The Politics of Ethnicity in Contemporary Nordic Screen Media (forthcoming)

Abstract

Over the last few decades, the immigrant populations of the five small Nordic nations, that is, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland, have risen considerably. As a result, debates over borders, boundaries and inclusion continue to dominate political and economic agendas across the Nordic region. Simultaneously, the demand for Nordic media content catering for both domestic and international audiences has grown exponentially. As a result, film and media culture has become a critical framework for exploring and negotiating new global challenges, including pressing topics like immigration and multiculturalism. The book’s primary objective is to explore the way ethnic Otherness is represented in contemporary Nordic screen media covering a period from the 1980s to the present day. Consequently, the study does not take the Nordic region’s reputation for egalitarianism or progressive liberal politics at face value. It asks how far these case studies contribute to the normalisation of particular ethnically-themed narratives or representations of Otherness, as well as what kind of challenges they pose to embedded hierarchical attitudes towards race evident in wider political and social landscapes.