| 1. |
- Joosten, Sjors, 1993-
(författare)
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100% Swedish : Working for recognition through Hip-Hop from the suburbs of Stockholm
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation examines the role of hip-hop in shaping identity, immigrant integration, and social belonging in the Swedish context. It discusses how Swedish hip-hop artists with immigrant backgrounds and from segregated suburbs use their art to translate personal narratives, communicate social realities, and imagine alternative conceptions of Swedishness. The research draws upon Civil Sphere Theory (Alexander, 2006) and Recognition Theory (Lamont, 2018, 2023), which focus on symbolic boundaries that are in play in the conception of who “we” are as a society and associated processes of inclusion, belonging, and recognition. The study investigates how hip-hop assists immigrant-Swedish artists to articulate their experiences, construct identities, and navigate processes of integration and instances of exclusion. By describing the impact of the work of hip-hop artists and other key actors in the hip-hop scene, the dissertation considers the implications of hip-hop for immigrant incorporation, social recognition, and belonging within Swedish society. The analysis is based on qualitative data, including interviews with immigrant-Swedish hip-hop artists and other stakeholders of the hip-hop scene related to the suburbs of Stockholm, observations of significant places and performances in the Stockholm hip-hop scene, analysis of lyrics, and interpretation of secondary sources like media coverage. Through the analysis of this data, the dissertation uncovers how hip-hop artists challenge territorial stigmatization, work against racialization and discrimination, and strive for a greater appreciation for cultural hybridity and the multicultural reality of Sweden. The findings provide a nuanced portrait of hip-hop as a site of both empowerment and struggle for immigrant-Swedish individuals and communities. While hip-hop offers a platform for artistic expression, economic advancement, and agency, it also confronts tensions between commercial success and social marginalization that can reinforce stigmatizing stereotypes and social exclusion or support recognition and integration. As hip-hop becomes more mainstream, artists appear on public TV shows, perform on national stages, and enter the finer rooms of the cultural landscape. Hip-hop from the suburbs has become more present and widespread. However, it continues to be seen as produced in symbolically excluded spaces by immigrant-others. A substantial factor in this is the disproportionate attention to gangster-rap, which emphasizes criminality and exclusion, undermining other hip-hop artists that try to convey messages that facilitate belonging and recognition. The dissertation clarifies symbolic boundaries between the construction of a dominant and conventional 'lagom' Sweden and an immigrant-Swedish multicultural suburban 'orten' Sweden, and argues that artists often work towards new forms of belonging and recognition, potentially redefining these symbolic boundaries and contributing to immigrant incorporation on a larger scale. But this depends significantly on the artists’ ability to balance a mastery of knowing how to approach the wider audience through hip-hop and change-making in sharing messages to discuss redefining symbolic boundaries in favor of a more inclusive society. It can be concluded that Swedish hip-hop does not only work on an individual level for creating alternative forms of identities and routes to belonging but also adds to a social critique of how symbolic boundaries are drawn and can work towards imagining a multicultural and inclusive Sweden that is both 'lagom' and 'orten,' thus 100% Swedish. Ultimately, this dissertation contributes to research on immigrant incorporation, belonging, and recognition through the arts and music – specifically popular culture – and demonstrates the value of hip-hop for research on immigrant inclusion and belonging. This dissertation underscores the transformative potential of hip-hop as a catalyst for broader societal change, reshaping conceptions of Swedish identity and challenging existing boundaries of belonging. By identifying translation, communication, and imagination as the key actions of hip-hop artists and other cultural agents, the study contributes to theoretical advancements bridging Civil Sphere Theory with Recognition Theory. Contributing to the sociology of immigrant incorporation by clarifying the interplay between symbolic boundaries and music, the research offers new insights into how immigrant-Swedish artists and their communities navigate processes of integration and belonging.
