“Eastern European”, Yes, but How? Autoethnographic Accounts of Differentiated Whiteness

TY - JOUR

T1 - “Eastern European”, Yes, but How?

T2 - Autoethnographic Accounts of Differentiated Whiteness

AU - Lapina, Linda

AU - Vertelyté, Manté

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - This article examines how intersecting markers of difference shape differentiated whiteness. In so doing, it contributes to scholarship on whiteness and racialization. The authors draw on autoethnographic vignettes from fieldwork in Copenhagen to analyse the emergence of similar-yet-divergent researcher and migrant positionalities. Both authors are female researchers from Baltic countries living in Denmark and often perceived as Eastern Europeans—as not-quite-white and as “Europe’s ‘internal others’”. Both of us conducted fieldwork in the same district of Copenhagen. Mantė carried out research on friendships among teenagersn a racially diverse public school and in youth activity clubs. Linda explored social inclusion and exclusion in contested urban spaces. However, our researcher positionalities played out differently. We analyse how ambiguous, contested and relational notions of (Eastern) Europeanness, together with intersecting racialized, classed and gendered tropes of Eastern European migration, made themselves manifest in our positionings and movements. Through an intersectional analysis of Eastern European racialized positionalities, our discussion of differentiated whiteness highlights how whiteness is intersectionally constituted, multiple and mouldable. These findings serve to nuance research on hegemonic whiteness in the Nordic setting.

AB - This article examines how intersecting markers of difference shape differentiated whiteness. In so doing, it contributes to scholarship on whiteness and racialization. The authors draw on autoethnographic vignettes from fieldwork in Copenhagen to analyse the emergence of similar-yet-divergent researcher and migrant positionalities. Both authors are female researchers from Baltic countries living in Denmark and often perceived as Eastern Europeans—as not-quite-white and as “Europe’s ‘internal others’”. Both of us conducted fieldwork in the same district of Copenhagen. Mantė carried out research on friendships among teenagersn a racially diverse public school and in youth activity clubs. Linda explored social inclusion and exclusion in contested urban spaces. However, our researcher positionalities played out differently. We analyse how ambiguous, contested and relational notions of (Eastern) Europeanness, together with intersecting racialized, classed and gendered tropes of Eastern European migration, made themselves manifest in our positionings and movements. Through an intersectional analysis of Eastern European racialized positionalities, our discussion of differentiated whiteness highlights how whiteness is intersectionally constituted, multiple and mouldable. These findings serve to nuance research on hegemonic whiteness in the Nordic setting.

KW - Eastern Europeanness

KW - Intersectionality

KW - autoethnography

KW - racialization

KW - whiteness

U2 - 10.1080/08038740.2020.1762731

DO - 10.1080/08038740.2020.1762731

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0803-8740

VL - 28

SP - 237

EP - 250

JO - NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research

JF - NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research

IS - 3

ER -