How colour evasiveness reproduces whiteness in Swedish universities

Bibliographic Data

ID2965752
AuthorsHeather Mendick (0000-0003-4902-5519, Independent Academic), Eva Silfver (0000-0001-6413-6538, Umeå University, corresponding author), Maria Berge (0000-0003-3614-1692, Umeå University), Andreas Ottemo (0000-0001-6050-7020, University of Gothenburg)
Year2024
Volume30
Issue3
Pages261-277
Publication date2024-05-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Identities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1350-4630 • E-ISSN: 1363-0296
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13504630.2024.2372013
OpenAlexW4400955867
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited28

We analyse how the whiteness of science and technology in Swedish universities is reproduced using four interviews with undergraduates involved in groups that work on making their courses more inclusive. Combining discourse analysis with a phenomenological focus on bodies, we begin with their nuanced understandings of gender inequality. We contrast these with their professions of ignorance about ‘race’ and racism and how they naturalise their ignorance. We explore how they create relations of proximity that ‘other’ students of colour and embed racialised distinctions within equalities work. We understand this within a broader colour evasiveness (an extension of colour blindness) in which whiteness is conflated with Swedishness

Conflation · Epistemology · Ignorance · Inequality · Racialization · Racism · Sociology · Educational Environments and Student Outcomes · Gender Studies · Philosophy