality of racism and ethnic discrimination, the notion of cultural distance emerged. The term was introduced and established both within the public debate and in research, suggesting that migrants (particularly migrants from outside Europe) lack

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the kind of social and cultural skills that the restructuring of the welfare state, as well as the alleged emergence of new forms of workplace cultures, demanded (Mattsson 2001). The concept of cultural distance marginalized explanations that emphasized ethnic discrimination and institutional racism in the labor market. Instead, the concept re-inscribed and explained processes of exclusion (and discrimination) in migrants’ own bodies. In a number of ways notions of cultural distance lead toward cultural conflict. Values, never defined and seldom described, are highly present in this subtle shift from difference to conflict. A more tangible way through which generational conflict evolves is influenced by Swedish values and patterns of living. Living patterns differ from country to country and from generation to generation also in Sweden. However, in this case it is natural that the risk of cultural collisions is greater when the domestic population meets immigrants from countries where the general cultural pattern largely deviates from Swedish values. (“Immigration and Minority policy”: SOU 1984: 58)

The Liberal Party’s women’s branch, proposing the policy reform on abolishing spanking, seemed to be convinced that other cultures, or rather migrants’ parents in Sweden, considered spanking to be a successful socialization method, even though no study whatsoever of child—parent relations among migrant communities supported their claim. ‘Physical punishment is always futile’ (with regard to the section “families’ traditional ways of physically punishing children”). But on the topic of spanking as a pedagogical parental tool, we should not and—independent of how representatives of another culture think about the question—cannot accept deviation from the Swedish way. We are thus witnessing a cultural conflict. (SOU 1987: 10)

The cultural conflict paradigm led to the need to intervene in migrant families and “save” women and girls and the “second generation”. Rescue narratives are at the core of many of the governmental reports during the 1980s and 1990s: the desire to save the other from dangerous patriarchies was established. Interpellation in the parliamentary debate [brief protocol from parliamentary debates 1981/82 No. 80] emphasized, among other things, that many

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immigrant women come from countries where family patterns and traditions differ significantly from conditions in Sweden and Swedish ideals. Here in Sweden, the immigrant woman detects that women have a different position and that she does not need to find herself ignored and beaten. (SOU 1982: 18)

The word “value” appears more frequently as a codeword for ontological difference, often without further explanation. It functions through underlining and emphasizing differences, equating nation states with “national” cultures and marginalizing the diversity of cultural backgrounds in Sweden into a monolithic confrontation with migrant culture, where Swedish values seem so obvious for those engaged in producing the documents that no explanation of what they may be is deemed necessary. No evidence is needed to argue for the positive qualities of the Swedish culture and its values, and no evidence is needed to argue for the negative qualities of the migrant cultures. Note that often Swedish citizens have “values” and migrants have “cultures”, a discourse that paves the way for the establishment of caring racism in a number of civil society organizations and state institutions. 2000–2020: Migrant Women as a Threat—Exclusionary Racism and Care Racism Discourses on difference were in this period transformed within a frame of neoliberal racialization (Goldberg 2011; Kapoor 2013) toward forms of racist exclusion, with a higher level of demand for social cohesion and assimilation (Back et al. 2002) following a decrease in citizens’ rights and a growing precariousness in the labor market. In Sweden, public debates focused in large part around the perceived burden: the fallacies of exorbitant expenditures that refugees created for the Swedish welfare state. At the same time, feminist-inspired concerns about gender equality began to be mobilized and appropriated for racist and anti-immigration arguments in a successful construction of migrant men as a threat to Swedish gender equality in general and to Swedish women in particular (Weber 2013; Sager and Mulinari 2018). Exclusionary racism is enacted also through the introduction of more restrictive migration controls that have radically decreased migrant and refugee rights (Schierup and Ålund 2011).

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In less than one paragraph, families with backgrounds in North Africa, parts of Asia and Latin America are described through the lens of colonial anthropology as others living in cultures conditioned by powerful men, subordinated women and children lacking a sense of autonomy and agency: Among many families who came to Sweden from the Middle East, North Africa, some parts of Asia and Latin America, the patriarchal family structure prevails. It is distinguished by the fact that it is the father who is head. (“Patriarchal Family Structure is Common Worldwide”: SOU 2000: 77)

Exclusionary racism has not only become hegemonic, but it has also installed an emotional regime through which these differences are acted upon in diverse forms of caring racism aiming to “save” migrant girls and women (Grip 2002; Keskinen 2009) that in its agenda of assimilation have turned vulgar, vicious and aggressive. There is, however, a danger in overemphasizing the discursive hegemony of caring and exclusionary racism. Care work is a branch of the economy that is nonviable for relocation in the Global South, and migrant women workers are of strategic importance for the smooth functioning of the households of privileged groups in the context of cuts to welfare services. We need a growing service sector. Not least, I’m thinking of those who come here as refugees and who can make bread, sew, care for children and clean. They should be able to find an outlet for their skills and in addition get paid for it. (Orback 2004)

The quotation above is from a newly appointed Social Democratic Minister for Gender Equality and Integration. It is an argument in a debate between the government and right-wing parties and an employers’ association on how to stimulate a low-wage sector, with the Social Democrats arguing against tax subsidies. However, there was a general agreement concerning the skills and usual location of migrant women in the labor market—in low-paid care and service work. In 2008, tax deduction for housework was introduced as a gender equality policy measure, with the following argument: Tax deduction for housework creates more equal conditions for women and men to combine family life with working life. Women decrease their paid

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work for unpaid work at home to a larger extent than men do. If women are given better possibilities to reorganize their time by shifting their efforts from unpaid work at home to paid work in the labor market, their possibilities for higher salaries will expand as well as gender equality in working life. (SOU 2008/2009: 39)

Needless to say, the category of women in the document should be read as privileged (white) women identified as Swedish. Participating in the labor market under equal conditions is not to be achieved (as in earlier decades) through the presence of men in care work, but through the introduction of the category of migrant women (and their bodies) as the fundamental node in the creation of “gender equality” in families in Sweden (de los Reyes 2016). While privileged Swedish families are the core of state policies on gender equality, “migrant families” are the core of state policies of disruption (through racist migrant and refugee policies), as well as through the systematic efforts to “save” women and children and separate them from dangerous, patriarchal (and in the last decade possibly religious fundamentalist) migrant men.

Conclusions The chapter started by analyzing the category of migrant women through in-depth interviews and focus groups with feminist antiracist activists of migrant backgrounds. The category is highly present in the stories of young antiracist feminist. It is both a childhood memory of how their mothers were treated by society and also a codeword for the performance of subordination. Their feminism evolves at the crossroads of a challenge to the category of migrant women and a search for other words, and other worlds. From this point of departure, the analysis shifts to the historical use in governmental documents of the category of migrant women, in order to explore the interplay of representations and political economy in diverse societal arenas. The analysis indicates the persistence of the construction of difference as central to legitimating inequalities through both exploitative and exclusionary racism. However, the making of difference and the meaning given to these differences are radically disparate. While there is a clear hegemony of these agendas within governmental documents, there are also fractures, through other voices challenging these narratives, such as the Swedish Government Official Report “Beyond

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us and them” (SOU 2005: 41) with the participation of 100 scholars challenging Swedish forms of banal nationalism while exploring diverse forms of ethnic discrimination. The Swedish racial regime develops through the interplay of state policies and political economy but also through the role of diverse social movements (in which migrants had and have an important role) in negotiating, challenging and transforming this regime. Many of the women that have migrated and that have been the target of racialization have created networks, established organizations, participated in social and political life, and socialized a new generation of feminists.

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Knocke, W. (2006). Structural discrimination: A historical and present perspective / Den strukturella diskrimineringens försåtlighet. SOU 2006:60. Stockholm: Kulturdepartementet. Lewis, G. (2013). Unsafe travel: Experiencing intersectionality and feminist displacements. Signs, 38(4), 869–892. Lundqvist, Å. (2011). Family policy paradoxes. Gender equality and labour market regulation in Sweden 1930–2010. Bristol: Policy Press. Manns, U. (2018). On visibility and readability / Om synlighet och läsbarhet. Samkönad sexualitet och kvinnorörelsens historieskrivning. In E. Borgström & H. Mattson Winkvist (Eds.), Den kvinnliga tvåsamhetens frirum: Kvinnopar i kvinnorörelsen 1890–1960. Stockholm/Gothenburg: Appell. Martinsson, L. (2016). Frictions and figurations: Gender equality norms meet activism. In L. Martinsson, G. Griffin, & K. Giritli Nygren (Eds.), Challenging the myth of gender equality in Sweden (pp. 186–204). Bristol: Policy. Mason, S. (2003). Self-employment policies from the perspective of citizenship, gender, and ethnicity. International Review of Sociology, 13(1), 219–234. Mattsson, K. (2001). Geographies of difference. The market, research and others / O) likhetens geografier. Diss. Sweden: Uppsala University. McGlinn, M. (2018). Translating neoliberalism: The European social fund and the governing of unemployment and social exclusion in Malmö, Sweden. Diss. Malmö University. Molina, I. (2020). Is there a non-socialist Swedish feminism? European Journal of Women Studies, 27(3), 301–309. Mulinari, D., & Lundqvist, Å. (2017). Invisible, burdensome and threatening: The location of migrant women in the Swedish welfare state. In A. Ålund, C.  U. Schierup, & A.  Neergaard (Eds.), Reimagining the nation: Essays on twenty-first-century Sweden (4: Political and social change) (pp.  119–141). Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Mulinari, D., & Neergaard, A. (2017). Theorising racism. Exploring the Swedish racial regime. Nordic Journal of Migration Research. Special Issue, 88–96. Omi, M., & Winant, H. (2014). Racial formation in the United States. New York: Routledge. Orback, J. (2004, October 26). Dagens Nyheter. Razack, S. (2004). Imperilled Muslim women, dangerous Muslim men and civilised Europeans: Legal and social responses to forced marriages. Feminist Legal Studies, 12(2), 129–174. Sager, M. (2016). Constructions of deportability in Sweden: Refused asylum seekers. NORA (Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research), 24(1), 30–44. Sager, M., & Mulinari, D. (2018). Safety for whom? Exploring femonationalism and care-racism in Sweden. Women’s Studies International Forum, 68, 149–156. Sawyer, L., & Habel, Y. (2014). Refracting African and Black diaspora through the Nordic region. African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, 7(1), 1–6.

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Swedish Government Official Reports and Other Sources SOU 1972: 26. Kindergarten. Förskolan. SOU 1974: 39. Social welfare. Socialvården. SOU 1975: 58. The objective is gender equality. Målet är jämställdhet. SOU 1982: 18. Paid work and parenthood. Förvärvsarbete och föräldraskap. SOU 1984: 58 Immigrant and minority politics. Invandrar—och minoritetspolitiken. SOU 1987: 10. Children’s rights and prohibition of spanking. Barnets rätt och förbjud mot aga. SOU 2000: 77. Society’s responsibility for children and youth at risk. Omhändertagen—Samhällets ansvar för utsatta barn och unga. SOU 2005: 41 Bortom vi och dom. Utredningen om makt, integration och strukturell diskriminering. SOU 2008/2009: 198. Gender equality in the labor market. En jämställd arbetsmarknad—regeringens strategi för jämställdhet på arbetsmarknaden och i näringslivet.

