The Race Concept in Swedish Popular Discourse

Carly Schall, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Swedish discourse on difference has long avoided the use of “race” as a category for both social and political purposes. Instead, key dividing lines have been between “native-born” and “immigrant,” “European” and “non-European” and “Muslim” and “non-Muslim” (see, e.g. Schall, 2016). However, in the past decade, the discourse on difference has begun to expand to include a recognition that race – “a symbolic category based on phenotype or ancestry and constructed according to specific social and historical contexts, that is mis-recognized as a natural category” (Desmond & Emirbayer, 2009: 335) – presents an axis of difference that is meaningful both in terms of describing the lived experiences of people living in Sweden and in terms of its use as a category of analysis. The paper traces the development of the “race concept” in the Swedish popular press over the past 15 years. The paper analyzes newspaper articles from major press outlets that engage with the concept of “race,” paying particular attention to both the form of language around race and the content. The proposed paper hypothesizes that the greater use of race in public discourse is pushed by, on the one hand, the increased prominence of Swedes of immigrant background who have, themselves, raced identities and, on the other hand, the importation of American activist and scholarly ideas about race.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 214. International Narratives of Slavery