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Catrin Lundström

Senior Associate Professor

My research focuses on privileges and inequalities within transnational migration.

On Swedish whiteness 

My research spans over the fields of sociology, migration studies, critical race and whiteness studies, and gender studies.

My research spans over the fields of sociology, migration studies, critical race and whiteness studies, and gender studies.

I am Associate professor in Sociology and Professor Designate in Ethnicity and Migration at the Division of Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO).

I defended my thesis in sociology at the University of Uppsala in 2007 and became Associate Professor of Sociology in 2011. I have worked as a teacher and researcher in sociology and gender studies at Uppsala University, Mälardalen University, Stockholm University, Lund University, Umeå university, Södertörn University, Linköping University, and Multicultural Centre, primarily within the fields of sociology and gender studies. I have also been a visiting researcher at the Department of Linguistic Anthropology at University of Arizona, Tucson (2005) and at the Department of Sociology, at University of California, Santa Barbara (2007-2008). I was a post doc at Umeå Centre for Gender Studies (UCGS), at Umeå University between 2009 and 2011. Between 2013 and 2019, I was appointed Future Research Leader at Linköping University.

Research

I approach whiteness as a local and transnational construct, in which the meaning of whiteness and white identities shift intersectionally and contextually.

In my dissertation Swedish Latinas: race, class and gender in the geography of Swedishness (Makadam, 2007), I examine the interrelation between whiteness and Swedishness, and how young Latinas negotiate the boundaries of national identity in this context in relation to race, class, gender, and sexuality.

Bokomslag med ett ansikte i blått och gult.

After my disputation, I initiated an extensive project on transnational Swedishness and migration funded by The Sweden-America Foundation. From ethnographic studies with Swedish women in southwestern US, Singapore and southern Spain, I discuss how the analytical framework for migration studies can be developed by empirically including white, western migrants into the theoretical understanding of ‘the migrant’ and migration processes. The ethnographic study is presented in the book White Migrations: gender, whiteness and privilege in transnational migration (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

In a following study on Swedish migration, I investigate how women who had lived abroad negotiate gender equality and national identity when they move back to Sweden. The project “Re-integrating Swedishness: the politics of belonging among returning Swedish migrant women” was funded by the Swedish Research Council (2013–2017).

Together with associate professor Tobias Hübinette, I have developed a historicized analysis of the emergence of Swedish hegemonic whiteness from 1905 and forward. Our analysis departures from the question of how the loss of white homogeneity in Sweden is handled by the progressive and the conservative side, who, we suggest, identify with different historical periods of hegemonic whiteness, yet mourning the loss of the same national identity. Our theoretical model of Swedish whiteness is presented in the book White melancholia: an analysis of a nation in crisis (Makadam 2020).

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When Whiteness Becomes Capital

What happens to whiteness in an increasingly globalized world?

By combining Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital with critical whiteness and migration studies, we can understand how whiteness - historically rooted in European colonialism - functions as a transnational resource that enables white bodies to feel at home and move relatively unhindered throughout the world. At the same time, we see how the value and boundaries of whiteness are reshaped in line with changing global and geopolitical power relations.

Read more in an article in Sociologisk forskning:

Vithet som transnationellt kapital

Research projects

Project White migrations

The migrant is often thought of as a non-westerner in search for a better future in Europe or the US. From a multi-sited ethnography with Swedish migrant women in the US, Singapore and Spain, this book explores the intersections of racial and class privilege and gender vulnerabilities in contemporary feminized migration from or within ‘the West’.

Through an analysis of ‘white migration’, Catrin Lundström develops theoretical tools to understand the dynamics that shape the women’s lives as wealthy housewives, expatriate wives and lifestyle migrants. By shifting the gaze towards privileged migrants, Lundström illustrates how race shapes contemporary transnational migration and how white privilege is reproduced through family formation, expatriate geographies or ‘international communities’ in response to the shifting boundaries of whiteness in different national and regional settings.

Looking at how whiteness migrates through a transnational lens the book fills a gap in literature on race and migration, presenting some of the complexities of the current global power relations and the contextual variations that surround these.

