Using your time wisely? Encountering racial time in institutional (non)transitions in the Nordic context

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss how controlling the time and (im)mobility of “the other” in the Nordic context—governed by hegemonic whiteness—constitutes a coercive system. We do this by focusing on racial time (Mulinari, 2021) as the unequal distribution of time in which control of time and racialization are co-constructed. Our discussion is based on ethnographic data drawn from fieldwork in two Swedish upper secondary schools in language introduction programs and language introduction combined with national vocational programs; and in Finland, integration training comprising transition to the labor market. More specifically, we present examples from Arabic-speaking migrants in forced migration, foregrounding non-transitions within the education system and work life. We argue that such delays imposed on the racialized migrant bodies in this context are systemic, and discuss how the requirement of competence in the national language becomes tied to institutional walls. We also refer to neoliberal tropes of the employable, the educable, and the integrateable migrant body through the notions of will and use (Ahmed, 2014, 2019), and to the risk of becoming a “willful”, “useless”, and “undeserving” subject. The paper ends with a reflection on potential stranger encounters of otherwise as a way to break with dysfunctional institutional walls.