User:JennyRosen/Reflections on de los Reyes, Paulina, Molina, Irene & Mulinari, Diana (2006/2003) Maktens (o)lika förklädnader. Kön, klass & etnicitet i det postkoloniala Sverige

Maktens (o)lika förklädnader
'''Introduktion. Paulina de los Reyes, Irene Molina, Diana Mulinari'''

The texts in the anthology are tributes to the researcher Wuocko Knocke, who can be considered a ground breaking scholar and the first to visulize gender and enthnicty in relation to labour and class in Sweden. The texts all share the aim of trying to problematisize the understanding of power in relation to gender in order reach beyond current feminist research and realize the empancipatory potential in feminism (12). According to the authors, the aim is to “utforska hur makten artikuleras, legitimeras och avpolitiseras I ett sammanhang där samförstånd, naturalisering och kulturisering görs till ojämlikhetens förklädnader i det offentliga samtalet” (30). The complex relationships between racism, feminism and ethnocentrism are essential for such a research, as well as grounding feminism in specific historic contexts of marginalization (12). The authors states that the two relations of power in today’s feminism in Sweden are founded in material conditions of living and the discursive construction of womanhood as white, heterosexual, middleclass and educated women (12-13). At the same time there is also an understanding of Sweden among Swedes and Swedish feminist as a country in which equality between women and men has come very far (especially in relation to other parts of the world) (14). Gender equality constructs an important part of their national identities and is a source of pride, as it is founded inside the imagined national community rather than in a universal womanhood. This gender patriotism has resulted in ignorance towards women’s emancipation in other parts of the world and in the impossibility of learning from others. Grounding gender equality in the Swedish women’s movement is, according to the authors, rather problematic, since it created boundaries of space and time for those who can belong, identify and claim their “right” to gender equality (15). Such national and cultural boundaries become tools for identifying those who can be defined as the (gender equal) women and who are defined as the Other (15). Challenges to this understanding of womanhood have been developed by post-colonial feminists in order to make visible women outside of Europe, as well as who they have been contructed as the other (17). However, in the contemporary world, the Other woman is no longer distant in time and place but living inside Europe (17). Moreover, post-colonial feminists have revealed that symbols and metaphors related to gender and race/ethnicity (and which construct racist understandings of the world), have been established as academic truths (19).

But can the post-colonial perspective be applied to a Swedish context? Although Sweden was never a colonial power in the same manner as other European countries were, the authors argue that the colonial mentality is integrated in the Swedish history (18). Ideas of race biology grew in Sweden during the time of the construction of “folkhemmet”. Processes of inclusion and exclusion were an important part of the creation of a national identity and a national home in terms of “folkhem, forcing people into a new norm and identifying and excluding those who didn’t fit into it (19). Today’s exclusion is not legitimated on biological grounds but in terms of culture, resulting in the construction of the immigrant and the Other and excluded from the Swedish identity (19). Connecting racism to the colonial project and the categorization on which exclusion is based upon shows its importance in the paradigm of modernization and marginalisation in contemporary society (21).

In the academy the national boundaries has resulted in that other forms of identification as women have been neglected. The authors argue that “Vi befinner oss i något slags paradigmatiskt fängelse given av nationalstaten, ur vilket feminster varit oförmögna att ta sig ur vare sig teoretiskt eller begreppsmässigt. En öppen och pluralistisk diskussion om jämställdhet skulle kunna vara den språngbrädan som behövs för att spränga gränserna mellan territorium och identitet ”(16). Research about immigrants has mainly tried to explain social inequalites in society, through identifying the immigrants' individual qualities (or lack of) (20). The view of immigrant women as oppressed victims by the culture (values and norms) of their home countries makes the racist and patriarchal structures in Sweden invisible in order to explain their position (25). Stereotypes of gender, race and ethnicity are integrated in the academic world, as well as other parts of society (21). Feminist research usually had an ethnocentric outlook or/and focused mainly on dicotomies (women/men, worker/capital, immigrans/Swedes), without taking analysing the complexities and heterogeneity within those categorisations.