The research project has resulted in the following publications
  • Lundström, Catrin (2019) Creating ‘International Communities’ in Southern Spain: Self-segregation and ‘Institutional Whiteness’ in Swedish Lifestyle Migration, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 22(5-6): 799-816.
  • Lundström, Catrin (2017) Embodying exoticism: Gendered Nuances of Hyper-Whiteness in the US, Scandinavian Studies, 89(2): 179-199
  • Lundström, Catrin (2014) White migrations: Gender, Whiteness and Privilege in Transnational Migration. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Lundström, Catrin (2013) Swedish Whiteness in Southern Spain, in France Winddance Twine and Bradley Gardener (eds), Geographies of Privilege. Routledge, pp. 191-203
  • Lundström, Catrin (2013) ”Maid” sökes. Live-in maids’ och skillnadsskapande praktiker i svenska migranthem i Singapore, i Gavanas, Anna och Catharina Calleman (red), Rena hem på smutsiga villkor? Göteborg: Makadam, pp. 107-126.
  • Joseph, Cynthia & Lundström, Catrin (2013) Introduction: Researching ‘transnational’ women, Women’s Studies International Forum, 36(1): 1-4.
  • Lundström, Catrin (2013) ‘Mistresses’ and ‘maids’ in transnational ‘contact zones’: Expatriate wives and the intersection of difference and intimacy in Swedish domestic spaces in Singapore, Women’s Studies International Forum, 36(1): 44-53.
  • Lundström, Catrin & France Winddance Twine (2011) White migrations. Swedish women, racial privileges and gender vulnerabilities. The European Journal of Women’s Studies,18(1): 67-86.
  • Lundström, Catrin (2010). White Ethnography. (Un)comfortable Conveniences and Shared Privileges in Fieldwork with Swedish Migrant Women. NORA, Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research. 18(2): 70–86.
  • Lundström, Catrin (2010) Transnationell vithet: Svenska migrantkvinnor i USA och Singapore. TGV. Tidskrift för genusvetenskap, Tema: Vithet, nr. 1–2: 23–45.
  • Lundström, Catrin (2010) Women with Class. Swedish migrant women’s class positions in the USA, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 31(1): 49-63.

Project: Three phases of hegemonic whiteness: Understanding racial temporalities

This project offers an historicized account of three phases and moments of hegemonic whiteness in Sweden, namely the white purity period between 1905-1968, the white solidarity period between 1968-2001 and the white melancholy period from 2001 and onwards, and their interrelation with different racial formations and minority discourses, class structures and gender relations, as well as different political ideologies and affective structures that characterise these three periods.

The argument is that Sweden at the present moment is subjected to the double-binding power of Swedish whiteness in the sense that the disappearance of “old Sweden”, that is Sweden as a racially homogeneous nation, and the passing of “good Sweden”, that is Sweden as a politically progressive nation, are both perceived to be threatened by the presence of people of colour within the Swedish body politic and state territory. Consequently, both the reactionary and racist camp, and the radical and antiracist camp, are affected by and implicated in the contemporary crisis of Swedish whiteness.

The research project has resulted in the following publications
  • Hübinette, Tobias & Catrin Lundström (forthcoming) Melancholia in Times of Crisis: A Historicized Analysis of Hegemonic Whiteness in Sweden, in Andreassen, Rikke. Suvi Keskinen, Catrin Lundström and Shirley Anne Tate. The Routledge Handbook of New Critical Race and Whiteness Studies. London: Routledge.
  • Lundström, Catrin & Tobias Hübinette (2020) Vit melankoli. En analys av en nation i kris. Göteborg: Makadam.
  • Lundström, Catrin och Tobias Hübinette, Vit melankoli i en krisande nation, Arena Essä. Dagens Arena. 2020-02-16.
  • Hübinette, Tobias & Catrin Lundström (2014) Three phases of hegemonic whiteness: understanding racial temporalities in Sweden. Social Identities, 20(6): 423-437.
  • Hübinette, Tobias & Catrin Lundström (2014) Three phases of Swedish whiteness. A white nation in crisis. In Veronica Watson, Deirdre Howard-Wagner, and Lisa Spanierman (eds) Unveiling Whiteness in the 21st Century: Global Manifestations, Transdisciplinary Interventions. Lexington Books, pp. 49-74.
  • Hübinette, Tobias & Catrin Lundström (2011) Sweden after the recent election: The double-binding power of Swedish whiteness through the mourning of the loss of ‘old Sweden’ and the passing of ‘good Sweden’. NORA, Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 19(1): 42–52.
  • Hübinette, Tobias and Catrin Lundström (2012) La mélancolie blanche ou comment pleurer la ’bonne vieille Suède’, La Revue Nouvelle, vol 66, nr 2, pp. 10–13.
  • Hübinette, Tobias and Catrin Lundström (2011) White melancholia and Swedish whiteness: The mourning of the loss of “Old Sweden” and the passing of “Good Sweden”, Eurozine, 2011-10-18.

Project: Re-integrating Swedishness: The Politics of Belonging among returning Swedish migrant women

How do Swedish migrants re-negotiate national identity upon returning to their ‘home’ country?

This project investigates re-constructions of national identity and processes of re-integration among Swedish migrant women after returning to Sweden.

