Doing racialized masculinities in Finnish schools: subjectivation and de/humanization

Abstract

This paper focuses on Judith Butler’s theorisation of the performative subject and contemporary critiques to consider its relevance to the doing of racialized masculinities in Finnish schools. Recent postcolonial critique has indicated that, early work on performativity and subjectivation implicitly assumes a white and western, enlightenment subject and does not take the aftermath of slavery into account. While Butler’s work since then theorises inequalities including racism, it leaves untheorized the de/subjectivation of Black people and those from other minoritised ethnic groups as well as how racialisation and abjection is a systematic part of the subjectivation of white people. This paper draws on a study of the narratives of Finnish 12–15-year-olds in order to shed light on processes of subjectivation they do while doing racialized masculinities. The findings point to the need to extend Butler’s theory of subjectivation to take power-knowledge-affect-relations and de/humanization on board in ways that account for Black as well as white people’s performative subjectivation.