Suvi Keskinen
Biographic Data
| ID | 305899 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Suvi Keskinen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Suvi |
| FAMILY NAME | Keskinen |
| SIGNATURE | KESKINEN S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Turku |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6174-9216 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 206 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Legalism, national ideals and the contested morality of racial profiling in border checks
In this paper, we ask how Finnish border guards present and legitimize profiling practices in border checks at the external Schengen border. Through a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with border guards and observation of their basic training, we demonstrate how a pervasive nationalized ideal of legalism, coupled with the formulation of the ban on ethnic profiling in Finnish legislation, allows for a narrow definition of ethnic pro…
Institutional racism, inclusivity and colour-blindness in the Finnish police
Race, bordering and disobedient knowledge: Activism and everyday struggles in Europe
The Routledge International Handbook of New Critical Race and Whiteness Studies
Since its foundation as an academic field in the 1990s, critical race theory has developed enormously and has, among others, been supplemented by and (dis)integrated with critical whiteness studies. At the same time, the field has moved beyond its origins in Anglo-Saxon environments, to be taken up and re-developed in various parts of the world – leading to not only new empirical material but also new theoretical perspectives and analytical appro…
Mobilising the Racialised 'Others': Postethnic Activism, Neoliberalisation and Racial Politics
This book provides an original approach to the connections of race, racism and neoliberalisation through a focus on ‘postethnic activism,’ in which mobilisation is based on racialisation as non-white or ‘other’ instead of ethnic group membership. Developing the theoretical understanding of political activism under the neoliberal turn in racial capitalism and the increasingly hostile political environment towards migrants and racialised minorities…
Racial profiling in the racial welfare state: Examining the order of policing in the Nordic region
This article builds on two interview studies on racial profiling conducted in Finland and Sweden. It examines policing practices in order to elaborate on the understanding of what we define as the ‘racial welfare state’. The analysis draws attention to the ways that bordering practices reproduce racial orders, within and beyond the nation-state. The embeddedness of the Nordic region in the western sphere, with its colonial legacies, is highlighte…
Undoing Homogeneity in the Nordic Region: Migration, Difference, and the Politics of Solidarity
Developing the idea famously set out by W. E. B. Du Bois, Stuart Hall suggested that living with difference would be the problem of the twenty-first century. Instances all across the world provide evidence of this and this insightful book, centred on the Nordic countries, adds powerfully to a body of critical scholarship on race and ethnicity that shows how entangled they are within repressed histories of internal and external colonisation and im…
Narrations of homogeneity, waning welfare states, and the politics of solidarity
This chapter introduces the book’s critical approach to the narratives of cultural homogeneity and social cohesion that are usually taken for granted in the understandings of societal security in the Nordic region. Through historical analyses, the contributions show how the idea of exceptional cultural homogeneity was developed through activities by social scientists, nationalist politicians, journalists, and cultural actors, among others. The pr…
Intra-Nordic Differences, Colonial/Racial Histories, and National Narratives: Rewriting Finnish History
Intra-Nordic Differences, Colonial/Racial Histories, and National Narratives: Rewriting Finnish History
The role of the Nordic region in European and global colonialism has only recently become the subject of wider scholarly work. In the public sphere, discussions of Nordic histories have been characterized by what [Gloria Wekker (2016)][1] calls “white innocence”—ignorance and denial of
Commitments and contradictions: Linking Violence, Parenthood and Professionalism
Securitized Intimacies, Welfare State and the “Other” Family
Analyzing policy documents that aim to tackle violence in minority families, the article examines how normativities related to family, ethnicity, and race are created and challenged. The article develops an analysis of how neoliberal governmentality operates in two Nordic welfare societies. It shows how the governing of ethnicized and racialized minority families is built on three logics: the normalizing family, normative (liberal) individuality,…
