Approaching Texts of Not-Quiteness

In her essay “Språkrör mellan olika världar” (2011), Swedish author Susanna Alakoski writes about the history of Finnish migration to Sweden and about feeling both shame and pride concerning her Finnish heritage. The essay was republished in a collection Finnjävlar (2016),3 which compiles texts by various Swedish authors with Finnish heritage. Most of the authors, similarly to Alakoski, articulate an experience of being invisible in Sweden. By invisible, they mean that due to shared somatic features and a long cultural history, they can often pass as white Swedes, while they still experience derogatory attitudes and discrimination based on their Finnish background. Although the majority of Finnish-speakers have been identified as white, in the pseudoscientific race biology of the early twentieth century in Sweden, they were categorized as an inferior race, the “Eastern Baltic race,” which contributed to their representations in the Swedish cultural imaginary as inferior and less civilized. Thus, while invisible in their ability to pass as Swedes, the Finnish-speakers have also been made visible throughout history as being slightly different than Swedes. What Alakoski seems to be most concerned about in her essay is articulating a different kind of invisibility, namely, that of the troubling experiences of the Finnish migrants to Sweden in the second half of the twentieth century. She refers to scholarship and public debates regarding migration that are often misinformed in using the word “invandrare” “immigrant” as only non-white and that have, as she sees it, forgotten the history of Finnish migration (Alakoski 2011).4 In order to address that concern, she describes what looks like a hierarchy of visibility of different migrants in Sweden. Alakoski does not use the word “race” in her essay, instead wondering about the different attitudes regarding ethnicity, even though she implies that the non-white Swede from Afghanistan is somehow “more migrant” than the other two groups of white people, Swedes with a Finnish background, and Swedes with a Polish background, in Sweden. The question of whether her Polish friends were treated similarly to her remains hanging in the air—as does the question of race and whiteness—and she does not return to it in the essay.Alakoski's essay is ultimately about how the experiences of Finnish-speakers in Sweden have changed over the years. Her incorporation of the person of color in Sweden to express concern about how both the historically racialized white migrants and their racialization have not been fully acknowledged in the dominant culture, however, raises some questions. Why separate these three groups of migrants? What does it ultimately mean that she would like to receive the question about where she comes from? Alakoski's rhetorical move is indicative of a similar move in a variety of literary and cinematic texts about intra-Nordic migration/minorities, some of which I analyze in this article, primarily focusing on examples regarding Finnish and Tornedalian speakers in Sweden. Often, these accounts grapple with traumatic and complicated memories of (semi-)colonial history (Sweden has in different ways been the colonizer of Finland and continues to colonize the Sápmi lands) and racialization, but they also include moments that contribute to racialized hierarchies. These are multidirectional hierarchies in that the intra-Nordic migrants/minorities see themselves as having less visibility and, therefore, agency within the dominant society than migrants of color, but at the same time, distance themselves from them as well as from other white migrants/minorities who have historically been seen as not quite as white either.This article argues that several Nordic authors and filmmakers of the early twenty-first century depict and incorporate racialized hierarchies in their attempts to make visible the experiences of not quite belonging caused by colonial and racial history. In doing that, I draw on scholarship that intersects postcolonial and critical race theories in the European and Nordic context. In her analysis on Russian-speaking migrants’ efforts to pass as white in Finland, Daria Krivonos (2020), for example, argues that Finland represents for Russian-speakers (who have throughout history been othered in the eyes of Western Europeans) Europeanness that “must be understood as a postcolonial formation of whiteness, with internal hierarchies and symbolic geographies that distinguish between Western Europe as Europe proper, and Europe's ‘incomplete self,’ Eastern Europe” (389). Like other scholarly discussions on the representations of Eastern Europeans as not quite as white as Western Europeans, Krivonos brings out the crucial impact that postcolonial Europe also has on its peripheral countries and people. It is during the colonial history that Western-ness became with whiteness, which that not with was as not white not quite as The of this have not and they to in the postcolonial an often as often and invisible in the Nordic to of Western-ness and are for Nordic at on of color in the Nordic countries to and are often not as of the