CHAPTER 10

Antiracist Feminism and the Politics of Solidarity in Neoliberal Times Suvi Keskinen

Introduction Within both feminist research and critical race studies, the changing conditions of political action under neoliberalism have been the focus of intensive discussions, framed especially around the concepts of postraciality and postfeminism. Expanding on the more general argument of how neoliberalisation1 has resulted in reduced space for political action (e.g. Mouffe 2005), researchers have identified specific challenges to feminist and antiracist activities. The neoliberal political rationality emphasises race, gender, and class-based inequalities as individual failures, resulting in the depoliticising of social and economic powers (Brown 2015; Goldberg 2009; Mohanty 2013). Thus, frequent denials of racism and its structural nature characterise politics and the public sphere more broadly, and racial

 I understand “neoliberalisation” in a similar manner as Dikec (2007), as a concept that connects perspectives on policies, rationalities, and everyday lives, all of which have been the focus of scholars studying the effects of a neoliberalism understood as political-economic practices and thinking. 1

S. Keskinen (*) Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 S. Keskinen et al. (eds.), Feminisms in the Nordic Region, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53464-6_10

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logic is often disguised in the language of cultural differences (Goldberg 2015; Lentin and Titley 2011). In this context of increasing inequalities and the denial of their structural roots, we are, however, witnessing the rise of antiracist and feminist activism that repoliticises questions of race and gender, and to some extent class, in new ways. Antiracist feminism has rapidly expanded in the last decade throughout the Nordic region, with new groups, media sites, and public events organised especially in the large cities. This chapter examines antiracist feminist and queer of colour activism, in which the main or sole actors belong to groups racialised as non-white or “others” in Nordic societies. It investigates how the activists articulate the need for such activism; their views on cooperation and solidarity with other social justice movements; and the development of their political agendas in the context of neoliberal capitalism. The analysis is based on extensive interviews, fieldwork, and text material collected in Denmark, Sweden, and Finland from 2015 to 2019. Antiracist feminism and queer of colour activism is located at a junction that is influenced by and connected to (some parts of) the feminist movement, but also to groups organising Black, Brown, and other minoritised people. Inspired by queer of colour scholar Fatima El-Tayeb (2011), I use the concept “postethnic activism” to refer to activism in which political mobilisation is based on a shared understanding of being racialised and treated as non-belonging by the surrounding society, despite often being born and/or raised in the Nordic societies. Such activism is postethnic in the sense that it creates communities and understandings of shared interests across ethnic and sometimes religious divides, while being sensitive to and critically interrogating racialised power relations. In the studied countries, this means, for example, groups developed around the Black experience or people with African heritage; activism in racialised and marginalised urban areas; social media groups for PoC (persons of colour); and Muslim organisations confronting Islamophobia. While sharing many of the analyses on racial inequalities with the other groups, antiracist feminism and queer of colour activism have some specific characteristics, notably their insistence on the gendered and sexualised nature of racism. Postethnic activism has developed as resistance to the normative whiteness embedded in the national identities of the Nordic countries. It exposes the taken for granted and exclusionary notions of hegemonic national imaginaries, which result in divisions between white and non-white populations. At the same time, postethnic activism creates knowledges and

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articulates political claims based on the (variety of) experiences of racialised and marginalised communities (cf. Gilroy 1987). Scholars have critically investigated the widespread perceptions of the Nordic countries as outsiders to the colonial project, instead showing that these countries participated in, and benefited from, European colonialism in many ways, both overseas and in the Arctic (e.g. Kuokkanen 2007; Keskinen et  al. 2009; Loftsdóttir and Jensen 2012; Naum and Nordin 2013). Despite sometimes being interpreted otherwise (Tlostanova et al. 2019), race and racism are not viewed as some kind of residue from bygone historical periods, but as deeply embedded in the cultural, economic, and institutional structures of the Nordic societies. Enshrining racial hierarchies has enabled economic exploitation to proliferate throughout previous centuries, and this dynamic continues in the present day. The colonisation of Sámi lands and the exploitation of natural resources in the Arctic operated in parallel to the creation of racial taxonomies that inferiorised indigenous people (Lehtola 2015). Today’s Nordic societies are not only characterised by exclusionary politics towards migrants and racialised minorities, but also by the production of an exploitable labour force through processes of racialised differentiation and hierarchisation that enable capitalist profit making (Mulinari and Neergaard 2017, 92). Studies have also highlighted the role of the racial state in the Nordic countries, on the one hand in relation to its repressive and assimilatory actions towards indigenous people and racialised minorities, and on the other, its role in knowledge production and the creation of racialised differences (Keskinen 2019; Schclarek-Mulinari and Keskinen 2020). Feminist researchers in particular have critically examined Nordic myths of exceptionality in terms of gender equality, egalitarianism, and sexual nationalisms (e.g. de los Reyes et al. 2002; Sawyer and Habel 2014; Dahl 2018). In this chapter, I argue that antiracist feminism has the potential to reconfigure political agendas and tackle the central questions of our time, due to its border position connecting antiracist, feminist, and (to some extent) class-based politics. There are, however, a number of obstacles in the way of arriving at a coalitional politics, especially with other feminist movements and the predominantly white Left. Moreover, antiracist feminism and queer of colour activism have developed insightful analyses of the gendered and sexualised elements of racism, but are not as strong in addressing class-based power relations. At the end of the chapter, I point towards a few political openings and moments of political solidarity that

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reach out from beyond the existing coalitions, and pave new ways for enacting social justice politics in neoliberal times.

Mobilising Across Differences and the Politics of Solidarity in Racial Capitalism To understand political mobilisation and emerging solidarities in neoliberal capitalism, it is important to view it as a specific phase of racial capitalism that is shaped by the histories of racism and capitalism. Cedric Robinson’s (1983) seminal work showed that racism is central in the development of capitalism, and profoundly challenged the Eurocentric knowledge base of traditional Marxism. According to Robinson, racism and capitalism did not so much “break from the old order but rather evolved from it to produce a modern world system of ‘racial capitalism’ dependent on slavery, violence, imperialism, and genocide” (Kelley 2000, xiii). Racial capitalism as a concept refers to “an understanding of the role of racism in enabling key moments of capitalist development” (Bhattacharyya 2018, ix), which also shapes the conditions for political mobilisation and social movements. Robinson argued for the crucial role of Black Radical Tradition in the struggles against racial capitalism. Following him, several scholars have emphasised the transformative potential of movements organising Black activists, artists, and intellectuals to protest against neoliberal restructuring, police violence, and other hardships faced by Black communities, but also to produce all-encompassing agendas that seek to abolish several kinds of oppression so as to enable socially-just futures for broader society (Taylor 2016; Johnson and Lubin 2017, 13). In an effort to work with the concept of racial capitalism, Gargi Bhattacharyya (2018) combines feminist and postcolonial research to bring in perspectives of unpaid labour and populations pushed to the edges of capitalist production. Her analysis identifies racialised processes that divide populations into workers, almost-workers, and non-workers, with differential economic resources and life prospects. Bhattacharyya extends the discussion of racial capitalism to the techniques and ordering of bodies not only through race and class, but also gender and sexuality, to “understand how people become divided from each other in the name of economic survival or in the name of economic well-being” (ibid., x). Neoliberal capitalism creates divisions both in the labour market and

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through the erosion of the welfare state, resulting in increasing social and economic inequalities of which racialised minorities and migrants bear the brunt. State withdrawal from service provision, and the under-financing of schools and other welfare institutions shifts the welfare responsibilities to individuals and families. While theoretical discussions about the neoliberal turn in racial capitalism and its impact on social justice movements point towards new challenges, the questions of how to collectively mobilise in the context of divisive rule and the heterogeneity of oppressed groups have long occupied feminist, critical race, and (neo-)Marxist theorists. Some of the groundbreaking theoretical insights on mobilisations across differences and the politics of solidarity have been created by feminists of colour and transnational feminists. Chandra Talpade Mohanty (2003) defines solidarity as “mutuality, accountability, and the recognition of common interests as the basis for relationships among diverse communities”. She emphasises that solidarity is a practice that rests on the choice to struggle and work together for social change, while acknowledging the different social locations and identities of those involved. Solidarity is an achievement, and a process of developing a “we” through action and shared struggles (Dean 1996). Therefore, it is also a temporary and fragile collectivity that cannot be taken for granted: its development requires openness to criticism, rethinking, and relearning through shared activities. Feminist and queer of colour activists and researchers have developed analyses of coalitional politics that take differences as their starting point, instead of presuming sameness or shared goals as the basis for feminist politics (e.g. Moraga and Anzaldua 2015; Bacchetta and Maese-Cohen 2010; Cole and Luna 2010; Emejulu and Sobande 2019). These analyses understand coalitional politics to be based on the fact that groups participating in coalitions recognise themselves as subjects, and are also treated by others as such.

Researching Antiracist Feminism in Three National Contexts This chapter is based on several kinds of data sets collected in three Nordic countries (Denmark, Sweden, and Finland): interviews; participatory observations and recordings from public events; media sources (social media, news media, magazines); and other textual data (campaign

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material, booklets, etc.). The research2 used the concept of postethnic activism, while acknowledging that this covers a larger body of activism than the field of antiracist feminism discussed in this chapter. I conducted translocal studies in five large cities: Copenhagen, Malmö, Stockholm, Helsinki, and Turku. While these cities are sites of active mobilising around questions of antiracism, feminism, and queer of colour perspectives, they do not represent the entirety of such activism in the respective countries. For this chapter, I have focused on the interviews of those activists who self-identified as feminists and/or participated in activities that explicitly used the terms antiracist/intersectional feminism or queer of colour activism. The selected data includes 27 interviews, of which ten are from Sweden, 11 from Finland and six from Denmark. Since two of the Swedish interviews are pair interviews, the number of interviewed persons is 29. It was not always easy to draw the line between interviews that should be included and those not meeting the criteria, since people could identify with intersectional feminism but participate in activities that were not explicitly feminist, albeit framed, for example, around Black politics or PoC activism. Most of the interviewed activists were young adults in their twenties and thirties, but some were teenagers and a few were in their forties. The activists whose interviews I draw upon in this research were engaged in different kinds of feminist and queer activist groups; civil society organisations; social media platforms; and arts and other kinds of cultural work which focuses on antiracism and feminism. The digital sphere has become increasingly important for activism, providing possibilities for mobilising, organising, and spreading knowledge in an easily accessible manner. It has also enabled the establishment of digital platforms and media sites run by antiracist feminist groups, which have become important voices in public spheres that operate among and beyond the explicit realm of antiracist feminism. These include, for example, Ruskeat Tytöt Media [Brown Girls Media] in Finland; Rummet [The Room, active 2014] and Kontext [Context] in Sweden; and Marronage in Denmark. While different in scope and distribution (Marronage, for example, publishes a print journal, while the others rely solely on web-based 2  The project Postethnic Activism in the Neoliberal Era. Translocal Studies on Political Subjectivities, Alliance-Building and Social Imaginaries was funded by the Academy of Finland (decision 275032). The writing of this chapter has also been enabled by another Academy of Finland-funded project (decision 316445).

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content), these activities bear witness to the new forms and inspiration of antiracist feminism in the Nordic region. Methodologically, I have sought to follow Yasmin Gunaratnam’s (2003) thoughts of moving from accounts of difference and commonality to the politics of connection, which emphasises the active work to achieve connectivity. Such research practices attempt to acknowledge disconnections and move “closer to others through inhabiting, accounting for and putting to work the distances between us” (ibid., 102). While my white body and structural location in racial hierarchies have been part of the research process since the beginning, affecting the data collection in many ways, the points of connectivity and disconnectivity did not always follow predetermined categorisations of race, ethnicity, class, or gender. Theoretically and epistemologically, I situate myself in the same traditions of post/decolonial feminism and race critical thinking that most of the interviewees were inspired by and drew upon. With some research participants, I also shared critical perspectives on neoliberal capitalism and class politics. These points of connectivity opened up many in-depth conversations about antiracist and feminist politics; at the same time, both the research participants and myself were usually fully aware of the connecting and dividing aspects of our social locations. I did not seek access to events or social media sites that were designed for those racialised as non-white, out of respect for the activists’ boundary setting. The national contexts also prompted different aspects of connectivity and allowed for varying kinds of work with the distances between the research participants and myself. Especially in Sweden, the fieldwork evoked my own migration and activist histories, resulting in a strong alliance with the activists. Closer to home and mixed with my everyday life in Finland, the work for connectivity has covered everything from engagement in collaborative antiracist activities to experiences of the dividing effects of racialisation.

