Migrant bodies and the materialization of belonging in Sweden

Abstract

Immigration and transnational adoption are both manifestations of the pervasive dislocations that characterize the contemporary era. Each illuminates as well the double movement of assimilation and internal exclusion through which racisms that are a heritage of colonialism are expanded and reactivated in the metropolitan centers of western Europe and North America. In this process, race is spatialized, different forms of migrant bodies are produced, and familiar logics of belonging that link person to place are transformed. The differential politics of adoption and immigration in late twentieth-century Sweden shed light on this process of racialization and the affective economies through which it is realized, as that nation pursues a multicultural project in which ‘Swedishness’ becomes ‘the measure of everything.’

Organismos migratorios y la materialización del sentido de pertenencia en Suecia

Resumen: La inmigración y adopción transnacional son dos manifestaciones de los trastornos generalizados que caracterizan la era contemporánea. Cada uno ilustra también el doble movimiento de asimilación y exclusión interna a través del cual los racismos que son una herencia del colonialismo se expanden y se reactivan en los centros metropolitanos de Europa Occidental y América del Norte. En este proceso, la raza es espacializada, se producen diferentes formas de cuerpos migrantes, y se transforman las lógicas familiares de pertenencia que unen a la persona con el lugar. Las políticas diferenciales de adopción e inmigración a finales del siglo XX en Suecia aclaran cuestiones sobre este proceso de racialización (racialization) y las economías afectivas a través de las cuales se realiza, ya que esa nación persigue un proyecto multicultural en el que ‘lo sueco’ se convierte en ‘la medida de todas las cosas.’

Corps migrants et matérialisation de l'appartenance en Suède

L'immigration et l'adoption transnationale sont toutes les deux des manifestations omniprésentes de bouleversements qui caractérisent l'époque contemporaine. Chacune met aussi en lumière le double mouvement d'assimilation et d'exclusion interne à travers lesquelles les racismes, qui sont un héritage du colonialisme, s'étendent et sont réactivés dans les centres métropolitains d'Europe occidentale et d'Amérique du Nord. Dans ce processus, la race est spatialisée, différentes formes de corps migrants sont produits et les logiques familières d'appartenance qui relient la personne au lieu sont transformées. Les politiques différentielles d'adoption et d'immigration de la Suède de la fin du vingtième siècle éclairent ce processus de racialisation et les économies affectives à travers lesquelles il se réalise, tandis que cette nation poursuit un projet multiculturel où ‘le fait d'être suédois’ devient ‘la mesure de tout’.

Keywords::

• space
• race
• adoption
• immigration
• Sweden
• belonging

Keywords::

• espace
• race
• adoption
• immigration
• Suède
• appartenance

Palabras claves::

• espacio
• raza
• adopción
• inmigración
• Suecia
• pertenencia

Acknowledgments

Sonja Van Wichelen and Jessaca Leinaweaver provided insightful comments on an earlier draft. Lynn Mather provided invaluable tweaking just before my submission of the final draft. I appreciate as well suggestions for revision by anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1. The research is focused on the period from the early 1960s to 2011, and involved archival research on adoption and child welfare policy in Sweden, interviews with staff responsible for adoptions from different regions of the world at Sweden's principal adoption organization, AC, and fieldwork with AC representatives to visit institutional children's homes and attend workshops and conferences in Asia and Latin America, where I also interviewed child welfare officials, social workers, and directors of children's homes. A second phase involved interviews and participant observation with adoptive families and adopted adults in Sweden. Interviews were solicited through AC in the context of a number of events at which I was a featured speaker or participant-observer. Two such events generated most of my interviews, either directly, or by word of mouth following the event. One was a series of workshops for adopted adults in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, held in 1997 in Skövde, Sweden (‘Forum ‘97’) that were attended by approximately 120 adoptees. The workshops focused on racism, roots, and returns, and were sponsored by AC. The other event was a ‘roots trip’ to Chile organized by AC for adoptees and adoptive families in 1998, on which I served as a Spanish–Swedish interpreter. I conducted interviews with participants following the trip.

^2. Swedish adoption law pdf (www.adoptionpolicy.org/pdf/eu.sweden.pdf). Sweden's intercountry adoption rate peaked in 1980 at 22.7 per 100,000 population, equivalent to a rise of 0.2 in the birth rate (Selman, 2002, p. 212).

^3. The term ‘non-Nordic’ displaced ‘foreign’ as a reference to adopted children who originate outside of the so-called ‘Nordic countries’ (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland) in the third volume of the SOU series on intercountry adoption (Internationella adoptionsfrågor: 1993 års Haagkonvention m.m. (International adoption questions: 1993 Hague Convention etc.), 1994, p. 10). While the term includes European adoptees who are ‘non-Nordic’ in this sense, it is more conventionally deployed as a euphemism for adoptees from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and thus may signify what are understood to be children whose difference has been implicitly or explicitly racialized and is written on their skin. It is currently the standard category used in tabulating statistics for Swedish intercountry adoption, which include children from Europe and North America, as well as from Asia, Africa, and Latin America (www.adoptionpolicy.org/pdf/eu.sweden.pdf). For a statement prepared by the Nordic Adoption Council (2009) (members are Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland) on the Nordic Approach to Intercountry Adoption, go to http://www.docstoc.com/docs/172154177/THE-NORDIC-APPROACH-TO-INTERCOUNTRY-ADOPTION.

^4. Statistics on the MIA (Myndighet för internationella adopttionsfrågor) website (http://www.mia.eu/Documents/Statistik/scb/varlds.pdf) show a steady influx of adopted children from Africa (national origin is unspecified) to Sweden, beginning in 1969 and varying from a low of 6 in 1979 to a high of 181 in 2009, the latest year shown on the website.

^5. Writings by and about Swedish intercountry adoptees include Nordin (1996), Trotzig (1996), von Melen (1998), Lindqvist and Ohlén (2003), Hübinette and Tigervall (2008), Yngvesson (2010) and Hübinette and Lundström (2011).

^6. Unless otherwise noted, names of interviewees are not pseudonyms, at the request of the person interviewed. It is important to note in this connection that the issue of name changing as a dimension of integration policy in intercountry adoption is a matter of some debate in the international community of adopted adults, some of whom (notably adoptees with origins in Asia or Africa) have chosen to take back their original names, if there is a record of these.

^7. Interviews with Sara Nordin were carried out by the author in Stockholm in 1999 and 2002.

^8. This excerpt is drawn from an interview carried out by the author with Mattias Kollberg (a psudonym) in Stockholm in 1999.

Additional information

Funding

The research was funded by two grants from the National Science Foundation [SES-9113894 and SBR-9511937].