Kinned to beNorwegian: transnational adoptees' positioning in relation to whiteness and the negotiation of nationhood

Abstract

Embedded in ongoing discussions on everyday nationhood in the context of migration-related diversity, this article explores how Norwegian transnational adoptees, as border subjects, negotiate their national belonging and identities by positioning themselves in relation to whiteness. By doing so, it further explores the relationship between race and nation. The analysis demonstrates that transnational adoptees position themselves as white when encountering the norm of whiteness, which the author argues in favour of understanding as continued process of doing race. While phenotypic differences trigger a process of racialisation through which transnational adoptees can easily be placed in a minoritised position, adoption provides them with unique access to whiteness, mostly along the negotiable and intertwined dimensions of kinship and the notion of 'origin', referred to as the place where they grew up. The article argues that individuals' positioning along majoritisation/minoritisation processes is another important dimension to understand one's multiple and fluid national identity and belonging in migration-related diversity. The analysis also furthers the discussions on hierarchy of belonging by highlighting the relevance of kinship in intersection with race.

Doing research into Indigenous issues being non-Indigenous

“…It has a hegemonic character and gives implications for ‘the way white academics come to understand the world as an object of analysis’ (Evans et al, 2009: 898). In the Norwegian context, researchers have employed whiteness in different contexts; studying immigrants (Guðjónsdóttir and Loftsdóttir, 2017), studying how adoptees ‘negotiate their national belonging and identities by positioning themselves in relation to whiteness’ (Zhao, 2019: 1259), and studying physical education. Teachers ‘draw on narratives from curricula texts which uphold and reinforce notions of the racialized other, and thereby reasserting normative, universal white knowledge’ (Flintoff and Dowling, 2019: 121).…”

Integration as a Solution to Depopulation? Producing the Moral and Loyal Resident in Policies Aiming to Attract and Retain International Migrants

“…Place attachment, a more popularized concept, may be understood 'as the bonds humans form with places' (Budruk 2010: 29) and involves a sense of place, identification with, and belonging to place (Berg 2016). In the Norwegian context, local affiliation plays an important role in defining identity and belonging (Zhao 2019). While place attachment is a fruitful concept for understanding the human relationship to place and belonging is useful for looking at relational micro-and macro-level structures and processes, I choose to use the concept loyal resident built more strongly on the idea of place loyalty, as the interest is in exploring the discursive production of the loyal resident vis-à-vis policy documents.…”

Innledning

“…Beveger vi oss til Norge så har Yan Zhao (2013Zhao ( , 2019 bidratt på feltet med sin forskning på hvordan utenlandsadopterte plasserer seg i forhold til det norske ved å blant annet å legemliggjøre hvithet. Det vil si at utenlandsadopterte blant annet gjennom språk eller kroppslige bevegelser viser hvordan de tar avstand fra å bli oppfattet som en innvandrer, samtidig som de ønsker å bli oppfattet som norske.…”

“…Med bakgrunn i funnene fra nevnte forskning (Hessaa-Szwinto, 2023; Hübinette & Tigervall, 2009;Hübinette, 2013Hübinette, , 2021Leirvik et al, 2021;Zhao, 2013Zhao, , 2019 er det viktig å forske mer på østasiater i Norge og deres forhold til norsk hvithet. For det første fordi det er viktig å belyse en gruppe det er forsket lite på innenfor dette feltet, og for det andre fordi det er viktig å se sammenhenger med erfart rasisme og utfallet av den for både mottaker av rasismen og på resten av samfunnet.…”

“…I sammenheng med identitetsbegrepet er også begrepet hvithet forstått i denne artikkelen som en sosial konstruksjon. Det vil si at hvithet ikke bare defineres ut fra hudfarge eller biologiske trekk, men i tillegg er historisk, sosialt, politisk og kulturelt betinget (Zhao, 2019(Zhao, , s. 1262. Hvithet uttrykkes dermed også gjennom blant annet klasse, religion og språk (Eriksen, 2021;Zhao, 2019).…”