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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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Racialisation of Swedish “new immigrants”? The bone of contention
| Panel |
8. Refugees and the Law in Europe
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| Paper ID | 407 |
| Author(s) |
Ngeh, Jonathan
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | Immigration in Sweden today is a very hot debate. Amidst cries to curb movement of people into the country is the demolition of borders with other European countries (under EU agreements). In effect immigrants in Sweden are subjected to different regulations, largely determined by whether they come from Europe (and other western countries) or not. Although immigrants from the less developed countries of the world are relatively latecomers who started arriving in the 1970s, and though they constitute only a fraction of Sweden’s immigrant population; general outcry against immigrants are unfairly directed against them. Today the word “immigrant” in ordinary conversation almost exclusively refers to the people in this category. For a number of reasons (which I present on the paper) my focus is limited to immigrants from Africa. Their presence has seen a rise in talks about “racism” and “anti-racism” in the country. While it is true that they suffer from discrimination, many scholars have been quick to qualify such acts as “racist” without first stating an analytical frame for “race making”. Given that there is no scientific basis for classifying people into distinctive groups called “races” [making it difficult to conceptualise race in a way that is universally applicable] it is important to explain why people in a particular society should be viewed as such. Looking at the analysis of racial formation in different societies and making comparisons with the social relations between “native Swedes” and African immigrants, I try to establish if the latter has evolved into a racialised group. I argue that the discourse of the nation state and the significance of boundary marking have created a favourable condition for a racial order in Sweden. Notwithstanding the absence of formal discrimination [among other things] once these immigrants have been integrated has inhibited the consolidation of this order.
Key words: Immigrants, racism, racialisation, Nation state,
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