Becoming ‘more like a Finn’: In‐visibility and the struggle for belonging in Finland

Abstract

AbstractNationalist practices and visionaries have a profound influence on those who are categorized as ‘foreign’ or ‘non‐belonging’ to the nation. Based on ethnographic explorations among Russian‐speakers and people with diverse Middle Eastern backgrounds in Finland, this article revisits the concept of in‐visibility as one possible avenue to expose the everyday struggles for belonging that these populations experience. We explore how dynamics of exclusion and inclusion at work in the wider society engender specific identification patterns that ultimately reproduce and reshuffle hierarchies between people. We argue that in their struggle for belonging, people categorized as ‘foreign’ in the nationalist imagination develop responsive tactics of becoming visible and invisible to cast themselves as full members of the society. However, in doing so, they find themselves tangled into hierarchies and power dynamics of exclusion at the core of strategies of visioning embedded into the social structures of the securitizing racial welfare state.