PhD student
My research is based in the field of Critical Whiteness Studies. I am mainly interested in how whiteness is constituted as a normative and – in Sara Ahmed’s words – worldly position in Sweden today in relation to questions of race, racism and antiracism.
Sweden is of particular interest in terms of whiteness because of its solidified exceptional status, regarding questions of equality, within and outside of the country. Due to a number of reasons – the success of anti-immigration party Sverigedemokraterna being the most apparent – the Swedish exceptionality is becoming more unstable and antiracism cannot without at least some difficulty be claimed as the hegemonic stance. In this situation, whiteness as identity becomes a practical and discursive obstacle. I am interested in understanding how the obstacle of whiteness is negotiated – both explicitly and implicitly – in relation to anti-racism as work and language.
Furthermore, I am interested in studying the different ways in which class intersects with race in the constitution of normative whiteness and normative antiracism. There is a tension, sometimes declared and sometimes not, within parts of the Swedish anti-racist movements and the left, where class becomes a point of conflict. My study will aim to develop the understanding of the role of class, as a category of experience and a theoretical problem, within anti-racist practice and discourse.
