Challenging constructions of nationhood and nostalgia: exploring the role of gender, race and age in struggles for women’s rights in Scandinavia

Drawing on a multi-sited ethnographic approach, this article aims to study interactions between women's organizations, state agendas and national histories in the contemporary struggle for women's rights in Scandinavia. Upon examining a diverse range of material (debates, survey responses, fieldnotes and interview data), it is revealed how the largest women's organizations appeal to dominant discourses of Scandinavia as a homogeneous region and Scandinavian women as a uniform collectivity. It is shown how divisions between groups of women are shaped along categories of national belonging, race and age, and it is argued that a conceptualization of women as a uniform group offers a too simplistic frame for an understanding of these dynamics. By contrast, it is suggested that the contestations evoked by nostalgic articulations of homogeneity, and uniformity can be rich sources for social analysis, as attention to such tensions can help us to visualize the existence of multiple historical pasts and presents.