The ‘crisis’ of white hegemony, neonationalist femininities and antiracist feminism
The rise of neonationalist politics and racist activism has characterised many European countries in recent years. Moreover, there is a growing public focus on gendered and sexualised intimacies. These two tendencies have increasingly intertwined and sexual violence has become a site for struggles over feminist and (anti)racist politics. The article examines what I call the ‘crisis’ of white hegemony arising in the aftermath of the arrival of a l…
The social control of young women's clothing and bodies: A perspective of differences on racialization and sexualization
Public discourses and culturalist research often present patriarchal social control as the key element of minority youth's family relations. They focus on conflicts related to young women's sexual reputation when discussing Muslims and nonwestern minorities. Social control is often connected to honor-related violence and applied to assumptions of how young women are oppressed by their family members. In this article, we problematize such a connec…
Developing Theoretical Perspectives on Racialisation and Migration
Complying With Colonialism: Gender, Race and Ethnicity in the Nordic Region
Contents: Introduction: postcolonialism and the Nordic models of welfare and gender, Diana Mulinari, Suvi Keskinen, Sari Irni and Salla Tuori Part I Postcolonial Histories/Postcolonial Presents: Colonial complicity: the 'postcolonial' in a Nordic context, Ulla Vuorela The Nordic colonial mind, Mai Palmberg The flipside of my passport: myths of origin and genealogy of white supremacy in the mediated social genetic imaginary, Bolette B. Blaagaard T…
Intergenerational negotiations on (hetero)sexuality and romantic relationships – views of young people and parents in multi-ethnic contexts
This article focuses on intergenerational negotiations on young people’s (13–19 years) sexuality and romantic relationships in families where one or both of the parents have migrated to Finland. By utilising the theoretical framework of intersectionality and negotiability of family relationships, we seek to diversify the often problem-oriented and culture-related examinations of ethnic minority families and young people’s position in them. Method…
The politics and policies of welfare chauvinism under the economic crisis
The ongoing economic crisis that emerged in the wake of the global recession in 2008, and was followed by the more recent crisis of the Eurozone, has introduced new themes and remoulded old ways of approaching the welfare state, immigration, national belonging and racism in Northern Europe. This article identifies two main ways of understanding welfare chauvinism: 1) as a broad concept that covers all sorts of claims and policies to reserve welfa…
From welfare nationalism to welfare chauvinism: Economic rhetoric, the welfare state and changing asylum policies in Finland
The article analyses the role and effects of economic cost and welfare state arguments in Finnish immigration politics and policies. It argues for a need to distinguish between welfare nationalist, welfare chauvinist and welfare exclusionist discourses. Through an examination of the immigration programmes of the political parties and parliamentary debates and policy documents mapping the changes in asylum policy in 2009–2011, the article shows th…
Re-constructing the peaceful nation: Negotiating meanings of whiteness, immigration and Islam after a shopping mall shooting
In many European countries, gendered violence has become a topic frequently used to construct distinctions and hierarchies on the basis of ‘race’ and ethnicity. Focusing on the media coverage and political debates following the shootings at a Finnish shopping mall on New Year's Eve 2010, when a former Kosovan refugee killed his ex-girlfriend, four other people and himself, the article analyses the negotiation of difference and the shifting proces…
Antifeminism and White Identity Politics: Political antagonisms in radical right-wing populist and anti-immigration rhetoric in Finland
This article analyses how gendered, racialised and classed antagonisms are created in texts by radical right-wing populists and intellectuals connected to the anti-immigration movement and the antifeminist men's rights movement in Finland. The studied rhetoric focuses on the reproduction of the 'white nation' as part of the endangered 'Western civilisation'; a feminism 'gone too far' and shifts in heterosexual power relations in the postcolonial …
Limits to Speech? The Racialised Politics of Gendered Violence in Denmark and Finland
