Open AccessAre Swedes really racially color-blind? Examination of racial ascription and degree of Swedishness
Author(s) -
Sayaka Osanami Törngren,
Maria Nyström
Publication year - 2022
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Reports
DOI - 10.24834/isbn.9789178772735
Subject(s) - ascription , categorization , skin color , race (biology) , psychology , degree (music) , social psychology , skin colour , blindness , context (archaeology) , sociology , geography , gender studies , linguistics , medicine , computer science , artificial intelligence , philosophy , physics , archaeology , dermatology , acoustics , optometry
This is one of the first studies in Sweden testing the notion of racial color-blindness empirically in a Swedish context, by asking a sample of Swedish participants to assign race to images of faces with different phenotypes, rate how ‘Swedish’ the faces are perceived (referred to the degree of ‘Swedishness’) and identify the skin color of the faces (through the NIS skincolor scale). We also use eye-tracking to explore whether participants look differently at faces of different racial groups. The results show that skin-color is a decisive factor in the racial ascription as Black, while skin color is not determinant of the degree of Swedishness. What determines the degree of Swedishness is the racial assignment itself, in other words, how individuals perceive and categorize phenotypes into different racial groups. We conclude that Swedes are not truly racially color-blind and race does indeed matter in Sweden.