Sayaka Osanami Törngren

Attitudes toward interracial marriages and the role of interracial contacts in Sweden

This paper examines attitudes toward interracial marriages and the relationship between the amount of prior interracial contact and attitudes in Sweden. The analysis is based on an anonymous postal survey conducted in Malmö, Sweden answered by 461 white-European respondents. Several studies in the US address the question of contact and attitudes and find that those who have more interracial contact, especially interracial friendships, have more positive attitudes toward intermarriage. The results show that the majority of the white European respondents can imagine marrying interracially; however, there are clear preferences toward different racial groups. Moreover, as in the US context, respondents who reported interracial friendships, and not general or superficial contacts, are more apt to answer the question about interracial marriage positively.This paper examines attitudes toward interracial marriages and the relationship between the amount of prior interracial contact and attitudes in Sweden. The analysis is based on an anonymous postal survey conducted in Malmo, Sweden answered by 461 white-European respondents. Several studies in the US address the question of contact and attitudes and find that those who have more interracial contact, especially interracial friendships, have more positive attitudes toward intermarriage. The results show that the majority of the white European respondents can imagine marrying interracially; however, there are clear preferences toward different racial groups. Moreover, as in the US context, respondents who reported interracial friendships, and not general or superficial contacts, are more apt to answer the question about interracial marriage positively.

Toward building a conceptual framework on intermarriage

Increasing migration worldwide and the cultural diversity generated as a consequence of international migration has facilitated the unions of people from different countries, religions, races, and ethnicities. Such unions are often celebrated as a sign of integration; however, at the same time as they challenge peoples idea of us and them, intermarriages in fact still remain controversial, and even to some extent, taboo in many societies. Research and theorizing on intermarriage is conducted predominantly in the English-speaking North American and British contexts. This special issue includes empirical studies from not only the English-speaking countries such as the U.S., Canada, and the UK, but also from Japan, Sweden, Belgium, France, and Spain and demonstrate the increasingly diverse directions taken in the study of intermarriage in regards to the patterns, experiences, and social implications of intermarriages. Moreover, the articles address the assumed link between intermarriage and “integration.”

Talking Color-Blind: Justifying and Rationalizing Attitudes Toward Interracial Marriages in Sweden

Racial color-blindness, the belief that race should not be seen and noticed, is widespread in all aspects of Swedish society. However, color-blindness does not necessarily mean that there is no racial prejudice in Sweden. This chapter, based on interviews, explores the discourse of color-blindness in talking about attitudes toward interracial marriages in Sweden. The interview results show that color-blind talk is established through justification of racial attitudes as natural by stressing individual choice and gender equality and through focusing on the cultural differences that can bring problems to interracial marriages and undermine the welfare of the family. These explanations emerge as a rational way of understanding the attitudes and make the racial preference sound reasonable rather than prejudiced.

Reversing the gaze : methodological reflections from the perspective of racial- and ethnic-minority researchers

In the current literature on methodology and knowledge production, there is a substantial imbalance in interracial and interethnic research: the perspective has primarily been that of the ‘white gaze’. This article reverses that gaze and attempts to initiate a methodological discussion that is missing today: what occurs when non-white researchers interview a white-majority population or persons of the same racial but different ethnic background? Based on the experiences of a female researcher with an East Asian background (Sayaka Osanami Törngren) and a male researcher with an African background (Jonathan Ngeh) who conducted interviews in Malmö, Sweden, this article analyzes incidents in which the boundaries between race, ethnicity and non-Swedishness in relation to non-whiteness are implicitly and explicitly communicated between the researcher and the researched. Our experiences reveal that the demarcation of these boundaries is not fixed but highly fluid.

Playing the safe card or playing the race card? Comparison of attitudes towards interracial marriages with non-white migrants and transnational adoptees in Sweden

This article compares the attitudes of white Swedes towards interracial marriages with someone of non-white migrant origin and a non-white transnational adoptee. The analysis is based on a postal survey and follow-up interviews conducted in Malmö, Sweden. Survey results show that transnational adoptees are not preferred as marriage partners by white Swedes to the same extent as white Swedes. Moreover, the differences in attitudes towards marriages with migrants and non-white adoptees are not statistically significant. Interviewees utilized the notion of cultural differences to explain the attitudes towards intermarriages with migrants. However, this was highly contested when talking about the attitudes towards non-white transnational adoptees. These results show how race and visible differences play a role in attitudes toward interracial marriages in Sweden.