Capturing Intangible Cultural Heritage - Oral Arabic Storytelling in Hammarkullen, Sweden

Abstract

The vibrant suburb of Hammarkullen in Gothenburg, Sweden, provides the field of research for this thesis on oral Arabic storytelling in an exile community. In an effort to capture and document samples of tales that constitute an intangible cultural heritage whose survival is at risk, a variety of stories have been collected through interviews with, and recordings of, local Arabic-speaking storytellers. Sweden’s current Cultural Heritage Lift is discussed while bringing to the forefront UNESCO’s 2003 General Conference for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. It is through this lens that the thesis then proceeds to take a closer look at which oral Arabic tales are told in Hammarkullen in order to find out what amuses, frightens, and fascinates their listeners who still cherish the Arabic language with its implicit cargo of cultural heritage and identity. Furthermore, the thesis allows non-Arabic-speakers to listen in on the cultural storytelling of a culture living in the midst of our own. The collected tales reveal traces of oral Arabic storytelling tradition that links them to other varieties of Arabic and nationality in the exile community, as well as to previous research on past and present Arabic folklore.