Living in a multiminority body can feel exhausting. It means carrying and balancing many different identities – identities that can be discriminated against, but that can also be empowering. Although they can be empowering, it often takes a lot to make room for one’s multifaceted identity. What expressly challenges the possibility of living is if there is no space to exist – where your identity is repressed and you’re seen through distorted lenses. Where you’re encouraged to assimilate into Finnish-Swedishness instead of growing and flourishing. Where your identity feels like rocks and you sink into the duck pond – a term referring to Swedish Finland as a cultural entity. On the other hand, who decides who can be a Swedish Finn? Who writes this role, which we are all expected to play? Couldn’t the Finnish-Swedish identity rather be an individual one, which allows for different expressions and diversity (Pashley 2023)? Or is it characterised by certain traits that one “must have” in order to feel a sense of belonging?
Minority identities are undoubtedly complex, and one can find oneself in roles of double, triple, or multiple minority situations. It is therefore important to examine minority identities from an intersectional perspective. If Finland is ranked as the happiest country in the world, the happiness of all Finns should be taken into account. Everyone must be given the space to breathe, live and find belonging. Belonging is a deeply complex sense of acceptance, support and inclusion (see Yuval-Davis 2006). It’s not about isolated actions, but about decolonised structures that enable a deeper understanding of belonging. These decolonised practices required can be narrated through art. This is also the purpose of this article – to discuss how art can emphasise the need for belonging for BIPOC people within the Finnish-Swedish identity. In other words: How can we all feel free and light, floating in the duck pond? Floating in the duck pond will in this context serve as a metaphor for finding one’s place in a culturally delimited but shared space.
To begin with, it is important to consider what Finnish-Swedishness means and what barriers BIPOC people face in experiencing belonging. Above all, Swedish-speaking Finns are a minority, with approximately 5% of Finns identifying as such (Saarela 2021). However, this minority identity is very specific. For example, the Finnish-Swedish identity is a privileged minority, where its links to privilege are at the top of the social hierarchy. For example, Finnish-Swedishness, whiteness and status have a strong historical connection (see Keskinen 2019, Kuokkanen 2022, Slimani 2021). Therefore, the Finnish-Swedish identity has characteristics of the dominant culture and thus also privilege. Finnish-Swedishness does not provide a visible exclusion factor, but rather it is the shared mother tongue that sometimes becomes the basis for discrimination. On the other hand, BIPOC people are seen by their visible difference and judged by their lack of whiteness. Although both Finnish-Swedishness and BIPOC identity are minority identities, they have very different societal positions. While both are affected, Finnish-Swedish experiences cannot be equated with exclusion through racism. Moreover, when Finnish-Swedishness is combined with BIPOC identity, a multiminority status emerges – where one becomes an odd drop in the duck pond in the land of a thousand lakes. Thus, in situations where Finnish-Swedishness is at the centre, BIPOC identity becomes hyper-visible. Questions arise such as who belongs in institutions where whiteness is blinding and one’s body stands out? At the same time, one can experience invisibility and loneliness in the Finnish-Swedish world, and question one’s belonging and acceptance.
This requires actions that break structures and seek a deeper understanding of belonging. When we centre people who are often on the margins, we create a sense of belonging. Because if we perpetuate the narrative that nationalist Finnishness should celebrate whiteness and blue eyes, BIPOC identity becomes something deviant. Something that cannot represent traditional roles, because these roles presuppose whiteness (see Lampinen 2021, Miettinen 2024, Slimani 2021). Therefore, a BIPOC person cannot be seen as neutrally Finnish-Swedish, but rather as a political statement and a critique of the norm. This was also emphasised by actor and performer Antonia Atarah in an interview for this text. She describes how the bodies of non-white actors are seen differently on stage compared to their white counterparts. There are gazes that do not look with warmth, but rather bore in and give a sense of alienation. But there are also looks that radiate admiration. Atarah says that her role as Ronja at Svenska Teatern inspired younger Brown and Black people to take up acting, after seeing someone like them on the big stage. Representation not only brings hope and joy, it can change self-image and create dreams for the future. Stories with representation break notions of a single Finnish-Swedish identity, thus preserving and strengthening diverse cultural heritages.
Theatre has the power to convey hope, joy and dreams of the future. They can bring fiction to life – if the audience allows itself the imagination. In addition, it is empowering to see traditionally white institutions welcoming diversity, but these spaces can further expose societal structures. In theatre audiences, questions arise about who actually has access to a space where even socio-economic barriers come into play. In addition, on stage, one may be the only BIPOC person in an ensemble, again creating a sense of loneliness. A lot of restructuring is therefore needed in order to feel a deep sense of belonging within the small duck pond.
