An alternative world: a perspective from the North on racism and migration

Abstract

With the rise of populist movements of various kinds, racism has become one of the key issues debated in the present. This piece stresses the need to recognise racism as a part of the wider social and cultural contexts that populist movements operate within in Nordic countries and beyond. Populist movements’ claims of not being racist gain legitimacy through discourses of race and difference that are generally not recognised as racist but seen as constituting common-sense knowledge that creates an alternative world where racist claims seem to make sense. The article discusses this through three points of emphasis: everyday racism and racist exceptionalism; the idea of prior immobility; and the continued existence of structural racism. Finally, the discussion focuses on this alternative world from the perspective of debates about migration revolving essentially around future anticipation, which become particularly salient during times of crisis.