Etnicitet, invandrare, invandrande migranter, utrikes och inrikes födda, minoriteter, nationalitet, nationella minoriteter, rasifierade, etnifierade, ras - vilka ord, termer och begrepp vi använder tydliggör ofta hur vi förstår världen och vad vi vill förmedla. Arbetslivsforskning i Sverige är en av de arenorna där frågor om etnicitet, rasism och rasifiering utforskats som mest, även om det fortfarande är en relativt marginell fråga. I likhet med kritiken av könsblindhet och osynliggörande av kvinnor i arbeteslivet växte det i slutet av 1980-talet och början av 1990-talet fram en arbetslivsforskning som började analysera och teoretisera skärningspunkten mellan arbetsliv, migration, etnicitet och rasism. I dag återfinns denna forskning inom en rad fält och discipliner. Kapitlet inleds med att vi diskuterar några av de centrala begrepp som återkommer inom forskningen. Därefter presenteras några bilder av situationen för utrikes födda och deras arbetsvillkor, som visar på tydliga och återkommande skillnader gentemot födda i Sverige vad gäller allt ifrån deltagande i arbetslivet, arbetslöshet, hierarkisk och horisontell segmentering, karriärer och osäkra anställningsförhållanden. Slutligen presenteras några av de teoretiska verktyg som använts för att analysera och förklara dessa skillnader.

Several scholarly works have identified the weakness of mainstream social science and the humanities to theorize racism. The sociology of absence grasps the systematic exclusion of specific experiences and specific voices within social theory. We are inspired by these contributions in our exploration of the role and the location of the category of residents racialized as not belonging to the Swedish nation, in anti-racist struggles. We are also inspired by the scholarly tradition that explores the relationship between haunting, ghosts and social justice. As a complement to the concept of waves of anti-racism, we use the concept of ‘critical event’, identifying events that challenge and transform existing frames of interpretation regarding racism. In this chapter, we focus on three critical events: the 1990 Karl XII neo-Nazi celebrations in the city of Lund, the 2000 “Kämpa Showan/Kämpa Malmö and finally, the solidarity crisis in the 2016 at Malmö Central Station. The empirical material is crafted through a patchwork of sources, being participant observation, in-depth interviews and two focus groups with anti-racist activists, identified as “second generation” participating in anti-Nazi/anti-racist mobilizations.

The fall of 2022, with the election success of a coalition of right wing and ethnoracist parties marks the transition from a racialized to a racist state in Sweden. We analyse the discourses of three welfare projects in Swedish racial capitalism, Keynesian, Neoliberal and ethnoracist, in relation to safety/security.

Methodologically, we use CDA analysing elite institutional texts (party documents, government, and media texts), supplemented with references to previous research, thereby linking and comparing historical and modern discourses.

Departing from Althusser’s distinction between repressive and ideological state apparatuses, we demonstrate how a re-interpellation of welfare has shifted focus to repression, targeting the racialized other. The discursive combination and word associations used, while avoiding the category of “race,” create a vernacular of racism without race.

Recognizing the structure of Sweden’s racial capitalism as fluid and complex, the migrant “other” has become the shorthand for racialization in popular and academic vernacular, while the Muslim other becomes the nucleus of threat. It foregrounds the racialized “others” as an ethno-biological category and shifts the discourse and policy toward securitization, signifying a discourse that purports the impossibility of social inclusion.

I antologin Antirasismer och antirasister. Realistiska utopier, spänningar och vardagserfarenheter utforskar 24 forskare hur motståndet mot olika former av rasism bedrivs och förkroppsligas bland grupper av människor som på en mängd sätt, ofta motsägelsefullt, sällan framgångsrikt, men alltid envist och framåtblickande drömmer bortom rasismer. Antologin illustrerar antirasismens bredd, men analyserar också dess problem och svagheter.

Inspirerade av bland annat anti-, post- och dekoloniala traditioner tillsammans med sociala rörelseperspektiv utmanar antologin ett statiskt och essentialiserande förhållningssätt som återfinns i forskning och politik och som har en tendens att betona ojämlikhetens stabilitet och oföränderlighet, även när det gäller rasism.

Som helhet, utöver en mängd konkreta analyser och beskrivningar av historisk och samtida aktivism, visar de olika författarna också på antirasismernas möjligheter och kan därmed ingjuta ett visst hopp, i dessa mörka tider, för de som vill ha ett samhälle utan rasism.

In the book Anti-Racisms and Anti-Racists. Realistic utopias, tensions and everyday experiences, 24 researchers explore how resistance to various forms of racism is pursued and embodied among groups of people who dream beyond racism in a variety of ways, often contradictory, rarely successful, but always stubborn and forward-looking. The anthology illustrates the breadth of anti-racism, but also analyses its problems and weaknesses.

Inspired by anti-, post- and decolonial traditions, among others, together with social movement perspectives, the anthology challenges a static and essentialising approach found in research and policy that tends to emphasise the stability and immutability of inequality, even in the case of racism.

In addition to a variety of concrete analyses and descriptions of historical and contemporary activism, the various authors also show the possibilities of anti-racism and can thus provide some hope, in these dark times, for those who want a society without racism.

"Decolonial Sweden exposes the social and political relevance of European colonialism to Sweden and its place in the world. It is a book that points to why and how Sweden is to be included in global decolonial struggles. Sweden is often displayed as an ethnoracially homogenous country without any colonial history: an open and tolerant human rights champion, anti-racist, anti-colonial and in solidarity with the Global South. For over twenty years, authors Michael McEachrane and Louis Faye have been challenging this account, pointing to Sweden's involvement in colonial histories and legacies, its racialized nationhood, and embedded colonial structures. This important new book reflects a decolonial turn in research, emphasising that coloniality is far from over, and that challenging global injustices remains an unfinished and open-ended process. Chapters in the book consider the resistance of the Sami people to Swedish colonialism, whether Sweden owes the Caribbean reparations for its colonisation of St Barthelemy and involvement in the transatlantic trade, Sweden's involvement in a colonial global economy, and how white European identification is embedded in Swedish politics, nation-building and society. Engaging and insightful, Decolonial Sweden invites readers to reconsider Swedish attitudes towards race, colonialism, and international relations. This book is an essential read for Post- and Decolonial scholars and students of Critical Race Studies, Africana Studies, International Relations, Global Development, and Political Science, as well as for anyone interested in Sweden's place in the world"--