This paper presents analysis of the power dynamics and issues related to (in)equalities within academic Swedish academic spaces. It aims to highlight the role of language in equity-related initiatives within higher education (HE). Engaging with concepts such as “normal-diversity”, the political drive for “widening participation” and increasing “internationalization” in contemporary Swedish academia, we trouble the meanings of “international” (in comparison to societal diversity linked to migration) within HE and terms like “race” [Swedish: ras] (and other identity markers such as functional disabilities) in scholarly endeavours and the popular imagination in the nation-state of Sweden.

Employing a post-methodological lens, we critically analyze HE web pages and official documents related to increasing diversity and internationalization-oriented strategies, the promotion of equal opportunities and guidelines related to discrimination, that frame the work of four universities. Aligning with the Second Wave of Southern Perspectives (SWaSP) framework, this study highlights the persistent hegemonic colonial order of things and its normalization in these spaces.

The findings raise important questions about the efficacy of current antidiscrimination policies within these educational spaces, inviting us to reflect whether these types of documents effectively monitor discrimination among students and staff, or if they represent tools that (re)produce inequities. Our work highlights the need for unpacking issues related to whose gaze that is privileged and who is subjected to such a gaze when discrimination is monitored; and, how discourses of equity within HE become framed in relation to how concepts themselves curtail/support issues related to marginalization processes.