EXKLUDERANDE INKLUDERING OCH DET MAKTLÖSA MELLANFÖRSKAPET - En kritisk textanalys av styrdokument för integrationsinsatser i fyra svenska kommuner

Abstract

This essay examines the sensemaking around integration and identity constructions in policy documents for integration in Sweden. The theoretical framework consists of postcolonial theory as well as theory of national identity and community. With a social constructivist approach, the purpose is further to discuss how such identity constructions can influence social interaction and by extension social cohesion in the Swedish society. Through a critical textual analysis inspired by discourse theory I have shown that otherization and culturalization along with markers of Swedishness are common features in the four municipality strategy documents for integration that has been examined. The Swedish identity and community are seldom defined but still used as markers of normality against which the deviations of the other are highlighted. The newly arrived immigrant is constructed as the other, often in terms of culturally different, and portrayed as in need of adaption to fit in and be included in the Swedish society. However, what this adaption implicates is never clearly articulated. This creates a discourse of excluding inclusion that puts the immigrant in a powerless state of inbetweenness. I have further shown that integration, within the discourse, is often confused with other concepts such as the establishment of newly arrived immigrants on the labor market and in society in general. The effect of such identity constructions and conceptual confusion are many; The much broader issues of equality and acceptance of diversity as well as participation in the development of society in general, which are emphasized in the national goals for integration, are overlooked for the benefit of a much narrower debate on immigrant establishment. The otherization also leads to difficulties identifying with the social entity which is crucial for social cohesion. This is further complicated when this social entity, in form of Swedishness, is never clearly defined.