NAVIGATING BLACKNESS: A CRITICAL RACE ANALYSIS OF RACE, GENDER AND COLONIALISM IN AKERSTROM’S “IN EVERY MIRROR SHE’S BLACK”

The present research study critically explores how the themes of race, gender and colonial legacy intersect and interact to create the Black womanhood experience of living in a racially white and Western world. The study is theoretically informed by Critical Race Theory (CRT), formulated by Richard Delgado and is thus a theoretically guided approach to the novel by the Akerstrom in the context of how systemic racism and intersectionality are performed diasporically across various contexts and normalized discourses. This follow through epicurean work promises to imbue a deeper understanding of the day-to-day experiences of three black women living in Sweden and the manner in which systemic racism and intersectionality is infused textually. The focus of the analysis serves to be the themes of racial identity, microaggressions, and interest convergence as it develops through the struggles of belonging, visibility, and resistance of the protagonists. The importance of intersectionality is also highlighted in the study as race, gender, class, immigration status interacts to generate different forms of marginalization and survivorship. By rigorously reading the text, the thesis reveals how colonial ideologies are continued to influence present-day attitudes toward blackness, how these ideologies have been subverted and appropriated by the characters. This study illuminates the experiences of Black women in Scandinavia that are far less well-known and demonstrates global implications of racial injustice by placing the novel into a wider socio-political and cultural context. This thesis is not only helpful in the academic discourse in the field of literature but also substantiates the position of CRT as a tool to explain realities of marginalized communities. The analysis firmly concludes that literature can shed light on systems of oppression and be critical of the same and celebrate the voices and identity of the people who live within it.