Whiteness and the Difficult Politics of Solidarity Although intersectionality has become one of the most eagerly used terms by feminist researchers and activists, it has not resulted in as broad an acknowledgment of the issues of race and social class as the Black feminists who developed the concept (Crenshaw 1989; Collins 2000) argued for. Despite intersectionality and multiple power relations being widely acknowledged as central questions for feminist theory and feminist politics, the activists interviewed in this study pointed out the gap between

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utterances/aims and actual politics. This suggests that many outspoken commitments to intersectionality and recognition of differences in feminist and queer politics are non-performative (Ahmed 2012), since the entanglement of normative whiteness and differential power relations is left untouched. Many of the activists refer to white spaces—which exist in both feminist and queer activism—where normativities and ways of sharing thoughts are exclusionary towards those racialised as “others”. White spaces create what Andreassen and Myong (2017, 102) discuss as racial isolation and a need to constantly relate to racism and hegemonic orders, which pre-conditions agency and subjectivity. But if, for example, you are queer, and you experience heteronormativity, and you experience that your queer identity doesn’t have room in the society, then it can be very frustrating to be in a room that’s heteronormative (…) But when you are also queer and in a white queer room that’s also difficult, because you’re the only one … or might be the only one … that experiences racialisation. So a lot of the times you are forced to choose either or. Do I want to be uncomfortable being the only non-white or do I want to be uncomfortable being the only queer person? I think that’s very true and I think it’s very difficult for people to understand, especially people who are in this queer and feminist scene, to understand that a feminist and queer environment is not welcoming for everybody and it’s not open for everybody. And even if it theoretically is so, in practice it’s not. (Irene, Denmark)

It was not only the implicit racial hierarchies and white normativities that made many activists withdraw from participation in—and collaboration with—other feminist groups. The critical edge was also directed towards “white feminist smugness”—a view of feminists as good agents who are already conscious of power relations, so thus take a stand for antiracism. This kind of positive self-image can make it hard to admit and reflect on the ways one participates in racialising practices, and benefits from unequal power structures. Feminism can thus become a form of self-­ disciplining and self-actualisation (Kanai 2020), performed through “knowing the discourse” of antiracism and intersectionality, but lacking concrete participation in the messy work of everyday intersectional struggles, where one is exposed to critique and uncomfortability. And it’s also that people have a self-image of being so good and that means you are an antiracist and a feminist. But I would say: one is not a feminist or

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antiracist or whatever without doing something. It is after all about doing, not something one is [laughs]. And it’s an act, you need to … And yes, that’s what is missing, in my view. One has this good image: we believe in the equality of all people, we believe in this and that. And it’s all about theorising, not practicing it. (Marta, Sweden)

While feminist environments have their specificities, it is evident that the activists refer to “white smugness” more generally, as a characteristic that is shared by many Left and antiracist actors too. ‘White smugness’ is typical for political actors who perceive themselves as progressive and conscious of questions of antiracism, yet are not open to seriously investigating their own role in upholding racial privileges, or who (more or less openly) resist efforts to change exclusionary practices within their movements. This “white smugness” and the wilful ignorance (Mills 1997) of racism as part of societal structures and everyday encounters creates difficulties when attempting to address power relations and raise questions about racialising practices. The feminist activists racialised as non-white can end up tiptoeing around questions of racism and everyday exclusions, when they witness a “good” feminist’s self-image being at risk of being shattered, or when they anticipate conflict arising. With white people overall, whether they are feminists or not, one has to be more careful of what to say (…) it’s like balancing between what one dares to say and what not. And especially if they are feminists … like if we are cynical, they often think that to begin with, they understand and know everything, and if some issue arises that they disagree with, or which they have never thought of, then the arguing against can sometimes be even harder than with somebody who doesn’t identify as a feminist. Because if they start with thinking that they are good antiracist people … like everybody has certain privileges and unlearning them is … kind of a lifelong journey. But if you encounter somebody who thinks that they have already done the work and they are like a trademark good person, then it’s extremely difficult to criticise what this person does without the person blowing up. (Anna, Finland)

It is worth paying attention to Anna’s formulation “if we are cynical”. In my interpretation, she is aware that she is taking the description to its extreme in order to clarify an important element related to the difficulties of political solidarity. Racism becomes a matter that those racialised as non-white need to deal with, and opening up discussions about racism

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involves the risk of affective outbursts. Anna is not claiming (except in cynical moments) that there is no hope for feminist solidarities, but these situations occur often enough to make her wary and mistrust the benefits of discussing racism with feminists who do not experience it themselves. Taking differential privileges—especially those related to whiteness—seriously in the everyday practices of feminist and other social justice movements is a difficult act, because it requires renegotiating and redistributing power. The restructuring of power relations that the activists speak about would not only mean fostering practices that provide space for those racialised as non-white, and for the questions they want to raise, but also an in-depth discussion about the focus of feminist politics. If mainstream (white-dominated) women’s organisations are criticised for being occupied with heteronormative, labour market-oriented, and reformatory politics (e.g. de los Reyes et  al. 2002), the politics of leftist and anarchist feminist groups are not necessarily less embedded in white ignorance. We are not very close to them in my view. We have cooperated quite a lot, like participated in feminist events, but it still feels like … I don’t know how to put it … it’s about power, I think, kind of being afraid of losing one’s positions or giving space for questions we think are central instead of some others. But it doesn’t feel like so many other feminist organisations have an antiracist or postcolonial or that kind of awareness. In such collaborations, one has to struggle very much to include these questions (…) the grassroots socialist or anarchist feminist groups are very focussed on class, and not so aware of other issues, and so, they are rather white organisations in the end. (Rita, Sweden)

The strong critique by the interviewed activist towards the Left is not about a dismissal of the centrality of class politics or anti-capitalist orientations. Instead, I interpret it as a reflection on the exclusionary definition of the working class and the subject of left politics that has traditionally been the white male industrial worker, and, in the updated postindustrial form, the white female public sector or care worker. Both configurations are outdated in societies that have witnessed the racialisation of the working class and the class structure more broadly (Neergaard 2017; Virdee 2017) and a serious questioning of heteronormativity. The challenge that some of the interviewed antiracist feminist activists and other postethnic activists

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articulate is how to radically reconfigure left politics in a way that incorporates feminist and antiracist agendas, to re-imagine its political subject(s).

Autonomous Political Spaces and Communities of Belonging Establishing antiracist feminist platforms and groups for those racialised as “others” is thus a political act—it creates space for radical new agendas, but is also about building communities of belonging to provide and receive support. I discuss them here as “autonomous spaces” to draw attention to the fact that the essence of such self-organising is to use the power of agenda-setting to define central feminist questions, together with others whose social locations make them wary of racialised, gendered, and sexualised power relations. As one of the activists organising a social media platform for those racialised as “others” describes, the construction of a new kind of “us” was a central aim of the activities: Our goal was to provide a platform for persons who are racialised [as others]. Because we realised that what we were doing in one way or the other, all the time, was directed at or aimed to teach a white audience. And there was something odd in that kind of organising. I mean, it’s totally okay to do so, but if we get together to do something, it can’t be on that premise. It would be really weird that we girls talked about racism, and all the time would have to relate to a white audience. And then we thought, why not do something else. So the only rule we had for writing on our website was that we would redefine the “us”, so that we, all the time, would have in mind a person who is also racialised [as other]. (Paula, Sweden)

Antiracist feminist activism is a combination of the politics of social justice, the politics of survival, and the politics of revolutionary love. With the politics of social justice, I refer to the political goals that connect the groups to other social justice movements, notably those that organise Black, Brown, and other minoritised groups. But antiracist feminism also brings a distinctive perspective, and pushes questions of racism into hegemonic feminist, queer, and left agendas. The politics of survival is a concept developed in Black feminism to articulate the collective creation (and necessity) of support and healing by those targeted by racism (Collins 2000; Emejulu and Bassel 2016). The politics of survival is essential in a hostile and violent environment, in which one’s humanity is frequently

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questioned. With the politics of revolutionary love, I’m thinking of both the ways of living together that disrupt norms and conventions in order to collectively create visions of other futures (Sandoval 2001), and the radical global visions embedded in “feminist praxis that links interpersonal feeling and affection to the project of revolutionary internationalism” (Havlin 2015, 79). In the feminist orientation articulated by those racialised as “others”, it is not possible to separate feminism from antiracism. Questions of gender and sexuality are viewed as profoundly intertwined with racism and antiracism. In order to find the will to participate in activism, many activists thought that one needed to find a group that treats feminist, queer, and antiracist matters as the entangled processes and structures they were experienced as. Autonomous organising is important, since it provides collective space to define the central antiracist feminist questions, in which the group members possess a general understanding of one another’s experiences of oppression. The following quotation shows how the politics of social justice intertwines with the politics of survival and love. The autonomous spaces provide personal safety and belonging for the participating activists, but also enable them to define their relevant political questions and seek transformative solutions. I think it is important, because it gives us a possibility to formulate our views without the risk of somebody questioning without really understanding what it’s about. Instead we are, and there is a feeling of safety in it, in a room where we don’t share the same experiences but usually have at least some kind of understanding of the experiences of the others, and don’t question them. One can experience things as one does. I also think it is a strength to be able to politically formulate analyses from your specific position. We can be more radical, we can formulate views more clearly. So I think it is both about a political benefit and a personal feeling of safety. That one can feel comfortable, and feel that here we are the majority. Nobody else is formulating the relevant questions, we are. (Rita, Sweden)

Autonomous antiracist feminist and queer spaces are themselves a result of—and an ongoing process or experiment of—coalitional politics. Not only are different groups and persons racialised in different ways in regard to racial, religious, or geopolitical categorisations, but class hierarchies, educational capital, and cis-normativities also produce different

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experiences and differing access to power. Many of the studied antiracist feminist groups left the decision of who is racialised as “other”, and who is not, to the participants themselves. There were ongoing discussions over how power relations related to colourism (Burton et al. 2010), and the different positionings of Black and Brown bodies were part of the dynamics taking place in the activist groups. The politics of survival, love, and social justice all build ties that strengthen solidarities with groups mobilising Black, Brown, and other minoritised people, compared to those social justice movements dominated by people racialised as white. It seems to be especially difficult to find shared ground with white-dominated organisations in terms of the politics of survival and love, while it is somewhat easier when it comes to the politics of social justice that enables the building of (at least temporary) solidarities on the basis of shared aims and campaigns.

Separatism and Coalition Building Autonomous spaces should not be equalised with separatism, which involves questions of political tactics and strategy when working with intersectional politics. Especially in the public sphere, separatist organising as non-white or racialised “others” has led to instances of racial panic in which the white-dominated mainstream media frames the issue as “white people not being allowed to participate” (Oscarson 2019) in separatist groups aimed for the racialised “others”. The activists themselves see separatism as a useful strategy to develop politics and find support. Separatism is understood and practised in several ways, not only in relation to racial— but also gendered and sexualised—categorisations. As many activists point out, it is not a means in itself but a useful tool to take control, when combined with networking and cooperation with other groups. But also to work strategically to develop networks outside, in order not to get stuck in separatist spaces, since the intention is to make broader change— not only for us. (Hibo, Sweden)

Separatist organising can be used as a tactic to place race and racism on the political agenda in the context of widespread colour-blindness and denials of racism. Entering white-dominated spaces as an outspokenly Black or Brown activist is a way to bring questions of race and racism to the forefront, disturb the hegemony of whiteness, and demand that other

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political actors acknowledge the lived realities of those racialised as non-­ white. Separatist organising can also serve strategic ends, since it enables a focus on certain questions and creation of coalitions across differences to tackle specific issues. As described by the following activist, intersectional politics is about going in and out of specific positions. The citation describes a process in which separatism and coalition building are connected in ways that seek to open up a politics of solidarity with other social justice movements. I think separatist organising is extremely valuable. Because it trains you to go in and out of different political identities and positions. It is extremely relevant that you also, in that way, challenge people by going into the room like just: aha, but I’m Black [laughs]. It may sound silly but … it’s like using it as a political identity from which to pursue certain questions together with many other people. (…) separatism should be seen as a tool that one uses to somehow affect the power(ful). And that is why it is so important with alliances and coalitions and so forth. For example, we can say that the discussion about having 2000 police officers in Husby [a racialised area in Stockholm], we can have an agreement with Allt åt alla, a socialist group, that it’s wrong and maybe also Black Coffee [a separatist Black group], maybe also some parts of the queer movement can think that it’s wrong and then we can do something together. At the same time we know that we have different interests in other areas but here and now we can do something together. (Mona, Sweden)

Some antiracist feminist groups have sought to develop their organisations into broad coalitions of differently located antiracist feminists. These are open to all those who accept the political goals and principles of the organisation, not only to those racialised as “others”. This means that the difficulties of cross-racial coalitions, as discussed previously in this chapter, become part of the everyday conversations and interactions of the organisation. The aim of such organising is to enable solidarity and mobilisation for struggles that are not necessarily one’s own, but can provide ground for a politics of shared struggle. Challenging racism and creating a more inclusive feminism is an elementary part of such politics. Zeinab: But I think we somehow felt that the experiences of being racialised [as others] were important and that they should be discussed among us. It’s why I 100 percent support such ­separatist groups. But regarding our organisation, we have felt that these experiences need to be taken up in spaces

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where people who reproduce racism are present. (Amina: The structures.) And for the structures, to hear about these. Because that’s where the difference takes place, and that’s where change is created. And when one talks about these things. Amina: That’s where one makes alliances. (Zeinab: Yes.) I mean it’s there that one can support each other as women or non-binary persons. That’s what we are lacking, in the movement, you know many people say: But I can’t call her a sister or sibling because they are not pursuing my struggle. I mean we wanted to take that away and like create a common … that one can pursue each other’s struggle like. (Zeinab and Amina, Sweden)