Nordic even they were It also the of on the of Western-ness to and be as fully and, on the literary and cinematic of intra-Nordic about and in in with these but it looks at crucial namely, the and colonial history of these groups of people, which to the that include a postcolonial formation of as a article primarily how cultural and texts of the early twenty-first century in Sweden articulate and the experiences of what I Nordic seen and as but not quite white, and, therefore, this to how a variety of literary and cinematic in the Nordic the of racial hierarchies. in is a at the that has in these the on the history of Finnish migration to Sweden in the twentieth century not to be categorized as that the of Finnish-speakers as of the in Sweden in also to to other while examples in Sweden Finnish and that the racialization in the twentieth century for the most in the I about the that this history of racialization as still invisible, and the impact of that as that to the experience of Nordic both in the and in the the I how the of Nordic that from of race and can address the that Alakoski's essay I also analyze a of literary and cinematic texts that in the two of the twenty-first century articulate the memories and experiences of Sweden Finnish and Tornedalian in Sweden during the twentieth century. I the accounts and of being not quite quite white that this article from who are as white throughout history, they have been categorized as not quite Thus, the article also argues that that of of pride has a in and this intra-Nordic racialized and Nordic article about race and racialization in the Nordic in “race” as a and cultural that has impact on and and as that and racial and discrimination and based on color cultural often of and the of race is as brings in to both the of color in the Nordic countries and historically the internal who have at various of history been seen as not quite white has also been for scholarly that the ways in which race as a has in Sweden, for example, been by that does not express the experiences of racialization and and as they that the of the second of in Sweden to race in the Nordic countries has been similar to the in Europe where with the of the has an that race is in the in the Nordic this is with the that the Nordic countries are and for example, argues that racial race in the of to to at and and but and but Sweden, this has the and regarding that with experiences of migration to Sweden. the that was long in Sweden has as a for non-white and of color is to her non-white is on various the of non-white Swedes as migrants even they were in Sweden, and it to the that authors like Alakoski who pass as white Swedes would not in this of by non-white even though they are also experiences of and derogatory attitudes migrants who at various in history have also been as not quite does not mean that Alakoski's has not been as a about migration history Sweden Finnish In that migration with and that Swedes (2011), Alakoski is not about the of scholarship on Sweden Finnish culture, but is instead the of race in about migration during the early in her analysis of race as a in argues that the discrimination and derogatory attitudes by in Sweden by in Finland also be while the ways in which these white with attitudes from their impact on the non-white this is a in refers to the racialization and of these two with as is in the texts that I analyze in this article, with the and attitudes in this history, is as a visible that as and even though are ways to that for example, how Russian-speaking migrants in Sweden various of their to not have of a and from the of which are to most Russian-speakers who are as is not to that is an between non-white as white and white as white, as it, but a that that the of a history of that the to a It is crucial to that in postcolonial where is still to it is for a white Russian-speaking to pass from to be a racialized not quite white Eastern European to a white Western Krivonos brings out from her with in doing that, they often distance themselves from of color, to the Western The to pass as Western European in the in the colonial that has othered and racialized Eastern of Eastern Europeans as quite in the of Western Europe is a for experiences and representations of Nordic of the colonial non-white in their and of the is the same but not for the of race and in postcolonial writes that the of is colonial on the that in who with the white and is from her on the racialized hierarchy in the European that has in Eastern Europeans as not quite She the as an of in the eyes of the European as they are not are also not quite as as By in refers to the of and history of Eastern European countries as well as their similar examples of Eastern Europeans in European as white the impact of colonial and postcolonial hierarchies within She writes that it is not for an Eastern European to both have a colonial history with its and in a postcolonial to the and, different postcolonial in a to of Europe and, the European The of these as well as the that most in these countries are white, a different from the same but not the is not visible be but is with the and to move fully white, as