The Face of Sweden: Racial Commodification and Tokenistic Multiculturalism in Nation Branding

Abstract This article contributes to the understanding of the racial politics underpinning nation branding through a two-step mixed-method analysis of the Image Bank of Sweden, an online promotional material provided through the branding platform Sharing Sweden . First, an exploratory quantitative analysis reveals a paradox: while White individuals overwhelmingly dominate the images of Sweden, Black and Asian individuals appear at rates disproportionate to their actual demographic presence – particularly in contexts related to education and student life. Second, a multi-modal discourse analysis of images and texts shows how the representations of higher education and student life mobilize racialized bodies to project an image of Sweden as diverse, modern, and globally competitive. At the same time, White students’ portrayal is accompanied by messages of Swedish traditions, reinforcing existing views of Sweden as a White nation. Ultimately, we argue that such portrayals reproduce the logics of tokenistic multiculturalism and commodification of racial difference and whiteness within the aesthetic economy of nation branding.