Academia and Cultural Production in Sweden

Postmigrant Trajectories, Alliances, and Negotiations

Maja Povrzanović Frykman, Eleonora Narvselius, Cristine Sarrimo

• Publisher: transcript Verlag
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9783839477052
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping
• Index: Social Sciences

Since migrants in Sweden are underrepresented in high-status positions in most fields, their significant presence in academia and cultural production merits thorough discussion. The postmigration perspective provides nuanced insights into their career trajectories, how they navigate recognition and challenges, and how they rely on professional alliances that transcend ethnic boundaries and origins. Drawing from ethnology, migration studies, and literary studies, the contributors explore how migrants and their descendants become university professors and prominent cultural producers in literary and Arabic-speaking cultural fields in Sweden.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Academia and Cultural Production in Sweden through the Lens of Postmigration: An Introduction
• 2 The Paradoxes of Internationalisation and Diversity in Swedish Academia
• 3 Language as Capital in Swedish Academia: Symbolic Struggles and Shifting Positionings
• 4 The Relocation of a ‘Mother Tongue’ and the Conversion of a Storytelling Tradition: Multilingual Positionings in the Swedish Literary Field
• 5 Moth Journeys and Butterfly Effects: Longing and Postmigrant Intertextuality in Johannes Anyuru’s De kommer att drunkna i sina mödrars tårar
• 5.1 Comment on Moth Journeys and Butterfly Effects
• 6 Arabic‐speaking Performance Artists and Filmmakers in Sweden: Postmigrant Spaces and Career Trajectories
• 7 Not Merely ‘Biographical Illusions’: Migrancy and Narrative Positionings in the Swedish Academic Field
• 8 Stories of Personal Support: Academic Alliances from the Perspective of Postmigration
• 9 Negotiations of Migration‐related Plurality: ‘Thinking Bourdieusian’ While Engaging with Postmigration
• Postscript: The Power of Alliances
• Appendix: Information on participants
• Contributors