Next event: 

Symposium “Racialization, Whiteness and Politics of Othering: Alternative Futures”

27 July – 3 August 2023, Palanga, Lithuania

Call for Proposals

Deadline (extended): 15 May 2023

Past events:

• Winter Session 2023 – Whiteness and racialization in/between East and West I 27-28 March, 2023 I Roskilde University, Denmark I CfP I Programme
• Summer Session 2022 – Whiteness and Racialization in Colonial Pasts and Presents | 28 July – 4 August, 2022 | In-person event at Rønningen Folkehøgskole, Oslo, Norway | CfP | Programme
• Winter Session 2022 – Whiteness, Racialization and (Post-)Soviet Pasts | 31 March – 1 April, 2022 | Hybrid event, hosted by Vilnius university, Lithuania | CfP | Programme | Getting to the city | Getting to the venues |
• Summer Session 2021 – Racialization, Knowledge Production & Researcher Positionality | 11-13 October 2021 | Online event, hosted by Roskilde University| CfP | Programme |
• Winter Session 2021 – Racialized Encounters | 17-19 March 2021 | Online event, hosted by Roskilde University | CfP | Programme |

About this study circle:

This study circle discusses how and to what effects racialization and whiteness shape Nordic, Baltic and European spaces, identities and politics. The circle invites interdisciplinary debates about Europe’s condition/identity/integrity, posing questions about who and what counts as “European”, “Nordic” and “Baltic” from different locations, practices and subject positions. We aim to broaden and develop existing research networks on race, racialization and whiteness in Nordic countries with perspectives and knowledge from post-Soviet contexts. This enriches existing interdisciplinary scholarship by combining post-Soviet and post-colonial perspectives. Our circle has a particular role for NSU, as the organisation itself comprises a meeting space for Nordic and Baltic experiences. We wish to bring together scholars, practitioners, artists, activists at different career stages.

This study circle explores compelling issues of European identity, integration and its future by engaging concepts of race and differentiated whiteness, moving beyond the binary of white/non-white or (single, solid) hegemonic whiteness. We set out to investigate how different whitenesses are enacted, negotiated and contested, and to challenge how un(re)marked whiteness reinforces colonial complicity (Keskinen, 2009; Vuorela, 2009).
The study circle aims to unpack how and to what effects racialization and whiteness continue to shape Nordic, Baltic and European spaces, bodies and politics. We seek to create an open space for critical conversations and plurality of knowledges, where productive tensions can emerge as we acknowledge our racialised positionalities and “blind spots”.
Themes addressed in the symposia include, but are not limited to:

● Hierarchies of race and “shades of whiteness” (Moore, 2013).
● Intersections between race, class and gender and (re)inscriptions otherness (Light & Young, 2009; Binnie & Klesse, 2013; Anthias, 2013; Brah & Phoenix, 2004).
● Complexity of racial and ethnic (un)privilege (Salamuk, 2014).
● Securitization and tightening of borders/national frontiers.
● Racialisation, affect and embodiment.
● Othering processes, boundary construction and racialization of Eastern European and Baltic migrants in Nordic and Western Europe countries.’

Coordinators: