Nordic Colonial Mind
Call for papers for the workshop Reconceptualising postcolonial national identities in the Nordic countries – and beyond The Third Workshop in the Series Decoding the Nordic Colonial Mind Oslo University College, October 13 – 14, 2010 Conference organizers: Anne Hege Simonsen, Oslo University College, Kristín Loftsdóttir, University of Iceland and Lars Jensen, Roskilde University. The workshop series Decoding the Nordic Colonial Mind is organized by the network The Nordic Colonial Mind directed by Lars Jensen and Kristín Loftsdóttir and funded by NOS-HS. It is composed of three workshops held during the period 2009-2010. The first workshop was held at Roskilde University, October 19-20, 2009 and the second one at University of Iceland, May 4-5, 2010. Theme of the third workshop The theme of the third work is the processes of (re)conceptualising Nordic national identities in the light of transnationalism and the reality of an increasingly global Nordic present. Where the two previous workshops have addressed how discriminatory practices and histories have emerged in the Nordic countries’ ways of dealing with their colonial histories and the presence of migrant others, the third workshop will explore how existing homogeneous conceptualisations of national identities in the Nordic countries will have to give way to more cosmopolitan definitions of Nordic national identities. The issue of the tricky relationship between at times it would seem competing conceptualisations of race and ethnicity will be given a particular focus. Furthermore, it asks what this means with reference to the initial question for the first workshop, whether there is in fact a special Nordic condition – an exceptionalism or unique national settings in an increasingly globalised world order. We want to ask how the history is conceptualised and written, how the postcolonial present emerges from the colonial past. In order to address the wider implications of this question, a number of scholars working on similar issues in other postcolonial European contexts will also be invited. The deadline for abstracts is August 23, 2010. Please submit your abstract (250 words) to Anne-Hege.Simonsen@jbi.hio.no. In the abstract, please state your institutional affiliation and major aspects that you will focus on in your paper. Also, please make very clear the connection of your paper to the general theme of the workshop. By September 10, 2010, we will let you know whether the abstract has been accepted. Please state if you wish to get reimbursed for travel and accommodation expenses. We will be able to accommodate a limited number of participants, but we wish to attract as many scholars as possible. Also, depending on the number of participants, we may ask you to present your work in another way than the standard conference presentation form, or act as discussant etc. This is of specific interest to those who have an interest in the forum, but do not presently conduct research in the field. After the end of the workshop, a series of a selection of papers will be published in a specific volume. This volume will showcase the scholarship to a broader academic audience in the Nordic countries and beyond, and will also through a focus on the comparative seek to elaborate whether the Nordic countries in fact have a common history of self-perception, and a communal way of perceiving a Nordic way in the contemporary world of cultural exchange. About the workshop series The workshops will critically engage with the historical past of the Nordic countries, examining how the Nordic countries participated, contested and participated in colonial and imperialistic projects. Simultaneously, the project brings these historical perspectives into the present, through the overt focus on the relationship between the Nordic colonial past and contemporary processes of globalisation, most notably migration. The workshops will enable the important cross-cultural exploration of related research, and create a formal structure for the future collaboration within fields, from anthropology, ethnology, history, social sciences, literature studies, popular cultural studies and postcolonial studies. About the Nordic Colonial Mind The Nordic Colonial Mind constitutes a part of a wider postcolonial critique that has swept across Europe, questioning the colonial legacy both