Bridging identities through activism: Palestinians in Sweden navigating the transnational divide

ABSTRACT

This article deals with the ways in which diaspora communities use activism, transnational political engagements and mobilisation in order to create and sustain identities and navigate in the transnational space of being neither ‘here’ nor ‘there’. Through an exploration of how Palestinians in Sweden use activism as a way to navigate their situation in between Palestine and Sweden, it is shown that transnational activism and social mobilisation are means of managing, meaning-making, mediating and negotiation vulnerable and complicated position between places and identities. Using narrative material collected through interviews with Palestinians in Sweden, this article unveils the relationship between conflict, activism and identity formation and how tensions, struggles and contestations inform that interlinkage. The article explores those relationships through investigating the case of the Palestinian community in Sweden and its narrated experiences of conflict and activism through the lens of the former homeland as well as the new or current country of residence. The study aims to deepen our understandings of the profound meaning of solidarity with a homeland lost as well as to a deeper understanding of the Palestinian diaspora in the Global North.

KEYWORDS:

• Diaspora
• transnationalism
• conflict
• activism
• identity
• Palestinians
• Sweden

Introduction and aim

Diaspora populations relate to former homelands in numerous modes of sometimes overlapping, sometimes diverging transnational relations, networks and communities. When homeland situations are characterised by war and conflict, diaspora populations often mobilise politically in support of prior contexts, and it has frequently been assumed that diaspora communities continue to engage in homeland conflicts,¹ and that they ‘bring’ or ‘transport’ conflicts with them. In this article, I explore the complex relationships between conflict, old and new homelands, activism and identities through a case-study of the Palestinian diaspora in Sweden. It is argued that when unpacked, activism in support of homeland conflicts is not primarily strategic or tactical, but serves as an important tool in navigating the unruly waters of transnational spaces; a way of coming to terms with identity and belonging in relation to both old and new homelands. Transnational activism and political mobilisation are ways of managing, mediating and negotiating complicated positions between spatial constructs, temporalities and identities. Although the Palestinian bond to the homeland lost is real and robust,² an overemphasis on those ties may gloss over nuances, generational differences, variations related to countries of previous residence, socio-economic conditions and political dissonances.

The vast and increasing literature on transnational politics of diaspora populations often sets out to indicate how diaspora populations potentially become influential actors in international relations,³ or take part in conflicts. Building on, but moving beyond this research, this article unveils the relationship between conflict and identity formation and how tensions, struggles and contestations inform that interlinkage. I argue that the main functions of diaspora activism in support of old homelands are to sustain a common identity and to navigate vulnerable positions of in-between-ness, but also that such activism is shaped by dilemmas and contradictions. The overall question that this paper seeks to address is: What are the relations between activism and identity for the Palestinian diaspora in Sweden?

The study aims to contribute to our understandings of the profound meanings of solidarity with a homeland lost through violence and how that solidarity is in a constant conversation also with the new homeland. One of the main arguments of this article is that diaspora relations to conflicts and their activism must be analysed not only in relation to the former ‘homeland’ (Palestine), but to the new country of residence (Sweden). Research is scarce on the relationship between conflicts and diaspora in Sweden, although Sweden is rapidly becoming a ‘super-diverse’ society⁴ including communities with a background as refugees from wars and armed conflicts.

Theoretical outset: diaspora, conflict, activism and identity

The notion of ‘diaspora’ has been increasingly criticised for being imprecise and amorphous,⁵ for essentializing and ‘ethnifying’ migrant communities,⁶ for overstating achievement,⁷ rather than the exilic grief, and for romanticising and glossing over the precarity of refugee lives⁸ and the differentiated experiences embedded therein.⁹ Further, the term has been explicitly criticised in relation to the Palestinian experience of exile for neglecting the realities of refugee lives and for indicating a compromise on the right to return.¹⁰ Despite the critique, the strength of the notion lies in its capacity to underline transnational spatial and temporal relations.¹¹ However, this is not to say that diasporic identities are ‘natural’ or ‘essential’. Rather, they are constructed and ‘imagined’,¹² they embrace internal complexities and variations¹³ and the orientation of diaspora to an authentic or mythical ‘homeland as an authoritative source of value, identity, and loyalty’¹⁴ is not ‘given’.¹⁵ ‘Diaspora’ is not a stable category, but transcends the dichotomy between ‘here and there’.¹⁶

The literature on diaspora mobilisation and politics includes studies on how diaspora populations continuously engage with the homeland through multiple and varying forms of activities and networks,¹⁷ potentially affecting war and conflict¹⁸ as well as peace- and peacebuilding.¹⁹ Much has been written about diasporas as either ‘peace-makers’ or ‘conflict entrepreneurs’²⁰ in oversimplified and dichotomised presumptions. It is often assumed that diasporas ‘bring their conflicts with them’, destabilising new homelands, in a securitised (and racialised) political discourse.²¹ I argue that diasporas are neither necessarily peace-makers nor war-mongers, but could be both, or, neither. There is not a one-dimensional ‘transportation’ of conflict,²² and rather than diasporas affecting conflicts, it could be said that conflicts shape the lives of diasporas.²³

I claim that the main motivations for political activism, which is seen as the means for diaspora populations to somehow engage and express solidarity in support of homeland conflicts relate to processes of maintaining and nurturing a collective self, and to formulate sentiments of belonging²⁴; to build bridges between the here and there, and between then and now, rather than involvement in conflict per se. Brinkerhoff stated: ‘Diasporans mobilize, in part, to express their identities’.²⁵ Building on theories related to how identities are maintained, transformed, rebuilt and challenged in exile,²⁶ I would say that they mobilise to create their identities. The ‘old’ homeland becomes of significance as a point of reference to the ‘new’, where migrant communities are often marginalised or excluded from majority identity positions. New homeland attitudes of framing ‘migrants’ as potential threats²⁷ and as not fully belonging despite perhaps generations of establishment serve as to destabilise and reconstruct identities. Nation-state systems of national identity building on categorisations and exclusions mean that diaspora populations are forced to struggle for inclusion, while always facing the potentials of rejection. At the same time, diaspora experiences challenge nation-state categorisations and make claims of belonging both ‘here’ and ‘there’. Thus, ‘old’ homelands create potentials for making claims to specific identity-positions, as Swedish Palestinians or Palestinian Swedes.

