My academic career began at the University of Havana in Cuba where I studied Spanish in 1993. Back in Stockholm I took a B.A. in Spanish 1997 and a B.A. in Sociology in 2000 from Stockholm University, the latter with a Minor Field Study on ideologies of femininity and motherhood in Cuba, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, SIDA.

In 2001 I became a Ph.D student at the Department of Sociology at Uppsala University . In 2005, I moved to Tucson, USA, as a visiting Ph.D student at the University of Arizona, where I worked with Prof. Norma Mendoza-Denton in the Deparment of Linguistic Anthropology.

In 2007 I defended my dissertation Svenska latinas: ras, klass och kön i svenskhetens geografi, focusing on young women of Latin American descent and the racialized boundaries of Swedishness. The thesis is in Swedish, but you can read some of my articles in YOUNG: Nordic Journal of Youth Research, Social Identities: Journal for the study of race, nation and culture, Tidsskrift for kjönnsforskning and Gender, Place and Culture. A Journal of Feminist Geography.

In November 2007, I returned to the United States, this time to the Deparment of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), to work with Prof. France Winddance Twine. Here, I developed a comparative transnational study of contemporary Swedish migration to the southwestern US, Singapore and southern Spain, which resulted in the book White Migrations: Gender, Whiteness and Privilege in Transnational Migration published with Palgrave Macmillan in 2014 (Swedish ed. published with Makadam in 2017) and numerous articles in The European Journal of Women’s Studies, Journal of Intercultural Studies, European Journal of Cultural Studies, Tidskrift för genusvetenskap, Scandinavian Studies and Women’s Studies International Forum. The project developed a critical view on the global reproduction of privilege and inequality in transnational migration, with a particular focus on the contradictory locations of white women who inherit both oppression and opportunity.

Part of the ethnographic study was conducted during my time as a postdoc at the Umeå Centre for Gender Studies (UCGS), a Centre of Gender Excellence, at Umeå University between 2009 and 2011.

In 2011, I was appointed Associate Professor (Docent) in Sociology at Uppsala University. In addition to the above institutional affiliations, I have taught sociology and gender studies at Södertörn University, Stockholm University and Mälardalen University.

In 2012, I moved to Linköping University, as a researcher at the Department for Studies of Social Change and Culture (ISAK). In 2013, I became one of four Future Research Leaders, and in 2016 I moved to the Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO), also at Linköping University.

Later this year, I joined the organizing committee of the first conference on race and whiteness in Sweden, which hosted Prof. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Prof. Raka Shome and Assoc. Prof. Jin Haritaworn, Dr. Ylva Habel and author Astrid Trotzig among others, at the Multicultural Center in Botkyrka. The conference was broadcasted on the Swedish television (Kunskapskanalen).

In 2013, I received funding from the Swedish Research Council for the project “Re-integrating Swedishness: the politics of belonging among returning Swedish migrant women”. In this project, I developed my analysis of the complexities of national belonging with an empirical focus on Swedish returning Swedish migrant women. The results of the project have been published in NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, Nordic Journal of Migration Research, Sociologisk Forskning and Sociological Forum.

I have co-edited two special issues; one on “Gender, Culture and Work in Global Cities: Researching ‘Transnational’ Women” in Women’s Studies International Forum together with Dr. Cynthia Joseph, Monash University in 2013, and another on “Nordic Whiteness” in Scandinavian Studies co-edited with Assoc. Prof. Benjamin R. Teitelbaum, University of Colorado, Boulder, in 2017.

During 2018 and 2019, I was part of the Nordic network “The Power of Narratives: Democracy and Media in Political Turmoil” (funded by the Swedish Research Council NOS-HS).

In 2020, I published the book Vit melankoli: en analys av en nation i kris , a theoretical project on Swedish white melancholia, in collaboration with Assoc. Prof. Tobias Hübinette. White Melancholia: An Analysis of a Nation in Crisis is currently being translated to English. Our work has previously been published in Social Identities, Eurozine (in English, Swedish and French) and NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research.

In December 2020, I was appointed Senior Associate Professor (biträdande professor) in ethnicity and migration.

In 2022, Assoc. Prof. Tobias Hübinette and I published the book Den färgblinda skolan: ras och vithet i svensk utbildning with Natur & Kultur, a textbook for teachers and school staff dealing with issues of race and whiteness in multiethnic and multiracial suburbs. It presents a theoretical framework of race, whiteness and intersectionality applied to the current super-diverse student population that characterizes Swedish schools.

I published two books with Routledge in 2023. One as a co-author of the book Race in Sweden: Racism and Anti-racism in the World’s First “Colourblind” Nation together with Assoc. Prof. Tobias Hübinette and Dr. Peter Wikström. The other as one of the editors for The Routledge International Handbook of New Critical Race and Whiteness Studies ,together with Prof. Rikke Andreassen, Prof. Suvi Keskinen and Prof. Shirley Anne Tate.

I am currently working with Prof. Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta at Jönköping University on Culturally Empowering Education through Language and Literature – CuEEd-LL in collaboration with the multidisciplinary and international network-based research environment CCD, Communication, Culture and Diversity.

In November 2025, the book Ras och kön i tider av vit melankoli. Texter i urval, together with Assoc. Prof. Tobias Hübinette, was published by Makadam. The book is illustrated by the artist Ludi Leiva.

As a sociologist, a critical race and whiteness theorist and gender researcher, I regularly analyze related issues in Nordic magazines and newspapers, such as Dagens Nyheter Kultur, Aftonbladet Kultur, Arbetaren, Fempers, Parabol, Arbetet Kultur, Dagens Arena, Flamman and Dagens ETC.

I am also frequently invited to speak at national and international universities on this issues, and teach, mentor and supervise undergraduate and graduate students and postdocs.

Apart from writing, supervising and teaching, I host the podcast LOW together with Dr. Jenny Westerstrand and play drums in legendary ska band Vagina Grande. Podcasts and music can be found on this website.

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