Neither Victim Nor Fetish – ‘Asian’ Women and the Effects of Racialization in the Swedish Context
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Linköping university - Department of Social and Welfare Studies (ISV) Master´s Thesis, 30 Credits – MA in Ethnic and Migration Studies (EMS) ISRN: LiU-ISV/EMS-A--19/01--SE Neither victim nor fetish – ‘Asian’ women and the effects of racialization in the Swedish context Mavis Hooi Supervisor: Professor Stefan Jonsson ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND DEDICATION I wish to express my gratitude to the people who have made this work possible. To the women who opened their hearts and shared their experiences with me: thank you, it has been a privilege to listen to and be entrusted to present your stories. To professor Stefan Jonsson and all the teachers at REMESO whose support and encouragement these past two years should not be underestimated; whose commitment and efforts towards shaping a better world for all inspires hope for the future: thank you. To my friends and family who have imparted heartfelt well-wishes and kind words of confidence along the way—Alex, Dylan, Raha, Rudeina, Carola, Charlotte, and many more: thank you. And to Fredrik, whose love and tireless support has enabled me to pursue this path; whose energy, enthusiasm and endless optimism throughout has been heartening— you’re my rock: thank you. This work is dedicated to my fellow people of colour, especially my ‘Asian’ sisters, who are on the same path of learning how to free our minds. Mavis Hooi Linköping, 21 December 2018 ABSTRACT Title: Neither victim nor fetish – ‘Asian’ women and the effects of racialization in the Swedish context Author: Mavis Hooi Year: 2018 People who are racialized in Sweden as ‘Asian’—a panethnic category—come from different countries or ethnic backgrounds and yet, often face similar, gender-specific forms of discrimination which have a significant impact on their whole lives. This thesis centres women who are racialized as 'Asian', focusing on how their racialization affects, and is shaped by, their social, professional and intimate relationships, and their interactions with others—in particular, with white majority Swedes, but also other ethnic minorities. Against a broader context encompassing discourses concerning ‘Asians’ within Swedish media, art and culture, Swedish ‘non-racist’ exceptionalism and gender equality politics, the narratives of nine women are analysed through the lenses of the racializing processes of visuality and coercive mimeticism, and epistemic injustice. Key terms: racialization, racism, Asian women, Sweden, Western context, panethnicity, stereotypes, visuality, coercive mimeticism, epistemic injustice, narratives, storytelling, counter- storytelling, intersectionality, everyday racism, structural racism Contents 1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................................2 1.1 RESEARCH QUESTION AND PURPOSE ............................................................................................................................ 3 2. BACKGROUND: ‘ASIAN’ WOMEN IN THE SWEDISH CONTEXT .............................................................................4 2.1 STATISTICS - GENDER: WOMAN; BIRTH REGION: ASIA ..................................................................................................... 6 2.2 THE PORTRAYAL OF ‘ASIAN’ WOMEN IN MEDIA, CULTURAL PRODUCTIONS AND ACADEMIA ................................................... 7 2.2.1 The submissive/‘imported’ wife ................................................................................................................. 8 2.2.2 The precariat worker ................................................................................................................................ 10 2.2.3 Land of sun, sea, sand and sex (workers) ................................................................................................ 12 2.2.4 More consequences of objectification and racialization ......................................................................... 14 2.3 SWEDISH ‘NON-RACIST’ EXCEPTIONALISM AND STRUCTURAL OBSTACLES TO COUNTERING RACISM ....................................... 18 3. METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................................................... 21 3.1 NARRATIVE RESEARCH METHODS AND STORYTELLING ................................................................................................... 21 3.1.1 The Narrative Interview and Analysis ...................................................................................................... 25 3.1.2 Using Skype for Interviews ....................................................................................................................... 26 3.1.3 Using Instant Messenger .......................................................................................................................... 27 3.1.4 Transcription notes & how the narratives are presented ....................................................................... 29 3.1.5 Interview guide ......................................................................................................................................... 30 3.2 LOCATING PARTICIPANTS ......................................................................................................................................... 30 3.2.1 Introducing the women who shared their stories ................................................................................... 31 3.3 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS ...................................................................................................................................... 32 3.4 BEING AN ‘INSIDER’: REFLEXIVITY IN RESEARCH ........................................................................................................... 33 4. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ............................................................................................................................. 35 4.1 RACIALIZATION ..................................................................................................................................................... 35 4.1.1 Panethnicity: Allied by and against common pressures.......................................................................... 44 4.2 VISUALITY, CORPOREALITY AND STEREOTYPES ............................................................................................................. 45 4.3 COERCIVE MIMETICISM: FROM ATTEMPTING ASSIMILATION TO INTERNALIZING ETHNICIZATION............................................ 48 4.3.1 Three levels of mimeticism ....................................................................................................................... 50 4.4 EPISTEMIC INJUSTICE AND ITS HARMS ........................................................................................................................ 53 5. THEIR NARRATIVES, ANALYSED ........................................................................................................................ 56 5.1 THE KIND OF RACISM THAT YOU SHALL NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT ....................................................................................... 57 5.2 ‘COLOUR-BLINDNESS’, AND BEING ADOPTED, DOES NOT MAGICALLY ERASE RACISM .......................................................... 59 5.3 “WHERE ARE YOU FROM?” – A QUESTION THAT KEEPS US IN ‘OUR PLACE’ ..................................................................... 63 5.4 INTEGRATED ON PAPER, BUT NOT IN HER HEART .......................................................................................................... 65 5.5 HYPERSEXUALIZED GIRLS AND WOMEN, TIRED OF SEXUAL/ASIAN ‘JOKES’ ........................................................................ 68 5.6 FRAMED AS RIVALS AND ‘MAN STEALERS’, YET SIMULTANEOUSLY ‘SECOND CHOICE’ ........................................................... 74 5.7 EVERYDAY MICROAGGRESSIONS; CENTRING WHITENESS................................................................................................ 79 5.8 THE INSIDIOUSLY DAMAGING MODEL MINORITY MYTH ................................................................................................. 84 5.9 MORE COPING STRATEGIES: DEALING WITH PREJUDICED VIEWS ..................................................................................... 87 6. DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................ 94 7. BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................................... 100 Neither victim nor fetish Linköping University Master’s thesis in Ethnic and Migration Studies Mavis Hooi Neither victim nor fetish: ‘Asian’ women & the effects of racialization in the Swedish context 1. INTRODUCTION When something is ‘invisible’, silent or considered unproblematic, it needs to be scrutinised, as it often has influence on, and connections with, what is visible, heard and seen as problematic. Sara Ahmed (2007: 157) uses the metaphor of ‘a sea of whiteness’ to describe a space or room filled with white bodies, which makes a non-white body entering the space both ‘invisible’ because it is only one in a ‘sea’ of white bodies, but simultaneously rendered hypervisible in the way it is made to ‘stand out’, ‘stand apart’ and not fit in–this applies of course to ‘Western’ contexts where whiteness is normative. Contemporary racialized conceptualisations of immigrant women in Sweden seem to