Kvinder, Køn & Forskning

In recent years there has been an increase in calls for critical scholarship on race, racialization, and (anti-)racism in many fields, including those of gender and feminist studies in the Nordics. These calls emerge during a time when intensified attention coalesce around the global Movement for Black Lives, the protests that transpired from the #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) claim, and the manifestations of anti-colonial interventions such as the application of red paint to the statue of colonizer Hans Egede in Nuuk, Kalaallit Nunaat (21 June 2020). Concurrent with – and perhaps as a response to – these challenges to “the coloniality of power” (Quijano 2000) Danish governments continue to invest in policies that make migrants and refugees deportable and expose racial and religious minorities to expansive forms of control and surveillance through welfare state institutions. At the same time, research-based understandings of structural racism are delegitimized and specific areas of research, such as critical race theory, gender studies and migration studies, are being attacked in public political debates with claims of being unscientific and activist.

This Special Issue of Women, Gender & Research (Kvinder, Køn & Forskning) aims to engage with these structural challenges, as well as explore the potential of a continued focus on racialization and racism within Danish gender and feminist studies.