Abstract: The slow violence of becoming a refugee. Drawing on life story interviews with individuals who have fled to Denmark, the article examines refugees’ experiences of being categorized and met with administrative rules and norms by the Danish authorities. Addressing experiences of being administered and controlled, and at times treated with racial and gendered differentiation, the article asks, how such experiences intersect with a broader experience of being cast, not as an individual, but as a refugee, within the Danish nation-state. The article rests on a theoretical framework of narrativity, postcolonial and feminist thinking as well as the concept of slow violence. Through analysing the narrative accounts of two women with refugee background, the article illustrates the negative consequences of experiencing racial categorization. This encompasses feelings of gradual denigration and distress. By examining what racism does, and how the women navigate between agency and control the article argues, that staying silent and not speaking up when experiencing racism can be understood as a consequence in itself of the negative categorization and subjectivation as a refugee.