The ‘crisis of multiculturalism’ discourse characterises the current political and media debates in many European countries. This paper analyses how liberal arguments, especially gender equality and freedom of speech, are used to promote nationalist and racialising political agendas in Denmark and Finland. It detects the powerful emergence of a nationalist rhetoric, based on the ‘politics of reversal’ and a re-articulation of liberal notions, in …
Troublesome Differences—Dealing with Gendered Violence, Ethnicity, and ‘Race’ in the Finnish Welfare State
Forced marriages, honour-related violence, and violence in transnational marriages have been the focus of public interest in the Nordic welfare states for over a decade. The article analyses how authorities and welfare practitioners discuss differences, ‘race’, ethnicity, and gendered violence in families in this sometimes controversial societal setting. Based on 35 interviews with representatives of the police, social work, shelter movement, and…
New Trends in Research Funding—Threat or Opportunity for Interdisciplinary Gender Research
Both at Nordic and European level, public research funding is taking new forms. In this article we identify some new trends and ask which consequences they could have for interdisciplinary research, especially for studies on gender. Based on data gathered in an on‐going EU research project on interdisciplinarity and the integration of Humanities and the Social Sciences, we discuss the Nordic situation in comparison to some European countries whic…
Undoing Homogeneity in the Nordic Region
This book critically engages with dominant ideas of cultural homogeneity in the Nordic countries and contests the notion of homogeneity as a crucial determinant of social cohesion and societal security. Showing how national identities in the Nordic region have developed historically around notions of cultural and racial homogeneity, it exposes the varied histories of migration and the longstanding presence of ethnic minorities and indigenous peop…
From welfare nationalism to welfare chauvinism: Economic rhetoric, the welfare state and changing asylum policies in Finland
The article analyses the role and effects of economic cost and welfare state arguments in Finnish immigration politics and policies. It argues for a need to distinguish between welfare nationalist, welfare chauvinist and welfare exclusionist discourses. Through an examination of the immigration programmes of the political parties and parliamentary debates and policy documents mapping the changes in asylum policy in 2009–2011, the article shows th…
Antifeminism and White Identity Politics: Political antagonisms in radical right-wing populist and anti-immigration rhetoric in Finland
This article analyses how gendered, racialised and classed antagonisms are created in texts by radical right-wing populists and intellectuals connected to the anti-immigration movement and the antifeminist men's rights movement in Finland. The studied rhetoric focuses on the reproduction of the 'white nation' as part of the endangered 'Western civilisation'; a feminism 'gone too far' and shifts in heterosexual power relations in the postcolonial …
The ‘crisis’ of white hegemony, neonationalist femininities and antiracist feminism
The rise of neonationalist politics and racist activism has characterised many European countries in recent years. Moreover, there is a growing public focus on gendered and sexualised intimacies. These two tendencies have increasingly intertwined and sexual violence has become a site for struggles over feminist and (anti)racist politics. The article examines what I call the ‘crisis’ of white hegemony arising in the aftermath of the arrival of a l…
The politics and policies of welfare chauvinism under the economic crisis
The ongoing economic crisis that emerged in the wake of the global recession in 2008, and was followed by the more recent crisis of the Eurozone, has introduced new themes and remoulded old ways of approaching the welfare state, immigration, national belonging and racism in Northern Europe. This article identifies two main ways of understanding welfare chauvinism: 1) as a broad concept that covers all sorts of claims and policies to reserve welfa…
Racial profiling in the racial welfare state: Examining the order of policing in the Nordic region
This article builds on two interview studies on racial profiling conducted in Finland and Sweden. It examines policing practices in order to elaborate on the understanding of what we define as the ‘racial welfare state’. The analysis draws attention to the ways that bordering practices reproduce racial orders, within and beyond the nation-state. The embeddedness of the Nordic region in the western sphere, with its colonial legacies, is highlighte…
The social control of young women's clothing and bodies: A perspective of differences on racialization and sexualization
