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Study: Racism in perceiving white faces as more Swedish than black ones
Published 2024-07-03

In a tax-funded study from Malmö University, it is claimed – and criticized – that people with an ethnically Nordic appearance are perceived as more Swedish than migrants and their descendants or adoptees from, for example, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The race- and skin-colour-focused study is supported by the state radio.

The initiator of the study, Sayaka Osanami Törngren. who calls himself associate professor in international migration and ethnic relations and himself has an immigrant background and a non-Swedish (East Asian) appearance, claims that it is racist to grade Swedishness based on how Swedish you think someone looks.

In the race- and skin color-focused study, a number of invited people were asked to look at pictures depicting people with varying appearances and divide them into racial categories [sic], identify what skin color they perceived the people to have and, based on that, rate how Swedish people thought they looked .

Had to divide people into races
The study shows that people who look like typical traditional Swedes – that is, have light skin and Western European facial features – are perceived as more Swedish than other people in other racial categories, for example Africans and Asians. Sayaka Osanami Törngren, sees this as problematic and receives support from the state radio.

- What our results showed is that you can see the differences between racial groups and that you assign these faces different degrees of Swedishness.

Asians are perceived as less Swedish than Swedes
Osanami Törngren exemplifies that Asians in Sweden are considered less Swedish than Swedes. It is not clear from the study whether Asians are perceived as more Asian than Swedes in the researcher's Asian country of origin and if this is to be regarded as equally problematic.

She also claims that it follows from this grading of Swedishness in terms of appearance that people with a less Swedish appearance " are not treated equally in society ", but worse. How to arrive at that conclusion is not reported in the study.

Problem that racial classification is not done in Sweden
Osanami Törngren also believes that it is problematic that Sweden, in a unique way in the international research world, has erased the concept of race, this based on notions that there are no biological human races. She believes that it makes the racism that she thinks she knows exists in Sweden more difficult to detect.

Sayaka Osanami Törngren is the mother of another series of tax-funded studies and reports with race and skin color as their theme. They have names such as "Racified emotional work in Swedish welfare organisations", "To counteract structural and institutional racism" and "To understand discrimination in employment".

Hear the author of the recent study published in the journal Sociology Compass further develop his hypotheses HERE . The study in its entirety can be read HERE .