Previous research has focused on how activism and mobilisation of diasporas are related to resources, financial as well as personal, and to opportunity structures,²⁸ such as citizenship as a window and platform for mobilisation. This paper moves beyond this discussion and rather displays and explores how diaspora communities may navigate their activism and transnational relations as a way to build social cohesiveness and as a bridge to the ‘new’ society.

Differentiations, conflicts and instabilities embedded in diasporic identities implicate that activism for a common cause may be a way to level such differences. In addition, care should always be taken as to whether a diasporic community could at all be said to ‘exist’. Rather, as all identities, diaspora identities and positions from where to mobilise are constantly created, constructed, challenged and contested. It is also important to understand non-activism and positions of prioritising ‘forgetting’ and finding emplacement in the new society. ‘Activism’ is throughout the paper analytically limited to how Palestinians in Sweden mobilise in Sweden in support of Palestine. The article is organised in the following way: Following an overview of the Palestinian population in Sweden, there is a background of how Palestinian activism has changed over the years. The first main empirical section is related to how activism is generated in relation to ‘conflict’ and Palestine, while the second relates to the Swedish context.

Method

The article draws on narratives, understood as ‘a form in which activities and events are described as having a meaningful and coherent order, imposing on reality a unity which it does not inherently possess’.²⁹ Such narratives were collected through 27 semi-structured interviews and conversations with Palestinians residing in Sweden. They consisted of persons arriving to Sweden from the 1970s and up to 2018. Some were born and had grown up in Sweden, others were recent arrivals from the Gaza Strip or the Syria war. 15 were men and 12 were women. All were in the age between 23 and 62, and were selected through a snowball sample. Interviews were conducted in English or Swedish in the cities of Gothenburg, Malmö, Stockholm and smaller cities, between January and August 2018, with follow-up and additional interviews in 2019 and early 2020. Conversations focused on how interlocutors perceived of and reflected upon Palestine as well as Sweden, their ideas and perceptions of the meanings of activism, and their conceptions of identity. There was ample room for interviewees to structure their stories in forms that they preferred. Positionalities and ethical considerations relate to the fact that I am Swedish with a citizenship that is unquestioned, while my interlocutors have had to struggle for theirs, or were in an uncertain situation as of their legal identity at the time of the interview. Inevitable asymmetrical power relations were therefore at play, and I have navigated carefully to treat respondents and their tales with the utmost respect. In addition, observations in different kinds of settings, such as demonstrations in Malmö and Gothenburg and cultural events (film-screening, exhibitions, lectures and seminars) have been made through participating in such events and arrangements. ‘Internet ‘ethnography³⁰ has focused on a close reading of posts and communication published on chat communities on facebook such as Palestinians in Sweden (Palestinier i Sverige) and We Who Love Palestine. I have followed communication between January 2018 and May 2021 and I account for activities and main content of conversations, but due to ethical concerns, the article does not reveal details concerning topic, timing or other information.

Palestinians in Sweden: identity as ‘responsibility’

Palestinians have settled in Sweden since the 1960s, when a project involving UNRWA and large Swedish companies (for example Volvo) provided vocational education for Palestinian refugee students from Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.³¹ At this time in history, Palestinian migration to Sweden was thus part of larger patterns of labour-related mobility. Following the Lebanon war in the 1980s, Palestinian refugee migration to Sweden increased.³² The ‘Lebanon generation’ and their children are today Swedish citizens and (partially) at ease in Swedish society, but maintain a Palestinian identity as well as transnational connections to Palestine and elsewhere.³³ Palestinians have also arrived to Sweden through different trajectories, from Iraq, the Gulf states, Libya, from the war in Syria and the occupied Palestinian territories, resulting in a heterogeneous Palestinian community in Sweden, with highly different experiences of Palestine, of conflict/war and of Swedish society.

Although research on Palestinians residing in the Global North³⁴ is increasing in pace with the enlargement of the Palestinian diaspora, there is a lack of studies on their social and political impact in societies where they reside as well as a neglect of the complicated relations to old and new homelands. According to official figures, there were in Sweden in 2018, 12,000 registered persons born in Palestine or with at least one parent born in Palestine.³⁵ In those figures, Palestinians arriving in earlier periods are not included and as Palestinian identity is self-defined rather than an official and formal category, the number of persons with a Palestinian background ought to be much larger.³⁶ Palestinians in Sweden are thus part of a broader notion of Palestinian peoplehood, they are part of a wider diaspora, they form a particular community in Sweden, and they are part of and engage in, Swedish community and make use of Swedish identity positions as well.³⁷

Although Palestinian identity is generally strongly emphasised, it is often combined with refugee camp identities formed in Lebanon³⁸ or with for example Syrian identity for stateless Palestinian refugees from Syria.³⁹ Those identities may also be at odds with each other.⁴⁰ Palestinians in Sweden perform an identification which is highly moral, emotional and political, building upon the ‘imagined world’⁴¹ created by the nakba as lasting conditions of loss, displacement and erasure, but also on activism in the form of solidarity and empathy, responsibility and obligation,⁴² resonating with studies conveyed on the Palestinian diaspora in for example Greece,⁴³ Australia,⁴⁴ the UK and Poland.⁴⁵ Palestinian and Swedish identities are sometimes diverging and sometimes complementary. As one woman said: ‘I love that I am Swedish also’.⁴⁶ Many reflect on the doubleness, or as Du Bois⁴⁷ framed it when reflecting on black American identity, there is a ‘two-ness’ in identity, while at the same time always being defined through the eyes of others. As one of my interlocutors explained: ‘Here, I am ‘he, the Palestinian’ and in Gaza, I am ‘he, the Swede’.⁴⁸

