معرفی
Maimouna Matikainen-Soreau serves as an Academy Research Fellow at the Centre for Research on Ethnic Relations and Nationalism (CEREN) within the University of Helsinki's Swedish School of Social Science (2024-2028), while also holding a part-time teaching position in the Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugrian and Scandinavian Studies. Her work critically examines race, education, and literary representation across Nordic contexts.
Her academic foundation includes a PhD in Nordic Literature (2015-2020) through joint supervision by University Paris-Sorbonne and University of Helsinki, with a dissertation analyzing non-white representation in Nordic postmigration literature. She also earned a Master's in Scandinavian Studies (2014) from University Paris IV-Sorbonne, focusing on Swedish-speaking Finnish youth identity and Ludvig Holberg's satirical works.
Matikainen-Soreau's research centers on systemic racism in educational institutions, whiteness performativity, and social justice through critical race theory. She investigates how racial humor operates in Finnish schools, the positionality of researchers in anti-racism work, and conceptual frameworks for dismantling institutional discrimination. Her interdisciplinary approach bridges literary studies, educational sociology, and migration research to address equity in Nordic societies.
Her 2025 publications reveal a cohesive focus on educational racism, analyzing ethnographic positionality, intervention challenges in racial humor incidents, and systemic conceptual models. Simultaneously, she explores identity formation through cultural practices and advances scholarship on Nordic postmigration literary traditions, demonstrating consistent thematic alignment across empirical and theoretical work.
She received the Mauritz Hallbergs pris in 2022 for her scholarly contributions to race and migration studies.
Matikainen-Soreau secures major research funding including Academy of Finland grants for 'Transracial Performativity of Whiteness' (as PI) and 'AUTOSTORY' (as co-PI), alongside previous projects like RASK on Finland-Swedish school racism. She co-supervises doctoral research on AI bias while maintaining active public engagement through 58 recorded academic activities and 6 media appearances discussing racism in Nordic educational contexts.
Her work operates within CEREN and the Helsinki Inequality Initiative (INEQ), collaborative research environments dedicated to studying ethnic relations, nationalism, and structural inequality through interdisciplinary frameworks.