with the of that whiteness, of is also a and that its over time, as the of has I not in in of the of its and as I with like and who for the of how has been and in the which has groups of who have been seen as less white throughout history. for example, brings out that and to ethnicity, to a that a white formation has racial to In order to in the Nordic it is to both the that who are as white have and but also to as it, by of cultural distance from dominant colonial the accounts of intra-Nordic migrants and in the half of the Nordic the to dominant and to is crucial in both the experiences of being as not quite white and the of racialized hierarchies. In doing that, contribute to the scholarly on in the Nordic that include on the of in the of the of the Nordic as well as of different of can see the of hierarchies that are by and history in the Nordic in scholarship that looks at the intra-Nordic colonial and racial and on in the Nordic are two examples of that how Nordic racialized hierarchies are multidirectional and of an analysis on how were on the of racial hierarchies in the racial biology in Sweden, and how the racial of them in the twentieth century. She also that the between Finland and Sweden be postcolonial at while the colonial between Finland and the Sápmi that between Sweden and the Sápmi is still The history of Sweden as the over both Finland and Sápmi and of and as less and inferior to Swedes by the of the twentieth also not quite was by various in and race In the were as being of as of the people. that were the race and with the race biology theories of the to the in Sweden this and instead a of the inferior to the Nordic race, that were in Finland, and The to these to an with Sweden from the of and, a during Sweden in the twentieth century other Western European countries in to their in the The of the to from to It also a regarding race and in Sweden that, as scholarship brings Finland in of the Sápmi its its and racial became in an an a Europeanness that was as argues that was still in white Western during the the of Finland as a not quite not quite white, and, therefore, not quite Nordic still in the this was caused by its to and Eastern Europe caused racial regarding and Eastern Europeans in Finland and other Nordic with regarding non-white texts about intra-Nordic migrants and in Sweden often an experience of Nordic as a of racialization that was in the of the of the Nordic I Nordic a that refers both to in a postcolonial and to as a that is to be a to cultural texts that articulate racialized within these with the on the representations and experiences of Eastern Europeans in Nordic and what is to the cultural texts in this article are the of the and of and to the dominant Swedish visible these of is a to not pass as a but to be acknowledged and as a who is as and as the a from who are not white who are with the not quite of Eastern Europeans who are seen as and the same time, it also often an to to of color in order to visibility and distance from the of white What Alakoski's is the between the of and the experiences of in the Nordic In order to address the of where the to pass and both as a and an of traumatic Alakoski's essay a racialized hierarchy that to make visible but it also to of Nordic as a to the of migrants and as by multidirectional and traumatic which for a of the and that Europe the twentieth were often in Swedish and as and less civilized. example, were in Swedish of the and as has In her on in Swedish she however, that in Swedish be as and but they are also a Nordic with the Swedish a and cultural does not on this out the regarding the hierarchies of and in the Nordic In that, her as of the ways in which the of migration that is to and invisible while the not quite white are at as and on Sweden Finnish and have the representations of the complicated of Sweden focusing both on of migration during the of migration in the and and on the between migrants to an in Sweden in argues in her analysis on the of two by authors in Sweden that the of Finnish migrants in Sweden has changed from the experience of to as the migrants from Nordic countries have not been categorized as migrants in Sweden. have also the ways in which Sweden express of and shame that are caused by in the Swedish and, at the same time, they like they are by the dominant of not being seen also in Alakoski's essay, as she out the of Swedes of color as of the for her feeling is most that in Sweden, Finnish-speakers pass as Swedes they are white they are they from both white Swedes and and the migration from Finland are primarily a of the as brings out in essay for example, about as inferior and in Swedish that writes about is (2011), which features a who is and has long and and with a Finnish of the Sweden Finnish were with this who about to which that from a but that them in the would have been is a on not a derogatory for It also how Finnish-speakers in Sweden have to a where to use them as does not like a however, as Alakoski and other that the history of racialization, and the Finnish shame have not been fully have they fully Finnish Swedish with these the eyes of who in Sweden but in The of the is to