Palestinian identity in the diaspora is an identity which calls for political agency,⁴⁹ but not unequivocally and not for all. Agency talks to the identity formation of Palestinians in a more general sense, strongly based in the geography and history of Palestine, in dispossession and displacement but also in activism, struggle and resistance.⁵⁰ Palestinian identity is shaped by ‘doing’ and by agency, although challenges exist in maintaining a transnational identity ‘in the face of exile and dispersion over generations’.⁵¹

With time and as Palestinians arrive to Sweden from new arrivals from diverse contexts, there are emerging rifts between generations that have settled before and newcomers from for example Syria. For refugees from Syria, intimacy to the Syrian context might be as important as Palestinian identity.⁵² There are also political divisions disabling a coherent diaspora voice⁵³ and thus collective action. The Palestinian community in Sweden is thus affected by previous country of residence, political inclinations, religiosity, Swedish-ness, gender and more.⁵⁴ Hassan who arrived in 2013 described how his nearness to both Syria and Palestine caused a troubled identity.

In Syria, I was Palestinian, because we lived in a camp, and the camp means Palestine. [—] But when I came to Sweden, I started to ask myself … Because … now Syria became another issue. Because I was born there, and the country is getting destroyed. So, am I Palestinian or Syrian?⁵⁵

Amal, arriving to Sweden as a small child and now in her 30s, could identify divisions, and believed that refugees from Syria carried a Syrian identity and were also a bit privileged in Swedish society as compared to earlier arrivals.

Many who have come from Syria have a positive image of Syria before the war, in contrast to us from Lebanon who have been more excluded from [Lebanese] society. I hear them talk more about Syria than about Palestine [—] I think that those who have come now, Palestinians from Syria, their focus is that they are from Syria […].⁵⁶

There are thus hierarchies and differentiations involved in Palestinian (geographical and temporal closeness), and Swedish (the length of residence) identity. Those with a longer history of presence in Sweden claim being more part of Swedish society, whereas the many newcomers are sometimes judged as causing ‘problems’ in Swedish society, or as causing rifts in the Palestinian community.

The history and present of Palestinian activism in Sweden

Sweden is a society representing relatively large proportions of in-migration and with a previous reputation as a country benign towards refugee predicaments. Recently, Sweden’s migration politics is increasingly securitised and criminalising.⁵⁷ It is also a society which defines itself as ‘white’,⁵⁸ and the migrant as a non-western, racialised other.⁵⁹ Although also impregnated with official discourses of multi-culturalism, the dominant narrative is that of Sweden as a homogenous ethnically defined nation. With increasing focus on racism, meanings of national identity are intensely polarised. As Lundström has asserted, migration and migrants are in Sweden depicted as racialised ‘problems’.⁶⁰ How the ‘migrant’ is supposed to ‘integrate’ is the focus of much scholarly as well as political attention and the focal point is upon the ‘migrant’ adapting, acquiring social and behavioural skills, cultural and linguistic competences with a strong orientation towards the labour market. Much less focus is placed on the capacities of migrant and diaspora communities to orient towards both old and new homelands. Thus, in Swedish discourse about a national self, migrants are portrayed as the ‘other’, as not fully belonging.⁶¹

My interlocutors acknowledge Sweden’s democracy and citizenship as a space from where to give voice to the Palestinian position, to influence and lobby.⁶² Historically, political activism among Palestinians has been transformed from more traditional political rallying during the 1980s when solidarity with Palestine was interwoven with close connections between the main PLO-faction al-Fateh and the Social Democrats, but also with the Left party and smaller left-wing political parties and organisations. This backing is still highly important, but today the major solidarity organisations such as the Palestine groups (Palestinagrupperna), and the Palestine Committee (Palestinakommittén) are complemented by new ad hoc mobilisation on facebook as well as the more loosely organised global solidarity movements.⁶³ Examples of other organisations gaining ground in Sweden are Ship to Gaza, attempting to reach Gaza with ships sailing across the Meditarrenean, or local branches of the international network Samidoun, describing themselves as anti-imperialist and with the prime focus on Palestinian prisoners. In Sweden, the globalised Boycot Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement⁶⁴ is loosely organised, driven by the Palestine Group. It hasn’t been able to attract widespread support, although there are occasional debates concerning a boycott reaching deeper in Swedish society. Chat fora on facebook often debate the Israeli stamp on products such as dates, avocados and oranges available in Swedish groceries. In addition, there is a wide array of Palestinian-based organisations and associations, religious, cultural and political, often with local resonance.⁶⁵

Traditional ways of mobilising and advocating for support has generally been through demonstrations, rallies and manifestations in support of Palestine, in protest of particular events, in commemorating the nakba, Land Day, the massacre in Sabra and Shatila in 1982, or other important points of memory. Increasingly, those modes of organisation, anchored in a traditional left-wing solidarity movement, are replaced by different sorts of cultural, sports-related or artistic ‘events’ utilised in order to draw attention to the cause of Palestine, such as for example in the Bike4Gaza-event in the Summer of 2020, when activists biked between Gothenburg and the Northern border of Sweden in order to raise funds and awareness for Gaza.

