Speaker: Arnfinn Haagensen Midtbøen (University of Oslo)

Title: ”Downplaying difference: How ethnoracial minorities strive for labour market access in an egalitarian context”

Abstract: This article explores the type of destigmatisation strategies minorities use to access employment in Norway, a country characterised by ambiguous egalitarianism, a rapidly changing demographic, and a public “silence about race”. Analysing 52 interviews with minority Norwegians about their job search behaviour, we found that they hide or downplay minority-specific cues in their resumes to avoid immigrant stereotypes and to signal Norwegianness. Non-white informants also engage in detailed management of their phenotypical appearance through photographs but seldom frame their strategies as responses to racial stereotypes. These findings suggest that Norwegian minorities respond to a clearly defined hierarchy of national belonging related to immigrant status, which includes an unarticulated racial component. Drawing on comparative scholarship on destigmatisation, we argue that minorities’ job search strategies are shaped by broader sociocultural factors and highlight the importance of conducting studies of this kind in national contexts that lack a language for addressing racial differences.

Arnfinn Midtbøen's research centers on immigration, integration and ethnoracial inequalities, including topics such as discrimination, citizenship, labour migration, descendants of migrants in education and work, and the history of migration research. Midtbøen combines a range of methods in his research, including field and survey experiments, qualitative interviews, document analysis and traditional surveys. Midtbøen's research has appeared in journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences (PNAS), Annual Review of Sociology, British Journal of Sociology, Sociology, European Sociological Review, Journal of Politics, International Migration Review, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.