Sammanfattning

The recent arrival of refugees in rural Sweden has raised hopes that they might stave off the depopulation of the country's periphery and lead to its development. Despite these visions in policy and in some academic literature, there is little research on how immigrant encounters with development and integration practices take shape on the ground. Critical research on immigrant integration in Sweden focuses on urban areas where most immigrants live. Rural areas, with sparse populations, weak economic positions vis a vis cities and increased policy pressures to define themselves as uniquely competitive, stand at a crossroads as they grapple with developing their areas and integrating newcomers. A less visible, but no less decisive crossroads is the vision of multiculturalism grounded in current institutions for democracy, in contrast to the road that I suggest we need to take - one that turns a critical eye on the relations that constitute the culture and institutions for integration and rural development. Drawing on long term ethnographic fieldwork in the province of Halsingland and on Bourdieu's conceptualization of misrecognition as well as critical race theories, I probe the misrecognition' of the rural and of institutions for integration and democracy in Sweden. I argue that the misrecognition of voluntary associations as the template for democracy for all and dominant discourses on what constitutes rural culture, inadvertently embody racial undertones that need to be confronted - both in theorizing and in practice - if aspirations for a multicultural democracy are to be taken as seriously as they must.

Nyckelord

Rural development; race; integration; voluntary associations; misrecognition

Publicerad i

Environment and Planning A
2017, Volym: 49, nummer: 7, sidor: 1594-1612

SLU författare

• Arora Jonsson, Seema

  • Institutionen för stad och land, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

Globala målen

SDG5 Uppnå jämställdhet och alla kvinnors och flickors egenmakt
SDG10 Minska ojämlikheten inom och mellan länder
SDG16 Främja fredliga och inkluderande samhällen för hållbar utveckling, tillhandahålla tillgång till rättvisa för alla samt bygga upp effektiva, och inkluderande institutioner med ansvarsutkrävande på alla nivåer


UKÄ forskningsämne

Kulturgeografi
Tvärvetenskapliga studier
Genusstudier


Publikationens identifierare

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X17701130

Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/90860