Current research projects
The Swedish r-word: Uses and negotiations of the terms race and racism in contemporary Swedish online and social media discourse
Tobias Hübinette, Peter Wikström. Funded by the Swedish Research Council (2020-2023).
The purpose of this critical race theoretical, sociolinguistic and discourse analytical project is to investigate how the terms race [ras], racism [rasism], and racist [rasist/rasistisk/-t] are put to use and metalinguistically defined, contested, and negotiated in informal contexts of mediated interactions. The project will be based on case studies of the uses and negotiations of these terms in social media and online discourses across different online platforms, demographic groups, and political persuasions. The project poses questions concerning what discursive contexts the terms race and racism appear in, how they are articulated in terms of denotation and connotation, and how they are received by other interactants in terms of interactional consequences.
- Publication 2021: Equality data as immoral race politics: A case study of liberal, colour-blind, and antiracialist opposition to equality data in Sweden
- Publication 2021: Svensk rasism under efterkrigstiden: Rasdiskussioner och rasfrågor i Sverige 1946-1977
- Publication 2022: Scientist or Racist? The racialized memory war over monuments to Carl Linnaeus in Sweden during the Black Lives Matter summer of 2020
- Publication 2022: Den svenska färgblindheten
- Publication 2023: Race in Sweden: Racism and antiracism in the world's first 'colourblind' nation
- Publication 2023: Sveriges avrasifiering: Svenska uppfattningar om ras och rasism under efterkrigstiden
Sweden as a Norm Entrepreneur: The Case of the Feminist Foreign Policy
Ekatherina Zhukova, Malena Rosén Sundström (Lund University, principal investigator). Funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (2020-2024).
Sweden introduced a Feminist Foreign Policy (FUP) in 2014, when Margot Wallström became Foreign Minister under the Social Democratic – Green coalition government. This policy has since been abandoned by the newly elected Moderate – Christian Democratic – Liberal coalition government. However, a number of countries have been adopting this policy – Canada in 2017, France and Luxembourg in 2018, Mexico in 2020, and Spain in 2021, and Germany, Chile, and Libya are expressing an interest in adopting one. The aim of the project is to study how a FFP is understood by those countries that have introduced it and by those countries that have not done so. For those countries that have introduced a FFP, the goal is to understand how FFP differs from ordinary foreign policy, what feminism in it entails, and what challenges and opportunities there are in having such a policy. For those countries that have not introduced it, the goal is to study why there is such an interest or a lack of it, how feminism is understood in each non-FFP country, and what challenges and opportunities there are for feminism in non-FFP countries. The first part of the study included media analyses of FFP coverage in different countries in the world (2020-2021). The second part of the study consists of interviews with experts (2021-2024).
- Publication 2021: Sweden’s Feminist Foreign Policy in international media
- Publication 2021: Sweden’s Feminist Foreign Policy in conflict-affected states
- Publication 2022: Feminist foreign policies (FFPs) as strategic narratives
- Publication 2022: How Sweden, Canada, France, and Mexico interpret gender norms in their Feminist Foreign Policies (FFPs)
- Publication 2023: A struggle for hegemonic feminisation in six feminist foreign policies
Visual Interculturality: Photography in Comparison and Conversation
Staffan Löfving, Paul Weinberg (University of Johannesburg). Funded by STINT, the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (2021-2023).
In a new collaboration with the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, we investigate the role played by photographic images in intercultural communication, and in the social organisation of conflict and conviviality. We develop research projects and educational resources in dialogue with photographers, visual artists and the institutions responsible for a visual heritage in countries where political violence forms part of recent history. This work aims to supplement a traditional focus in intercultural studies on the relation between language and culture with theorisation within the less studied field of visual interculturality.
- Conference 2021: Photographs in Conversation, December 10 2021
- Conference 2022: Visual Heritage in Sweden and South Africa, September 19 2022
- Conference 2023: Indigeneity and Visual Sovereignty, April 27-28 2023
Renewable energy, violent conflict, and gender equality: Exploring a triple nexus on a case study of Yemen
Ekatherina Zhukova, Maria-Louise Clausen (Dansk Institut for Internationale studier) och Vasna Ramasar (Lunds universitet). Funded by Formas - the Swedish research council for sustainable development, (2023-2027).
The decarbonization of economy is happening at a time of increased conflicts, but the relationship between renewable energy and conflict is poorly understood. This four year project looks at energy-conflict nexus from a gendered perspective since both conflict and renewables disproportionally affect women.