My interlocutors also reveal concerns over being blamed for anti-Semitism. Pro-Palestinian rallies especially in Malmö have been accused of spreading anti-Semitic propaganda. Therefore, organisers of manifestations feel a need to proclaim that there is ‘zero-tolerance’ for anti-Semitism, and thus adopting on-going Swedish debates and discourses into practices of activism. Anti-Semitism and accusations thereof have for long been ingredients in how the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is discursively framed in the Swedish context. Although anti-Semitism has been increasingly observed in rallies for Palestine, it needs also be emphasised that a pro-Israeli lobby makes use of accusations of anti-Semitism⁶⁶ in order to delegitimize criticism against Israeli state politics. In an op-ed in a large Swedish paper, the Israeli ambassador to Sweden criticised the Social democratic youth movement (SSU) for slogans such as ‘crush Zionism’, calling those expressions of anti-Semitism.⁶⁷ The relationship between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is blurred and complex and should here be seen as a discursive context to which Palestinian activism increasingly feels obliged to respond.

Sometimes, when many Palestinians gather, there are some bad slogans and we are trying to erase that and show the truth. It’s up to us to prove that we are not anti-Semites. [—] If I see something [on the facebook communities] against Jews, I report to the admins directly. Because that is not ok.⁶⁸

Yusef, well-established in Swedish society, also told me about how his daughter at a young age experienced Israeli bombardment of Lebanon in 2006, and when she spoke about that incident and the fear that she experienced in school, she used the word ‘Jews’ as responsible for the attack, upon which the teacher called home and expressed concerns over anti-Semitism.⁶⁹

Homeland conflicts: ‘I can’t forget those days’

Koinova⁷⁰ has argued that diaspora mobilisation in support of homelands in conflict is often triggered by particular transformative or critical events or incidents that are perceived as threatening or traumatic. Political processes of violence in Palestine spark emotional engagement and mobilising activities.⁷¹ My interlocutors give voice to the importance of such events for mobilisation, but also how such cataclysmic events are lived and experienced although they are situated far away. The Gaza war in 2014 was a traumatising period of time for Palestinians throughout the world who took part of news in awe and disbelief. Manifestations of protest and solidarity, using social media as the means of communication, were organised. My interlocutors described how they constantly took part of news through different channels and how such news haunted them and how daily life was interrupted.⁷² This repeated itself in the chain of events during May 2021, triggered by a series of incidents in Jerusalem and exploding in a devastating Israeli assault on Gaza. Wars and conflicts have an immediate relevance for diaspora communities and are not distant events or merely ‘catalysing’.

As the magnitude of the war in 2014 and the assault in 2021, the volumes of the dead and injured and the devastation reverberated in the diaspora, solidarity and grief led to increased manifestations of support and of a sensed need for reaching out with information campaigns and raising awareness. There was also personal loss and grief, combined with guilt for being absent, fear and concern for family members and shock because of the massiveness of devastation and destruction. Thus, diaspora populations actively live such episodes of wars, albeit from a far and their lives are deeply affected by wars from a distance.

That war [in 2014] … It caused so many feelings. I lost relatives and neighbours and my dad and sisters were still there. [—] We could watch everything. 24/7. Everything. Even though we were not there. There was chaos at our place. Because we thought about it all the time, and my mom cried and I cried. There was all the time news, like ‘this person died, and this person died, and this person was injured and this person disappeared’. And this caused a lot, it cut deep wounds, scars on the heart, on the mind. I can’t forget those days and how we experienced this time.⁷³

Wars and conflicts travel and transcend geographies through embodied memories and emotions. Being far away from the actual battle, but nevertheless being affected, for many meant difficulties in coping with everyday concerns in Sweden, such as studying Swedish for those who were newly arrived, going to work, taking part of small talk about what was perceived as banalities in Swedish society. Life in the diaspora does not mean an escape from conflicts, but violent backgrounds in former homelands continue to impinge on lives in new settings. The US move of its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May 2018, co-occurring with the intensification of the Great Return March in the Gaza Strip was another recent experience of violence and conflict from a distance, leading to demonstrations in several cities in Sweden. The Israeli assault on Gaza in May 2021 triggered wide-spread activities through mobilisation on social media and demonstrations in Swedish cities. Hadi told me how he again experienced the anxiety and trauma from the war in 2014, how he couldn’t sleep and tried to all the time comfort the part of his family still back in Gaza through nights of darkness and fear. Violence and war in homeland contexts thus serve as catalysts for asserting activism,⁷⁴ through the profound ways in which such events impact upon the lives and the positionality of diaspora populations. Müller-Funk⁷⁵ has shown how raising awareness for the homeland cause is a way for diasporas ‘to claim their right to multiple identity constructions’.

Communicating and creating Palestine on the internet

Such events also call for aware-ness raising and the spreading of information.

I think that facebook is a good way to reach out with information. It started with the Gaza-war in 2014. We were many who went out and provided information about what happened. And it helped. People started to wake up and realize that [what happens] is wrong.⁷⁶

Unsurprisingly, social media has become an increasingly compelling channel for mobilising resources and support and for sharing meanings, information, images and narratives.⁷⁷ Social media in fact help shape activism, create diaspora communities and intensify social contacts. Brinkerhoff has coined the term ‘digital diaspora’, facilitating the navigation in transnational space. Hanafi⁷⁸ has on the other hand argued that social media and digitalisation has resulted in new forms of ‘de-territorialisation’ and, in effect, has further emphasised Palestinian displacement and fragmentation, and there is thus not only one way to understand the importance of social media for diaspora communities.

Chat fora on facebook share information of the occupation and violence in Palestine, such as the intense activities on social media during the Great Return March in 2018, to spread the word about collection campaigns for different purposes, for example health-care, food supplies or well-being for children in Gaza, for injured and mutilated. In May 2021, social media fora exploded with communication activities supporting Palestine and criticising Swedish politics and media for their ‘two-sideism’ and for blaming both parts equally while not emphasising an-Nakba, forced displacement and occupation.

