Afro-Nordic Raciolinguistic Landscapes

Abstract

The Nordic countries, starting in the 2000s, began to shift away from using the term “race” and focused on other identifiers such as ethnicity, which has led to a disconnect between racialized terminologies and their implications. The present research examines racial language use in Nordic countries and explores key themes through a raciolinguistic approach to define race and how the ideas of race may influence language use within this locale. Additionally, this research focuses on the Afro-Nordic experiences around racial language use in Nordic countries. Key themes that were found as a part of the research using academic texts were racial terminology, racial naïveté, and the denial of race. Using these themes, we explore sociolinguistic aspects around race, ethnicity, and identity and the implications of race. The findings of this paper were the complexities around the disuse of race within the Nordic countries and how that relates to identity and the concept of ethnicity when it comes to defining individuals.