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| 2. |
- Jovičić, Jelena, 1990-
(författare)
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On the Visual (Re)production of ‘Refugeeness’ : Images, production sites and oppositional gazes
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation explores ways in which images disseminate specific kinds of knowledge and shape the way we understand issues of migration and flight today. In the wake of the 2015/2016 ‘refugee crisis’ in Europe, there has been a vast proliferation of photography depicting flight and people fleeing. Bird-eye view images of crowded boats in the Mediterranean, scenes of people arriving at the shores of Greece, Turkey and Italy, precarious living conditions and violent pushbacks along the ‘Balkan Route’ covered the front pages of newspapers for months on end. Presence of such familiar visual cues goes beyond the idea of neutral and reflective messages of the world, rather, they show us how interpretations of the world are made meaningful and carried out in very particular ways. Images represent an integral part of the production and dissemination of state discourses and as such they can be understood as situated in the social, economic and political dynamics at a given point in time, yet embedded in historical discourses such as the long history of colonial constructions of ‘otherness’ through the use of camera and photography. This work aims to contribute to sociological knowledge on the meaning making of flight and people fleeing by looking at the visual (re)production of flight through a feminist, decolonial lens. Together, the articles seek to answer three central questions: (1) What are the dominant visual discourses on flight and ‘refugeeness’ as reproduced in the mainstream media? (2) What is the role of the image makers operating in the production field in constructing visual discourses on flight and ‘refugeeness’? (3) What are the potentials and limitations for challenging the mainstream discourses on flight through visual counter narratives produced by people with personal experiences of flight? To answer these questions this dissertation makes use of visual discourse analysis, qualitative interviews and participatory visual methods.Article I and II explore newspaper cover-page photography and ways in which such images constitute and disseminate knowledge on the issues of flight and people fleeing. Article III moves on to study the production sites of images of flight and points to the complex ways in which visual production of ‘refugeeness’ in the media rests on the intersections of racialized, gendered and classed discourses, making it a field full of ambivalence and tensions as addressed in the article. Finally, in Article IV, I outline the potentials and challenges of using participatory visual methods as a way of challenging the mainstream visual discourses on flight and shifting focus from tropist representations and fixation on ‘refugee’ bodies to the visual narratives on life in exile produced by people with recent histories of flight themselves.
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| 3. |
- Thaning, Max, 1987-
(författare)
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Social Mobilities : Multidimensionality, Operationalization, and Subgroup Heterogeneity
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Social mobility is a key concern for societies, as it reflects levels of inequality, life chances, and fairness. A higher mobility rate implies that individuals are less constrained by their family origins. In this dissertation, I explore which parental resources matter, whether transfer patterns are shaped by the parent–child configuration of socio-economic status (SES) resources, how such resources should be operationalized, and whether subgroups differ in social mobility rates. The aim is to go beyond a unidimensional view of social mobility and more systematically explore the existence of social mobilities. Study I addresses how different dimensions of parents’ SES in education, occupation, income, and wealth are associated with educational attainment in secondary tracks and tertiary fields of study. Our results show that there is strong segregation by parents’ SES. However, the association of social background dimensions to educational attainment is not uniform but differs by the combination of dimension and track or field. This selection process by social origin is also linked to future inequality in chances of tertiary graduation and expected earnings. Study II focuses on how to best combine information on parental SES in studies of intergenerational inequality. We assess how much of the sibling correlations in continuous measures of education, occupation, and earnings are accounted for by parents’ SES in the same dimensions using different operationalizations. In conclusion, parental averages are an attractive and parsimonious one-variable alternative that is preferred over the conventional dominance approach, although the highest explanatory power is attributed to models using two parental measures and an interaction term. Study III highlights how multiple parental SES resources are transmitted over corresponding child outcomes. The findings suggest, first, that transmission is particular to given parental and child resource configurations (resource specificity). Second, within-resource transmission implies that the same parental resource as the child outcome matters most in the transmission of advantage. Third, resource transmission follows an SES proximity pattern, where parental education is least correlated with child income and parental income is least correlated with children’s education—with parental occupation in between. The bias resulting from ignoring multidimensionality is estimated to an upper bound of 31 percent, with considerable confounding bias found as well. Study IV is centered on subgroup heterogeneity in social mobility. I propose a three-stage evaluation process that goes beyond a conventional examination of group mean and effect differences using prediction methods. Prediction allows for gauging subgroup-specific changes in explanatory power and comparing the level of uncertainty that each subgroup faces. Although the conventional interpretation of interactive models shows some support for subgroup heterogeneity, predictive results indicate minimal improvements in fit. However, subgroup differences in idiosyncratic error, or the subgroup level of uncertainty in outcomes, suggest substantial heterogeneity. In sum, the interpretation of coefficients and graphical analysis of interactions can be contextualized by expanding the criteria for assessing subgroup heterogeneity. Ultimately this leads to a better understanding of subgroup particularities, thus guiding future research toward richer answers.
