Structures of Feeling of Anti-Antiracism in Contention over (Anti)Racism in the Finnish Hybrid Media Ecology

In Finnish mainstream and social media, recent years have witnessed moments of expansive mediated contention over (anti)racism where definitions of racism as well as the content and practices of antiracism have been intensely contested, and where discourses challenging antiracism have gained abundant visibility. This contention, however, manifests not only as struggles over what racism and antiracism are (not) and what should (not) be done about them, but also as struggles over emotions—what is (not) and should (not) be felt about them.

This presentation examines the structures of feeling (Harding & Pribram 2002, 417–419) of anti-antiracism: emotional discourses that contribute to (re)producing racialized power relations by compelling and penalizing different emotions to delimit, delegitimize, and conditionalize antiracism(s). I ask, how are emotional discourses engendered, amplified, and silenced in and through mediated contention? What kind of—and whose—emotions are (de)legitimized, and on what terms? How are emotions raced and gendered?

The research material consists of mainstream news media articles (N=55) from three Finnish news media sources and of Twitter (X) posts (N=4027), which are analyzed utilizing emotion discourse analysis. I examine three moments of intensive contention regarding (anti)racism that represent some of the most visible Finnish discussions on race and racism in recent years: discussions on the use of blackface in the traditional Star singers play (2017–2021), discussions on colonial and racist representations in the Finnish Star of Africa board game (2021), and discussions on the Marja Sannikka talk show’s episode on ‘woke’ (2021).

This presentation parses political mobilization of emotions in mediated contention over (anti)racism, pointing to how anti-antiracist and anti-’woke’ discourses are undergirded by structures of feeling that reinforce the delegitimization of antiracism(s) challenging racialized social orders.

References:

Harding, J., & Pribram, E. D. (2002). The power of feeling: Locating emotions in culture. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 5(4), 407–426. https://doi.org/10.1177/1364942002005004294