Despite their reputation for exemplarity, Nordic societies are marked by worrying phenomena of identity tension. A collective work allows us to understand the divides that cross Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark. The colonial imagination permeates many social practices, shedding light on the limits of equality for Nordic residents in the context of globalization.
More egalitarian, more united, more just, the Nordic countries are known as exemplary societies, and they readily define themselves as such. We envied them Swedish gender equality, Danish flexicurity, Finnish public schools and Norway’s massive investment in humanitarian aid. These countries resemble each other as emblematic welfare states, but they also have in common a certain social and national uniqueness, an efficient economy even in times of crisis and an image of a haven of peace in the contemporary world.
However, recent events call for a re-examination of this Nordic exceptionalism. How to understand the attack and massacre of July 21, 2011 in Oslo ? In what context should we place the historic electoral victory of Real Finns ? What do the riots and violence in Swedish suburbs show? ? And what about Denmark, the crisis of the images of the prophet and the implementation of immigration policy measures which are among the strictest in Europe ?
Complying with colonialism. Gender, race and ethnicity in the Nordic regionpublished in 2009 and directed by four researchers, Suvi Keskinen, Salla Tuori, Sari Irni and Diana Mulinari, provides keys to understanding the new structural and symbolic fractures that we observe in Nordic societies (here Denmark, Finland, Norway and Suede). The interdisciplinary research project from which the work is based questions the equality of Nordic residents in the era of globalization and neo-liberalism, its conditions and its limits. The contributors propose a rereading of relations between genders and between the national majority and ethnic minorities from a perspective that they define as that of Nordic postcolonial feminism. Although this reading may seem surprising in the context of societies located on the fringes of the colonial project, it allows us to identify unappreciated injustices and to ask new questions.
Colonial complicity: between guilt and innocence
The concept of colonial complicity functions as the main thread of the work. He “ refers to the processes during which (post)colonial imagery, practices and products become constitutive of what is understood as the “national” or “traditional” culture of the Nordic countries » (pp. 1-2). Ulla Vuorela, a Finnish social anthropologist, uses complicity as a tool for analyzing the ambiguous situation in the Nordic countries: both on the periphery of the colonial project (differences between the countries exist) and fully adhering to the ideology “ universal » stemming from the philosophy of the Enlightenment and crossed by an implicit racial hierarchy. It uses examples from children’s literature, the adventures of the first anthropologists and development projects in third world countries to illustrate how Finland participated in the production of knowledge about the world impregnated by colonialist thought, allowing thus the Finns to define themselves as superior to non-Europeans, and as their civilizers.
The work contains important contributions that recall the little-known colonial history of the Nordic countries. The latter in fact oscillated between the colonial center and its periphery, between active participation and tacit acceptance of the colonial project, and consequently, between colonialist guilt and a supposed innocence linked to their external position. Mai Palmberg, Swedish political scientist, discusses the Danish territories in Ghana, the Swedish colonies in the Caribbean and the presence of Scandinavians in the Belgian Congo. That these undertakings were shorter and less sustainable than those of certain other Western countries does not eliminate their consequences on meetings in XXe century between the inhabitants of the countries of the North and the otherswhether in the context of religious missions, development projects in Africa, or on Nordic soil with new arrivals.
If Nordic superiority was constructed in activities and encounters abroad, it was also perpetuated within Nordic borders. The work does not seek the causes of the current ethnicization and racialization of social relations in exogenous phenomena, but studies them in the very processes of nation-building and self-identification. Bollette B. Blaagaard, Danish specialist in gender and ethnicity, addresses a complex and controversial subject in her article: whiteness as a norm and as the basis of Nordic homogeneity. She analyzes the representation of Scandinavians as “ purebred » in the areas of genetic research, visual imagery and the telling of Viking history. The worldwide success of the Danish sperm bank and the history of eugenics in the Nordic countries (see also the articles by Palmberg and Touri) are glaring examples of the way in which a racial hierarchy marks Nordic mentalities. Researchers show that these representations and the positionings that result from them continue to mark interethnic relations and institutional practices. By mobilizing the concept of complicity, they introduce the question of power to the study of inequalities.
About the welfare state nationalism
In the same way that France represents itself as the defender of human rights and democracy, the Nordic countries proclaim themselves champions of equality. The maxim of equality has guided both the establishment of welfare state institutions and the construction of the nation. Therefore, Nordics define themselves as more egalitarian than others. A troubling situation, however, arises from the reification of equality as the cornerstone of these societies: on the one hand, the ethos of equality risks depriving the capacity to identify inequalities, on the other hand, the Inegalitarianism becomes associated with those who are foreign to the national community.
The authors of the book identify social policies as the preferred means of maintaining nation-state integration in the Nordic context. So that equality, and thus integration, can be reproduced, categories “ normal ” And “ pathological » must be established. In these societies, social policies particularly target the family sphere and the integration of immigrants and minorities. The contributors to the work thus define as welfare state nationalism (p. 5) the way in which welfare institutions produce the normative categories of family, gender and nation, and apply standardized policies to them. Criticizing the effects of this type of nationalism on dominated groups, researchers analyze the institutional treatment and the margins of action of immigrants, women and men.
The work is part of a line of work that calls into question the beneficial aspect of Nordic social policies for women. The contributors offer an original contribution by identifying gender equality as a central discourse in the construction of Nordic nations. The article by Salla Tuori, a doctor in Finnish gender studies, calls for reconsidering the official vision of gender equality, the state feminism. It demonstrates the strong tendency in Finland to represent immigrant families as sources of problems because they deviate from the family norm defined (implicitly) by social policies. Unlike the Finnish family, the immigrant family appears either absent or dangerous because it is patriarchal. It is thus considered as a potential source of suffering for women, but also as a threat to the survival of equality in Finnish society. Does the Nordic welfare state categorize to exclude or dialogue to include? ?
From epistemological supremacy to multiculturalist dialogue ?
By analyzing the social divides observable in the Nordic countries, Complying with colonialism advances the question of the power to produce knowledge. Nanna Brink Larsen, Danish social scientist, highlights the importance of avoiding the pitfalls ofinstitutional nationalism in the Nordic context. She defines this concept as a mode of control of the national community exercised through institutions such as social policies and schools. Larsen warns us of the danger of associating institutional values with the national majority and allowing the latter to dominate public institutions. Her example of parenting education for the students’ immigrant mothers reveals the ease of transforming a forum of “ intercultural dialogue » into a tool for regulating otherness. Despite the initial intentions of social workers, the project failed to take into account the knowledge of the marginalized, which contradicts the very principle of egalitarianism.
On several occasions, the authors criticize the epistemological supremacy of the national majority (Nordic, white and heterosexual) and the results of so-called multicultural social policies. The reader would also have appreciated, and this in accordance with the wishes of the authors, to find in this work a greater number of texts written by people sharing the condition of minorities. However, the book shows that despite their peripheral position in relation to the colonial project, Nordic researchers produce stimulating knowledge on the (post)colonial world. Analogously, people from ethnic, racial or gender minorities should be able to be heard about the societies of which they are members.