(Nordic) Exceptionalism and Norm Critique. A transnational approach

Presenters
Selin Çağatay, Olga Sasunkevich and Mia Liinason

Title
(Nordic) Exceptionalism and Norm Critique. A transnational approach?

Since the early 2010s, Nordic exceptionalism has been explored and conceptualized to understand how sexism and racism persist in the Nordic universalist welfare states that otherwise claim to be beacons of egalitarianism and inclusivity. Thus, the concept of Nordic exceptionalism seems highly relevant to discuss in relation to further theorization of norm critique, not least because Nordic exceptionalism might illuminate how values of rights-based inclusivity might still be imbued with nation-state-centric and Hetero-huMAN-centric norms. More recent scholarship has explored exceptionalism beyond the Nordic welfare nation states. In this seminar, Selin Çağatay, Olga Sasunkevich and Mia Liinason will present their latest comparative work on exceptionalism where they attend to Russia, Turkey, and Scandinavian countries as contexts with distinct, yet overlapping, conditions of coloniality. Their focus is on how state discourses on gender equality and sexual rights in these three contexts are entwined with exceptionalist notions of modernity, national sovereignty, and superiority, contingent on the exclusion of racialized, classed, and sexualized others, and how these exceptionalist discourses shape resistant practices on the margins. At the seminar, we will discuss how their theorization of exceptionalism can be of use to the advancement of norm critique. The seminar will be moderated by Marta Padovan-Özdemir who is researching universalist welfare work from postcolonial and feminist perspectives and discussing the persistence of racism and sexism - even in early childhood education and care.

Selin Çağatay is an affiliated researcher at the Central European University in Vienna, Austria. She participates in the international project ZARAH: Women’s labour activism in Eastern Europe and transnationally, from the age of empires to the late 20th century (ERC Advanced Grant). Her research concerns past and present gender politics and equality struggles in Turkey and transnationally. Currently she investigates the educational activities targeting urban and rural women to integrate them and improve their status in the world of gainful work in the second half of the twentieth century. Selin has a collaborative monograph titled Feminist and LGBTI+ Activism across Russia, Scandinavia and Turkey. Transnationalizing Spaces of Resistance (Palgrave Macmillan, Thinking Gender in Transnational Times series, co-authors Mia Liinason and Olga Sasunkevich). Her latest articles appeared in Globalizations (2024), Labour History (2024), Gender, Place & Culture (2023), Women’s History Review (2023), International Feminist Journal of Politics (2023).

Olga Sasunkevich is Associate Professor in Gender Studies at the University of Gothenburg. She has a PhD in History of Eastern Europe from Greifswald University, Germany. She currently leads the Horizon Consortium MAGnituDe. Migration, Affective Geopolitics, and European Democracy in Times of Military Conflicts and the Research School The Future of Democracy: Cultural Analyses of Illiberal Populism in Times of Crises. Among her latest publications are the collective monograph Feminist and LGBTI+ activism in Russia, Scandinavia, and Turkey: Transnationalizing Spaces of Resistance authored collaboratively with Mia Liinason and Selin Çağatay (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) and the article Affective Dialogue: Building Transnational Feminist Solidarity in Times of War published in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.

Mia Liinason is Wallenberg Scholar and Professor of Gender Studies at Lund University, Sweden. Her research is located at the intersection of transnational feminism and queer, populism studies, digital cultures and scholarships of hope. Mia is the PI of several collaborative research projects with a shared interest to explore the interplay between resistance, power and change. Currently, she leads the research program Gender Struggles in the New Conjuncture, studying the complex interplay between reactionary movements and emancipatory struggles in Europe and beyond. Among her latest publications are: “Swedish Exceptionalism in Transition: Theorizing Nation, Race, and Gender in a Changing Welfare Regime”, Chapter in Transformative Feminisms: Nordic Art in the Global Present. Edited by K. Greaves & B. Thorsen Vilslev (De Gruyter, Oyster, 2025); Technocultural worldings: dialectical dynamics in contemporary media landscapes, a guest edited special issue of Feminist Media Studies, with Ov Cristian Norocel (2024); Genusvetenskapliga forskningsmetoder [Research Methods in Gender Studies], co-edited book volume with Marta Kolankiewicz and Maja Sager (Nordic Academic Press, 2024); “Transnational approaches to feminist and queer ethnographies: Rethinking dynamics of friendship in the field”, SAGE research methods (2024).