Sweden with to and the feeling of not being quite Finnish quite In the of between and different in Sweden who have Finnish they similar memories of about and that were often with who was and of being treated as in Sweden. is ultimately about a and of and as it the of with Finnish as and as to with the memories of Finnish it also to articulate the experience of Nordic It does that in two that include a These are in Finnish that were in on the of Sweden but were for this by the of Sweden Finnish The in where they are their memories of the that Finnish-speakers are The is by them for a and a sees them but does not the that the that they were The to the of a by on for the white in society is like a of for the Swedish the in the not about race, the made about the as well as the of this to articulate the experience of Nordic in Sweden in the twentieth where and about the in an that as they that to a The of this that Finnish have as and eyes as the Swedish that Finnish are as as Swedish and that both Finnish and Finnish can be as these a to that the Finnish migrants to Sweden like white Swedes, the both the history of racialization and a of using the word it the experiences with the non-white the of not quite that the non-white in Sweden not Alakoski's essay, race as a both her of the experiences with the and the of as also different from Finnish migrants in Sweden. She does not about about visible but her that the migrants are “more they are a visible based on The question about a of the racialized in the Nordic where Eastern Europeans are not quite white, but only In her attempts to articulate the of Finnish-speakers in Sweden that to be in and of as a white author in Sweden, Alakoski is by the of The of discussions regarding race and racialized has at caused the of experiences with attitudes that at the history of racialization of in Sweden and the the same time, while out the complicated history of Nordic as who can fully pass as a white Alakoski's to make the Finnish experience visible comes from a that Alakoski's essay a hierarchy with her of and in Sweden, which ultimately for the of the Finnish not only from the non-white migrants but also from Eastern Europeans with which is her question about the Polish friends only a in the essay, it also be that this the Finnish-speakers with and only a between the non-white and the other groups of not quite white people. the to between two white groups as racialized comes out in essay by Alakoski in the Swedish In this essay, Alakoski writes that she has about the Swedish the Finnish about the two countries (Alakoski I have to be Sweden would be like and would whether I from The seems to her about about where she is she to have that she comes from in her seems to be than as that would be for her not in the same as for the in this imaginary of Sweden and The and ability of Finland to and Nordic by its to Sweden and its from the Eastern European countries therefore, in these at Alakoski's question in the of both and who were categorized as being of a different race and at to Nordic while still the not quite white Eastern European see a multidirectional hierarchy that is by a long history, and by and racialized that to and for example, argues that have a agency in Nordic She refers to an essay by Polish in Sweden, which the between Western and Eastern in the in and a half century The is of the this does not a does not to the is to in the various who in Nordic as to the to Western countries have not been and than they as analysis of the of in the that the and who are made brings out that the agency of on both being seen and on ability to be seen not to In her the is primarily caused by and its with also in Alakoski's essay like are only but they with them a history of Eastern European and a of the Eastern Europe and to argues in her of the of Polish migrants in Sweden that her the for and of to fully pass the of Swedish The of who are from the non-white and the Finnish migrants in Alakoski's essay also a hierarchy of race and that is with The that Alakoski to use the word to the different experiences of non-white and not quite white migrants the to race with ethnicity, culture, in the Nordic and distance to the to as that different experiences of Nordic though Finnish-speakers in Sweden have throughout history been as less and and Finland has only been fully in the the history of Finland belonging to Sweden, their long shared cultural history as and Nordic for an the same time, the who are also to the Nordic their are within as they to be not been fully in of the Nordic cultural in experience of that is the of this In the I at some other examples of Nordic in a of cultural texts from the Nordic that are by similar rhetorical in articulating and racialized hierarchies. These out a and of race, whiteness, and in the Nordic in Sweden similar to the Finnish has been invisible in Swedish are to Finland and have historically in the which is on the between Finland and Sweden. The was in Sweden Finland to as of a and the that were on the Swedish in a colonial to Sweden. a from both Finnish and that was as a in Sweden in as Tornedalian author writes in and The Tornedalian Finnish