Projects with keyword: Nation and Nationalism

The project explores research and debates on multiculturalism, social cohesion and liberal values in academic discourse, policy documents and the media. It scrutinises discourses voicing anxiety over "multiculturalism" in societies marked by the erosion of citizenship, urban revolts among disadvantaged migrant youth, an ongoing nationalist-populist alignment and exclusivist policies of migration and "integration".

During the last 20 years their has been an upsurge in research on xenophobic populist parties mirroring their political successes. However, these studies have rarely touched upon the role of women and immigrants within these parties. While women are often invisible in research, located in a marginal role as girl-friends and sisters, migrants support to these parties is often defined as a contradiction in terms and remains un-theorised. The aim of the study is to analyse the double edged relationship between on the one side women and migrants approaching the Swedish xenophic populist party -Sweden Democrats, and on the other side the discourse of the party in respect to women and migrants in their conditions of representatives. It will identify women's and migrant's agency and explore the ways through which these shape, constrain and influence their position in the organisation. Theoretically the project is framed within gender and IMER studies, focusing on the notions of the family and nationhood, and the notions of ethnic belonging and nationhood. Methodologically the study is based on in depth interviews and life-stories with women and migrants representing SD in municipalities.

In the wake of two high-profile murders in 1999 and 2002, which involved the killing of two young women of Kurdish background by close family members, the situation of and the victimisation experienced by "immigrant girls" in their families has been transformed into an important issue in Sweden. The murders came to bo defined as "honour murders" and the situation showed that there was an acute need for conrete measures to combat this violence. The project analysis the Swedish school system´s efforts to combat "honour-related" violence. The study is ethnographic and the empirical material is based on interviews with student welfare staff at different compulsury schools and colleges of further education. There are also some participant observations at study days focused on "honour-related" violence. An important result is that the violence is understood as related to the Other, located to a "traditional" and "patriarchal" culture. A consequence of this is that the violence is homogenized. That will say the violcene is attributed to clear-cut explanations and signs, which makes alternative explanations and interpretations invisible. "Honour-related" violence is distinguished and separated from other gender-based violence, whereby whole groups will be stigmatized as victims or perpetrators of violence.

This dissertation explores what happens with ethnic and national identifications built on the same ethnocultural grounds, but under different socio-economic circumstances. Territorial and non- territorial minorities have traditionally been considered non-comparable because it was assumed that groups organized on different grounds were distinctively separate phenomena. In this study, the comparative method is used to throw new light on how ethnic and national identifications are constructed, negotiated, and re-constructed in territorial and non-territorial minority contexts.

The focus is on the question whether the ethnic and national identification and articulation processes of Hungarians in Slovakia and Hungarians in Sweden constitute different types of Hungarianness. Drawing on extensive interview material the empirical focus is on the interaction of self-narratives and public narratives. The project aims to challenge the notion that national minorities and diaspora communities are fundamentally different in their understanding of nationhood and their relationship to an external national homeland.

The project is financed by the Swedish Research Council. There are two researchers involved in the project Tünde Puskás and Prof. emeritus Rune Johansson and the project consists of two parts. Rune Johansson studies the construction and re-formulation of languages policies at the national, societal level. Tünde Puskás focuses on how language policies are implemented at the municipal level within the sphere of education.
Thus the project aims at exploring
1. how Swedish language policies interact with major ideological debates on uniformity and diversity
2. how local school politicians and school leaders interpret, challenge and appropriate societal language planning principles and how they relate to the usage of Swedish and other languages in municipal schools.
The project fits well in the internationally expanding academic field ethnography of language policy. Studies within this tradition aim to link micro-level educational practices with macro-level language policies and discourses on language use through illuminating the connections between macro and micro levels of analysis. The ethnography of language policy in the context of this project allows us to illuminate the different layers of language policies. This approach requires broad definition of language policies. Language policy is thus conceptualised as the totality of language beliefs (ideologies, societal norms, values and individual perceptions) and language management (rules, laws, regulations and actions undertaken to influence or modify language practices).

This study brings into focus the issue of reproduction and transformation ofcultural authority in the so-called post-Soviet context. It seeks to examine howintelligentsia may be presented and what empowering narratives it may articulate in a concrete locality, namely, in the post-1991 West Ukrainian city of L'viv. Theauthor argues that claims for cultural authority stemming from the socio-culturallocation of intelligentsia are decisive in discussions about Ukrainian nationalidentity and cultural development, which gained momentum after independence.Despite significant discursive transformations, after 1991 intelligentsia is stillpresented as the essence of the nation, as its typical and brightest representativeswho assume the right to speak for the whole nation and to extrapolate own valuesand choices to it.

This project offers an historicized account of three phases and moments of hegemonic whiteness in Sweden, namely the white purity period between 1905-1968, the white solidarity period between 1968-2001 and the white melancholy period from 2001 and onwards, and their interrelation with different racial formations and minority discourses, class structures and gender relations, as well as different political ideologies and affective structures that characterise these three periods. The argument is that Sweden at the present moment is subjected to the double-binding power of Swedish whiteness in the sense that the disappearance of old Sweden, that is Sweden as a racially homogeneous nation, and the passing of good Sweden, that is Sweden as a politically progressive nation, are both perceived to be threatened by the presence of people of colour within the Swedish body politic and state territory. Consequently, both the reactionary and racist camp, and the radical and antiracist camp, are affected by and implicated in the contemporary crisis of Swedish whiteness.

The project focuses on the Sweden Democrats (SD) and the role of local and regional gendered place identities in contributing to the regional strength of ethnonationalism, but also to alternative democratic societal projects that mitigate ethnonationalism. It studies place identities both in regions where the SD is strong and weak, with the aim of understanding the role of place identities and the relationship to gender identities and diverse solidarities frames; posing the following research questions:

1. What role do local and regional gendered place identities play in facilitating and constraining ethnonationalist worldviews?

2. Which myths of origin can be discerned from local political, municipal and media documents, and how are they invoked and contested by both ethno-nationalist and alternative democratic solidarity projects?

3. What role does gender, class, ethnicity and age play in the construction and transformation of local and regional place identities?

4. What role does local media play in shaping regional and local identities, constructions of “we” and “them” and solidarity agendas in parliamentary politics?