Social media are thus used in order to facilitate activism in the form of protests and lobbying, in the form of funding for small-scale development and humanitarian purposes,⁷⁹ but also to spread activities and images related to culture, food, music and the in-between-ness of Palestinian and Swedish identity positions. It is a forum for sharing and distributing information and for creating and performing a shared identity related to Palestine, the occupation and violence, but also a forum where divisions within the Palestinian community are becoming increasingly visible. The political focus is not even over time, but in times of relative calm in the oPt, focus is more on sharing images of Jerusalem, debke, weddings, the urge for certain kinds of food (knafe, mansaf, zaatar) or everyday experiences in Sweden. Those communities serve as a bridge between Palestinian and Swedish identities in different ways, and also communicate celebrations in Sweden such as graduations from high school, often flashing the Palestinian flag, educational or professional achievements by Palestinians residing in Sweden, such as authors, business entrepreneurs, pop-singers, and school teachers.

Activism and identity through generational transmission: between ‘responsibility’ and ‘fatigue’

Activism is to many of my interlocutors seen as a responsibility, an act of solidarity. It is important to continue to relate to Palestine and the occupation as a way of continuing being Palestinian. Walid, migrating to Sweden in the 1980s due the consequences of the war in Lebanon explains: ‘If I don’t struggle for my country, who will?’.⁸⁰ ‘Being Palestinian’ thus comes with a responsibility. Second generation Palestinians growing up in Sweden narrate how activism came ‘natural’ through their parents and the ways in which stories about Palestine have been narrated and transferred from older generations, but also how ‘it is a responsibility’⁸¹ to carry on the efforts of prior generations and to create consciousness both within the Palestinian community in Sweden and among Swedes. Second generation Palestinians at times see themselves as better equipped than their parents to induce change, fluent as they are in Swedish, educated in Sweden and used to digital media and communication.⁸² The second generation become mediators between the historical narratives of their parents and the Swedish context and national identity is transmitted, transferred and transformed in family contexts.

I remember when we were little and were putting our bikes together. My dad was sitting in the living room with a newspaper that he wrote in Arabic with his friends. We are used to always having the Palestinian identity and culture in our lives.⁸³

Those born and grown-up in Sweden have been acquainted with activism through their families, joining parents at demonstrations and manifestations as a way of emphasising origin, while at the same time taking part in Swedish society and its expectations. Growing up, this and younger generations rather use social media and cultural events to foster Palestinian-ness and relate to the homeland. Generational transmissions of memories and images are not necessarily, however, without friction, as younger generations at times simply reject the continuous importance of Palestine.⁸⁴ Making sense of Palestine, of the memories of generations before, is with Blachnicka-Ciacek,⁸⁵ a process of ‘figuring out’, of creating one’s own relations to Palestine.

To parental generations, it is to an equal extent perceived as a (difficult) responsibility to tell their children about Palestine and to incorporate them into the national narrative and Palestinian identity as ‘responsibility’⁸⁶ is transferred in the family. Parents mediate the historical narratives of Palestine to their children who lack first-hand experiences of the loss in what al-Hardan calls ‘post-memories’⁸⁷; in the lack of experiences of one’s own. Through sharing history and memories, political solidarity and sympathy are kept alive.⁸⁸ There is generally a fear of forgetfulness through time or a fading away of Palestine and a need for informing children and youth about history and about the violence of the occupation. Palestine is what connects generations in dispersal and a way to remember a common past, a common homeland and a defining point for positioning themselves with a referent object for their incorporation in ‘Swedish-ness’.

I am doing a lot for the children. I want them to know their homeland. And I know that my elder children, like my son who is 28 today, during the Gaza war, he wanted to go there and throw stones. But I have raised my children so that they would know that power comes from knowledge and not from throwing stones. [—] And we can only gain influence through knowledge.⁸⁹

Noura explains how she has kept Palestine alive to her children, but also that the power of change lies in education and knowledge.

Hassan, who arrived from Syria in 2013, expressed how his history of being ‘twice a refugee’, as his grandparents escaped from Palestine in 1948, and he was born and grew up in the Yarmouk camp adjacent to Damascus, and how that story is something that he needs to remind his future children of.

I was born as a refugee, I paid the price for nakba, I asked for asylum once again, I will not forget this. I will teach my children.⁹⁰

The genealogy of conflict is a way to stay connected with history and the homeland, but also a way to navigate and position oneself and one’s family in the Swedish context, a way to make sure that children are not left without a storyline about their past and that Palestine is not left without its dispersed population in a double movement of connecting places in fine-tuned and nuanced trans-national activism. ‘Conflict’ is also in exile a referential point for constructing identity. With time passing, dissonances and generational differentiations⁹¹ are also played out, as the lack of physical connection, the thinning out of memories and the active participation in Swedish society affect generations differently.⁹²

Some of my interlocutors also give voice to what I interpret as sentiments of exhaustion that serve as limitations to agency. As history unfolds, and the Palestinian predicament stays the same, it becomes burdensome to remain in the lines of activism. Pressure is extended both from Swedish society, from Israel (interference in social media accounts, and through accusations of anti-Semitism) and from within the Palestinian diaspora community itself. Noura a mother of five in her late 40s, who arrived as a small child from Jerusalem in the early 70s expressed a sense of exhaustion.

