Mixed Race and Ethnicity in Sweden: A Sociological Analysis

This chapter seeks to cast light on the creation of mixed race and mixed ethnicity identities and the conceptualization of being different in Sweden. A characteristic feature of Swedish society is that racial heterogeneity is only measured in terms of mixing with Swedes. What makes ‘mixed race’ a separate category in Sweden is the assumed extent of the integration into Swedish society of those designated in this manner, along with the intermediate position they hold in the social hierarchy between the normative whiteness of Swedes and the constructed blackness of immigrants and their descendants. Such notions as ‘multiracial’ or ‘biracial’, which are accepted in British and American sociology, do not adequately reflect the Swedish realities since they are neither the precise categories around which Swedes of heterogeneous origin build their own identity, nor the categories yet utilized by researchers and institutions. This study shows that mixed identity in Sweden is largely understood as ‘mixed with the majority population’ and therefore well-integrated. This contrasts with the perspective of the ‘ethnic groups’ that are being mixed, which is linked with being ‘Swedified’ (forsvenskad) or having attained Swedishness.