Year: 2024
Type: dissertation
Abstract: In an unprecedented Muslim migration context in Sweden, with changing demographics as well as pressures on the welfare state, how Muslim family background is negotiated in Sweden is strikingly understudied. For second-generation Pakistanis, inheriting a Muslim identity from their parents can barely be considered a windfall gain. As they forge both roots and routes to embed into the country in which they were born and raised, second-generation Muslims acknowledge/react to the pressures associated with holding a Muslim identity that has been ‘spoiled’. Moreover, in re/deconstructing, maintaining and dissolving this identity, they are also actively making choices between competing and seemingly opposing identity scripts i.e. religious/ethnic (parental transmission within the Pakistani diasporic context) and secular (Swedish societal context).Drawing on material from 42 qualitative interviews conducted in three major cities of Sweden, this thesis focuses on the personal life stories of participants who I categorise as ‘Pakistani-Muslims’ and ‘Pakistani ex-Muslims.’ These categories are based on their identification and disidentification with a salient familial Muslim identity, which they negotiate as part of a continuum within the ‘diaspora space’ to forge alternative ways of belonging as a minority within the Swedish society.Using the concepts of ‘identity,’ ‘boundaries,’ and ‘belonging,’ this study explores, through participants’ narratives, the mechanisms that trigger and suppress expressions of agency. These mechanisms both constrain and empower individuals, shaping how they navigate their personal and social identities within various contexts. Subsequently, this thesis elaborates on some key findings: the re-signification of the family as a power equal to the welfare state and the continuing meaningfulness of religion in the lives of most second-generation Pakistani Muslims. Additionally, it explores their complex identity strategies, divided into four ‘diasporic bargains,’ through which the participants seek to balance the cognitive load and emotional investments in various relationships of commitment for maintaining and reproducing social bonds throughout the life course.Lastly, the importance of looking to a focus on ‘generations’ (first, second and third) as well as ‘sibling-sibling’ dimension is a crucial methodological consideration in understanding how (dis)continuities are bridged through ruptures, sutures, and new pathways in construction of identities, boundaries and its concomitant belonging.
Author: Kazi, Uzma
Language: English
Subfield: Demography
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7006223166
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