Swedish surnames, British accents

Passing among post-Soviet migrants in Helsinki

Bibliographic Data

ID2148451
AuthorsDaria Krivonos (0000-0003-1393-1464, The Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume43
Issue16
Pages388-406
Publication date2020-12-10
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnic and Racial Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0141-9870 • E-ISSN: 1466-4356
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01419870.2020.1813319
OpenAlexW3088541090
LanguageEN
Citations received21
References cited51

In analysing efforts to pass as white, this article examines the ways racialized difference materializes on the bodies construed as "Eastern European". Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among Russian-speaking migrants in Helsinki, it examines their attempts to inhabit whiteness through tactics of passing, such as changing their surnames, working on their accents, and adjusting how they dress. I argue that these efforts to pass as not "Russian" should be understood through the postcolonial formation of Europeanness, with its internal racialized division between (proper) Western Europeanness and (incomplete) Eastern Europeanness. The labour of approximating whiteness through passing draws attention to sites of racialized differentiation such as accent, audibility, language, surnames, and clothing. These efforts of attempting to pass for someone Russian speakers are not recognized as point to the structural racist hierarchies that refuse to attach value to their bodies

Clothing · Ethnography · Linguistics · Political science · Race (biology · Racialization · Sociology · Stress (linguistics · White (mutation · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Migration, Refugees, and Integration

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