Thinking Whiteness in French and Swiss Cyberspaces

Despite their insistence on the common European colonial roots of whiteness, critical whiteness studies tend to focus on Anglophone contexts. This article explores the theoretical and analytical potential of deploying the concept of whiteness in other spaces, namely French and Swiss cyberspaces. First, we define whiteness as a "white vanguard narrative" which generates a discursive border distinguishing subjectivities or practices, and which changes across time and space. Second, we explore the discursive operation of whiteness in two cyber-debates hosted by a French blog and a Swiss blog. This comparative micropolitical analysis of discursive spaces—marked by very different colonial legacies—reveals the fluidity and heterogeneity of the marking processes through which racialized power relations continue to be disseminated in postcolonial Europe.