Nordic Academic Feminism and Whiteness as Epistemic Habit

Abstract

Abstract This chapter is a contribution to ongoing discussions about Nordic academic feminism. It asks why and how this field continues to assume and reproduce whiteness as its naturalised point of departure and orientation and for forming a Nordic feminist “we.” It is largely conceptual, and I draw on a lived archive of 15 years of participant observation in ”Nordic” academic feminism as it has taken shape at conferences, in network and research meetings, and in classrooms and public debates. Building on the work of Sara Ahmed, Sirma Bilge, Lena Sawyer, Marta Cuesta and Diana Mulinari, I propose that whiteness can be understood as an epistemic habit of and within Nordic academic feminism. To that end, the chapter sketches a framework for understanding how whiteness is habitually and epistemically reproduced in broader logics of narration about the field, in forms of assembly and in responses to critiques of racism. Thus, whiteness is not simply a question of over-representation of white bodies, it is also about the orientations and comfort of white bodies, and about how some critiques and stories become understood as “ours” and others not.

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