Racialised Labour, Precarity, and Gendered Racism Some of the interviewed activists were engaged in left politics in addition to antiracist feminism, and some addressed class inequalities or neoliberal logics when organising antiracist feminist activities. Yet on a general note, antiracist feminism seems to engage more with questions of gendered and sexualised racism, and less with the intertwining of race and class, or with critiques of racial capitalism. It is, however, possible to distinguish actions and campaigns that reflect on neoliberal processes and racialised class structures, albeit while not always articulating these in the language of racialised labour or (anti-)capitalism. I now discuss three examples of how antiracist feminist activists have drawn attention to the gendered and sexualised aspects of racialised labour, precarity, and class relations. I present them as political initiatives that can open up new perspectives for social justice politics, and inspire coalitions that can operate across differences of race, ethnicity, gender, and class. The first example is related to how racialised exclusion and exploitation of Muslim women’s labour is addressed from an antiracist feminist perspective. The “Right to Our Bodies” (Rätten Till Våra Kroppar) demonstration on 1 May 2017 was initiated by a group of postcolonial and Muslim feminists in Gothenburg, but it spread to other cities in Sweden and internationally. The demonstrators demanded the right to work for Muslim women while wearing the hijab. The action was a result of the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union, according to which private companies had the right to ban employees from wearing visible

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religious symbols, such as the hijab. While the ruling did not allow for a complete ban of religious attire, its formulations enable employers to decide arbitrarily what kind of religious signs are suitable for workplaces (Abdessadok 2017). The Muslim activists who initiated the demonstration were dissatisfied with the lack of attention in the Swedish public sphere to the ruling, and its conditioning of Muslim women’s right to work. The activists organised protest marches and social media campaigns (#Muslimwomenban), and connected with supportive artists and social movements in other countries. The slogans of the demonstrators—“my hijab is not your business”, “employment is our right” and “Muslim women do not need saving”—exemplify how the activists connected antiracist feminism with questions of racialised labour and its interwoven elements of exploitation and exclusion. The choice to organise the demonstrations on the traditional Labour or Workers’ Day of 1 May built a temporal continuity to earlier working-class struggles, while simultaneously pointing towards the need to place the racialisation and gendering of labour at the centre of left politics. This hints towards the need to rethink the subject of left politics. The second example is the establishment of The Union—Cultural Workers’ Union for Black and People of Colour in spring 2019. This is a trade union for those racialised as non-white who work in the Danish cultural sector. The Union seeks to “work for the rights and needs of BPOC artists, cultural workers and employees in cultural institutions, and to celebrate BPOC art & diversity” (The Union 2019). Interestingly, The Union connects the perspective of artists and cultural workers to those employed in cultural institutions in working-class positions, such as cleaners, kitchen workers, and security personnel. The Union aims to work coalitionally across class divisions, in order to gain better rights for all workers racialised as non-white in cultural institutions. The combination of celebrating BPOC culture and demanding rights in the labour market shows that the antiracist feminist and queer activists want to change both ideologies and structures, instead of reducing their demands to one or the other. The third example is a group of initiatives that seek to tackle the issues of navigating white institutional spaces and the economic pressures of cultural work, highlighting the racialised and gendered experiences of precarity and flexibility. Many of the interviewed activists commented on the draining effects of precarious labour market positions, and the neoliberal demands of flexibility and individualised responsibilities, especially if they

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were working in the cultural sector or combining studies with work. Likewise, the Black feminist journalist and activist Fanna Ndow Norrby conducted a series of TV programmes titled We Can’t Do It for the Swedish broadcasting company SVT that pinpointed the exhaustion and burnout especially faced by young women in the labour market. The programmes did not explicitly discuss precarity or provide structural explanations for the exhaustion. Yet, they presented a feminist perspective on the increasing demands of effeciency and flexibility in today’s working life through the stories of young women and non-binary people with different racial locations. The title “we can’t do it” played on the well-known feminist slogan “we can do it” and its accompanying image, making use of feminist genealogies and raising the need for solidarities across racial divisions. Another initiative related to precarity and efficiency demands is a project run by the Swedish antiracist feminist organisation Interfem in 2019, which focussed on how the effects of racism and sexism contributed to stress and work-related burnout. Building on research, the experiences of participants, and discussions about actions that can be helpful in tackling stress-creating situations, the meetings sought to increase the health of women and trans persons racialised as “others”. The project’s focus can be interpreted as a reflection on the racialised and gendered aspects of neoliberal capitalism, which leads to precarious working lives, and the shift of responsibilities to the individual. The project activities witness of an aim to combat racialised and gendered precariousness through solutions that combine individual well-being with collective analysis and support. Furthermore, Finnish antiracist feminist activists have elevated questions of racism and mental health within the political agenda. One such activist is the vice chair of the Antiracist Forum, therapist Michaela Moua, who has drawn attention to and called for action to prevent the detrimental effects of racism on an individual level and as a social justice issue (Kettumäki 2019). Emphasising that racism is both a structural phenomenon and part of everyday interactions, Moua has made explicit the connections between the individual and the collective in racialised affectivities.

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Conclusions: Politics of Solidarity and Futures in the Making In this chapter, I have shown that other processes that have very different effects parallel the depoliticising and individualising tendencies of neoliberal capitalism, resulting in a repoliticising of questions of race, gender, and class. The role of antiracist feminism mobilising those racialised as “others” in the Nordic region is essential for such repoliticisation processes. However, several obstacles exist in the face of a politics of solidarity that would build coalitions across racial divisions. Among these is the hegemony of whiteness that is still characteristic of many feminist, queer, and left movements. Antiracist feminism is also preoccupied with a broad scale of coalition building, and does not always favour cross-racial activities. Antiracist feminism develops several kinds of politics—those of social justice, survival, and revolutionary love—all of which provide somewhat different reference points to coalition building. It should also be acknowledged that antiracist feminism itself is about coalition building: it mobilises differently racialised activists; activists with varying class and educational backgrounds; queer and trans activists; and many others. An important question in terms of the politics of solidarity is how mainstream feminism deals with the hegemony of whiteness within its movements, and responds to the new political subjects of antiracist feminism. To some extent, the antiracist feminist agendas have already influenced broader feminist and left politics. However, future feminist politics needs to tackle the differences in power and resources, as well as critically interrogate investments in “white feminist smugness”, in order to develop feminist solidarities that are built into everyday struggles and the messy work of intersectional politics. Political influence does not necessarily require concrete cooperation, but can also be based on acknowledgment and respect for the political subjects and perspectives that the field of “postethnic activism” covers. Antiracist feminism can provide prospects for broader social justice movements and coalitions. Many of the activists who participated in the study allied themselves more strongly with other organisations mobilising Black, Brown, and other minoritised groups. Although neoliberalisation and racial capitalism have so far not been at the forefront of antiracist feminist politics, in this chapter I have argued that the activists reflect on several processes and tendencies in current societies that can be analysed from the perspective of racialised labour, precarity, and neoliberalisation. Such

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initiatives can inspire future politics that would articulate the intertwining of gendered, racialised, and class-related aspects of neoliberal capitalism, and develop alternative visions.

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Oscarson, S. (2019, April 12). I en demokrati måste man också kunna kränkas. Svenska Dagbladet. Retrieved April 6, 2020, from https://www.svd. se/i-en-demokrati-maste-man-ocksa-kunna-krankas. Robinson, C. (1983). Black Marxism: The making of the Black radical tradition. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Sandoval, C. (2001). Methodology of the oppressed. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press. Sawyer, L., & Habel, Y. (2014). Refracting African and Black diaspora through the Nordic region. African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, 7(1), 1–6. Schclarek-Mulinari, L., & Keskinen, S. (2020). Racial profiling in the racial welfare state: Examining the order of policing in the Nordic region. Theoretical Criminology. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480620914914. Taylor, K.-Y. (2016). From #BlackLivesMatter to Black liberation. Chicago: Haymarket Books. The Union. (2019). Retrieved April 6, 2020, from https://www.facebook.com/ cwu.bpoc/. Tlostanova, M., Thapar-Björkert, S., & Knobblock, I. (2019). Do we need decolonial feminism in Sweden? NORA—Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 27(4), 290–295. Virdee, S. (2017). Racism, class and the racialized outsider. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Open Access  This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

CHAPTER 11

Rethinking Design: A Dialogue on Anti-­ Racism and Art Activism from a Decolonial Perspective Faith Mkwesha and Sasha Huber

Introduction This chapter focuses on anti/racist activism from a decolonial perspective. We analyze racialized and racist representations and propose interventions from a decolonial perspective. We use Finnish problematic representation case studies showing racism and racist practices that inspired us to act in different ways as activists to advocate for change. Our activism is influenced by our work. Faith is a literary and cultural researcher and social justice activist, while Sasha is a visual artist and art-based researcher whose work has been exhibited in several countries. Our partnership emanates from our positionalities as black and brown women who emigrated

F. Mkwesha (*) Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland S. Huber Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 S. Keskinen et al. (eds.), Feminisms in the Nordic Region, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53464-6_11

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to Finland, and thus, we are both outsider and insider, in-between (Dwyer and Buckle 2009). This in-between position enables us to see what may be invisible to white people who are not familiar with postcolonial and decolonial discourse and critical race studies. Therefore, they might not easily see or recognize as racist some of the case studies we analyze. However, we hope by the end of reading this chapter even such audiences will be more knowledgeable of the racist practices we discuss. We foreground representation of racial and ethnic differences, drawing attention to different power dynamics materialized by whiteness in popular culture in magazines, advertisements and humanitarian appeals through commercial campaigns. We argue that Finland’s visual communication community needs to rethink design forms and practices taking into consideration global transformation and adopting a decolonial perspective. We posit that representation matters and creates knowledge of people and places. In conclusion, we propose and consider different strategies as interventions in the field of representation to create non-stereotypical and demeaning racist images, in order to transform positively racialized representational practices. We understand representation as a signifying practice that produces discourse in, for example, literature, exhibitions, scholarship, advertisements, campaigns and all the different forms of pop culture. Representation means substituting or standing in for something, which can be people, culture or objects. In the book Representation, Stuart Hall (1997) examines how images, works of art, language and discourse function as systems of representation and produce certain ways of knowing the self and others, and how one relates to them. Here we include representation of difference, that is, the social construction of whiteness as superior and more civilized built on denigrating those seen as different, or non-European. Thus, we are talking about knowledge and power to create meaning. Power is important here because one has authority to create knowledge, but also to coerce, seduce and force others to accept it. Thus, designers have considerable power to create knowledge and meaning that can influence the worldview. In this chapter we probe designers to be consciously aware of racial stereotypical representation and institutional white structures in place that discriminate against minorities. In the following, we first describe how we met. We then engage in dialogue about our views on racism and representations, as well as how we have critically engaged with them through our activism, art and research.

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Rosa Emilia Clay The little story of how our SahWira sisterhood formed is interesting. SahWira in Zimbabwe Shona language refers to strangers who meet, develop mutual liking and shared interests, and get to know each other. They develop a trusted reciprocal friendship relationship transcending race, class, gender, sexuality or ethnicity (Marsden 2009; Barz and Cohen 2011; Mtukudzi 2016). The SahWiras support each other and have permission to criticize each other honestly in a constructive manner. We have developed SahWira sisterhood relations through a shared interest in social justice issues and culture. The story of Rosa Emilia Clay connected us. Rosa was the first black African person to attain Finnish citizenship, in 1899, and has a special place in our hearts (Namhila and Hillebrecht 2019; Jonkka 2010; Rastas 2014). We got to know each other through our common interest in the history of Rosa Emilia Clay while we were presenting papers about her at the Afroeuropeans: Black Cultures and Identities in Europe conference at the University of Tampere, Finland, in 2017. We wrote an article for Finland’s graphic design association’s magazine Grafia on rethinking design (Mkwesha and Huber 2018). Sasha’s portrait of Rosa Clay in “The Firsts” portraiture series was the cover image for Grafia. This made her the first black woman on Grafia’s magazine cover. Since then we have been meeting at different forums such as at museum exhibition openings and at activist work and academic spaces and co/operating in different projects because we are both active in anti-racist activism and politics of representation from a decolonial, postcolonial and gender perspective. In addition, Rosa Emilia Clay is an important historical figure for African diaspora, people of African descent, biracial brown people and immigrants in general. Rosa was born out of a multiracial relationship between a black Namibian woman and a white British man who was working in Namibia, Southern Africa. Therefore, she was a biracial African girl from Africa. She was fourteen years old when a couple who were Finnish missionaries in what is now Namibia brought her to Finland. They wanted her to train as a missionary and go back to teach in a school they had established in Namibia. While in Finland, she did well in school and became a teacher. She was also very active as a singer in Finnish culture. But, disillusioned with Christianity and losing faith in it, she did not want to go and teach at the missionary school. She decided to stay in Finland and work as a teacher. Therefore, she is an important ancestor who opened the path for people

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of African descent and people of color to be in Finland (Rastas 2019). Unfortunately, despite her achievements and integration into Finnish society, she encountered a great deal of racism in Finland. Unhappy, she later emigrated to the United States. Seeing herself as Finnish, she went to live among the Finnish community there. She taught Finnish and was an active member in Finnish cultural activities (Rastas 2019). Again, she faced a great deal of racism from the Finnish community (Erickson 1993). While Rosa considered her identity to be Finnish, the Finns racialized her and could not accept her as one of them. Thus, in the eyes of the Finns she remained an outsider even though she had integrated herself and was a Finnish citizen. Therefore, by reclaiming her as an African Finn and positioning her as a person of color in our discussion, we argue that racism has a long history in Finland, and designers have played an important role in sustaining racial stereotypes and prejudices that fuel racism. Furthermore, we propose that designers rethink representation from a decolonial perspective and create non-racist creatives.

