"We don't throw stones, we throw flowers": race discourse and race evasiveness in the Norwegian university classroom. Issue 7 (19th May 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Harlap, Yael; Riese, Hanne
• Is Part Of: Ethnic and racial studies. Volume 45:Issue 7(2022)
• Page Start: 1218
• Page End: 1238
• Publication Date: 2022-05-19
• Subjects: Race -- racialization -- discourse analysis -- race evasiveness -- colourblindness -- higher education; Race -- Periodicals; Race relations -- Periodicals; Ethnic groups -- Periodicals; 305.805
• DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2021.1904146
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0141-9870

Abstract

ABSTRACT: How do university students and instructors engage in discussions about race and racism in a country where speaking about race is perceived as racist? In Norway, as in much of Europe, the concept of "race" is silenced, discarded as a wrong-headed remnant of Nazism, despite continued documentation of racial discrimination in labour, housing, education and interpersonal interaction. We used Membership Category Analysis to explore race-related interactions in classroom discourse in three university courses. We find that students and instructors implicitly equate Norwegianness with whiteness, peacefulness, and innocence, and characterize racism with deviance and non-Norwegianness. The national belonging of racialized "Others" in Norway is ambiguous: accepted, but not unproblematically. The category race is elided with the concepts of culture, ethnicity and biology. We propose discursive meta-awareness as an educational approach to countering race evasiveness (often described as "colourblindness").