Nana Osei-Kofi on AfroSwedish: Places of Belonging

This discussion is with Dr. Nana Osei-Kofi,  (she/her) a Professor Emerita of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in the School of Language, Culture, and Society at Oregon State University. Her research centers on two primary lines of inquiry focused on justice and the politics of difference. One line examines structural shifts in higher education to promote equity and access, emphasizing curriculum transformation, change leadership, faculty recruitment, retention, and development. The second line explores the experiences and conditions faced by people of African descent in Europe, with a focus on Sweden. In this conversation we discuss her most recent publication, AfroSwedish Places of Belonging, published by Northwestern University Press in 2024. In this work, she grapples with AfroSwedishness in relation to processes and experiences of racialization, imagination of self, and notions of belonging, agency, and kinship.

What is Conversations in Atlantic Theory?

These conversations explore the cultural, political, and philosophical traditions of the Atlantic world, ranging from European critical theory to the black Atlantic to sites of indigenous resistance and self-articulation, as well as the complex geography of thinking between traditions, inside traditions, and from positions of insurgency, critique, and counternarrative.