Antiracist welfarism : a governmentality study of Norwegian state antiracism

Abstract

This article analyses Norwegian state antiracism and how this relates to welfarism, the political rationality of the welfare state. Using a Foucauldian governmentality approach, the author studies governmental papers where the Norwegian state problematizes racism, rendering this phenomenon governable. While not reducing antiracism to welfarism, the author analyses the interweaving of welfarist and antiracist reasoning. The Norwegian state problematizes how the effects of racism contradict various typical welfarist objectives, related to equality, community, health and well-being. This way, welfarism in Norway manifests in antiracist reasoning, as racism must be countered for these welfarist objectives to be met. This article invites scholars, on the question of (anti)racism, to take the state’s complex and potentially contradictory stances to such questions seriously, in ways that include investigating the antiracist potential of welfarism as a political rationality, and the welfare state as a political institution.