Affectivity and Race

The meaning of racial formation remains a contested question in the Nordic countries where colorblind ideologies silence and trouble conversations on race. This book provides a timely and unique contribution that enables new understandings of the centrality of race and whiteness in a Nordic context. Lene Myong, Aarhus University, Denmark In social imaginaries the Nordic region is understood through exceptionalisms: idealized and homogenous societies where gender equality, social welfare, and anti-racism provide an exceptionally good life for all citizens. This excellent collection of essays critically examines these self-images through concepts of race and affect. Anyone interested in the ways in which race - particularly whiteness - is (re)produced through affect and emotion would benefit from this book. Karina Horsti, University of Jyvskyl, Finland

Rikke Andreassen is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies at Roskilde University, Denmark and author of Human Exhibitions: Race, Gender and Sexuality in Ethnic Displays. Kathrine Vitus is Senior Researcher in the Department of Children and Family at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Introduction: affectivity as a lens to racial formations in the Nordic countries, Kathrine Vitus and Rikke Andreassen. Part I How is Race Politicised through Affects?: Politics of irony as the emerging sensibility of the anti-immigrant debate, Kaarina Nikunen; If it had been a muslim: affectivity and race in Danish journalists reflections on making news on terror, Asta Smedegaard Nielsen; The racial grammar of Swedish higher education and research policy: the limits and conditions of researching race in a colour-blind context, Tobias Hbinette and Paula Mhlck. Part II How Does Race Produce Affects?: And then we do it in Norway: learning leadership through affective contact zones, Kirsten Hvenegrd-Lassen and Dorthe Stauns; Nordic colour-blindness and Nella Larsen, Rikke Andreassen; Disturbance and celebration of Josephine Baker in Copenhagen 1928: emotional constructions of whiteness, Marlene Spanger. Part III How is Race Affectively Experienced?: Feeling at loss: affect, whiteness and masculinity in the immediate aftermath of Norways terror, Stine H. Bang Svendsen; The affectivity of racism: enjoyment and disgust in young peoples film, Kathrine Vitus; Two journeys into research on difference in a Nordic context: a collaborative auto-ethnography, Henry Mainsah and Lin Pritz; Doing feelwork: reflections on whiteness and methodological challenges in research on queer partner migration, Sara Ahlstedt. Index.