Public discourses and culturalist research often present patriarchal social control as the key element of minority youth's family relations. They focus on conflicts related to young women's sexual reputation when discussing Muslims and nonwestern minorities. Social control is often connected to honor-related violence and applied to assumptions of how young women are oppressed by their family members. In this article, we problematize such a connec…
Developing Theoretical Perspectives on Racialisation and Migration
Re-constructing the peaceful nation: Negotiating meanings of whiteness, immigration and Islam after a shopping mall shooting
In many European countries, gendered violence has become a topic frequently used to construct distinctions and hierarchies on the basis of ‘race’ and ethnicity. Focusing on the media coverage and political debates following the shootings at a Finnish shopping mall on New Year's Eve 2010, when a former Kosovan refugee killed his ex-girlfriend, four other people and himself, the article analyses the negotiation of difference and the shifting proces…
Limits to Speech? The Racialised Politics of Gendered Violence in Denmark and Finland
The ‘crisis of multiculturalism’ discourse characterises the current political and media debates in many European countries. This paper analyses how liberal arguments, especially gender equality and freedom of speech, are used to promote nationalist and racialising political agendas in Denmark and Finland. It detects the powerful emergence of a nationalist rhetoric, based on the ‘politics of reversal’ and a re-articulation of liberal notions, in …
Intra-Nordic Differences, Colonial/Racial Histories, and National Narratives: Rewriting Finnish History
The role of the Nordic region in European and global colonialism has only recently become the subject of wider scholarly work. In the public sphere, discussions of Nordic histories have been characterized by what [Gloria Wekker (2016)][1] calls “white innocence”—ignorance and denial of
Intra-Nordic Differences, Colonial/Racial Histories, and National Narratives: Rewriting Finnish History
Securitized Intimacies, Welfare State and the “Other” Family
Analyzing policy documents that aim to tackle violence in minority families, the article examines how normativities related to family, ethnicity, and race are created and challenged. The article develops an analysis of how neoliberal governmentality operates in two Nordic welfare societies. It shows how the governing of ethnicized and racialized minority families is built on three logics: the normalizing family, normative (liberal) individuality,…
Intergenerational negotiations on (hetero)sexuality and romantic relationships – views of young people and parents in multi-ethnic contexts
This article focuses on intergenerational negotiations on young people’s (13–19 years) sexuality and romantic relationships in families where one or both of the parents have migrated to Finland. By utilising the theoretical framework of intersectionality and negotiability of family relationships, we seek to diversify the often problem-oriented and culture-related examinations of ethnic minority families and young people’s position in them. Method…
Institutional racism, inclusivity and colour-blindness in the Finnish police
Tackling men’s violence in families: Nordic issues and dilemmas
Nordic countries are generally regarded as global welfare role models in terms of their image of being gender equal, child-friendly and culturally tolerant. Consequently, the influence of Nordic welfare systems in transnational academic and policy debates has been immense. By focusing on the vital welfare issue of violence by men to female partners and/or their children, this book seeks to reconsider this over-simplistic image. Drawing on new res…
Tackling men's violence in families: Nordic issues and dilemmas
New Trends in Research Funding—Threat or Opportunity for Interdisciplinary Gender Research
Both at Nordic and European level, public research funding is taking new forms. In this article we identify some new trends and ask which consequences they could have for interdisciplinary research, especially for studies on gender. Based on data gathered in an on‐going EU research project on interdisciplinarity and the integration of Humanities and the Social Sciences, we discuss the Nordic situation in comparison to some European countries whic…
Troublesome Differences—Dealing with Gendered Violence, Ethnicity, and ‘Race’ in the Finnish Welfare State
Forced marriages, honour-related violence, and violence in transnational marriages have been the focus of public interest in the Nordic welfare states for over a decade. The article analyses how authorities and welfare practitioners discuss differences, ‘race’, ethnicity, and gendered violence in families in this sometimes controversial societal setting. Based on 35 interviews with representatives of the police, social work, shelter movement, and…