Representation and Problematic Visuals On our first meeting we found ourselves engaging in conversations about our first encounters with problematic visuals in Finland. Faith: I started to be more aware of representation that is stereotypical in Finland when we had memory group meetings for parents of racialized children to discuss our children’s experiences of racism in public spaces in 2015. We were also discussing how to support them. What came out of the discussions was that there are racist narratives that parents needed ways to navigate, for example children’s books like Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking that reproduce racist stereotypes. Even though the old edition with the offensive racist word ‘negro’ is not in print anymore, the new edition still represents the white man as the colonial-emperor. Also, there is an archive of children’s literature that represents black people using racist stereotypes. We talked about how to read the books that make you suddenly encounter racism in the text. Also, how to support the child who has taken the book from the library and encounters racist images. Books like Pippi are training white children to be racist. I am now working in a children’s library project and we aim to create new narratives with positive representations that are inclusive and non-racist. Also, at SahWira Africa International I am coordinating an anti-racism project by youth titled “Changing culture: Youth Surviving, Thriving & Transforming the

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Nordic”. The multiracial and multicultural youth talk about racism they encounter and support each other and use their embodied experiences to create new narratives in poetry, short stories, songs and photography. We use festivals as a scientific way to disseminate their creatives and we organized our first Bira: Literature Rhythms in 2019 at Sibelius Museum in Turku.

Case of Plan International Finland Campaign I also encountered colonial representation in an advertisement by Plan International, a Finnish NGO that advocates for children’s rights and equality. The advertisement featured a 12-year-old black girl-child model from Zambia called Fridah on billboards at bus stations in a fundraising campaign themed “Maternity Wear for a 12-Year-Old” designed by celebrity fashion designer Paola Suhonen, whose name was on the posters. The images were taken by equally renowned photographer and journalist Meeri Koutaniemi. There was also an exhibition about her in the trendy downtown area of Helsinki center. I went with my husband and a colleague who was a black African woman to see the exhibition and found the images of young Fridah displayed in shop windows. Connected to the exhibition was also a social media campaign and a YouTube video in which designer Sahonen and photographer Koutaniemi speak. As a response to the 12-year-old girl posing erotically and sexually, I tweeted @SahwiraAfrica. Disturbed and shocked that a child was being used in this way, the three of us from Sahwira Africa International went to Plan International’s offices. The office administrator denied us access to see those who were in charge of the campaign and said they were in a meeting. We were willing to wait but she denied us access to even enter the offices and asked us to send an email. My colleague sent an email, but we never received an answer. In 2018, Plan International and hasan & partners were awarded the most prestigious prize in Finland—the Vuoden Huiput award for best creative design in 2017. The design agency hasan & partners was recognized with the Creative Distinction Award by the Art Directors Club of Europe. I responded on Twitter: “#ShameOnYouFinland Exhibiting a black African girl-child in the streets of Finland cannot be the best advertisement of 2017 in Finland. It’s a shameful advertisement exotising a traumatized pregnant child”. We later started an online campaign #ProtectBlackGirlsToo that became international. I requested a PhD student who was volunteering at Sahwira Africa International to tweet about

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the complicity of Finland in racism, made evident in awarding this prize. The black and people of color (BPOC) community, in particular us black women, saw this representation of Fridah as the continuation of colonial exhibitions. Europe has a history of eroticizing and displaying black female bodies at street carnivals, museums and churches in nineteenth century Europe for the white gaze. For example, Sarah Baartman (branded as the Hottentot Venus), although illiterate, was claimed to have signed a contract and was brought from her home in South Africa in October 1810 to be exhibited at freak shows and museums in Britain and France. Even in death her body was dissected by scientists in France and subjected to scientific racism. Her remains were only returned in 2002 to South Africa when President Nelson Mandela requested them. Finland is complicit too: in 1888 Rosa Emilia Clay was fourteen years old when Finnish missionaries brought her to Finland from Namibia to parade her at church gatherings and make her sing to raise money. Therefore, young Fridah’s case follows in the path of her African ancestors, when she was exhibited in the streets and bus stops of Finland in 2017–18. Mkwesha (2018a, b) wrote an article asking why people were not outraged by this campaign and the prizes being given. The case of Fridah depicts the racist objectification and commodification of black women’s bodies to raise money. Yle News and other media sites invited Sahwira Africa International and Plan International for a discussion and wrote the article “Eroticising and sexualising: Researcher slams Plan Finland over ad campaign featuring pregnant 12 year-old girl”, which brought visibility to the campaign (Wall and Taylerson 2018). I participated as the Executive Director of Sahwira and asked the question: Why did Fridah lose the right to protection as a child? My view was that Plan International Finland had failed in its own mandate, which is to “prevent harm and keep children and young people safe and protected”,1 because they were harming Fridah and her unborn child. The journalists also asked if Plan International would use a white Finnish child this way. In my view, it is racist to do to a black child what one cannot do to a white Finnish child.

1

 https://plan.fi/en.

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Demonstration and Petition We later demonstrated at the Plan International offices and gave a petition to Plan International’s Executive Director asking them to apologize for the dehumanizing and sexist campaign, to return the prizes, and pay Fridah for her labor. I argued that the campaign was racializing, sexualizing and eroticizing the girl and fueled negative stereotypes of black girls and women and was racist. In addition, the campaign stigmatized the unborn child. We argued that the white women who created the campaign material practiced white saviorism that perpetuates the image of poverty-­ stricken Africa. In “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Spivak refers to the white savior complex in relation to the manner in which Western cultures investigate other cultures and argues that knowledge is never innocent, because it expresses the interests of its producers (1988). Building on Spivak, this chapter refers to acts of white people’s practices of helping non-white persons so that the white people feel good about themselves; thus, it is about self-serving help. The white savior complex is being challenged by a Ugandan collective who have been campaigning using #nowhitesaviours to advocate for an anti-racist humanitarian aid organization. The anti-­ racist researchers network RASTER supported our campaign, calling for white savior mentality to end, and challenged other organizations to speak out and several wrote statements supporting our campaign. For example, Decolonial International Network, Finnish Gender Studies Association, Fem-R, Anti-Racist Forum Finland, Finnish feminist organizations and others responded to the call and this helped in the negotiations with Plan International and the other organizations that were involved. In response, Plan International said they wanted to create a shocking campaign and never intended to sexualize any child. They argued that the aim of the campaign was to raise awareness of child motherhood, to advocate for girls and to fundraise: “We wanted to talk about it in a new way. We chose to mimic another genre of advertising [fashion] to create an element of surprise so we used a made-up maternity line to ensure it would stop people” (Wall and Taylerson 2018). My interpretation is that they wanted to shock and awe the viewers so that they would donate money. They argued that the campaign was successful because there were 21,000 visits to the campaign page and a 40% year-on-year increase in regular donors who support the NGO’s work. Plan International celebrated the prizes and money raised, but for us it was child pornography and pedophilic. What was also disgusting for us was the thin line between seeing the

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white gaze bordering on public rape of a girl-child whose image was displayed in public spaces including the arena where awards were given. Plan International said they did not pay her because they support her community and she did the work to support her community. We found this condescending and a form of unpaid child labor. A child cannot work for the community. They also said they would support her for maternity care and were going to pay for her fees when she went back to school. Because in Zambia all expectant mothers have access to government maternity care, we found their suggestion and decision to pay these fees paternalistic and condescending because Plan International had no right to decide what would happen after the birth of Fridah’s child.

White Savior Complex The gendered representations and the role of the two white Finnish celebrity women who were the central figures of the campaign raised numerous issues for me as a black African woman. The black African girl was represented through what Mohanty (1984) calls the “western gaze”. The Western gaze is a white gaze seeing through a Western lens and the viewers are also seeing and interpreting the exhibited or advertised images of the girl through the eyes of their own European culture. Thus, the Zambian girl’s images are sensationalized by the campaigns that have been feeding the Finnish white gaze, bringing images of children and the various African rituals and customs to public exhibition spaces in Finland, which fuels racial and gendered prejudices toward black people. The problem with this representation is the white saviorism complex that in my view is a product of the white liberal feminism that framed the Plan International campaign. I concur with Mustonen (2017), who also challenged the celebrity humanitarianism and saviorism in the campaign. The two Finnish celebrities who produced the material for the campaign and became the spokespersons for the black women and girls were positioned as white saviors. While the good work done by Plan International needs to be acknowledged, the white savior complex in which white celebrities position themselves in the hero role as philanthropists for social causes around the so-called developing world, particularly Africa in the case under study, needs to be criticized. We campaigned against the Plan International campaign because it employed the rhetoric of Eurocentric individualism that re-inscribes colonial narratives of Africa’s diverse

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peoples as passive and helpless, and creates the white women celebrity brand that silences the voices of those they speak on behalf of. There are harmful effects of the white savior complex for both the white people practicing it and the black people being helped. In an open letter entitled “Call to protect black child used as begging container in White Finland!” and in the hashtags #ProtectBlackChildrenToo and #NotoPovertyPornography the demand was to protect black children from predatory humanitarian organizations exploiting the children in the communities they support (Mkwesha 2018a, b). Faith argued that white saviorism perpetuates poverty pornography to elicit white people’s compassion at the expense of black and brown people. It engenders paternalism as the white saviors fail to engage in dialogue with the local people to really understand what they need and how they want to be supported, thus imposing solutions that are detrimental to the community. This makes white people heroes while making those who are being ‘helped’ victims who have no agency. It causes white people to do what they would never do to children in Europe, such as taking and using dehumanizing images of children, while denying the black children the right to protection, and sexualizing and eroticizing them. It allows white people to see themselves as experts and the only knowledgeable people of communities they do not belong to or fully understand. It also perpetuates racist colonial representations and stereotypes, as well as dehumanizing those being helped. The Finnish Children’s Ombudsman who weighed in on the issue of children’s rights in Plan International’s maternity wear campaign said, “We are [in] a global world and we have to think about those children that might be used as campaign figures on a global scale…. We cannot use these children even if they are not living in Finland—even if they are not Finns, we are responsible for their privacy” (Wall and Taylerson 2018). Both the Ombudsman and UNICEF state that similar treatment would not target white Finnish children. Thus, the question is: Why do these black girls lose the right to the protection that white Finnish children have? Representations like this reproduce racism and inflict racial violence and trauma on black and brown people. In Imperial Encounters: The Politics of Representation in North-South Relations, Doty (1996) states that politics of representation refers to how identities of people, states and regions are constructed through representational practices. The ways in which the South is discursively represented in the North creates the binary of civilized and uncivilized, first world and

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third world. Also, politics of representation is acting in accordance with the expressed wishes of the citizens and, in this case, it should act in the expressed wishes of the black, brown and indigenous people being represented. The best interests of both the representatives and the represented should be considered. Their wishes should be listened to and respected even if they are poor people from a community the organizations support. In the campaigns carried out by SahWira Africa International, we critically engage with images using the concept of intersectionality in the manner in which black scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw (1991) examined poverty as interconnected with race, class, gender and sexuality. We look at how difference is represented negatively in terms of racialization and racism, sexism, religion, class, and place. We have campaigned for addressing the intersection of poverty, class, race, sex, geography and power dynamics enabled by white saviorism, paternalism, dehumanization and exploitation of the marginalized. We argue for changing negative representation of ‘others’ that uses negative stereotypical images fueling anti-black racism, and ethnocentrism in public spaces. This is why I founded the organization SahWira Africa International: to create a platform from which to actively participate in advocacy for equality, diversity and inclusion and to do anti-racist activism work at grassroots level, as well as influence policies through online petitions. There is a need for change because stereotypical images cause real harm in the everyday lives of those who are negatively represented, as well as at the policy level.

