This article aims to explore the interrelation between post racialism, colorblind ideology, and the perception of Swedishness. Through 40 interviews and surveys conducted in Malmo, Sweden, participants were asked to reflect on race, ethnicity, and Swedishness. Multiple meanings were present in the participants' responses, half of whom were white and half non-white. For white participants, boundaries around the in-group construction of 'Swedishness' were based in whiteness, yet these participants held overwhelmingly negative attitudes towards the use of words race or racialization. On the other hand, non-white participants viewed race and racialization with less negative connotations, yet they also endorsed the need to be white in order to be perceived as being Swedish. The results support the notion that abandonment of the word race does not always equate to an abandonment of whiteness. This article builds upon and expands previous findings in the U.S. context while contributing to an emerging body of literature on race and racialization in Sweden. Additionally, it seeks to challenge dominant narratives and assumptions of 'Swedishness' and its connection to whiteness.

This article argues that court-ritual unawareness, linguistic shortcomings and stereotypical images about non-Swedish otherness impair the position and acting space for immigrants in a Swedish district court context. Drawing on two ethnographically informed research projects focused on courtroom interaction during more than 20 trials dealing with ‘domestic violence’ and ‘street-related crime’, we claim that immigrant voices are often silenced due to taken-for-granted practices in court. Through analyses of interviews, performances, interpreted hearings and references to a desirable Swedishness, it is argued that situations are created where immigrant participants may experience their possibility of being understood as limited and their voices as being unheard. Such conditions are emotionally draining and may result in participants choosing silence over stating their case. This is a problem, not only within the individual court case, but also for the overall legitimacy of the court system and for issues of institutional trust among citizens.

The objective of this article is twofold. Firstly, I seek to improve understanding of Swedish citizenship by highlighting the particular traits of an open yet largely instrumental (non-sentimental) membership policy, which existing theories have not been able to fully account for. I argue that the liberal openness of Swedish citizenship should be attributed not only to a liberal ideology of pluralism and equality, but to a fairly administrative, sterile and pragmatic conception of citizenship that is largely dissociated from existing conceptions of nationhood, integration and societal membership. Secondly, and related to the first, I take issue with the widespread yet implicit theoretical notion of citizenship being defined by shared conceptions of the national demos. I argue that this connection varies and that it is significantly closer and stronger in some cases than in others, regardless of its lenience towards an ethnic or civic, monist or pluralist conception of the nation. While newer, post-national theories of citizenship offer valuable insights into the reshaping of citizenship, they systematically underestimate and, consequently, fail to account for the enduring differences between and idiosyncrasies of national citizenship regimes. To better capture this neglected dimension of the citizenship-nationhood nexus, I propose a distinction between ideologically thin and thick citizenship, with Sweden serving as an example of the first.

This article explores the ideological positioning of Sverigedemokraterna (SD; the Sweden Democrats) in contemporary Swedish politics. Comparative research on nationalist parties pays very little attention to SD, despite the fact that following the general elections in 2006 it came close to consolidating a permanent position in Swedish politics. In the analysis, we highlight the recurrent rhetorical figures in the public debate as manifested in the media coverage from September 2006 to May 2007. The ideological positioning of SD evolves in the interaction between its self-image and the counter arguments adopted by SD-antagonists. Although the established parties were careful to distance themselves from SD, our analysis indicates a possible taming of SD in the run-up to the general elections in 2010. The party’s monocultural nationalist messages may also become more widely accepted and still allow it to be considered as ‘one of the good guys’.

This paper analyses the marital dissolution of binational couples (i.e. couples comprised of immigrants and natives) in countries with traditionally distinct integration models: Canada, the United States and France. Previous studies appeal to cultural differences to explain the higher divorce rates of binational couples but they omit the potential effect of migration or that of environmental factors such as immigration policies and attitudes towards migration and intermarriage. In order to test a model that includes all these factors, an identical online survey was conducted in the cited countries. The concepts ‘binational couples’ and ‘culture’ were disentangled into specific types of couples and variables. While being involved in a binational marriage was not found to be a significant predictor of divorce, being involved in one where both partners are foreign born decreases the risk of divorce. Religion, family values and families’ perception of a relationship are also significantly related to marital stability.

Compared to the United States, the relationship between ethnicity and gentrification is still understudied in the Western European context. However, while Western Europe does not have the same racial history as the United States, ethnic and racial divisions are still expressed through urban inequality. This paper, a study of small-business owners in an ethnically stigmatized Berlin neighborhood, shows how the gentrification process leads to the revelation and reification of ethnic boundaries between Turkish immigrants and their descendants and the so-called German majority society. It firstly finds that gentrification by Turkish-origin business owners is frequently understood as an ethnic remake that leads to the displacement of Turkish immigrants and their families in favor of non-immigrant Germans. The gentrification process is accordingly perceived, not only as a form of material dispossession, but also as a form of cultural dispossession in which the multicultural character of the quarter is erased. Second, the paper postulates that, in cases in which Turkish immigrant entrepreneurs adapt their businesses to the demands of new middle-class consumers, they tend to exclude the lower-income population in the quarter whom they mainly define as Turkish or Arabic. All in all, the debate presented in this paper shows how, in the German context, gentrification relates to prior forms of ethnic prejudice, discrimination and racism. It thereby also complicates the prominent discussion on the nexus between gentrification and displacement by showing that, even if long-time residents are not immediately threatened with having to leave, they still experience forms of exclusion that are entrenched with already existing structural inequalities.

This paper examines attitudes toward interracial marriages and the relationship between the amount of prior interracial contact and attitudes in Sweden. The analysis is based on an anonymous postal survey conducted in Malmö, Sweden answered by 461 white-European respondents. Several studies in the US address the question of contact and attitudes and find that those who have more interracial contact, especially interracial friendships, have more positive attitudes toward intermarriage. The results show that the majority of the white European respondents can imagine marrying interracially; however, there are clear preferences toward different racial groups. Moreover, as in the US context, respondents who reported interracial friendships, and not general or superficial contacts, are more apt to answer the question about interracial marriage positively.

Increasing immigration and intermarriage in Sweden and Japan have led to a growing multiracial and multiethnic population. Approximately 7% of the Swedish population and 2% of the Japanese population are multiracial and multiethnic today. Based on a total of 39 interviews with mixed persons in Sweden and Japan, I examine the self-claimed and ascribed identification among mixed Japanese and mixed Swedes. I argue that, despite the contextual differences, there are commonalities of experiences and identification. These commonalities of experiences shed light on the conditions the mixed individuals feel that they must fulfill in order to have their different claims to identities validated. The study gives a unique insight into how racial appraisal constrains individual choices of identity in a context where there is no official classification of racial and ethnic groups.

Increasing migration worldwide and the cultural diversity generated as a consequence of international migration has facilitated the unions of people from different countries, religions, races, and ethnicities. Such unions are often celebrated as a sign of integration; however, at the same time as they challenge people’s idea of us and them, intermarriages in fact still remain controversial, and even to some extent, taboo in many societies. Research and theorizing on intermarriage is conducted predominantly in the English- speaking North American and British contexts. This special issue includes empirical studies from not only the English-speaking countries such as the U.S., Canada, and the UK, but also from Japan, Sweden, Belgium, France, and Spain and demonstrate the increasingly diverse directions taken in the study of intermarriage in regards to the patterns, experiences, and social implications of intermarriages. Moreover, the articles address the assumed link between intermarriage and ‘‘integration.’’