Institutional whiteness, affective economies, and the silencing of racial hierarchies in Swiss integration promotion
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2026-07-24
Author(s)
Abstract
Debates around migration and integration are deeply racialised, yet often framed as neutral efforts to foster cohesion, equality, and inclusion. This paper examines how settings in integration promotion in Switzerland reproduce institutional whiteness and racial hierarchies through an affective economy (Ahmed 2004, Fortier 2010). Based on ethnographic research of state-affiliated educational workshops for volunteers, I analyse how whiteness operates through an affective economy of positivity. In these workshops, racism appears in workshop materials and in interactions but is consistently unnamed or positively reframed. Drawing on feminist affect theory (Hemmings 2012, Guschke 2023), I use my own affective trajectories as a racially privileged researcher to trace how comfort, ease, and humour are cultivated, while discomfort or anger are excluded. I argue that this affective economy of positivity reproduces institutional whiteness in these settings: It secures comfort, and security for those not subjected to racialisation, while discomfort or anger related to racism and racist inequalities are excluded or stopped. By situating these dynamics within Switzerland’s post racial discourse (Boulila 2019, Michel 2015), the paper shows how institutional whiteness is reproduced through an affective economy that prevents from talking about racist structures and from dealing with institutional inequalities. The contribution speaks to anthropological debates on the reproduction of whiteness through institutional and everyday interactions in contemporary Europe.
Funding(s)
Mobi.Doc grant by Research Committee of the University of St.Gallen
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
Yes
Event Title
European Association for Social Anthropologists Conference (EASA)
Event Location
Poznań
Event Date
July 21 - 24, 2026
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Contact Email Address
isabelle.albisser@unisg.ch