Within a ‘white’ affective space: racialization in Iceland and development discourses

Racialization does not always take place through discourses of blackness as emphasized in American research, or exclusively in relation to immigration, as emphasized in the European context. As an affective process, racialization is entangled with particular views of nation-states and a sense of bel...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social Identities
Main Author: Loftsdóttir, Kristín
Other Authors: Félags og mannvísindadeild (HÍ), Faculty of Social and Human Sciences (UI), Félagsvísindasvið (HÍ), School of Social Sciences (UI), Háskóli Íslands, University of Iceland
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Informa UK Limited 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11815/2728
Description
Summary:Racialization does not always take place through discourses of blackness as emphasized in American research, or exclusively in relation to immigration, as emphasized in the European context. As an affective process, racialization is entangled with particular views of nation-states and a sense of belonging in a wider community of nations where humanitarianism can play a large role. By looking at international development in Iceland, the paper emphasizes that racialization takes place in different spheres of society where Icelandic racial subjectivities are shaped by global ideas of humanitarianism and international development that intersect with older Icelandic anxieties of belonging with sovereign northern European nations. The article emphasizes whiteness as being embedded in local Icelandic conversions of nationhood and belonging, entangled in global international development discourses that involve mobilizations of the idea of ‘humanity’. University of Iceland Research Fund and The Icelandic Research Fund (RANNIS), project number 134226-052 Post print