Coloniality and decolonisation in the Nordic region: An introduction

This chapter aims to further fruitful conversations about the meaning and implications of coloniality, decoloniality, and decolonisation in the Nordic region. Such a collective endeavour cannot bypass the perspectives and historical experience of people in the Nordic region who are characterised as non-belonging, absent, criminal, and/or barbaric in general, including ‘non-Western’ migrants and refugees, Afro-Nordics, and Muslim communities, as well as the Romani and the Indigenous communities of the region such as the Sami and Inuit. However, much of the decolonial scholarship in the Nordic region approaches coloniality through a poststructuralist and postcolonial lens and reproduces the coloniality of knowledge by ignoring and depoliticising the radical political concepts and projects emanating from the abovementioned peoples in the Nordic region and the colonised regions of the world, resulting in undertheoretisation. On this basis, the chapter argues for the need of reclaiming the political, which involves theorising the materiality of colonial politics in contemporary Nordic societies, including its imperial investments and political economy.