Genus och vithet i den intersektionella vändningen

Abstract

The point of departure of the article is the growing interest in critical whiteness studies in Swedish gender studies and wider circles of feminist debates and arenas. This growing interest, the article argues, reflects the “intersectional turn” of Swedish feminism, and the ambition of understanding how different social power relations are intertwined and mutually co-constituted. In contrast to a common understanding of intersectionality as “the ambition to study different categories in relation to each other”, the author stresses that intersectionality was introduced in the context of a highly specific and situated anti-racist feminist critique. This critique highlighted shortcomings and hegemonic discourses within the field of Swedish gender studies, and pointed out that silent and taken for granted norms and ideals are indeed reproduced within the academic field of gender studies. However, this has at the same time not resulted in a comprehensive assessment of the field as such. The article examines the overlapping space in between gender studies and critical whiteness studies, with the ambition to show how the concept of whiteness can broaden and deepen our understandings and conceptualizations of gender relations in various ways.