Academic literature on the topic 'Kurds – Sweden'

Sweden and Finland’s decision to abandon their longtime, famous neutrality and apply for membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) indicates that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has disastrously backfired. These two new NATO members will bring tangible geostrategic benefits to the alliance, not just a token weight. NATO has suddenly gained a new and greater strength and legitimacy. As for the Kurds, they need to understand that NATO’s deal with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan to approve Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership in return for their cracking down on supposed Kurdish terrorists sheltering within their borders is not as hostile to Kurdish interests as they claim. Sweden and Finland are not likely to extradite Kurds accused of political crimes to Turkey. The Kurds should comprehend their very secondary position in the existential power struggle involving NATO and Russia and not overreact against it. As explained below, this deal with Turkey, like earlier ones, is not likely to be as inimical to Kurdish interests as first meets the eye.

Uğur Ümit Üngör, The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, 352 pp. (ISBN: 9780199603602).Mohammed M. A. Ahmed, Iraqi Kurds and Nation-Building. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 294 pp., (ISBN: 978-1-137-03407-6), (paper). Ofra Bengio, The Kurds of Iraq: Building a State within a State. Boulder, CO and London, UK: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2012, xiv + 346 pp., (ISBN 978-1-58826-836-5), (hardcover). Cengiz Gunes, The Kurdish National Movement in Turkey, from Protest to Resistance, London: Routledge, 2012, 256 pp., (ISBN: 978-0-415—68047-9). Aygen, Gülşat, Kurmanjî Kurdish. Languages of the World/Materials 468, München: Lincom Europa, 2007, 92 pp., (ISBN: 9783895860706), (paper).Barzoo Eliassi, Contesting Kurdish Identities in Sweden: Quest for Belonging among Middle Eastern Youth, Oxford: New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 234 pp. (ISBN: 9781137282071).

Palestinians in Lebanon are one of the most important communities living in the Middle East, with nearly 350,000 refugees according to UNRWA figures. Since the 1980s about 100,000 Palestinians have emigrated from Lebanon to the Gulf countries and northern Europe, mainly Germany, Sweden, and Denmark. The Palestinian case leads us to reconsider the classical distinction between forced and voluntary migration. Migration has to be considered not only as forced, but also as the result of new forms of transnational solidarity between the different scattered Palestinian communities. This paper aims to demonstrate how refugee communities, like Palestinians, but also Kurds or Eritreans, use their social capital (i.e., solidarity networks) in order to adapt to new situations with strong constraints and to develop new forms of transnational solidarities.

Abstract To construct a historical narrative in teaching content, teachers need subject-specific tools. This article explores how, in a history course taught in Sweden, different combi­nations of time and what can be called ‘space’ can operate as one such subject-specific tool. To collect data on how this might be done, semi-structured interviews were con­ducted with teachers who described the content of a history course they taught. Their statements in interviews, alongside examples of their teaching materials, were used to identify six different ways of combining time and space in history teaching. These combinations were then grouped into three categories: one, when time runs from the past to the present and where there is a strong emphasis on periodization and geo­graphical location; two, when time runs from the past to the present but there is less emphasis on periodization and geographical location and a greater emphasis on issues or themes across long periods of time; and three, when the time perspective is directed either forward or back in time and focuses on different aspects of the notion of ‘space’. The overall conclusion is that time and space categories can help to structure teaching content, mainly because they organize in specific ways the historical narrative on which that teaching content is based. The choice of time and space in teaching content can, therefore, shape the way history is taught as a subject. The results of this study contribute to a discussion of the subject-specific tools that are available for teachers when they construct narratives in their teaching of history. Keywords: history education, historical narratives, time and space, disciplinary concepts, subject-specific tool Att kombinera tid och rum: Tidrum som ett organiserande tankebegrepp för narrativ i historieundervisning Sammandrag I syfte att konstruera historiska narrativ i ett undervisningsinnehåll behöver lärare tillgång till tankebegrepp. I den här artikeln undersöks, i en svensk historiekurs för gymnasiet, hur olika kombinationer av tid och rum, benämnda tidrum, kan utgöra sådana tankebegrepp. Artikeln bygger på semistrukturerade intervjuer med lärare som beskriver innehållet i en kurs de genomförde innevarande läsår för intervjuerna. I lärarnas utsagor från intervjuerna, tillsammans med lärarnas undervisningsmaterial, har sex olika sätt att kombinera tid och rum identifierats i deras historieundervisning. De tidrum som identifierats kunde sedan delas in i tre olika kategorier. En första kategori där tiden rör sig från det förflutna till nutid med en tydlig indelning i tidsperioder och geografisk anknytning. En andra kategori med betoning på långa linjer i historien där olika frågor följs. Här läggs mindre betoning på periodisering och geografisk anknyt­ning. Slutligen ett tidrum med tidsperspektiv som växlande rör sig mellan nutid och dåtid med fokus på olika historiska frågor. Den övergripande slutsatsen som dras, är att de tidrum som identifierats på ett genomgripande sätt bidrar till att forma de historiska narrativ som väljs för undervisningen. Urvalet av tidrum i ett undervisningsinnehåll har därför potential att forma så väl historieämnets innehåll som syfte. På så sätt bidrar den här artikeln till en diskussion om vilka tankebegrepp som finns tillgängliga för lärare när de formulerar innehållet i skolans historiekurser. Nyckelord: historieundervisning, historiska narrativ, tidrum, disciplinära begrepp, tankebegrepp