Racial Illiteracy, White Fragility and Willful Ignorance What I found interesting in running anti-racist campaigns on negative stereotypical representations in visual communication in organizations, media, social media and everyday interactions is racial illiteracy. Racial literacy is a concept developed by sociologist F.W. Twine (2004) that refers to a set of practices designed by parents and educationalists to teach their children how to recognize, respond to and counter forms of everyday racism. Our campaigns have shown us racial illiteracy, which refers to when white people are socialized to be functionally illiterate on the topic of race and socialized not to think of themselves in racial terms, as they have not learned the ability to grapple with the nuances of multiracial or mixed-race spaces. The idea is that one is a good person and cannot be racist—racists

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are bad people. This takes away the understanding of institutional racism and how it operates. Thus, it is about what DiAngelo has called ‘white fragility’, which is caused by racial stress when white people have not developed racial stamina to deal with issues of racism and resort to being defensive when called out for having practiced racism or being racist. Defensiveness can manifest in actions such as crying and in other ways becoming the victim even though white people have the power and privilege to silence the one raising a complaint (DiAngelo 2011, 2018). The focus is on ‘them’ and ‘us’, taught formerly in schools and informally in pop culture. Defensiveness is also evidenced in willful voluntary ignorance which happens when a person decides not to learn. Tactical ignorance is a state and practice of ignoring anything that affects the emotions in a way that one does not want by intentionally not engaging with it. Mills (2007, 2017; cf. Lynch 2017) points to white ignorance being linked to white supremacy when privileged people discredit knowledge they do not agree with and have the power to dominate; hence, they do not see the need to know about the other. Even though information on racism and anti-­racism is now readily available, one chooses not to read it. Instead, one has a sense of racial exceptionalism of being a good person. The position is that in Finland we are for equality and we are not racist. Yet, when the Plan International campaign treats a black child differently from the way they would treat a white Finnish child, that is racism. When people fail to see that a child is not protected in the same way as white children are, they are also participating in willful ignorance and racism. What surprises me is why there is not enough knowledge about representation, especially an awareness about representing black and brown people. Is it not taught in schools and at university, Sasha?

Representations and Design Sasha: Before I became a visual artist and art-based researcher I was working as a graphic designer. I completed my Bachelor studies in Zurich and Masters studies at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki and I am presently undertaking practice-based PhD studies in artistic research at the Zurich University of the Arts. During both earlier degrees we never had any courses concerning representation and what should be considered when depicting people from diverse backgrounds within visual communication in the realm of advertising, for instance. This lack of knowledge is why designers and their clients tend to make wrong decisions. What

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caused this is also the fact that the universities and advertising agencies, design studios and major media companies are predominantly occupied and led by white people, and hence the designs tend to be made for the white gaze. Finland is generally still considered a monoculture, even though it is meanwhile a diverse society which should be taken into consideration when making the design decisions. When we wrote the article for Grafia magazine, I took it as an opportunity to speak with my former and now retired professor Tapio Vapaasalo on this issue. He too agrees that “There is a strong need for more comprehensive education on racial and cultural values and social issues, but there is no course in just this” and he says that a reason for this is that “One part of this is that there is great avoidance not to indoctrinate political or narrow attitudes on students. There is a strong belief on individual freedom that prevent manipulation. But it should not prevent to update our view on the reality”. He further points out that “Design is a profession that serves the needs of people but the truth is that great part of it is done to those who have power or money”.2 Interestingly after the Grafia article had been published, current staff from the Visual Communication Department where I studied argued that the situation has been improved and that they would welcome me to guest teach. One of the teachers in touch with me wrote that The course they developed will contain readings, discussions, lectures, practical design and bodily exercises in order for them to try and understand how designers, or people who use design tools, can be a critical, constructive force in societies. The idea is to form and express stances within collective/ individual design practices, the wider design field as well as the sociocultural, technological, ecological and political circumstances and structures. Intersectional feminism, postcolonialism, ecology and critical pedagogy are key topics within the course.3

This is a good development and it is to be hoped that this will have a positive impact in the visual landscape of Finland in a longer run. The acknowledgment of a diverse society in Finland has indeed already contributed to the fact that people of color have become more visible in the visual landscape. Often the positioning of the person in advertisements, for instance, is next to at least one or two white people. Only seldom is the black or brown person the main protagonist, with the 2 3

 Personal communication with prof. emeritus Vapaasalo.  Personal communication to Sasha Huber.

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exception of advertisements for help organizations using often stereotypical depictions of Africans, notably adults and children in need. If those people in positions of power could better identify racist representations, they could help to avoid the reinforcement of wrong stereotyping, which is harmful. Racism has to be understood as a deeply embedded system, and that is why whiteness needs to be named in order to tackle and dismantle racial inequality. Since moving to Finland in the early 2000s and until today, I have been observing occasional examples of visual communication where representation was done wrongly and where negative stereotypes have been maintained for a very long time and reinforced. As an example, I noticed the Brunberg Suukko candy which has been on sale since the 1950s. Until very recently in 2020, the twenty-five-piece packaging design was almost unchanged, depicting a stereotypical representation of an African couple. Only the name was changed in the early 2000s, removing the n-word beside the Suukko which means kiss in Finnish. That same chocolate candy is also sold in Switzerland and although the packaging design was never as racist and stereotypical as in Finland, the naming was similarly racist. Or the other classic product sold in the millions is the popular board game Afrikan tähti which basically teaches children about how to exploit and colonize Africa without explaining what colonialism was. It would be possible to use this game for educational purposes, if its problematic history continuing until the present were explained to children. The recent case where representation has gone wrong was, as mentioned earlier, the Plan International campaign from this year which Faith has publicly challenged and constructively criticized. As far as I can recall, she is the first person in Finland to react and respond to the effect of advertising made in Finland. She is able to offer the vocabulary on why these kinds of representation are offensive. I find this kind of critique positive for society because it helps to understand the effects of what the advertisers put out into the public and invites us to rethink how to ‘sell’ the message without harming anyone. The untrue assumption based on colonial representation that Africa is a poor continent in need of help keeps on re-strengthening the colonialist framework (Fig. 11.1). As for myself, even though I studied graphic design, I found that art is the best medium for me to discuss topics like postcolonialism and inequality and work in decolonial ways. Since the early 2000s, I have sought to widen the perspective of history to make sense of the world we live in

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Fig. 11.1  Faith Mkwesha during a demonstration in front of the Plan International office in Helsinki. 7.5.2018. (Photo: Sasha Huber. © Sasha Huber, re-used here with kind permission)

through arts. The beauty and power of art is that you can imagine a reality and future how you want it to be and this provides a sense of freedom. Institutionally, though, there is still a great deal of work to be done to adjust and correct the narratives. One important initiative comes from Amsterdam and was co-founded by Simone Zeefuik who is working with the hashtags #DecolonizetheMuseum (2014) and #Rewritetheinstitute (2016). Their work challenges institutions which produce knowledge, define art, “uphold traditions”, dictate norms and make concrete propositions on how to do better. One example is that signatures beside artifacts and artworks are used to provide additional information which articulates and explains the meaning of the work within the history and in the discourse of decolonial understanding. This is to help clarify how the object should be understood, especially when the object might be offensive for some of the racialized audience. Faith, you made this observation recently

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and I find it exemplary how you identified the lack of clarity in a museum and how you reacted, instead of keeping the uneasy feeling we got without taking action. Can you tell me about this? Faith: During discussions I have realized that in Finland the politics of representation, colonial representations, and decolonizing design and art have not yet been the focus. Also, there has been narrow discussion about race, racism, whiteness and colonial power inequality. Perhaps the report titled “Being Black in the European Union” (FRA 2018) that indicates that 63% of black people in Finland experienced racial harassment is an indicator that it is time we talk about these issues. There is a need to revisit representation practices, and creative designers have to think more about why they are choosing a certain image, color, texture and so on because one can easily tap into stereotypes and prejudices of colonial creations. Sasha’s work is one of the exceptions in Finland, creating art which deals with these issues and is for this reason of importance for society. It has been good to see how you have been getting a platform to present your work here and abroad. I was happy to hear that the Turku Art Museum acquired your video work (Karakia—The Resetting Ceremony, 2015) in their collections. Art pieces like this created from a postcolonial perspective will help people rethink their racist cultural conditioning and create new perspectives. Sasha: Finland is the place where I started my artistic career, and when I first moved here I noticed several traces of colonial history. Together with my partner Petri Saarikko we redesigned the packaging of the Brunberg Suukko. We also contacted the company and they said that this product does not need any advertising because it is such a well-selling product. In 2015 we exhibited the series for the first time within the research exhibition “The African presence in Finland” in Tampere4. At the time, we asked our Finnish-African-American friend, Edna Nelson, why she thinks the packaging needs to change and she said (Fig. 11.2): Yes, I think the image should be removed, because it is offensive. I think it supports white supremacy by depicting Africans in a stereotypical and negative, primitive fashion. Africa has some of the most advanced cities today, and African people are making huge contributions to the global community in every end. This image encourages people to see Africans and black people in general as uncivilized, silly, and up for consumption. Ideas like that hold 4

 http://www.werstas.fi/nae-ja-koe/nayttelyt/menneet-nayttelyt/.

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Fig. 11.2  Huber, Sasha & Suukko, Petri Saarikko, 2015. (© Sasha Huber and Petri Saarikko, re-used here with kind permission) any society back. Images like this are divisive, because against the primitive definition of the African is the supposed civility of the White Finn purchasing the product, reinforcing a sense of superiority that feeds into white supremacist sentiments sadly already at work in Finland. These kinds of images contribute to shame, in Black Finnish people, and encourage bullying. How can one be black and Finnish and feel that we are viewed as equally civilized, or worthy, with images like this saturating our visual landscape, and lives? There are many reasons to change the name and packaging of these candies.

Faith: I have been told that Finland was not involved in slavery and colonialism; yet work by scholars proves otherwise (Keskinen 2019). This is colonial exceptionalism, based on untruthful justification. Holger Weiss

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argues that the sugar company in Turku founded in 1756 came from the Caribbean Islands and was produced by slaves (2017). Moreover, what is not talked about is that Finland participated in the ‘civilizing’ mission complicit with Britain in Africa, specifically Namibia where the Finnish missionaries built schools, hospitals and churches. These are the missionaries who brought Rosa Emilia Clay to Finland in the late 1880s, evidence of colonial complicity. Also, colonization of Sámi people is still going on and is not talked about. In addition, what surprised me is the lack of awareness of the Anglo-Eurocentric culture and knowledge in educational resources such as books, articles and films dominating the culture and higher learning institutions here (Vuorela 2009). This white ignorance is a result of the education system not teaching about these issues, and thus people develop white apathy. This means lack of interest in learning or listening. The conversation about race, racism and racial violence is derailed and even stopped, thereby perpetuating racism and creating racial tensions (DiAngelo 2018). Sasha: The same applies also to Switzerland, and like Finland it is one of the countries that participated in colonialism even without having had colonies. Although we should remember that Finland colonized the Sámi people. In 2011, I made an art installation called “Strange Fruit” which was inspired by the song Billie Holiday performed. The work was installed in the courtyard of the former Finlayson textile factory in Tampere which was built in the 1820s. They acquired the cotton from the Southern states in the United States. The song is about racism in the United States, and specifically about the lynching of African Americans, which happened mostly in the Southern states between 1882 and 1968. The more recent portrait of Rosa Emilia Clay that I made in 2017 was the first one of a new series called “The Firsts”. The series is dedicated to the first Africans in the diaspora starting from the nineteenth century and it researches historical and systematic racism and its debilitating effects on members of the contemporary African diaspora. The portrait is made with staples which I shot into black painted acoustic board. The materiality of the board refers to the muting of history in a symbolic manner. The use of the compressed-air staple gun relates to its symbolic significance as a weapon, which is offering the potential to renegotiate unequal power dynamics. This is a technique which I developed in 2004 and which I have been applying in several projects over the years (Fig. 11.3).

