Emotional identity and pragmatic citizenship: being Palestinian in Sweden

Abstract

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.

The state of Palestine, the statelessness of Palestinians

“…While these are the cases in Lebanon, the experiences of Palestinians elsewhere are much different. For instance, Palestinians in Sweden have arrived there from different instabilities in the Middle East (Sayigh, 2013) and embrace the rights that Swedish citizenship gives them such as the right to vote, security, liberalism, and the welfare system (Lindholm, 2019;Tucker, 2018).…”

A conditional embrace—Swedish LGBTQ+ spaces through the eyes of ethnic minority non-heterosexual individuals

“…In 2015, in the wake of the worsening situation in Syria, 163,000 refugees applied for asylum in Sweden, a figure double the one in 2014 (Statistics Sweden, 2022b). The dominant public and political discourse moved from massive initial support to a discourse of the refugee situation being unsustainable and provoking (Dahlgren, 2016;Lindholm, 2020;Wernesjö, 2020). The nationalistic political party "Sweden Democrats" is as of now the second largest party in Sweden (Valmyndigheten, 2022).…”

“…In Östersund, a town in the Northern part of Sweden, 10% of the inhabitants are foreign-born, compared to 43% in Botkyrka (a part of Stockholm; Statistics Sweden, 2022c). Independent of how long you have lived in Sweden, looking non-European, having a "non-Swedish" name, or talking with a "non-Swedish" accent is likely to result in various forms of discrimination and a decreased chance of positive belonging (Hällgren, 2005;Lindholm, 2020).…”

Citizenship and Migration

“…The latter determines the extent of their political membership in the country where they have settled and where they, and presumably, their descendants hold stakes. Thus, holding on to the citizenship of the country of emigration has gained a largely symbolic function as a link to family, culture, or as representative of ethno-national identity (Lindholm, 2020). For states of emigration, the reciprocal function of citizenship has diminished as political and social rights are increasingly dependent on the combination of citizenship and residence (Spiro, 2012).…”