Statistics show that most Swedes living abroad choose to return to Sweden, a fact that makes them the single largest immigrant group to Sweden. Among Swedes who emigrate to Asia, the absolute majority returns within a couple of years, but fewer do so from the UK and the US.

What are the gendered implications of Swedish return migration? In what ways has migration impacted on the women’s working lives and family relations? What are the theoretical implications of Swedish return migration in understanding concepts of home, belonging and national identity? Special attention is directed at the women’s views on gender equality. Have their views on Sweden’s cultural and political projects on gender equality and social egalitarianism changed? From their perspectives, how has the Swedish society changed during their time abroad?

The project “Re-integrating Swedishness: the politics of belonging among returning Swedish migrant women” was financed by the Swedish Research Council, dnr. 421-2013-900.

The project has resulted in the following publications
  • Lundström, Catrin (forthcoming), Att tala med färgblindheten: Retoriska strategier och semantiska manövrar i återvändande svenska kvinnors berättelser om ras- och vithetsrelaterade erfarenheter.
  • Lundström, Catrin (2021) When the Expatriate Wife Returns Home: Swedish Women Navigating National Welfare Politics and Ideals of Gender Equality in Expatriate Family Migration. In Migration to and from Welfare States. Lived Experiences of the Welfare–Migration Nexus in a Globalised World. IMISCOE Research Series, Springer.
  • Lundström, Catrin (2019) White Women. White Nation. White Cosmopolitanism: Swedish women between the national and the global, NORA Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 7(2): 96-111.
  • Lundström, Catrin (2018) Hemmafru hemma: återvändande migrantkvinnors möte med svenska jämställdhetsnormer i politik och praktik, Sociologisk Forskning, 55(2–3): 389–414.
  • Lundström, Catrin (2018) Icke/vit migration: Reflektioner över ras, medborgarskap och tillhörighet i en svensk kontext, i Hübinette, T & A. Wasniowski (red), Studier om Rasism. Arx Förlag, pp. 273-301.
  • Lundström, Catrin (2017) The white side of migration: reflections on race, belonging and migration in Sweden. Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 7(2): 79-87.

Publications

Books in selection

Book cover with a photo of hills and a river.
Rikke Andreassen, Catrin Lundström, Suvi Keskinen, Shirley Anne Tate (Editorship) (2024)
The Routledge International Handbook of New Critical Race and Whiteness Studies
bookcover.
Tobias Hübinette, Catrin Lundström, Peter Wikström (2023)
Race in Sweden: Racism and Antiracism in the World's First 'Colourblind' Nation
Bookcover.
Catrin Lundström (2014)
White migrations: Gender, Whitenss and Privilege in Transnational Migration

2026

Catrin Lundström (2026) Robin eller Vilma? Parabol, Vol. 1 (Article in journal)
Catrin Lundström (2026) Politisera inte sociologin - då hotas dess kritiska roll. Tidningen Curie (Article in journal)

2025

Catrin Lundström (2025) Antirasismens vita fläckar Parabol, Vol. 12 (Article in journal)
Catrin Lundström, Tobias Hübinette (2025) Ras och kön i tider av vit melankoli: Texter i urval (Book)
Catrin Lundström (2025) DN Debatt. "Vem ska våga säga sanningen om tvärvetenskap?" Dagens Nyheter (Article in journal)
Catrin Lundström (2025) Hot mot den akademiska friheten måste tas på allvar. Universitetsläraren, Vol. 9, p. 42-43 (Article in journal)
Catrin Lundström (2025) Kosmopolitisk svenskhet mellan det nationella och det globala Kulturella perspektiv - Svensk etnologisk tidskrift, Vol. 34 (Article in journal) https://dx.doi.org/10.54807/kp.v34.44506
Catrin Lundström (2025) Vem ska göra revolution? Arbetaren, Vol. 48 (Article in journal)

Research networks

IMISCOE

IMISCOE Standing Committee Gender, migration and transnational lives is Europe's largest network of scholars in the area of migration and integration.

White Spaces network

The White Spaces network, Leeds University, UK is an international interdisciplinary network of scholars, activists, students and practitioners who share an interest in issues of whiteness in the context of global racialised power dynamics.

Lifestyle Migration Hub

Lifestyle Migration Hub, an international research network.

Organisation

Migration camp

Division of Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO)

REMESO pursues research and education on transnational migration, ethnic diversity and citizenship in relation to changes in labour and welfare.

Department of Culture and Society (IKOS)

At the Department of Culture and Society (IKOS), social sciences and the humanities gather in environments where research and education work together.
Groups of students at tables in Studenthuset

Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FILFAK)

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences provides education and research in humanities, social- and behavioral sciences, commercial law, art disciplines and thematic science.