Symbolic Interaction, Power, and War: Narratives of Unaccompanied Young Refugees with War Experiences in Institutional Care in Sweden
2022 (English)In: Societies, E-ISSN 2075-4698, Vol. 12, no 3, article id 90
Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Sustainable development
SDG 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels, SDG 10: Reduce income inequality within and among countries
Abstract [en]
This study concerns young people who have experienced war, taken shelter in Sweden, and been placed in institutions. The purpose of the study is to identify and analyze power relations that contribute to the shaping of young people’s identities and repertoires of action via stigmatizations and social comparisons with different reference groups. The study’s empirical material includes qualitatively oriented interviews with six young people from Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan who have experienced war, followed by placement in institutional care in Sweden. Analytical findings with the following themes are presented: (1) concrete—physical exercise of power, (2) blackmail as an exercise of power, and (3) anonymous—bureaucratized exercise of power. The study demonstrates that narratives about war, escaping war, and postwar life in Sweden, constructing and reconstructing an image of a series of interactive rituals that are both influenced by and influence the power dynamic between the actors. This relationship, in turn, creates and recreates an interplay among the stigmatizing experiences of the youths, their social comparisons, and definitions of inequality.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
MDPI, 2022. Vol. 12, no 3, article id 90
Keywords [en]
symbolic interaction; ethnomethodology; social construction; interactive ritual; social comparison; humiliated self; stigma; disruptive peaceful interaction; disruptive non-power-based interaction; interaction involving wartime exercise of power; social pedagogical recognition; loss of identity; mortification
National Category
Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology) Pedagogy
Research subject
Social Sciences, Sociology; Social Work, Social Psychology; Social Sciences, Social Work; Social Sciences, Peace and Development Studies; Education, Social Pedagogy
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-115121DOI: 10.3390/soc12030090ISI: 000818202600001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85132003794OAI: oai:DiVA.org:lnu-115121DiVA, id: diva2:1680133
Conference
(Il)legal organizations and crime. Challenges for contemporary criminology. 21st Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology, European Society of Criminology and University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania (20210908-20210911). ”War and challenges for contemporary criminology: an ethnography-inspired analysis of the narratives of unaccompanied young refugees with war experiences in institutional care in Sweden”, with David Wästerfors. Sociological Knowledges for Alternative Futures, the 15th European Sociological Association Conference, European Sociological Association, Autonomous University of Barcelona and Catalan Sociological Association, Barcelona, Spain (20210831-20210903). ”Symbolic interaction, power, and war: an ethnography-inspired analysis of the narratives of unaccompanied young refugees with war experiences in institutional care in Sweden”, with David Wästerfors.Society and politics. Power, politics, and social sciences (100 years after Max Weber), Faculty of Political Science, University of Banja Luka, Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina (20200918-20200919). ”Unaccompanied young refugees with war experiences in institutional care in Sweden. A Weberian-inspired analysis of power relations in the narratives of young persons”. (Plenary session).
Projects
Youth with war experiences in institutional care. A sociological study of young immigrants' stigma and social comparisons2022-07-032022-07-032023-03-10Bibliographically approved