Inblick i en diaspora - en kvalitativ intervjustudie med greker i Sverige

Abstract

This thesis examines through a study of interviews how Greek culture is understood through people living in Sweden as a part of a diaspora outside of the country Greece. How do they construct a Greek identity and in which places does it exist? In theories about people living in a diaspora the relationship with a surrounding majority society is examined aswell as their relation to specific places and the idea of a homeland. Within the discussion about homeland the feelings towards the economic crises and the former rise of a right-wing nationalist movement in Greece is included aswell.

I am doing qualitative interviews with eight adults with Greek origin, both male and female with the minimum age of 35. The method of qualitative interviews gives the researcher the opportunity to explore more profound questions as an opposite to a quantitative method which can cover a broader field but without the more intimate answers a qualitative interview-study provides.

This study is not ethnographic because it´s base is made of interviews and I have not been taking part specifically of Greek life in Sweden for this study. However, me the researcher am of partly Greek origin, this study is made out of the understanding of other Greek people living in Sweden. The stories of the informants I bring to life in this paper comes from their own understanding of the world and could in some ways be my own in the sense that I hypothetically could have interviewed myself in this thesis but chose to distance my own person as much as possible from this thesis empirical analysis.