| Abstrakt: |
This article focuses on what will be called narratives of belonging created through hip-hop culture by the children of Chilean refugees who came to Sweden during the 1970s and 1980s. Chile is especially interesting in this context, as Sweden accepted the largest number of Chilean political refugees in Europe after the 1973 military coup. The article argues that the work of Swedish hip-hop artists who actively address a Chilean background through their work can be read as narratives of belonging in a number of different ways. This specific negotiation of a Chilean identity becomes intelligible as a narrative of belonging in Sweden against the background of othering and segregation processes, and a form of multiculturalism that affirms both difference and equality. It creates belonging as a reaction to othering processes that are visible in both the persisting segregation in housing and labour markets along ethnic and racial lines, as well as the election of the Sweden Democrats, a right-wing, anti-immigration party into the Swedish national parliament in 2010, 2014, and most recently in 2018. It also creates belonging in the context of a multiculturalism debate that stresses difference as desirable, that is, as a means of inclusion into mainstream society. The article argues that, if being different means being part of a group, individuals will set out to define their specific difference, in this case by creating narratives of belonging that connect them to a specific (idealized) version of a Swedish past, in order to define their membership within that group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
