Past events:

• Summer Session 2023 – Racialization, Whiteness and Politics of Othering: Alternative Futures | 27 July – 3 August, 2023 | Palanga, Lithuania | CfP | Programme | Book of Abstracts
• Winter Session 2023 – Whiteness and Racialization in/between East and West | 27-28 March, 2023 | Roskilde University, Denmark | CfP | Programme | Book of Abstracts
• 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 | Book of Abstracts
• 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 | Book of Abstracts
• Summer Session 2021 – Racialization, Knowledge Production & Researcher Positionality | 11-13 October 2021 | Online event, hosted by Roskilde University| CfP | Programme | Book of Abstracts
• Winter Session 2021 – Racialized Encounters | 17-19 March 2021 | Online event, hosted by Roskilde University | CfP | Programme | Book of Abstracts
• Ad hoc Symposium 2019 – Racialization, Whiteness and Politics of Othering in Contemporary Europe | 25-27 November 2019 | University of Iceland, Iceland | CfP | Programme | Books of Abstracts

About this study circle:

This study circle (2021-2023) discussed how and to what effects racialization and whiteness shape Nordic, Baltic and European spaces, identities and politics. The circle invited 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 aimed to broaden and develop existing research networks on race, racialization and whiteness in Nordic countries with perspectives and knowledge from post-Soviet contexts. It served as an invitation to enrich existing interdisciplinary scholarship by combining post-Soviet and post-colonial perspectives. Our circle had a particular role for NSU, as the organisation itself comprises a meeting space for Nordic and Baltic experiences. We brought together scholars, practitioners, artists, activists at different career stages.

This study circle explored 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 investigated 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 aimed to unpack how and to what effects racialization and whiteness continue to shape Nordic, Baltic and European spaces, bodies and politics. We created 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 included, but were 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:

Anna Wojtyńska
Irma Budginaitė-Mačkinė
Linda Lapiņa