Moreover, those categorisations have been used without reflecting on them, continuing ignoring how different kinds of power are related to each other (22). The authors argue that by reducing power to categories, the interdependency between different forms of hierarchization is lost, and that the main challenge is how to create theories that can question the mechanisms of power without reproducing or producing essentialist categories (23). Such analysis is not about incorporating the Other into the analysis but, instead, to anknowledge how gender and ethnicity are constructed as means of differentiation and social inequality (23). Furthermore, it is important to remember that a person’s life conditions are not created inside one culture or one gender hierarchy “Människors levnadsvillkor skapas inte inom ramarna för en kultur, en könsordning och en klasshieraki utan flera olika ordningar som dessutom är kontextbaserade” (24). Intersectionality offers a theoretical framework with which to analyze how different socially constructed differences and positions are connected and integrated in different contexts (25). The authors argue that there are no social positions which are not based in gender, class and race/ethnic assymtries (25). Such analysis goes beyond the dichotomization discussed above, as well as other one-dimensional approaches. According to this view, relations between Swedes and immigrants are no longer seen as questions regarding ethnicity but ones connected to the divisions of power founded in imagined essentialist differences (28). Finally, I would like to bring up some of the questions raised by the authors:

-	På vilket sätt kan rasismen kopplas till kapitalismens ackumulationsfaser och till nationalstatens formering? -	På vilket sätt har rasistiska ideologier präglat konstruktionen av ”de andra”? -	På vilka arenor och genom vilka mekanismer konstrueras och hålls rasistiska föreställningar vid liv? Hur kan man se på statens roll?

'''Det problematiska systerskapet. Om svenskhet och invandrarskap inom svensk genushistorisk forskning. Pualina de los Reyes.'''

The text by de los Reyes discusses how the relation between gender and ethnicity has been dealt with in gender and women studies (or more accurately, not dealt with) in Sweden. Empirical studies have used the term “double oppression” to describe how immigrant women are oppressed by gender hierarchies, both in the majority community as well as in the minority group (32). De los Reyes argues that ethnicity cannot be added as an additional essential category, but that it has to be understood as constructed in social practises and structures of power, where one part is described as different and “abnormal” in relation to the norm embodied by the other part. Therefore, ethnicity should be studied and interpretated in specific historical contexts, analyzing the mechanisms constructing the differences, categorisations and marginalisation of individuals in relation to gender and nationality (33). These categorizations are based on material conditions as well as legitimized by certain ideologies (44). A critique of gender and women studies is necessary, since those tended to ignore the process of how gender and womanhood have been created as hegemonic categories and defined in relation to men. The discussion concerning the dicothomy of men versus women has been the dominant one and, therefore, the differences inside the categorisations themselves have been ignored (34). Moreover, the shift of focus from the biological sex to the socially constructed gender has resulted in analysis of how gender has been created in different times and places and which, unfortunately, have led to a ethnocentric understanding of womanhood (34) inside the boundaries of the imagined national community. Studies of how womanhood and gender hierarchies in Sweden have been historically grounded in an understanding of Sweden as a homogenic and unmixed country (35). Moreover, studies of migration have been for the most part gender blind, discussing the immigrant in terms of a man (35). However, as de los Reyes points out, changes regarding the status of “Swedish” women in the labour market are related to the overall status of immigrant men and women in the labour market. Although most immigrant men and women worked in jobs in accordance to the gender divisions of tasks in the labour market, there were also examples of bending those divisions during situations when there was a lack of workers (36). The politics of migrations were related to the politics of the labour market and the gender division within it.

During the 1970’s, a new form of womanhood was developed, in which immigrant women were not included but constructed as a dependent, oppressed and isolated Other. While Swedish women became an integral part of the paid labour market, the immigrant women remained connected to the home and the family (39). Immigrant women represented the Other, one who was identified as belonging to the traditional and the past, strengthened by the fact that immigrant women often worked in jobs with low status that “Swedish” women had rejected (39). Moreover, as gender equality was understood according to a Swedish norm, immigrant women were excluded and their oppression viewed as a problem, a discussion that has been dominated by a tendency to focus on the cultural differences of the immigrants (40). Concepts such as cultural distance and social competence have been used to explain the low position of immigrants in society (43). Cultural differences came to explain a hierarchy, where people due to their membership in the imagined national community are given certain positions. Low status and discrimination of immigrant women has only been seen in relation to the oppression inside the minority group rather than in the context of a majority society (41). By defining gender equality in ethnocentric terms, as well as deeply connected to the idea of Swedishness, immigrants (both women and men) are excluded from it and from the possibility of discussing and defining its content. Immigrants are left to assimilate to Swedish gender equality without questioning it or influencing its content (42).