I still try to follow the news, but not as much as before. I feel that I cannot bear it. I try to keep track, there are times, but then I get so tired. [—] I feel burned out. Can you call it that? I feel that I have given up since the Gaza war [2014]. Or not given up. I am burned out.⁹³

Noura told me how she used to try to take her children to exhibitions and festivals related to Palestine and that they were all eager to participate, but that she found it difficult to sustain the energy. Others explained the difficulties in mobilising young people related to fragmentation of the Palestinian community in Sweden. Leila, a young woman born in Sweden and with parents coming there from Lebanon, below tells how she perceives difficulties in mobilising Palestinians in her own and younger generations.

I feel that many of my friends dissociate themselves from activism. It is hard to find Palestinian youth who want to be active. There is always something that’s happening; a war, or the occupation, so I feel that many don’t have the energy to organize that much. So many who do the real work are actually Swedes.⁹⁴

Leila tells how ‘[t]here is always something that’s happening’, and how the protracted context of violence in Palestine causes a dampening of activism. At the same time, wide-spread activism seems to require triggering events and when the situation in the oPt is more quiet, there is also a lull period of activism in the diaspora. For those active, and acting as mobilising entrepreneurs or leaders, there is sometimes disappointment over a lack of sustained energy. Thus, through different experiences, there are also processes of alienation from activism,⁹⁵ which oscillates between episodes of intensity and calm.

The new homeland: citizenship and tensions

Being active for the Palestinian cause is also a way to link Swedish and Palestinian identities, and a way to create a meaningful relationship and interaction between the two positions. It is a way to manage exclusionary practices and to try to make Palestine important in a Swedish context, and to allow for multiple and hybrid identities.⁹⁶ Palestinians in Sweden often comment on the Swedish citizenship as something that is a harbinger of safety and security, and that safety provides an asset or an opportunity structure⁹⁷ for political activism for the Palestinian cause. With changing Swedish migration politics, it is becoming more difficult for asylum-seekers to be granted residence permits⁹⁸ and for stateless Palestinians, their conditions are aggravated in limbo-like conditions of waiting.⁹⁹ Thus, different legal statuses among Palestinians in Sweden serve as destabilising identities, causing rifts and dissonances.

Invisible borders,¹⁰⁰ social boundaries¹⁰¹ and societal interpretations and norms of what it requires to be ‘Swedish’ construct hindrances in relation to issues such as perceptions of ethnicity and culture, and my interlocutors express how there are restrictions as towards ‘how much’ of a Swede migrants are allowed to become. In contemporary Sweden, politics of integration are increasingly based on an enforcement of societal boundaries,¹⁰² and requirements on migrants to learn the Swedish language and to adhere to Swedish values in order for citizenship to be acquired.¹⁰³

In 2001, Hisham who came to Sweden after the war in Lebanon expressed how he was grateful to Sweden, how he appreciated the welfare system and the democracy, but at the same time was restricted in his Swedish-ness:

But I don’t feel Swedish. People ask where I come from and they say, indirectly, that ‘you don’t belong here’. A Swede is supposed to have blue eyes and another colour of one’s hair. Simply, I am not from here and I will not be from here.¹⁰⁴

My interviewees have expressed how limitations related to how perceptions and norms glued to appearances, colour of skin and hair, and names constitute hindrances for inclusion in a Swedish identity. Walid, also with a background in Lebanon and arriving in Sweden in the 1980s, related to such restrictions built on images of what Swedes are supposed to look like and how he experienced those assumptions as deeply restrictive.

I cannot become Swedish, even if I would dye my hair or talk perfect Swedish. I am from another culture, not only from another culture, but from a catastrophe, the name of which is Palestine. I cannot become Syrian or Lebanese. Or I cannot come from Gaza. It is impossible. I am not from Gaza or the West Bank. It is about my village [… .]. I am a Swedish citizen. I like Sweden as a country with freedom and democracy. But I cannot become Swedish. We have different cultures. If you give me the whole world, I cannot eat pork. I am proud of being a Swedish citizen. But I cannot become Swedish.¹⁰⁵

Coming from a ‘catastrophe’, there are limitations in the potentials of ‘becoming Swede’. Majority constructions of Swedish-ness as a white ethnicity for migrants of colour mean that they are only partially accepted. Contemporary discussions on racism sharply intervene in those processes with the right-wing Sweden Democrats now being the third largest political party in the parliament (Riksdagen). Structural discrimination is visible, as are hate-crimes and threats, also acknowledged and recognised by my interlocutors. Some interviewees talked about being attacked or harassed themselves, or of female relatives who had been attacked by strangers, ripping their headscarves off.¹⁰⁶

Exclusion and turning points: ‘It didn’t feel right’

In this context, my interviewees reveal how agency is a response to processes of exclusion in and from Swedish society. Strengthening one’s Palestinian identity is a way to engage in Swedish-ness from a position which is more secure and to create a space of multiple potential identities. Second-generation Palestinians relate their Palestinian identity to processes of ‘othering’ occurring often in school.

I think the turning point was when I was in high school. It started to become important. And it was very much related to other identity issues. Teenage years, those are difficult in themselves. Who am I in this world? What do I care about? Everything from music to friends. And then there was another layer: being Swedish or not being Swedish. […] You are forced to reflect. For a while, I was very Swedish, I had only Swedish friends and I spent my time doing the usual things Swedish teenagers do. And then, when I was in high school, it didn’t feel right.¹⁰⁷

The need to ‘figure out’ one’s Palestinian-ness is for the second-generation often a teenager or young adult-experience caused in the meeting with ‘Swedish-ness’ and its exclusionary mechanisms, as well as the absence of awareness of the history of Palestine in Swedish society. Exclusion from positions in new homelands destabilises identities and requires agency in order to restabilise. ‘Othering’ and negative identification from the ‘outside’ spur a search for one’s ‘real’ identity, illustrating how identity is created in the relations with significant others as already identified by the formative work of Barth.¹⁰⁸ Some told me about being bullied in school or facing an outside position, why searching for and spreading information about Palestine became important mechanisms of coping. As there was a perception of lack of knowledge of Palestine in the Swedish school system, in media and in society, there was an urge to inform Swedish-ness of Palestine and to bring Palestine into the Swedish system.¹⁰⁹ The education in school on the Holocaust, whilst neglecting the Nakba, and what is perceived as a pro-Israeli bias is for many a bitter experience and many express taking struggles and arguments with teachers and class-mates. Choosing to be active is thus also a way to communicate Palestinian-ness in the Swedish context, and to merge Palestinian experiences with life in Sweden; to claim and carve a space in Swedish society from which Palestine could be expressed.

