| dc.description.abstract | First of all, this thesis is a contribution to Norwegian ethnography. It provides a description and analysis of the family histories, everyday rhythms and activities of a limited number of Norwegian women with different shades of brown skin who all live in the Norwegian capital, Oslo. They are all born to parents who migrated from India to Norway in the early seventies. Drawing on Levitt and Glick Schiller (2004), I see these womens lives as locally embedded but simultaneously informed by transnational social fields.
Secondly, the thesis finds that the non-white bodies of these Norwegian women are constantly made relevant in their everyday interactions. Therefore, this thesis analytically concerns itself with identity, categorisation, ethnicity, race and the body. I argue that skin colour is key to understanding processes of identification among Norwegian women born to non-white immigrant parents, and that this identification is labelled by a lay use of the word ethnic. The word ethnic camouflages processes of categorisation connected to skin colour where the main distinction is drawn between perceived white Norwegians and non-white others. Furthermore, I argue that this categorisation can be linked to a solitarist view of identity. A solitarist view of identity, linked with a narrow categorisation of Norwegian bodies, together with the silence surrounding skin colour and race is problematic for my informants. I, therefore, argue for recognising multiple human identities and for talking about skin colour and race which again can open up and reformulate the current identification of children of non-white immigrants in a Norwegian context. As such, this thesis challenges the silence concerning race and skin colour in contemporary Norwegian society.
Keywords: Minority, women, identity, ethnicity, race skin colour, the body, Norway, India. | eng |