Atarah highlights that theatre as an institution has much to do to make BIPOC people feel welcome. It’s not enough to be “open to diversity” – you have to be prepared to restructure hierarchies. For example, Atarah wanted as many BIPOC people as possible to enjoy Ronja, so she gave out discount tickets. This act shows how the world of theatre can be decolonised from the inside out, by opening the stage to many more people. Especially for BIPOC families with migrant backgrounds, where it is not always taken for granted that “baba pays”. Atarah also mentions that the mandate of the white actor can be questioned by decolonising the expressive forms and spaces of theatre. For example, playing a role written for someone who looks like you is very different from ending up playing a pre-existing role that assumes whiteness. It is therefore important to create space for diversity, and in particular to highlight BIPOC identities within the duck pond – providing both physical and mental space for stories that centre people who are often on the periphery. It reinforces equality by showing that diversity is not a trend, but an active and conscious position. The newly launched project ZAARE, curated by Atarah, aims to do just that: to lower the threshold for BIPOC artists, to make space for their art and to provide them with a safer community. The project, which grew out of Atarah’s installation Don’t thank for the food, aims to highlight questions like: Whose art is visible? Who has the privilege to create art and on what terms? These spaces of artistic togetherness are important because they provide true community. They can also become a platform to decolonise normative practices, by creating caring art – from us, to us.
Where non-normative stories occur, spaces for belonging also arise – spaces where you can see a reality in which you feel welcome and seen. In Undersang, Norwegian artist and choreographer Harald Beharie talks about how Nordic nature can be decolonised and become a space for BIPOC people. The performance makes visible the national romantic connection to Nordic nature by emphasising Afro- and Asian-Nordic diasporic narratives. Beharie aims to queer nature by placing BIPOC bodies, sexualities and minds at the centre of nature. The performance is an example of decolonised art – from us, to us – as Nordic nationality is strongly linked to nature. This national romantic view of nature also carries notions of control, such as hunting culture and land ownership. For an already racialised person in Finland, whose connection to the nation is constantly questioned, it can be difficult to feel at home in Finnish nature. Atarah shares similar thoughts – how it can feel ambiguous to enjoy the presence of nature when it represents white Finnishness. By centring BIPOC identity in a welcoming nature, Beharie aims to reclaim nature from its social structures. Beharie shows that you can belong to Nordic nature – as long as you can see yourself in it.
It’s about taking space where you want to belong and not apologising for it. On the other hand, when BIPOC people are alone in Finnish-Swedish contexts, support and genuine solidarity from the dominant culture is needed so that BIPOC people don’t always have to be the loud ones, and it would rather be an everyday practice of everyone to apply and value anti-racism. Thus, if we want to keep our identity, we must allow diversity, even fusion. Because if we don’t allow it, it only has harmful consequences (see Lukate 2019), as Sámi artist Inger-Mari Aikio writes in her poem du, sicilianaren [sisilialaš]. She writes about how, in her older years, she felt ashamed of not being able to enjoy her Sámi traditions in the same way as the Finnish ones (Aikio 2016). However, it is not just about traditions, but also hair texture, clothing, skin colour, food and so on that have been singled out and shamed, where people have been alone with their weighted difference – a difference that they have then been forced to hide and repress, in search of similarity.
Atarah explains how, as she grew older, she reflected more on her multiminority identity. From questioning the relationship of her body and mind to Finland and Finnish-Swedishness, to identifying as Afro-Finnish-Swedish at university age. This designation brings attention to one’s multiminority identity. It provides a sense of belonging, of being able to locate people with similar, if not identical, experiences. In such cases, your minority status and these diverse experiences are highlighted, and you’re no longer alone with your feelings. There’s a community that provides visibility, where you can identify yourself in your own mother tongue. Despite the strength and resilience that such communities provide, the idea of universal belonging is important. We can see the structural barriers and a possible utopia through art, but the work to achieve this togetherness is demanding. A genuine welcome of diversity within Finnish-Swedishness, through a willingness to question the norm, can allow BIPOC people to exist – and float – in the duck pond.
Jasmin “Jasse” Slimani, MA, is an Afro Finnish Swedish writer based in Helsinki. She specialises in topics such as inclusion work, exclusion processes, beauty ideals and Afrofuturism. She is a volunteer in the anti-racist collective Good Hair Day. Currently, she works as a youth leader at the City of Helsinki, where she mainly works with queer youth.
Material
Atarah, Antonia, actor and artist in Helsinki (2025) Interview 21 May via Zoom
Sources
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