Conclusions

This article has explored how diaspora communities create their identities in engagement with former homeland conflicts and how the travelling of conflicts is a way through which to navigate in the transnational space of being neither ‘here’ nor ‘there’. For a diaspora with ‘a cause to advocate’¹¹⁰ identity is continuously informed and partly produced by conflict. Activism is not based on strategic political calculations, however, but narratives of history, violated lands and geographies, refuge and erasure glue generations together and serve as a way to carry on Palestinian identity in the diaspora. Activism and the manifestations of conflict in the diaspora are nuanced, complicated and changeable. Palestinian diaspora activism is manifested as a way to claim positions as both Palestinians and Swedes. I interpret activism as a means to produce a bases for showing solidarity with Palestine, while at the same time constructing a solid platform for a collective self in Sweden, a ‘Palestinian-Swede’ integrated in Swedish society and identity, relating the Palestine ‘conflict’ to Sweden,¹¹¹ bringing not the conflict, but the Palestinian experience to Sweden. Experiencing Palestine bridges complicated spaces of identity and helps establish configurations of being both Palestinian and Swedish.

Palestinians in Sweden build their identity in relation to the ‘old’ as well as the ‘new’ homeland through understanding the old homeland through ways that are specific to the context of the new homeland.¹¹² Promoting activism in solidarity with the cause of Palestine is for many expressed as a responsibility, but for others it is felt as a pressure. Activism is the bridge which makes it possible to combine Palestinian and Swedish identity, the means through which to create symbolic as well as cultural, social and political connection. Through activism, Palestine and the Palestinian experience is brought to Sweden.

The role of conflict for diaspora populations need to be understood as part of identity formations as part of the constant making and bridging the ‘two-ness’ of Du Bois.¹¹³ Activism is not a strategic political calculation used to influence the conflict, but part of being in-between. This article has shown that activism in solidarity with the homeland is just as much about positionality in the new homeland as it is a mobilising activity in favour of the old homeland. Theoretically, there is a need for further entanglement of the relationship between conflicts and diaspora, in order to more properly understand the role of conflicts for identity formation and belonging.

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Helena Lindholm

Helena Lindholm is engaged in research on Palestine and on the Palestinian diaspora and identity formation. She is the author of The Palestinian Diaspora: Formation of Identities and Politics of Homeland (2003). For a number of years, she upheld leadership positions at the GU (director, dean and pro-chancellor), but has since returned to her position as professor. Her most recent publication is ‘Arrhythmic mobilities and fragmented mobilities: Journeys of Palestinians seeking safety in Sweden’, Journal of Refugee Studies (2019). She also teaches International Relations and Middle East Studies, and acts as the chairperson for a governmental body called the Expert Group for Aid Evaluation.

Notes

1. Féron and Lefort, ‘Diasporas and Conflict: Understanding the Nexus’.

2. Bauböck, ‘Ties Across Borders’.

3. Shain and Barth, ‘Diasporas and International Relations Theory’; Adamson and Demetriou, ‘Remapping the boundaries of “state” and “national identity”’; Demmers, ‘New Wars and Diasporas’; Van Hear and Cohen, ‘Diasporas and Conflict: Distance, Continuity and Spheres of Engagement; Féron & Lefort, ibid.

4. Vertovec, ‘Super-diversity and its Implications’.

5. Brubaker, ‘The “diaspora” diaspora’; Mavroudi, ‘Palestinians in Diaspora, Empowerment and Informal Political Space’.

6. Soysal, ‘Citizenship and Identity’.

7. Khosravi, ‘Illegal’ Traveller: An Auto-Ethnography of Borders.

8. Peteet, ‘Problematizing a Palestinian Diaspora’.

9. Khoshravi, ‘Sweden: Detention and Deportation of Asylum Seekers’.

10. Peteet, ibid; Ben-David, ‘The Palestinian Diaspora on the Web’.

11. Féron and Lefort, ibid; Koinova, ‘Critical Junctures and Transformative Events’.

12. Anderson, Imagined Communities; Sökefeld, ‘Mobilizing in Transnational Space’.

13. Féron & Lefort, ibid.

14. Brubaker, ibid.

15. Sökefeld, ibid.

16. Féron and Lefort, ibid.

17. Østergaard-Nielsen, ‘The Politics of Migrants’ Transnational Political Practices’; Waldinger & Fitzgerald; ‘Transnationalism in Question’; Demmers, ibid; Vertovec, Transnationalism.

18. Collier and Hoeffler, Greed and Grievance in Civil War; Brinkerhoff, ‘Diasporas and Conflict Societies’.

19. Smith and Stares, Diasporas in Conflict; Orjuela, ‘Distant Warriors, Distant Peace Workers’.

20. Brinkerhoff, ibid.

21. Féron and Lefort, ibid.

22. Féron, ‘Diaspora Politics’.

23. Baser, Diasporas and Homeland Conflicts.

24. Shain and Barth, ibid.

25. Brinkerhoff, ibid, 119.

26. Tölölyan, ‘The Nation-state and its Others’; Skrbis, Long-Distance Nationalism: Diasporas, Homelands and Identities; Faist, ‘Transnationalization in International Migration’; Glick Schiller and Fouroun, Georges Woke Up Laughing: Long Distance Nationalism and the Search for Home; Mavroudi, ibid; Khoshravi, ‘A Fragmented Diaspora’.