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Fig. 11.3  Sasha Huber, “Strange Fruit”, installation with 200 pineapples, 2011. (© Sasha Huber, re-used here with kind permission)

Faith: What we forget is that our worldview has been shaped by Anglo-­ Eurocentric knowledge through formal and informal education (Vuorela 2009). The images we create or choose for specific purposes are influenced by our socialization, education and worldview. That is where decolonization comes in: we need to be critical of Anglo-Eurocentric colonial practices instilled from childhood through formal and informal education and culture. We have all been exposed to the dominant Anglo-Eurocentric knowledge and culture. Hence, prejudice influences people’s thoughts and behaviors in many ways even if they have good intentions. Unconscious bias can have harmful effects at institutional and individual level—these kinds of intellectual harms are known as epistemic injustice. Thus, the discussions about decolonizing designs might be helpful in reimagining epistemologies. What I mean is that imagination as a resource for social and political reform can influence the questions one asks. My point here is that circumstances of society and one’s social location affect the process of

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knowing, and that is why it is important to rethink design from a conscious position and awareness of geographic location from which one knows. What is required at individual and institutional level is to remedy the practices of difference representation ethically. There is a need to account for ‘sympathy’ as an imaginative and reflective capacity that provides fertile resources for addressing systemic failures to recognize the histories, needs and experiences of marginalized social groups. The subject of knowledge is constituted by a large number of social factors in their cultural context, such as gender, wealth and class, and it affects how and what we know (Sherman and Goguen 2019).

Conclusion: Toward a Decolonizing of Design What emerges from the discussion is that no one intentionally uses prejudicial and racist representations and art. One may sincerely want to be epistemically just, but unconscious bias may cause one to represent others in a harmful and dehumanizing and racist way. Looking at the racist and problematic representations of black and brown people we discussed earlier in this text and the common answer of not having knowledge of good representations, we propose that there is a need for decolonizing the mind to free it from racist conditioning and ways of knowing. Decolonization calls for rethinking design, and this rethinking is a process of decolonial reflection so that one can engage in “learning to unlearn in order to re/ learn” (Tlostanova and Mignolo 2012). This means unlearning Western colonial knowledge we have been taught through education, culture and social environment that has socialized the category of white people to think through a Eurocentric view of white superiority, while seeing others as inferior. It also means being willing to accept another knowledge coming from outside Europe. In other words, decolonization in design entails questioning and changing the designing epistemic practices and the role of designing in the changing times of global transformation accelerated by technology. There are two main parts to decolonizing visual communication designs. The first one is the critique of the mainstream contemporary visual communication discourses and representation materialized by the neo-liberal and colonial world system that is shaping the world. This focuses on issues of gender, race, sexuality, culture, religion and class, which take us to the notion of power and responsibility. The second one is to practice decolonial designs—rethink beyond the designs that exist in

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our cultures. This rethinking and re-designing will enable the designers and creatives to reimagine and develop alternative inclusive and diverse solutions. Therefore, decolonial design calls the creative community to rethink representation practices and forms used to represent difference in popular culture such as advertisements, media and film. We encourage designers to rethink why there is a fascination with difference of people and places, while probing them to be critical of negative images and racial stereotypes dating from slavery and colonialism. Inclusiveness in our visual environment and landscape has an effect on our wellbeing as we are exposed to it on a daily basis while moving around in the city, print media and online media. There is a need to have workshops on decolonizing the mind so that designers may stimulate their creativity, and decolonize stereotypical images, thereby creating new narratives. Instead of the racialized representation and constant representation of black and brown Finns in stereotypical ways, designers can create positive images of black and brown Finns that they see here every day. In addition, exposure to other knowledges may allow designers to rethink outside the white dominant culture, and bring a new awareness of the advantages of diversity and inclusion in the human resources and tap into some of the great talent among the immigrant community that is currently shut out of the system through the emphasis on fluency in the Finnish language. Perhaps bringing in black and brown Finns will help the design community find innovative ways of reversing the stereotypes and reimagine a diverse and inclusive culture of representation. This entails rethinking who can be an expert, without only considering experts who know the Finnish context. While working with white Finns only and at times brown Finns only creates comfortability, there is the chance of omitting different perspectives from those who are not Finnish, who can therefore pick up some of the problems of the stereotypical and negative representations.

References Barz, P., & Cohen, J. M. (2011). The culture of AIDS in Africa: Hope and healing through music and the arts. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299. DiAngelo, R. (2011). White fragility. International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 3(3), 54–70.

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DiAngelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism. Boston: Beacon Press. Doty, R.  L. (1996). Imperial encounters: The politics of representation in North-­ South relations. London: University of Minnesota Press. Dwyer, S. C., & Buckle, J. L. (2009). The space between: On being an insider-­ outsider in qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 8(1), 55. Erickson, E. H. (1993). The Rosa Lemberg story. Wisconsin: Työmies Society. FRA. (2018). Being Black in the EU.  Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey. Retrieved February 23, 2020, from https://fra.europa. eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/fra-2019-being-black-in-the-eusummary_en.pdf. Hall, S. (1997). Representation. Cultural representations and signifying practices. London: Sage. Jonkka, M. (2010, January 24). Rosa, Finland’s first black citizen. Helsingin Sanomat. Keskinen, S. (2019). Intra-Nordic differences, colonial/racial histories, and national narratives: Rewriting Finnish history. Scandinavian Studies, 90(1–2), 163–181. Lynch, K. (2017). Wilful ignorance and self-deception. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 20(1), 105–119. Marsden, C. (2009). Jeri. Sahwira: An African friendship. Massachusetts: Candlewick. Mills, C. W. (2007). White ignorance. In S. S. N. Tuana (Ed.), Race and epistemologies of ignorance (pp. 11–38). New York State: University of New York Press. Mills, C. W. (2017). Black rights/White wrongs: The critique of racial liberalism. Oxford: Oxford Scholarship Online. Mkwesha, F. & Huber, S. (2018). Designin uudelleen muotoilu. Grafia Magazine, 4. Mohanty, C.  T. (1984). Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. On Humanism and the University I: The Discourse of Humanism Boundary 2, 12(3), 333–358. Mtukudzi, O. (2016a). Jeri. In J. W. Kyker (Ed.), Oliver Mtukudzi: Living Tuku music in Zimbabwe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Namhila, E. N. & Hillebrecht, W. (2019). Rosa Emilia Clay: From Omaruru via Sortavala to Chicago. In M.  Kaartinen, L.  Koivunen, & N.  Shiwed (Eds.), Intertwined histories—150 Years of Finnish–Namibian relations (pp.  58–65). Retrieved May 15, 2020, from https://www.utupub.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/148416/IntertwinedHistories.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Rastas, A. (2014). Talking back: Voices from the African diaspora in Finland. In M. McEachrane (Ed.), Afro-Nordic landscapes: Equality and race in Northern Europe (pp. 187–207). New York: Routledge.

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Rastas, A. (2019). Lessons to learn from the story of Rosa. In M.  Kaartinen, L. Koivunen, & N. Shiweda (Eds.), Intertwined histories: 150 Years of Finnish– Namibian relations (pp. 51–57). Finland: University of Turku. Sherman, B. R., & Goguen, S. (2019). Overcoming epistemic injustice: Social and psychological perspectives. London: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Spivak, G.  C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In C.  Nelson & L.  Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of culture. London: Macmillan. Tlostanova, M.  V., & Mignolo, W.  D. (2012). Learning to unlearn: Decolonial reflections from Eurasia and the Americas. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Twine, F. W. (2004). A white side of black Britain: The concept of racial literacy. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 27(6), 878–907. Vuorela, U. (2009). Colonial complicity: The ‘Postcolonial’ in a Nordic context. In S. Keskinen, S. Tuori, S. Irni, & D. Mulinari (Eds.), Complying with colonialism: Gender, race, and ethnicity in the Nordic region (pp.  19–33). Farnham: Ashgate. Weiss, H. (Ed.). (2017). Ports of globalisation, places of creolisation: Nordic possessions in the Atlantic world during the era of the slave trade. Leiden: Brill.

Internet References All Points North podcast. (2018). Dr. Faith Mkwesha and Eva Anttila discuss the ethics of using children in aid agency messaging. Retrieved May 15, 2020, from https://podtail.com/fi/podcast/all-points-north/ dr-faith-mkwesha-and-eva-anttila-discuss-the-ethic/. Anti-Racist Forum. (2018). Retrieved February 21, 2020, from https://www. facebook.com/ARFFinland/?__tn__=kCH-R&eid=ARA8F_ 0SDQvYCAnXc8HiypD-nqfStAvDAeWaT0B. Decolonial International Network. A campaign against the exploitation of African children to raise money for white saviours. Retrieved February 21, 2020, from https://din.today/news/din-supports-campaign-sahwira-africa-internationalagainst-plan-international/?fbclid=IwAR3gHDUNkoNVIUyfoAiSjUerg5Ne Ne2TyzJIHL3vjhwV3lPBIqhrdS7Vy3M. FEM-R. (2018). An open letter to plan international regarding plan Finland’s “maternity wear for a 12-year old”-campaign. Retrieved February 21, 2020, from http://www.fem-r.fi/an-open-letter-to-plan-international-regardingplan-finlands-maternity-wear-for-a-12-year-old-campaign/?fbclid=IwAR31BB EEzjzsxBmHE0ys3gOBV5dIoUFR9kR0vacZOpMm7CWY70C5TRy4h2o. Mkwesha, F. (2018a). Open letter: “Call to protect black child used as begging container in White Finland!” Retrieved February 22, 2020, from https://sahwira-africa.org/call-to-protect-black-child-used-as-begging-container-in-

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white-finland/?fbclid=IwAR0zE4Y_QW4NiI3XACxHB9qasFwhhTw-7G-9T DCZcLx_YGF_xys4gHW29N8. Mkwesha, F. (2018b). Why were we not outraged? #ProtectBlackGirlsToo. Ruskeat Tytöt. Retrieved February 21, 2020, from https://www.ruskeattytot. fi/rtmedia/protectblackgirlstoo. Mtukudzi, O. (2016b). Jeri. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Quq0FZjd4jU. Mustonen, L. (2017). Is it time for Finnish celebrities to save the black girls of a “developing country”?. Allegralaboratory. Retrieved February 25, 2020, from https://allegralaborator y.net/finnish-celebrities-save-the-blackgirls-of-a-developing-country/. Raster. (2018). Rasismista ja rajoista maailma rasisminvastaisten tutkijoiden silmin. It’s Time to Challenge White Saviour. Retrieved February 21, 2020, from https://raster.fi/2018/05/06/its-time-to-challenge-white-saviourmentality/. Sahwira Africa International. Retrieved February 21, 2020, from https://sahwiraafrica.org/please-sign-this-petition-apologise-r etur n-the-prizesand-pay-her-protectblackgirlstoo-whatofme/. Wall, D., & Taylerson, L. (2018). “Eroticising and sexualising”: Researcher slams Plan Finland over ad campaign featuring pregnant 12 year-old girl. YLE Uutiset. Retrieved December 11, 2020, from https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/ news/eroticising_and_sexualising_researcher_slams_plan_finland_ over_ad_campaign_featuring_pregnant_12_year-old_girl/.

CHAPTER 12

Epilogue: We Should All Be Dreaming Vol. 3 Maryan Abdulkarim and Sonya Lindfors

This is a dream, where two women of color have a talk about collective futures. Sonya: Why should we be dreaming? Or what are you dreaming of? Maryan: Looking at the world today, what else can we do but dream? I dream of freedom, like actual freedom. What Assata Shakur describes when she says, freedom to grow, freedom to blossom, for everyone. What about you? S: I remember us having a discussion about reactionary practices. That I am tired of just reacting to oppressive structures. I think that is also somehow our problem, that we will never move past the fight. I think I am trying to nurture this space of dreaming just to keep in mind what we are fighting for. M: Yeah, I remember that. For me, it’s frustrating and tiring being in a constant state of alert, always having to be ready to react. Makes me feel like I am not in control, like someone else is making the choices for me, what I should think, do, fight. Carving out time and space for dreaming is having a break from that.

M. Abdulkarim (*) • S. Lindfors Helsinki, Finland © The Author(s) 2021 S. Keskinen et al. (eds.), Feminisms in the Nordic Region, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53464-6_12

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S: I think I don’t know who I would be without the fight. And I am trying to dream of that. Who would I be without the struggle! M: I can relate to that! People asking questions like how or why I became an activist; the question reveals that the person asking has no clue of the reality I face. It’s not like I had an actual choice in the matter. S: AS A SURVIVAL STRATEGY!!!! M: Exactly, right? If you deal with oppressive structures on a daily basis and they have an impact on most things in your life, how do you NOT BECOME an activist? For me, activist is what Angela Davis describes when she says: I am no longer accepting what I can’t change, I am changing what I cannot accept. S: I am dreaming of belonging and dreaming of a world that could include all of us. By the way, have you read Sylvia Wynter? If everything in the human world is based on the notion that whiteness equals humanity, in order to move forward we should SHAKE EVERYTHING. EVERY. S INGLE. CONCEPT. It’s not about being good or bad, it’s that everything is based on this hierarchical capitalist patriarchy. So you can’t claim any position of being good or being feminist or being anti-racist as an excuse not to move. M: Nothing about this system we are living is natural. Nothing about it is neutral. S: The first thing is to denaturalize, and thus to make visible. For example, who has to carry prefixes and who doesn’t? Words have performative power and they change the way we think. Words make worlds.