Limits to Speech? The Racialised Politics of Gendered Violence in Denmark and Finland
The ‘crisis of multiculturalism’ discourse characterises the current political and media debates in many European countries. This paper analyses how liberal arguments, especially gender equality and freedom of speech, are used to promote nationalist and racialising political agendas in Denmark and Finland. It detects the powerful emergence of a nationalist rhetoric, based on the ‘politics of reversal’ and a re-articulation of liberal notions, in …
Antifeminism and White Identity Politics: Political antagonisms in radical right-wing populist and anti-immigration rhetoric in Finland
This article analyses how gendered, racialised and classed antagonisms are created in texts by radical right-wing populists and intellectuals connected to the anti-immigration movement and the antifeminist men's rights movement in Finland. The studied rhetoric focuses on the reproduction of the 'white nation' as part of the endangered 'Western civilisation'; a feminism 'gone too far' and shifts in heterosexual power relations in the postcolonial …
Re-constructing the peaceful nation: Negotiating meanings of whiteness, immigration and Islam after a shopping mall shooting
In many European countries, gendered violence has become a topic frequently used to construct distinctions and hierarchies on the basis of ‘race’ and ethnicity. Focusing on the media coverage and political debates following the shootings at a Finnish shopping mall on New Year's Eve 2010, when a former Kosovan refugee killed his ex-girlfriend, four other people and himself, the article analyses the negotiation of difference and the shifting proces…
Complying With Colonialism: Gender, Race and Ethnicity in the Nordic Region
Contents: Introduction: postcolonialism and the Nordic models of welfare and gender, Diana Mulinari, Suvi Keskinen, Sari Irni and Salla Tuori Part I Postcolonial Histories/Postcolonial Presents: Colonial complicity: the 'postcolonial' in a Nordic context, Ulla Vuorela The Nordic colonial mind, Mai Palmberg The flipside of my passport: myths of origin and genealogy of white supremacy in the mediated social genetic imaginary, Bolette B. Blaagaard T…
Intergenerational negotiations on (hetero)sexuality and romantic relationships – views of young people and parents in multi-ethnic contexts
This article focuses on intergenerational negotiations on young people’s (13–19 years) sexuality and romantic relationships in families where one or both of the parents have migrated to Finland. By utilising the theoretical framework of intersectionality and negotiability of family relationships, we seek to diversify the often problem-oriented and culture-related examinations of ethnic minority families and young people’s position in them. Method…
The politics and policies of welfare chauvinism under the economic crisis
The ongoing economic crisis that emerged in the wake of the global recession in 2008, and was followed by the more recent crisis of the Eurozone, has introduced new themes and remoulded old ways of approaching the welfare state, immigration, national belonging and racism in Northern Europe. This article identifies two main ways of understanding welfare chauvinism: 1) as a broad concept that covers all sorts of claims and policies to reserve welfa…
From welfare nationalism to welfare chauvinism: Economic rhetoric, the welfare state and changing asylum policies in Finland
The article analyses the role and effects of economic cost and welfare state arguments in Finnish immigration politics and policies. It argues for a need to distinguish between welfare nationalist, welfare chauvinist and welfare exclusionist discourses. Through an examination of the immigration programmes of the political parties and parliamentary debates and policy documents mapping the changes in asylum policy in 2009–2011, the article shows th…
Securitized Intimacies, Welfare State and the “Other” Family
Analyzing policy documents that aim to tackle violence in minority families, the article examines how normativities related to family, ethnicity, and race are created and challenged. The article develops an analysis of how neoliberal governmentality operates in two Nordic welfare societies. It shows how the governing of ethnicized and racialized minority families is built on three logics: the normalizing family, normative (liberal) individuality,…
The ‘crisis’ of white hegemony, neonationalist femininities and antiracist feminism
The rise of neonationalist politics and racist activism has characterised many European countries in recent years. Moreover, there is a growing public focus on gendered and sexualised intimacies. These two tendencies have increasingly intertwined and sexual violence has become a site for struggles over feminist and (anti)racist politics. The article examines what I call the ‘crisis’ of white hegemony arising in the aftermath of the arrival of a l…
