This is a work of cultural studies rooted in critical feminist thought that grapples with AfroSwedishness in relation to processes and experiences of racialization, imagination of self, and notions of belonging, agency, and kinship. Nana Osei-Kofi focuses on the function of diverse forms of critical cultural expressions, paying particular attention to their liberatory public pedagogical potential. Drawing from biographical narratives, documentary film, digital Black feminism, and queer organizing, Osei-Kofi offers insights into the embodied, affective, and experiential processes through which the formation of an emergent AfroSwedish coalitional identity is made possible. Through self-reflexive, structural, and community-based forms of exploration that resist binary oppositions, AfroSwedish Places of Belonging asks what the nomenclature of AfroSwede, AfroSwedish, and AfroSwedishness brings into being, what it makes possible, and what this means for Swedish society from both a historical and a contemporary perspective. This work brings together two identity categories that have historically been constructed as not only mutually exclusive but oppositional to detail the emergence of AfroSwedishness as a counterhegemonic and coalitional act. AfroSwedishness, Osei-Kofi argues, must be understood as a coalitional identity, one made legible through kinship-based community.

NANA OSEI-KOFI is professor emerita of women, gender, and sexuality studies at Oregon State University.

"Nana Osei-Kofi adds a refreshingly new contribution to our understanding of the Afroeuropean corridors of African Diaspora Studies. AfroSwedish Places of Belonging is breathtaking in scale and breathgiving in scope. Grounded solidly and soundly in critical feminist thought and critical race theory, its approach is cultural, reflexive, and insightfully vulnerable. With its attention drawn to the intricacies of Blackness in Sweden, it deftly circumnavigates the sneaky sticky binary trappings of racism and race. Consequently, the unbounded vibrancy of diasporic worlds such as Black Joy and Black Queerness open out gloriously."—Chandra D. Bhimull, Colby College— -

“This is an important book and a timely one, which provides a badly needed contribution to the global field of ethnic studies.” —Ursula Lindqvist, Gustavus Adolphus College
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