Invisible Fences: Egalitarianism, Nationalism and Racism

Abstract

With its specific combination of a bureaucratic welfare state and an open, globalized capitalist economy, Norway, along with the other Nordic countries, provides a particularly interesting context for the examination of the relationship between egalitarianism, nationalism, and racism in Europe. A racialization of difference takes place, as immigration emerges as a site for racial and racist discourse, and as a site of conjuncture between the welfare state and its citizens. By presenting an analysis of the contemporary debate on immigration in Norway, this article demonstrates how equality conceived as sameness (‘imagined sameness’) underpins a growing ethnification of national identity. Widely different utterances and points of view refer to metaphors of home and family life, a close link between territory and generalized kinship, and the renewed importance of Lutheran Christianity in contrast to Islam. A model of group identity and relationship is therefore suggested, in which organizational boundaries and cultural substance inflect one another, rather than being the bases of different or even opposed approaches. It is also argued that anthropologists need to take a more serious interest in the European majority populations.