“We Blend in with the Crowd But they Don’t”: <i>(In)visibility and Icelandic migrants in Norway</i>

Abstract

Placing emphasis on often overlooked migration within the affluent North, this article focuses on Icelanders who have migrated to Norway in the aftermath of the Icelandic financial collapse in October 2008. The article draws on critical whiteness studies and is based on fieldwork and qualitative interviews with 32 Icelandic migrants in Norway. The findings show how the participants construct their belonging through racialization, emphasizing their assumed visual, ancestral and cultural sameness with the majority population. This article, furthermore, reveals how whiteness, language and class intersect -resulting in differing degrees of (in)visibility and privilege among the participants. Despite somewhat different positions, all the participants have the possibility of capitalizing on their Icelandic nationality to receive favourable treatment. The article argues that the preferential treatment of Icelanders and narratives of sameness must be understood in relation to contemporary, intertwined racist and nationalistic discourses that exclude other migrants due to their assumed difference.

The White Side of Migration: <i>Reflections on race, citizenship and belonging in Sweden</i>

“…Historically, white ethnic Europeans in the United States have experienced a decline in residential segregation in contrast to non-white groups (Frankenberg 1993: 6). We can assume that white Europeans and white Anglo-Saxon migrants in the Nordic countries have similar experiences, although these groups are seldom included in studies of migration in the Nordic countries (Guðjónsdóttir 2014).…”

Being a desirable migrant: perception and racialisation of Icelandic migrants in Norway

“…The narratives in the interviews with the Icelandic migrants often mirrored the Norwegian media discussions, as the participants emphasised sameness and assumed shared ancestry, explaining that as Icelanders they were greeted 'with open arms' in Norway and seen as 'family returning home' (see Guðjónsdóttir 2014). While the Icelanders do occasionally, as the Norwegians emphasise shared 'genes', the Icelanders more commonly refer to historical connections between Iceland and Norway, especially that the original settlement of Iceland was to a large extent done by Norwegians.…”

“…Baldur, a man in his mid-twenties, stated: A hostile comment like this one of telling Baldur to 'go back home' was very much an exception and majority of the participants explained that it was an advantage to be Icelandic in Norway (see Guðjónsdóttir 2014).…”

Researching In/Visibility in the Nordic Context: <i>Theoretical and empirical views</i>

“…Following Andreassen, we maintain that a focus on "ethnicity" or "culture" fails to explain the social realities and inequities that many groups of migrants and minorities face in the contemporary Nordic region. Our focus on in/visibility will illuminate how "race", understood as a socially constructed category, influences group position in Nordic societies in a forceful way -both in the case of groups that are racialized as visible (Toivanen 2014) and in the case of privileged individuals who due to their "whiteness" can pass as "one of us" in everyday interactions (Guðjónsdóttir 2014).…”

“…While we highlight the importance of analysing how individuals' physical characteristics -or, to be more precise, the values and meanings associated with these characteristics -influence their everyday life in Nordic societies, we also argue that the analytical focus on in/visibility enables scholars to flesh out how ideas attached to embodied features alone do not always explain why individuals are seen as different from/similar to the "majority". The articles show that becoming and being in/visible can also be based on markers of difference such as class status (Guðjónsdóttir 2014;Huhta 2014) or speaking a foreign language or having an accent (Guðjónsdóttir 2014;Toivanen 2014). An analysis of how these different categories of difference/sameness are intertwined allows scholars to better capture the complexity of racialization processes and how they play out in individuals' everyday lives.…”