27. Barker, Nordic Nationalism and Penal Order.

28. Koinova, ‘Can Conflict-generated Diasporas be Moderate Actors’, and inbid.

29. Eastmond, ‘Stories as Lived Experiences,’ 250.

30. Hine, Ethnography for the Internet: Embedded, Embodied and Everyday.

31. Doraï, ‘Palestinian Emigration from Lebanon’.

32. Ibid.

33. Lindholm Schulz with Hammer, The Palestinian Diaspora: Formation of Idenities and Politics of Homeland; Lindholm, ‘Emotional Identity’.

34. eg. Cox and Connell, ‘Place, Exile and Identity’; Lindholm Schulz with Hammer, ibid; Shiblak, The Palestinian Diaspora in Europe; Hammer, Palestinians Born in Exile: Diaspora and the Search for a Homeland; Mavroudi, ibid; Fiddian-Quasmiyeh, ‘On the Threshold of Statelessness’; Brocket, ‘“In-betweeness”’ to ‘“Positioned Belongings”’; Blachnicka-Ciacek, ‘Palestine as ‘a state of mind’.

35. SCB, Statistics.

36. I estimate the number of persons with Palestinian origin in Sweden in 2021 to be around 80,000; see also Gren, ‘Being Home through Learning Palestinian Sociality’.

37. Lindholm, Ibid.

38. Gabiam and Fiddian-Quasmiyeh, ‘Palestinians and the Arab Uprisings’.

39. Lindholm, Ibid.

40. Christou and Sofos, ‘Physical and Virtual Spaces’; Lindholm, Ibid.

41. Collins, Global Palestine.

42. Lindholm, Ibid.

43. Mavroudi, Ibid.

44. Cox and Connell, Ibid.

45. Blachnicka-Ciacek, Ibid.

46. Interview, 13 May 2018.

47. Du Bois, The World and Africa.

48. Interview, Hadi 24 January 2018.

49. Mavroudi, Ibid; Lindholm, Ibid.

50. Khalidi, Palestinian Identity; Collins; Ibid.

51. Kamrava, The Impossibility of Palestine.

52. Lindholm, Ibid.

53. Ibid.

54. Christou & Sofos, Ibid.

55. Interview, Hassan, 13 May 2018.

56. Interview, Amal, 11 January 2018.

57. Barker, Ibid.

58. Hübinette and Lundström, ‘Swedish Whiteness and White Melancholia’.

59. Lundström, ‘The White Side of Migration’.

60. Lundström, Ibid, 79.I.

61. Yuval-Davis, The Politics of Belonging: Intersectional Contestations.

62. Cf. Lindholm Schulz with Hammer, Ibid.

63. Collins, Ibid.

64. Quamsiyeh, Popular Resistance in Palestine.

65. Christou & Sofos, Ibid.

66. Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah.

67. https://www.expressen.se/kvallsposten/debatt-kvp/vissa-grupper-inom-s-ar-besatta-av-israelkritiken/.

68. Interview Yusef, 9 May 2018.

69. There is an increasing concern in Swedish society over growing anti-Semitism from different sources, and a Holocaust Museum is to be established.

70. Koinova, ‘Critical Junctures and Transformative Events’.

71. Blachnicka-Ciacek, Ibid.

72. Lindholm, ‘Emotional Identity’.

73. Interview Hadi, 24 January 2018.

74. Koinova, Ibid; Blachnicka-Ciacek, Ibid.

75. Müller-Funk, ‘Fluid Identities, Diaspora Youth Activists’.

76. Interview Yusef 9 May 2018.

77. Cf. Brinkerhoff, Digital Diasporas: Identity and Transnational Engagement.

78. Hanafi, ‘Rethinking the Palestinians Abroad’.

79. Féron & Lefort, Ibid.

80. Interview Walid, 5 August 2018.

81. Interview Amal, 11 January 2018.

82. Interviews January-August 2018.

83. Interview Mouna 5 Janaury 2018.

84. Blachnicka-Ciacek, Ibid: 1916.

85. Ibid, 1921.

86. Lindholm, Ibid.

87. Al-Hardan, Palestinians in Syria, 21.

88. Lindholm Schulz with Hammer, Ibid.

89. Interview, Noura 13 May 2018.

90. Interview Hassan 13 May 2018.

91. Cf. Brocket, Ibid.

92. Lindholm Schulz with Hammer, Ibid; cf. cf Alinia & Eliassi, ‘Temporal and Generational Impact on Identity’.

93. Interview Noura, 13 May 2018.

94. Interview Leila, 5 January 2018.

95. Christou & Sofos, Ibid, 542.

96. Lindholm Schulz with Hammer, Ibid.

97. Cf. Mavroudi, ‘Deconstructing Diasporic Mobilization’; Koinova, Ibid.

98. Lag 2016: 752.

99. Lindholm, ‘Arrhythmic Mobilities and Fragmented Journeys’.

100. Khosravi, ‘Illegal’ Traveller.

101. Barth, ‘Introduction’; Fassin, Ibid.

102. Cf. Fassin, Ibid.

103. Law Council Referral.

104. Lindholm Schulz, Ibid.

105. Interview Walid 5 August 2018.

106. Interview Noura 13 May 2018.

107. Interview Mouna 11 January 2018.

108. Barth, Ibid.

109. Christou and Sofos, Ibid.

110. Mavroudi, ‘Palestinians in Diaspora,’ 60.

111. Lindholm Schulz, Ibid.

112. Christou and Sofos, Ibid.

113. Du Bois, Ibid.