Abstract In the past, the main focus of migration studies was the investigation of influences of immigrants on the host society and their integration into the country of settlement. However, transnationalism studies currently place much greater emphasis upon the other side – which is the effect of living in diaspora, in the society of origin with trans-border citizenship. The cultural, social and political interactions and connections between Sweden as a country of settlement and Kurdistan (especially Iraqi Kurdistan), create a transnational social space where the members of the Kurdish elite can play a major role in improvement of Kurdistan. From here, their adoption of a double identity makes it possible for them to permanently define and redefine their position in Swedish society while simultaneously participating in the inherent development of Kurdistan. The merging of the members of the Kurdish elite’s discourse in rebuilding of democracy and development with regard to reconstruction, leads to more focus on the role of diaspora and understanding the Swedish Kurdish elite’s impact on “functionalizing” and major contribution in the current state of Kurdistan. The ways of expression, increasing academic value, multicultural behavior, and the elite’s activities in civil society organization in between two or several states, their appearance in the international scene, experiences of living in both host / home societies, and multi-relations in a diasporic context continuing and re-adjusting national identities are essential indications of trans-border identity formation of Kurdish diaspora. After the liberation of Kurdistan (northern Iraq 2003), members of the Kurdish elite experienced transnationalism mainly through transferring their success in performing various activities for their homeland and at the same time integrating more into the host countries that received them. During this research, the researcher met and interviewed a number of members of Kurdish elites who had very interesting stories about the Kurdish diaspora, and more especially the important role they play in the transnational space that connects the Kurdish homeland to many European countries and the United States. Using a phenomenology method, the researcher classifies the elements that can characterize the practices of Kurdish diaspora elite as transnationalism.  Sweden is one of the main countries where the Kurdish elite diaspora gathered and are organized to contribute to the development of Kurdistan. Since the Kurdish diaspora is the largest nation that lacks a state, the Kurdish diaspora has formed a long-distance nation in host country.

Defence date: 18 December 2012
Examining Board: Professor Rainer Bauböck, EUI (Supervisor) Professor Friedrich Kratochwil, EUI (Co-supervisor) Professor Carl-Ulrik Schierup, REMESO, Linköping University Professor Thomas Faist, Bielefeld University
First made available online: 02 September 2021
This thesis aims to contribute to a broader understanding of spill-over of homeland conflicts the host country by diaspora groups and analyses how the repercussions of the Kurdish question in Turkey are reflected in the interactions between second-generation Turks and Kurds in Sweden and Germany. It is argued that the on-going conflict adversely affects the relationship between the two ethnic groups, but that the tensions and conflict dynamics are not an exact reflection of the situation in the homeland, and instead take a different form in each hostland. The contentions between the groups and their grievances are dependent on several factors that are rooted in the hostland and directly or indirectly affect how these groups establish contact with one another. These include: the profile of the migrants; the size of the ethnic communities; the ratio of one ethnic community to another in the hostland; the political and discursive opportunity structures in the hostland; and the relations between the homeland and the hostland. The second generation were selected as the sample group in this thesis as they offer a clearer picture of the host country impact, as well as the persistence of conflict dynamics in the diaspora spaces. The arguments that this thesis makes are based largely on field research, which included interviews with academics, politicians, migrant organisation leaders, as well as first- and second-generation diaspora members. Sweden and Germany were selected on the grounds that both have significant populations of non-European migrants and in particular because they have Turkish and Kurdish populations that show different diasporic tendencies, thus making them relevant cases for comparison. The comparison of their approaches to migrant incorporation; multiculturalism as a formal state policy; the corporatist structures that they have developed with migrant organisations; the profile of the migrants they have received; and, their approach to the Kurdish question in Turkey, sheds light on the varying dynamics of conflict-import to a host country by diaspora groups.

This book examines how the Kurdish diaspora in Denmark supported the Kurdish struggle in Syria from the battle of Kobane (2014) to the defeat in Afrin (2018). It contributes to our understanding of mobilisation and identity formation in the periphery of the Kurdish diaspora by examining the small but well-established community in Denmark. Arguing that the diaspora is treated differently by Danish authorities – in comparison to neighbouring Sweden and Germany – the book examines the political lobbyism, the courtroom activism and the humanitarian actvism of the various Kurdish diaspora groups. Drawing on social movement theory, the book introduces strategic interactionism to the study of diaspora mobilisation, which exposes ambiguous aspects of the interaction between the diaspora and political decision-makers. The book also provides new knowledge on transnational actors in war by examining how the Kurdish diaspora engaged in the war against Islamic State, like Danish military forces were engaged, but on different terms. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork among Kurdish groups and organisations, the book uncovers the rivalry between the two main Kurdish movements, called the Öcalan movement and the Kurdistan movement. Moreover, the book zoom in on the position of the Syrian Kurds within the diaspora who, like the Kurds in Syria, have been largely ignored until recently. Finally, the book coins the term ‘alter-territorial’ identification to describe identifying with political entities in other parts of the homeland than the area of origin.

This chapter analyses the emergence of the main actor included in this study, that is, the Kurdish diaspora in Denmark. The chapter traces the emergence of the Kurdish diaspora in Denmark from the arrival of the first labour migrants from Turkey in the late 1960s to the influx of Kurdish refugees from Syria during the Syrian Civil War. As part of the examination of the socio-economic position of the Kurdish community in Denmark, who constitutes at least 30,000 people, a reference is made to the development of the Kurdish diasporas in Sweden and Germany, the two Kurdish mobilisation hubs in Europe. The chapter provides an overview of the actors and organisations in the Kurdish diaspora milieu in Denmark, identifying two main movements, being the Öcalan and the Kurdistan movements, and a few independent activists, which reflects the key divisions of the transnational Kurdish community. The chapter also dedicates a section to the position of the Syrian Kurds in Denmark.