This article deals with the ways in which diaspora communities use activism, transnational political engagements and mobilisation in order to create and sustain identities and navigate in the transnational space of being neither 'here' nor 'there'. Through an exploration of how Palestinians in Sweden use activism as a way to navigate their situation in between Palestine and Sweden, it is shown that transnational activism and social mobilisation are means of managing, meaning-making, mediating and negotiation vulnerable and complicated position between places and identities. Using narrative material collected through interviews with Palestinians in Sweden, this article unveils the relationship between conflict, activism and identity formation and how tensions, struggles and contestations inform that interlinkage. The article explores those relationships through investigating the case of the Palestinian community in Sweden and its narrated experiences of conflict and activism through the lens of the former homeland as well as the new or current country of residence. The study aims to deepen our understandings of the profound meaning of solidarity with a homeland lost as well as to a deeper understanding of the Palestinian diaspora in the Global North.
How is identity claimed and created in communities that have experienced multiple processes of refugeeness and patterns of mixed migration? This article explores how Palestinian national identity is moulded, influenced, experienced and lived in a context of protracted refugeeness, exile and diaspora in Sweden. Departing from literature on diaspora and Palestinian identity formation and based on the collection of narratives from Palestinians residing in Sweden, the article sheds light on the processes through which Palestinian identity is strongly related to a moral and political commitment to the homeland lost and to issues of solidarity. Palestinians in Sweden also reveal a strong embracement of Swedish citizenship related to aspects such as the passport, the right to vote, security, liberalism and the welfare system. As Palestinians have arrived to Sweden from different instabilities in the Middle East and in different times, there are also affiliations and links to other spatial surroundings such as refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria. The paper also illuminates how multiple refugeeness create both a shared understanding of identity, but also internal rifts and contradictions, relating to former places of residence, to increasing racism and enforced social boundaries in Sweden, and to the different processes of displacement that have brought them to Sweden.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.