Abstract

Based on a narrative of the recent history of postcolonial feminism within and outside the Swedish academic world, this article discusses the controversial relationship between feminism and politics. Installing a socialist inspired perspective on intersectionality in Swedish feminist debates and in gender research has been a hard task for postcolonial feminists in a society whose self-imagination excludes the recognition of racism as a fundamental component of the national identity. Moreover, as the country moves rapidly towards a neoliberalization of the former Keynesian Swedish welfare state, racism and homo-nationalism spreads out and permeates the political sphere and state institutions. The author emphasizes the importance for postcolonial feminists to continuously highlight the chasm that exists between neoliberal understandings of gender equality, which are not meant to eradicate structural class, gender, racial or other social inequalities, and those emanating from socialist and anti-racist feministic ontologies.