the history and of was by the colonial in the literary of the dominant Swedish and a Swedish The Swedish and the Swedish people, and in where Swedes long the of Swedish author The of for which Swedish from the of of the who is on the of a The of a Swedish for Swedish in does not include the Tornedalian and brings out the impact of a colonial that the groups of and their The of the to the Swedish it to be a Swedish their and it in Nordic that the experiences of Finnish-speakers in Alakoski's ability to pass as white Swedes, and being seen as of Sweden, both make their experiences with derogatory attitudes and with colonial history Nordic by in from which describes the memories of Tornedalian about Swedish history, and in in the while wondering the and history of their are not The on to the that where a of Sweden. been of on by a where a to but only be Swedes. were a a a the experiences of the colonial history with racialization of people, where is but not order to for visibility for similarly to Alakoski, the of argues for an between the in Sweden and in as by The two of the of the and the for over the of the the to the of of it is that a non-white to the white Tornedalian to and in the Nordic to the of the Eastern Baltic race and have been racialized and as not quite white and not quite argues that is about in would mean an of the and in and that using the and, to draw to the and of the Tornedalian Finnish What is the of that have in Sweden where they are to pass as Thus, it is crucial to that as a white use of derogatory about of color is to racialized and is not the and that from the majority the non-white the on Tornedalian Finnish and where the the racialized the and to brings out that are as different and similar at the same by with the and history, as in Europe and in the Nordic both for visibility and a distance from the of color that is the majority of pass as of the and groups who have historically been the Nordic but racialized as use to the Nordic race and the of Europeanness are people. the the Finnish and the of the being are in with in By focusing on the that would the experience of and also a of continues in the of as it attempts to articulate a of Nordic that is different from the non-white but also the experience of and derogatory the a hierarchy that is made of of color, white and not quite white the as a to visibility for Nordic by the are also examples of racialized hierarchies where see that to is to Nordic within the groups in the Nordic for example, is a that a who in a in Sweden in the focusing on her and on the derogatory attitudes Finnish-speakers that she the has been categorized as Sweden Finnish Swedish does however, a between and it a to background. Her from her are from a between Finland and is also a and is to the of on the with however, has a long and history. is often as the of is where the that make it has been over by Finland and for Finland some of but of that from to be to in scholarship and with this history, often discrimination in The derogatory were primarily based on the to and it was for to be is not quite not quite and their regarding is different from both and to that the as visible than the experiences of in Sweden. that, based on what she has seen and Finnish and Finnish were She was Her was also at this hierarchy of Swedes, and see that some not quite Nordic are to be not quite than and that Nordic is as of have been of Finland, and are between Finnish and it comes to being their on the with as the other for Europe and from that It brings out experiences of in the Nordic that are than between Finnish migrants and Swedes between migrants of color and white migrants within the Nordic article has that Nordic is a to analyze literary and cinematic of intra-Nordic I have on a rhetorical move in these which the experiences of historically racialized migrants and in in order to make visible the of the racialization that have not been about of the of color in the Nordic these texts for an of a experience of being but not quite experience is by the and shared cultural history between these as well as racialized and derogatory attitudes based in race biology and the in to Western-ness with In their the texts are often by the racialized hierarchies and, at also contribute to of Nordic by postcolonial and race and with these has to the of invisibility, the of racialization, and the of in these The of this article that express experiences of several migrants and within the Nordic are in with scholarship on representations of Eastern European migration to Nordic and Western European the same time, I have how the of these texts about intra-Nordic migration is in that is an not to pass as the of the dominant culture, but to be seen as as white, and to be in the postcolonial In and where that has not been the these texts make visible the and memories of the long history of in the Swedish and Finnish analysis has also out the multidirectional hierarchies of racialization that in of these Nordic to how of race and to impact the ways in which of the and migrants and articulate their and how filmmakers with this complicated history in their of the early twenty-first century