Ethnologists such as Svanberg and Tydén have studied how Swedish culture came to be understood as homogenic and different from the the immigrants’ culture. The stereotypes of the Swede and the Immigrant were constructed without taking into account differences, for example, of gender, class and age inside the groups (37). De los Reyes raise the question of wether identities as Swedes and Immigrants were created out of specific social and cultural understandings of gender (male and female) and if such understandings of gender has distanced and divided the groups even further (37).

De los Reyes also raise the issue of how the term “immigrant” has been used to describe the marginalisation, lack of power and Othering of women in society (43). I think it is also interesting to connect this to the womenization of colonialized man as been acknowledged in post-colonial theory.

'''Feministiskt integrationsarbete – eller vem ska definiera vems behov? Heléne Thomsson'''

The author takes us to a meeting in an “international women center” taking place in a Swedish suburb, where two representants from a municipality present their work for integration. The representants talk about their integration project and their succes, while the women listening are immigrants from different backgrounds. After the presentation, one of the women asks if the representants themselves take part in any of the projects (they don’t). They explain that the projects are targeted for immigrants (while they don’t need to be intregrated). They are asked about how they understand integration and they answered that it is about meetings, about a shared will to take part in each others’ lives, to participate and to accepts the requests put by society but also to participate in defining the requests, to belong,to take part and to have the same possibilities and “rules of the game” as every one else participating (71). Mentioning equal oppertunites creates a wide discussion among the women, as they don’t feel like they have any chance of meeting the requests and the rules of the game.

The visit to the international women’s centre raises several important questions regarding power in relation to class, gender, race and ethnicity in contemporary Sweden. By visiting 60 different centres around Sweden and conducting approximately 200 interviews, the author tried to map the social practice of women’s centres. What are the aims of the centres? Who are they for? What are the goals?

The results from the study shows that the women’s centres can be seen working both to promote gender equality and integration, and the conditions under which they work are dictated by society (75). From another perspective, they can be understood as an activity for “hiding” women who otherwise would have been unemployed (75).

The interviews conducted in the study were made with persons related to the projects in different positions. It turned out that they held different aims and motivations for working with the projects.

The typical person taking the initiative of the activity was born in Sweden and worked in the centre and was employed as heading the project. She usually became engaged in it because she wanted to do something for “immigrant women”. The “tjänsteman” that works with the project does it as part of other responsibilities and does not activily come to the centre. She is engaged because she wants to work with questions regarding integration and immigrants. The leader of the project on the grassroot level (projektledare) is a usually woman with an immigrant background and she is engaged there because she wants to do something for other people. She may not have many other job oppertunities waiting for her. Besides the leader of the project, there are other employees working in the centre: for example in the kitchen, as many centers have some kind of cafeteria. In most cases, it is some kind of “praktik”, as their employment is founded by the state. These women are engaged because they want to have a job. In some cases, they have been forced to work there by the Office of Employment or the Social Service. The women coming to the centre go there to do something during the day and in order to meet with others. (77). As shown in the text, the different actors involved in the women’s centres have many and different aims for the activities as well as its function (78). The typical women centre had 20-25 participants and was placed in a middle sized town in the south of Sweden. It is usually run as a temporary project, were the cost is divided between an organisation and the municipality. Working with textiles in some form is the most common activity in the centres. Language education in Swedish and running some form of cafeterias were also common (76). All the women’s centres targets women who are marginalized in some way from mainstream society (79).

The centres aim to reach out to marginalized women and to fulfil their needs. However, as mentioned above, the persons involved held different views concerning the aim of the centres. But how are the needs of the women, who the centres are designed for, defined? Defining needs is complex, since we tend to interpetrate the needs of others inside our own racial, cultural, class and gender specific frames (80) Furthermore, one can only define the needs one knows about. It is hard enough to define one’s own needs, and even harder or impossible to define another persons requirements. For the women that were in a marginalized position, defining needs other than those expected by those in more privileged positions. Moreover, needs vary between different women, in different places and times (81). Still, the author argues that it seems like all women always are in need for protection of their integrity, protection against sexual and other types of abuse, as well as to be able to have control over their situation (81).