in a historical and a contemporary sense. The postcolonial critique has been established for a couple of decades in the UK, and more broadly in the Anglophone world, where it has led to the establishment of an important theoretical framework for investigating the legacy of colonialism and more generally sought to provide answers to the troubled history of European non-European relations. Over the last few years the same questions have emerged in continental Europe, leading for example to the publication in 2008 by the Edinburgh University Press A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures – Continental Europe and its Empires (eds, Prem Poddar, Rajeev S. Patke, and Lars Jensen). The Nordic Colonial Mind was originally initiated at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala focusing exclusively on Africa and the Nordic, but through preliminary discussions in connection with the application that secured funding for the workshops it has now been broadened to establish the details of the Nordic colonial experience in general as well as work with the images of the non-European other in Nordic history, both in the shorter term and the longer term. The Nordic Colonial Mind will develop alongside work in other parts of Europe, such as the German, Italian and Portuguese colonial experiences. University of Iceland, May 4 - 5, 2010
Workshop title:
Nordic Colonial Legacy and Contemporary Immigration
Day one: May 4th, Oddi 206, University of Iceland
9:15 – 9:30 Opening address: Kristín Loftsdóttir
9:30 – 11:00 Colonial histories and presents
Jopi Nyman The Finnish Foreign Legion: Gender, Nation, and Colonial Space in Finnish Memoirs of the French Foreign Legion
Erlend Eidsvik, Pan-Nordic sentiments and the Nordic colonial legacy in South Africa
Linda Lund Pedersen, Translation and recognition of colonial history in the Nordic context
11:00 – 11:30 Coffee
11.30 – 12.30 Representing selves and others I
Ylva Habel, Images of a Raceless Nation? Cinema, Visual Culture and the Black Presence in Sweden
Kimberly Cannady, Global North, Local North: Negotiating Nordic Identities at WOMEX
12.30-13.30 Lunch
13.30-14:30 Representing selves and others II
Mekonnen Tesfahuney, Closet History, Racism and the Swedish National Imagination
Kristín Loftsdóttir, Republishing the Negroboys: Whiteness and Identity in Iceland
14.30 – 15.00 Coffee break
15.00 – 16:00 Media representations
Marianne Stecher-Hansen, 'Danish Cartoons' and Representations of Islam
Anne Hege Simonsen, Sharing space - sharing time? Notes on the political geography of the Norwegian press
16:00—17:15 Reception and introduction of KULT and Kolonitid
19.30 Dinner
Day 2: May 5th, Oddi 206
9:30 – 10:30 Literary representations and mobility
Ebbe Volquardsen, Nuuk – Copenhagen, Copenhagen – Nuuk: Postcolonial Migration in Selected Danish and Greenlandic Novel
Katharina Schieferstein, Peripherical Mimicries, or The Fairy Tale King and his Little Indians
10:30-11:00 coffee
11:00-12:30 Mobility in a Global World I
Anna Rastas, What can we learn from the story of Finland's first Black citizen?
Serena Maurer and Kirsten Hvenegård-Lassen, Becoming Citizens: Ambivalent Danishness and the Immigrant Others
Ann-Sofie Gremaud, Where the storms of time never reached
12:30 -13:30 Lunch
13:00 -14:00 Mobility in a Global World II
Joel Kuortti, The Finnish Colonial Exercise: A Missionary Position?
Lene Bull Christiansen, The White Man's Burden: Celebrity narratives in Danish development aid
14:00 – 14:30 Concluding remarks: Lars Jensen, who during the workshop will collect arguments and points from the various sessions, will lead the discussion
14:30 – 15:00 Coffee and concluding discussion
Call for papers for the workshop Nordic Colonial Legacy and Contemporary Immigration
The Second Workshop in the Series Decoding the Nordic Colonial Mind
University of Iceland, May 4-5, 2010
Conference organizers: Kristín Loftsdóttir, University of Iceland, Lars Jensen, Roskilde University, Anne Hege Simonsen, Oslo University College and Mikela Lundahl, University of Gothenburg.
The workshop series Decoding the Nordic Colonial Mind is organized by the network The Nordic Colonial Mind directed by Lars Jensen and Kristín Loftsdóttir and funded by NOS-HS. It is composed of three workshops held during the period 2009-2010. The first workshop was held at Roskilde University, October 19-20, 2009.