Art · Geography · Linguistics · Race (biology) · Reading (process) · Sociology · Visibility · Gender Studies · History · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Philosophy · Social and Educational Sciences

• Performing and Reimagining White ‘Western’ Masculinity on the Baltic Screen / Valge „lääneliku“ mehelikkuse etendamine ja ümberkujutamine Balti kinoekraanil

  Open Access•Liina-Ly Roos•Methis Studia humaniora Estonica•2023

  Incluir item

• Whiteness Studies and the Paradox of Particularity

  Robyn Wiegman•Futures of American Studies•2002

  Incluir item

• White

  Richard Dyer•White•2017

  Incluir item

• Postcolonial Whiteness

  Alfred J López, Alfred Lopez•Postcolonial Whiteness•2005

  Incluir item

• White Migrations

  Open Access•Catrin Lundström•White Migrations•2014

  Incluir item

• Complying with Colonialism. Gender, Race and Ethnicity in the Nordic Region

  Open Access•Madeleine Kennedy-Macfoy•Tidsskrift for kjønnsforskning•2009

  Incluir item

• From In-Betweenness to Invisibility

  Tuire Liimatainen•Journal of Finnish Studies•2019

  Incluir item

• What happened to ‘race’ in race biology? The Swedish State Institute for Race Biology, 1936−1960

  Open Access•Martin Ericsson•Scandinavian Journal of History•2020

  Incluir item

• Hierarchies of Desirability

  Johanna Leinonen•Scandinavian Studies•2017

  Incluir item

• Intra-Nordic Differences, Colonial/Racial Histories, and National Narratives

  Suvi Keskinen•Scandinavian Studies•2019

  Incluir item

• I want us to trade our skins and our experiences”

  Natia Gokieli•Scandinavian Studies•2017

  Incluir item

• Navigating the Radar

  Open Access•A Runfors•Nordic Journal of Migration…•2021

  Incluir item

• Postcolonial transitions in Europe

  Jesse Van Amelsvoort•Interventions•2017

  Incluir item

• Racial Europeanization

  D T Goldberg•Ethnic and Racial Studies•2006

  Incluir item

• European Kinship

  A Parvulescu•Critical Inquiry•2011

  Incluir item

• Nordic Whiteness

  Catrin Lundström, Benjamin R Teitelbaum•Scandinavian Studies•2017

  Incluir item

• Sweden after the Recent Election

  Tobias Hübinette, Catrin Lundström•NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist…•2011

  Incluir item

• A phenomenology of whiteness

  Open Access•Sara Ahmed, Sara Ahmed Sayed Ali•Feminist Theory•2007

  Incluir item

• Of Mimicry and Man

  Homi Bhabha, Homi Κ Bhabha•October•1984

  Incluir item

• To be Non-white in a Colour-Blind Society

  Tobias Hübinette, Carina Tigervall•Journal of Intercultural Studies•2009

  Incluir item

• Re-constructing the peaceful nation

  Suvi Keskinen•Social Identities•2014

  Incluir item

• Three phases of hegemonic whiteness

  Tobias Hübinette, Catrin Lundström•Social Identities•2014

  Incluir item

• Whiteness of a Different Color

  Matthew Frye Jacobson•Whiteness of a Different Color•1999

  Incluir item

• Ethnicity, Cultural Identity and Bordering

  Open Access•Anne Heith•Folklore Electronic Journal of…•2012

  Incluir item

• Sami Histories, Colonialism, and Finland

  M Spangen, A-K Salmi et al.•Arctic Anthropology•2015

  Incluir item

• Researching In/Visibility in the Nordic Context

  Open Access•Johanna Leinonen, Mari Toivanen•Nordic Journal of Migration…•2014

  Incluir item

• Developing Theoretical Perspectives on Racialisation and Migration

  Open Access•Suvi Keskinen, Rikke Andreassen•Nordic Journal of Migration…•2017

  Incluir item

• Theorising Racism

  Open Access•D Mulinari, Anders Neergaard•Nordic Journal of Migration…•2017

  Incluir item

• Indigenism and Cosmopolitanism

  Open Access•Harald Gaski•AlterNative An International…•2013

  Incluir item

• She'll Wake Up One of These Days and Find She's Turned into a Nigger

  Open Access•Sara Ahmed•Theory Culture & Society•1999

  Incluir item

• The future of whiteness

  France Winddance Twine, C A Gallagher et al.•Ethnic and Racial Studies•2008

  Incluir item

• Swedish surnames, British accents

  Open Access•Daria Krivonos•Ethnic and Racial Studies•2020

  Incluir item