Thomson is critical of the women’s centres. She argues that they are mainly temporary spaces for “breathing”, while the lives of the marginalized women remain the same (81). The women that come to the centres are unemployed, “long term illness”, or marginalized in other ways, and the issues concerning their positions and limited power are not dealt with centres’ activities. Moreover, the fact that they are limited and oppressed as women is ignored (84). The fact that a group is oppressed and marginalized doesn’t necessarily mean that there is an obvious oppressor or enemy, just that there are always other groups privileged in relation to the oppressed group in terms of social conditions and power to make decision affecting one’s own life (85). While the women working with the centres agree that gender oppression exists, they are still unwilling to discuss men’s oppression of women in general and, instead, focus on the immigrant man as the oppressor ( 85). I believe that this shows how gender equality is integrated in Swedishness, with the oppressor being located in the Other and explained in cultural terms. It seems like it is hard to work for a change of the conditions of women without conducting some kind of “fostering” for becoming more “normal”, “employable”, “gender equal” (as defined by the norms in the majority society) (87). Thomson argues in favour of working for the empowerment of women and giving them tools for changing their situations and defining their needs, rights and demands (88). However, since neither of the women working with the centres talks in terms of power or empowerment (87), there is a need for a major change of approach.

But is it fruitful to talk about women as a group? Although there are great differences between women, Thomson argue that it is still valuable to do so while defining resistance and strategies for empowerment against the oppression of women as a group (86). It is not the grouping itself which is oppressive, but the different conditions that apply to different groups and the problems arise when one group benefits on the expense of another group as well as when persons are unwillingly defined as a member of a certain group (86).

'''Kalla mörkret natt! Kön, klass och ras/etnicitet i det postkoloniala Sverige av Molina & de los Reyes.'''

The aim of de los Reyes and Molina is to discuss and aknowledge the existence of racist ideologies in the processes of segregation and stratification in contemporary Sweden (296, 316). There is a continuation of the race biology ideologies that legitimized the colonialist project in the world and the marginalisation of immigrants today (296). To a great extent, racism as a term and ground for analyses has been replaced by the term ethnicity. In the discourse on ethnicity, the idea of cultural distances is used to explain and mark the unfamiliar and strange, as well as the clashes that can result when they meet. Further, the discourse of ethnic and cultural distance is based on an understanding of one culture as the norm to which others are judged according to (304). The discourse of ethnicity has made these cultural differences to be percieved as natural and placed racism as an abnormal extreme ideology of the past. Therefore, there is a need to bring the concept of race and racism back into the discussion (315).

Molina and de los Reyes want to focus on the racification (rasifisering) in society, meaning the explicit or/ and outspoken categorisations, discourses (tankemodeller) and associations that make the hierarchies between people a natural part of social and power relations (295-296). This process is based on an essentialist understanding of humans and that they have differences that are unchangeable (296). Racification can be understood as a meaning-building process which is created and reproduced through people’s actions, perceptions (föreställningar) and stories (307). On the one hand, racification can be understood as a process were social meanings are attached to certain biological features. On the other hand, they can also be understood as the process(es) by which social relations are structured according to prescribed biological and cultural caracteristics (constituting different social groups as different races) (311). In post colonial theory, racism is understood as complex relations between groups in different positions (over- och underordning) and as a dynamic and context dependent process (313).

Although race is understood as a social construct, it has concrete material effect in relation to distribution between different groups in society. Race differentiation is an ideological construct, but also a result of organisations, institutions and markets that controls relations of production, distribution and consumption (314).

The authors discuss the racification in three areas: housing, labour market and gender equality. As discussed in the texts above, gender equality is one of the cornerstones in Swedishness (Swedish identity) in relation both to other countries as well as immigrants inside Sweden (306). As a consequence, gender oppression is understood as a cultural problem, and discussed in terms of immigrants’ culture rather than the majority community (306). The gender equality discourse serves to create bounderies between “Us the Swedes” and “Them the immigrants”, where the “Swedish culture” is perceived as superior (307).