PAUSE S: Do you think we can dream also for others? Or from someone else’s perspective? M: I think we can. My dream involves us, human beings, realizing that we need each other and we need collaboration to survive the imminent future. We can agree that one of the things climate change demonstrates is that only through collaboration can we change the destructive course we are on. So in a sense, my dream is about acknowledging the existing facts. Colonialism, imperialism, capitalist system, racism, climate change are all fruits of the same tree. I dream we’d want to work together. S: Future is always a potentiality; it’s always just about to emerge but it never arrives. But yet we are constantly creating this future. Every time I make something, I make it for the future. The future is in five seconds, five

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minutes, five hours and 5000 futures. If every single word I am saying and every thought I am having is somehow informed by the present ideologies, how can I dream and thus create towards a collective future that is not based on the struggles of yesterday? How to deviate myself? M: Maybe the utopia is what middle-class, western people think they’re living; just take out the oppression, sexism, hierarchies and the unnecessary suffering of marginalized groups and voilà. S: But if everybody is not free, nobody is free. Even those with power are still suffering from guilt and the fear that they might lose all their privilege since they were gained with somebody else’s work, suffering, blood. But can there be equality with hierarchy? M: My friend David said quite well that of course there can be. It just wouldn’t be similar hierarchies as those we now know. They’d be based on responsibility over one another. And thinking of that, we have power over the young humans as we raise them; that doesn’t make us superior to them, just responsible for them. S: How to practice collective dreaming? And before we can dream collectively we have to somehow establish a “we”… M: I guess we ask these questions without expectations of answers. We each dream, and having a platform to dream together allows us to negotiate between dreams. Your dream becomes mine, or at least I am a stakeholder in it, as I exist near you, with you in the same space, same community…

PAUSE M: It is so important to think of the “we” and get rid of any romantic illusions of sameness or similarity when you start dreaming together and really acknowledge the vast differences there are in desires, preferences, communication styles, goals, and intentions. I thought I knew, reading Audre Lorde, but NO! I think we need to dream complexly and allow for unexpectedness. S: So the we is super contextual and ever changing. Perhaps it’s not only about leaving space for the “we” to change but also the dream to change. I like that! Let the we change and dream change! M: And also if we look at the current existing system that creates marginalization and creates the need to connect through that shared experience of falling outside the norm, the future can and will be different. So we also look further, when it’s our humanity that connects us and shared

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interests, not just a messed up system that forces us into boxes that can never fully accommodate all that we are. S: Yes!! When we are in the future that will be different, what would we dream of then? What would we desire? Will it be something else than money, fame or eternal youth? M: What would the world be like after the struggles? S: What would this moment be like without the struggles? This text was originally commissioned for Esposito Yussif, Giovanna (ed.) (2019). A Greater Miracle of Perception. Berlin: Archive Books.

Index1

A Academia, 5, 15, 117, 125, 137, 145, 146, 149–151, 192 Academic feminism, 14, 15, 113–129 Anticolonial, 156, 159–162, 168 Anti-discrimination, 49, 54, 54n6, 55, 58, 61, 100 Anti-feminism, 4, 38, 75 Anti-genderism, 6 Anti-racism, 9, 16–18, 49, 54, 55, 58, 60, 61, 68, 78, 80, 81, 117, 126, 169, 182, 184, 206, 208, 209, 212, 223–242 Antiracist, 3–6, 10–13, 16–18, 27, 121, 126, 127, 156, 158, 179–197, 201–219, 232 Antiracist feminism, 16, 18, 179–197, 201–219 Appropriation of gender equality, 104 Art activism, 223–242 Assimilation, 12, 17, 90, 93, 97–99, 103, 105, 137–139, 141, 151, 194, 195

Austerity, 3, 4, 6, 8, 13, 68, 69, 74, 77, 191 Autonomous spaces, 71, 211–213 B Black feminism, 14, 119, 211 C Caring racism, 180, 181, 184, 192–195 Category of migrant women, 17, 18, 179–197 Chicana feminism, 116 Class, 3, 5, 8, 9, 12, 36, 39, 56, 63, 79, 101, 119–121, 157, 158, 171, 172, 180, 189, 202, 204, 207, 210, 212, 215, 216, 218, 225, 232, 241 Coalitional politics, 203, 205, 212 Colonial complicity, 7, 16, 24, 151, 239

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

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INDEX

Colonialism, 10, 11, 15, 16, 24, 26, 36, 38, 93, 122, 123n8, 125, 136–140, 145, 146, 148, 156, 157, 162, 170, 172, 182, 185, 203, 235, 238, 239, 242, 248 Coloniality, 6, 14, 15, 156, 157, 166, 172 Colonial structures, 27, 135 Communities of belonging, 211–213 Co-optation, 11, 23–39, 83, 103, 157 Critical discourse analysis, 17, 180 D Decolonial, 1–18, 135–152, 157, 164, 168, 170, 171, 207, 223–242 Decolonial perspective, 14, 16, 168, 223–242 Decolonization, 135, 137–142, 144, 145, 150, 158, 172, 240, 241 Design, 114, 223–242 E Epistemic habit, 14, 15, 24, 113–129 Epistemologies of hope, 18 Equality, 3, 23, 47, 67, 89, 115, 170, 189, 203, 227, 249 Ethno-nationalism, 9, 13, 17, 37, 48, 90, 105 Everyday activism, 55, 58 Exclusion, 8, 11, 13, 24, 25, 28–33, 37, 39, 50, 57, 80, 92, 93, 143–145, 157, 192–194, 209, 215, 216 Exclusionary nationalism, 9, 12, 13, 37, 48, 61 Exclusionary racism, 99, 181, 194–197 Exploitative racism, 181, 189–191

F Feminism, 1–18, 23–39, 51–54, 61, 68–73, 76–80, 82, 83, 93, 93n4, 103, 105, 113–129, 135–152, 155–172, 201–219, 230, 234 Feminism as a floating signifier, 5, 25, 31, 32 Feminist activism, 3, 17, 33, 34, 37, 68, 71, 79, 82, 82n1, 138, 202, 211 Feminist knowledge, 5, 14, 36, 71, 73, 77, 137 Feminist movement, 3, 10, 17, 25, 33–35, 67–69, 82, 135, 137, 139, 147, 157, 170, 183–185, 202, 203 Feminist perspectives, 15, 135, 143–152, 163, 215, 217 Feminist politics, 3, 11–13, 25, 32, 33, 67–84, 205, 207, 210, 218 Femonationalism/femo-nationalism, 16, 51, 53, 62, 185 Future, 2, 5, 8, 12, 13, 17, 27, 37–39, 48, 63, 145, 150, 152, 167, 168, 186, 187, 204, 212, 218–219, 236, 248–250 G Gender, 3, 23, 47, 69, 91, 114, 140, 156, 180, 201, 225 Gender conservatism, 4 Gender equality, 3, 24, 47, 67, 89, 115, 171, 190, 203 Gender equality policy, 7, 57, 68–70, 73–75, 79, 84, 91, 92, 94n7, 96, 192, 195, 196 Governance feminism, 14, 69–72, 77, 78, 82

 INDEX 

I Immigration policy, 60, 68, 89–105 Indigeneity, 4, 80, 148 Indigenization, 137, 138, 144, 146 Indigenous perspectives, 15, 137, 145, 146, 148–151, 164 In/exclusionary intersectionality, 48, 52 Intersectionality, 13, 17, 23–39, 47–63, 78–81, 116–125, 123n8, 156, 162, 180, 207, 208, 232 Intersectional politics, 12, 213, 214, 218 L Labour, 5, 8, 14, 16, 23, 56, 62, 70, 82, 91, 96, 100, 103, 105, 121, 157, 166, 167, 170, 188–196, 203, 204, 210, 215–217, 229, 230 Local mobilization, 61 M Migration, 4, 8, 30, 39, 47–49, 51, 52, 54, 58–60, 62, 63, 99, 105, 119, 136, 156, 181, 188, 189, 192, 194, 207 Migrant women, 10, 14, 17, 18, 24, 37, 53, 75, 89n1, 90–92, 95, 96, 99–105, 179–197 Minority women’s organizations, 37, 90, 94, 95, 105 Muslims, 14, 37, 52, 53, 55, 57, 62, 89–97, 89n1, 99–103, 102n14, 105, 179, 202, 215, 216

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N Nationalism, 1–18, 31, 32, 36–38, 47–63, 68, 77, 81, 91–94, 197, 203 Neoliberal capitalism, 3, 12, 35, 119, 202, 204, 207, 217–219 Neoliberalisation, 82, 201, 201n1, 218 Neoliberalism, 1–18, 24, 29, 30, 32, 34, 35, 38, 90, 92, 172, 201, 201n1 Neoliberal turn in racial capitalism, 205 Nordic exceptionalism, 7, 11, 23–39, 156 Nordic feminism, 10, 14–16, 28, 36, 38, 118, 119, 129, 135–152, 155–172 Nordic welfare model, 6, 7, 16 Normative whiteness, 202, 208 P Political activism, 114n2 Political economy, 8, 180, 184, 187, 196, 197 Politics of hope, 2, 11, 12 Politics of revolutionary love, 211, 212 Politics of solidarity, 11–12, 27, 201–219 Politics of survival, 211–213 Postcolonial, 4, 7, 11, 15, 24, 26, 30, 92, 119–121, 123–125, 128, 151, 157, 163, 179, 180, 204, 210, 215, 224, 225, 237 Postcolonial feminism, 71, 93 Postethnic activism, 17, 202, 206, 218 Postfeminism, 82, 201 Postraciality, 201 Precarity, 12, 215–218

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INDEX

Q Queer, 3–5, 10, 14, 27, 38, 91, 93, 101, 116, 117, 119–121, 127, 128, 182, 206, 208, 211, 212, 214, 216, 218 Queer of colour, 16, 202, 203, 205, 206 R Race, 3, 5, 16, 24, 36, 39, 48, 49, 51, 52, 55, 61, 63, 91, 94, 95, 101, 115, 117, 118, 121, 122, 124–126, 128, 149, 155–158, 163, 165–167, 165n4, 169–170, 172, 180, 181, 201–205, 207, 213, 215, 218, 224, 225, 232, 237, 239, 241 Racial capitalism, 17, 18, 204–205, 215, 218 Racial formation, 16, 17 Racial illiteracy, 17, 232–233 Racism, 3, 24, 49, 77, 92, 118, 135, 155, 179, 201, 223, 248 Racist image, 17, 224, 226 Reconciliation, 137, 137n3, 138, 142, 144, 145, 150 Renberg, Elsa Laula, 15, 36, 139, 149, 150, 152, 155–172 Representation, 16–18, 27, 34, 89, 94–97, 101–104, 126, 163, 179, 180, 183, 188, 196, 223–228, 230–242 Right-wing populism, 3, 4, 6, 9, 38, 48–54, 56, 58–61, 63

S Sámi culture, 141, 150 Sámi/Samieh feminism, 15, 135, 138, 139, 142–145, 147n7, 149–152, 162–164, 166 Separatism, 213–215 Settler colonialism, 138, 139, 157, 189 Social justice, 3, 9, 11, 12, 23, 25, 28, 30, 38, 39, 62–63, 189, 202, 204, 205, 210–215, 217, 218, 223, 225 Social movement, 3, 11, 13, 16, 23, 24, 26–28, 37, 160, 197, 204, 216 Speak truth to power, 16–18 Stenberg, Karin, 15, 155–172 Strategic state, 13, 67–84 T Talk back, 18 Trans*, 5, 10, 12, 119 Transgender, 3, 71 W Welfare state, 8, 9, 11, 13, 16, 23–39, 48, 49, 53–57, 67–69, 91–94, 117, 184, 189, 192–194, 205 White fragility, 17, 232–233 Whiteness, 14, 15, 24, 27, 71, 81, 104, 113–129, 148, 169, 170, 185, 189, 191, 202, 207–211, 213, 218, 224, 235, 237, 248 White saviour complex, 17 White smugness, 209