Personal Names in Swedish Academia

Engaging with foreign-sounding personal names is an everyday reality in collegial interactions within contemporary Swedish academia. While encounters with difference are ever-present, dynamics of address often resist straightforward alignment within conventional hierarchies. The interview-based empirical material challenges overly simplistic analytical assumptions that rely on binaries such as native versus non-native or domestic versus international academics. Within this context, the analytical perspective of postmigration enables a closer examination of how the deeply personal character of names affects negotiations of difference, positionings and heritage. Moreover, postmigration highlights the emergence of subtle emotional labour within academic workplaces – grounded in practices that outmanoeuvre binary frameworks of thinking about difference and embrace humility and humour

Character (mathematics) · Empirical research · Everyday life · Humility · Negotiation · Perspective (graphical) · Interdisciplinary Cultural and Social Studies · International Student and Expatriate Challenges · Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research