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| 4. |
- Voytiv, Sofiya, 1990-
(författare)
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Deterritorializing Conflict, Reterritorializing Boundaries : Diaspora and Conflict in the "Homeland"
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Ethnicized armed conflicts are usually studied in their territorial dimension and analyzed through the patterns of involvement of different direct and indirect actors. Mostly the focus lies on the multiple ways these direct and indirect actors affect the processes and outcomes of such conflicts. While direct actors mostly participate in the fighting itself, indirect ones can involve transnational advocacy organizations and diasporic groups. Diasporas in this perspective are usually considered to be either “peace-makers” or “peace-wreckers”. Less research has been done on the effects the ethnicized armed conflict in the “homeland” can have on diasporic communities.In this dissertation, I develop theoretical conceptualization of the intersection of armed conflict in the “homeland” and diaspora. I focus on a specific case of Ukrainian-Russian conflict and Ukrainian, Russian and conflict-generated diasporic groups in Sweden.I argue that the ethnicized armed conflict in the “homeland” can become deterritorialized. In other words, ideas, attitudes and ethnicized narratives of such conflicts can become detached from a certain geographical location and settle in the transnational space of interactions. Such conflict deterritorialization can in its turn trigger diasporization processes elsewhere. It can also mobilize the pre-existing diasporic organizations for “homeland”-related activism. If diasporic individuals and communities use the symbols, ideas and narratives of the conflict in the “homeland” in defining the Other, as well as their relationships and networks, another process – conflict reterritorialization – is at play. This process can subsequently shift group boundary making and maintenance processes.Together, the concepts of conflict deterritorialization and reterritorialization help explain the patterns and mechanisms of the armed conflict in its meaning dimension. In addition, such theoretical conceptualization enables the analysis of the effects the conflict might have in the diasporic setting, including the processes of politicization.Using the specific case of Ukrainian-Russian conflict (2014-ongoing) I analyze the collaboration networks of Ukrainian, Russian and conflict-generated organizations active in Sweden between 2013 and 2016 and interview Ukrainians and Russians from Ukraine living in Sweden. I show that both patterns of conflict deterritorialization and reterritorialization are present in this specific diasporic setting to different degrees.Study 1 theoretically conceptualizes conflict deterritorialization as a diasporization process using previous findings from different case studies. Study 2 investigates the mechanisms of diaspora politicization and the role of conflict-generated diasporas in facilitating these mechanisms. In Study 3 I find that during the most violent period of war in eastern Ukraine, the attitude towards the conflict might have become a leading factor for collaborations between diasporic organizations. And, finally, Study 4 explores the potentiality of armed conflict in the “homeland” to contribute to a shift in ethnic group boundary making processes in the diasporic setting.Taken together the four studies aim to shed light on the non-territorial meaning dimension of the ethnicized armed conflicts theoretically and empirically. Thus, the dissertation contributes to the development of the holistic understanding of war and diaspora while taking into account the importance of contexts, factors and conditions of the country of residence, the “homeland” and the transnational space.
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| 5. |
- Weber, Rosa, 1991-
(författare)
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Borders and Barriers : Studies on Migration and Integration in the Nordic and Mexico-U.S. Settings
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- International migration engages large numbers of people. Men, women and children break up from their homes and move to another country temporarily or permanently. Depending on the country of origin and the destination, this comes with varying degrees of uncertainties about where to settle, how much to invest in building a new life abroad and how to retain ties to the country of origin. In recent years, policies have become increasingly salient for migrants’ experiences. They impact entry possibilities and the ease of travelling back home. Increased policing of migrants can interfere in the building of a new life abroad and contribute to stress and apprehension felt among both migrants and their children. To some extent counteracting this, family and friends may provide newly arrived migrants with information on job opportunities and facilitate the transition into the new country.This dissertation analyses the links between migration and integration patterns and migrants’ ties to the home and destination country. It does this in two ultimately distinct settings when it comes to the borders and barriers that migrants face: the Nordic and Mexico-U.S. settings. Until recently, Swedish migration policy was among the most welcoming to migrants from different parts of the world. Migration within the Nordic countries, in particular, is characterised by open borders. By contrast, Mexico and the U.S. are separated by an increasingly militarised border and internal policing of migrants has risen dramatically. Consequently, these settings provide contrasting and interesting examples of the relationship between the policy context and migrants’ experiences.Study 1 shows that many moves are temporary and short term in the Nordic setting of free mobility. Still, the threshold to the first move is notably higher than for subsequent moves. Study 2 reveals that rising deportations of Mexican migrants in the U.S. are associated with a shift from savings brought home to the sending of remittances. Afraid of a sudden arrest or deportation, migrants maintain transnational ties by sending remittances back to Mexico rather than carrying savings across the border. Study 3 investigates the different roles that social contacts play for male and female migrants’ integration into the Swedish labour market. Whereas friends provide men with benefits in the labour market, women’s job search is often constrained by factors linked to having family in Sweden. Study 4 shows that the implementation of local level immigration enforcement in the U.S. has a negative impact on district level average educational achievement among Hispanic students. This indicates that integration and resulting ethnic achievement gaps are shaped by increased policing and surveillance of migrants.This dissertation reveals a series of complex relationships between migration, integration and policies. Family and kin influence migration decisions also when barriers to movement are low. In the new country, kin can assist migrants’ job search or slow it down when newly arrived migrants are expected to care for them. Policing of migrants makes it more difficult to return and may affect migrants’ abilities to invest in building a new life, as indicated by negative effects for educational outcomes among groups targeted by immigration enforcement. Taken together, these factors shape the experiences and life chances of both migrants and their children in the new country.
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