Från statarnas ombudsman till turist i prekariatet? Om arbetarlitterära representationsmodeller

• Magnus Nilsson, School of Arts and Communication, Malmö University. From the Farm Labourers’ Ombudsman to Tourist in the Precariat (“Från statarnas ombudsman till turist i prekariatet? Om arbetarlitterära representationsmodeller”) The purpose of this article is to problematize working-class literature’s biographical representation model, that is, the widespread thought model according to which the political potential of working-class literature is dependent on the authors having a strong biographical connection to the working-class collectives they portray. This problematization, which takes its point of departure in an analysis of the reception of two literary works about the so-called pre-cariat—Anders Teglund’s Cykelbudet [The Bicycle Courier] (2021) and Kristian Lundberg’s Yarden [The Yard] (2009)—is both theoretical and historical. Drawing on the Marxist distinction between class in itself and class for itself, the article argues that the so-called precariat has not developed any common way of life or class conciousness that the authors could share. This is thematized in several contemporary literary depictions of precarious working conditions, which can therefore be read as an implicit criticism of working-class literature’s biographical representation model. The article also demonstrates that this model rests on a false picture of the tradition of working-class literature. Older working-class writers have not always had such a strong biographical anchorage in working-class life worlds as critics and literary researchers usually assume (and as the writers themselves have sometimes claimed). On the other hand, they have often, through their participation in the labor movement and its literary life, had an ideological/political connection to this class. Many of the contemporary authors who depict the so-called precariat also have political connections to the collectives they write about, in the form of involvement in organizations that fight against precarious working conditions. Therefore, the article argues that it can be fruitful to focus more on the ideological partisanship of writers portraying workers than on their biographical anchoring in the life worlds of these collectives.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Litteraturvetenskap (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- General Literary Studies (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

arbetarlitteratur

representation

klass

prekariat

Anders Teglund

Kristian Lundberg

Literature

Litteraturvetenskap

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)