The social control of young women's clothing and bodies: A perspective of differences on racialization and sexualization
Public discourses and culturalist research often present patriarchal social control as the key element of minority youth's family relations. They focus on conflicts related to young women's sexual reputation when discussing Muslims and nonwestern minorities. Social control is often connected to honor-related violence and applied to assumptions of how young women are oppressed by their family members. In this article, we problematize such a connec…
Developing Theoretical Perspectives on Racialisation and Migration
Commitments and contradictions: Linking Violence, Parenthood and Professionalism
Undoing Homogeneity in the Nordic Region: Migration, Difference, and the Politics of Solidarity
Developing the idea famously set out by W. E. B. Du Bois, Stuart Hall suggested that living with difference would be the problem of the twenty-first century. Instances all across the world provide evidence of this and this insightful book, centred on the Nordic countries, adds powerfully to a body of critical scholarship on race and ethnicity that shows how entangled they are within repressed histories of internal and external colonisation and im…
Narrations of homogeneity, waning welfare states, and the politics of solidarity
This chapter introduces the book’s critical approach to the narratives of cultural homogeneity and social cohesion that are usually taken for granted in the understandings of societal security in the Nordic region. Through historical analyses, the contributions show how the idea of exceptional cultural homogeneity was developed through activities by social scientists, nationalist politicians, journalists, and cultural actors, among others. The pr…
Intra-Nordic Differences, Colonial/Racial Histories, and National Narratives: Rewriting Finnish History
Intra-Nordic Differences, Colonial/Racial Histories, and National Narratives: Rewriting Finnish History
The role of the Nordic region in European and global colonialism has only recently become the subject of wider scholarly work. In the public sphere, discussions of Nordic histories have been characterized by what [Gloria Wekker (2016)][1] calls “white innocence”—ignorance and denial of
Racial profiling in the racial welfare state: Examining the order of policing in the Nordic region
This article builds on two interview studies on racial profiling conducted in Finland and Sweden. It examines policing practices in order to elaborate on the understanding of what we define as the ‘racial welfare state’. The analysis draws attention to the ways that bordering practices reproduce racial orders, within and beyond the nation-state. The embeddedness of the Nordic region in the western sphere, with its colonial legacies, is highlighte…
Mobilising the Racialised 'Others': Postethnic Activism, Neoliberalisation and Racial Politics
This book provides an original approach to the connections of race, racism and neoliberalisation through a focus on ‘postethnic activism,’ in which mobilisation is based on racialisation as non-white or ‘other’ instead of ethnic group membership. Developing the theoretical understanding of political activism under the neoliberal turn in racial capitalism and the increasingly hostile political environment towards migrants and racialised minorities…
The Routledge International Handbook of New Critical Race and Whiteness Studies
Since its foundation as an academic field in the 1990s, critical race theory has developed enormously and has, among others, been supplemented by and (dis)integrated with critical whiteness studies. At the same time, the field has moved beyond its origins in Anglo-Saxon environments, to be taken up and re-developed in various parts of the world – leading to not only new empirical material but also new theoretical perspectives and analytical appro…
Race, bordering and disobedient knowledge: Activism and everyday struggles in Europe
Undoing Homogeneity in the Nordic Region
This book critically engages with dominant ideas of cultural homogeneity in the Nordic countries and contests the notion of homogeneity as a crucial determinant of social cohesion and societal security. Showing how national identities in the Nordic region have developed historically around notions of cultural and racial homogeneity, it exposes the varied histories of migration and the longstanding presence of ethnic minorities and indigenous peop…
Sociology (20 works) · Political science (16 works) · Gender Studies (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (11 works) · Politics (11 works) · Gender Politics and Representation (8 works) · Welfare (8 works) · History (7 works) · Welfare state (7 works)