Theme of the second workshop
This workshop aims to link together historically oriented research on the Nordic countries’ engagement in the colonial era with research on contemporary immigration. The workshop thus emphasizes various participations in global processes during the colonial era and how these can be brought into play with more contemporary orientated research that seeks to investigate Nordic self-perceptions in the wake of large-scale migration since World War II. How are contemporary forms of globalization derived from, and how do they differ from, earlier forms of colonialism and imperialism in the Nordic countries? In what ways do colonial legacies continue to inform current globalized practices, and how are they contested in the present? How does historical memory inform current patterns of immigration policies and practices in the present? The workshop aims at gaining a deeper understanding of the linking of the past and the present in terms of issues of diversity in the Nordic countries and how the colonial past is dealt with - or not.
First workshop on Decoding the Nordic Colonial Mind Roskilde University, October 19 and 20, 2009
Workshop title: Nordic Exceptionalism
Day one: October 19, Auditorium 15
11.00-11.30 Opening address of the workshop: Lars Jensen, ‘From Postcolonial Europe to Nordic Exceptionalism: Positioning the Nordic postcolonial moment’
11.30-12.30 Workshop 1:
Ulrik Pram Gad, "Muslims as security problem in Denmark. What threat? And what means for their aversion?"
Linda Lund Pedersen, ‘Regulation, Neutrality and Debates on Muslim Women’s Attires in Denmark’
12.30-13.30 Lunch
13.30-15.00 Workshop 3: Contemporary representations of the Nordic self and the idea of Nordic Exceptionalism
Anna Rastas, ‘Living “Our History” through “Finnish Exceptionalism”’
Tobias Hübinette, ’”Japanese, Japanese…”: Representations of East Asians in Swedish Contemporary Visual Culture’
Katharina Pohl, ‘On the Role of Development Aid in Constituting Norwegian and German Autostereotypes’
15.00-15.30 Coffee break
15.30-17.00 Workshop 2: Early 20th century representations of race and the national imaginary
Irene Molina, ‘Intersections of Race, Class, Sex and Space in Swedish Racial Hygienist Discourse’
Hanna Acke, ‘The Role of Foreign Mission in the Construction of Swedish Identity around 1900’
Finn Kudsk, ‘Agency and Destiny on the Ethnographic Frontier: The Notebooks of Selma Laman, a Swedish Missionary in the Lower Congo’
17.00 reception
17.30 Michelle Eistrup & Anders Juhl, NotAboutKarenBlixen is an art project, conceptualized by Michelle Eistrup, visual artist and Anders Juhl, music producer. The project involves 3 Danish and 3 Kenyan artists, and will be presented in 2010 at My World IMAGES festival in Denmark and at a Kenyan venue. The project seems to resonate with the concept of Nordic Exceptionalism. The project will be presented at its current stage at the workshop.
19.30 Dinner
Day 2: October 20, Teorirum 3.1.5
9.15-10.45 Workshop 4: Literary representations of the Nordic self in the South
Ashleigh Harris, ‘Nordic Whiteness and the South African Literary Imagination’
David Watson, ‘”What of Denmark’s Relationship to Nella Larsen?” Race and Exceptionalism in Quicksand’
Marianne Stecher-Hansen, ‘Ambivalent Colonialism and Karen Blixen’s “Sorte og Hvide i Afrika”’
10.45-11.15 Coffee break
11.15-13.00 Plenary (will open with presentation by Kristín Loftsdóttir (see below) and continue with discussion about the direction of future workshops)
Kristín Loftsdóttir, ‘Whiteness is from another world: Icelandic identities and entanglements of the past’
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-15.30 Workshop 5: North of the Nordic, and South of the South
Katarina Löbel and Lill-Ann Körber, ‘The Global North and its Others’
Jens Heinrich, ‘Greenland, Denmark the US and the Thule Air Base’ [provisional title]
Íris Ellenberger, "Continuity and change among Danish Immigrants in Iceland in the light of
Danish authority and Icelandic independence 1900-1970 " 15.30-16.00 summing up over coffee |
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