Social mobilization or street crimes

This article deals with processes of marginalization and patterns of segregation in contemporary Sweden, which have transformed the former welfare state towards increased segregation and inequality between different social groups. Two ethnographic studies on young men living in stigmatized metropolitan areas are used in discussion and analysis. During the 1990s we could see the birth and growth of new forms of poverty in multi-ethnic suburbs of the metropolitan districts of Sweden. During the last two decades, youth subcultures oriented towards Reggae and Hip hop have grown and attracted many young people in these metropolitan areas. This article focuses on how two youth collectives in two metropolitan areas developed different strategies to cope with discrimination, second class citizenship and territorial stigmatization. In both these collectives it is possible so see how informal learning processes, embedded in cultural praxis of the youth groups and empowered by a connection to African-American music cultures, enable these groups and individuals to express themselves. The youth collective in one suburbs articulates a social and political criticism that could be compared to the cultural aspirations of the labour movement in the early part of the last century. The youth from the other neighbourhood have a strong fascination with criminal out-law culture and do not articulate themselves in the same way as members of the other group. Still their cultural expressions must be understood as ways to deal with their positions as marginalized, immigrant youth

Svart musik och vit adolescens : Oidipal rivalitet, fadersfrånvaro och maskulinitet

Sedan en tid tillbaka har man kunnat iaktta märkliga fenomen på gatorna i New York, London och Amsterdam. Nu kan man se samma företeelse på fritidsgårdarna i Göteborgs förorter och på stan i Stockholm. Det handlar om det som i USA och England kallas ”wiggers”, unga vita grabbar som klär sig som, går som och talar som svarta afro-amerikaner.1 Fenomenet är egentligen inte nytt. Ända sedan jazzens expansion under tiden efter första världskriget har unga vita män för att vara ”hip” knutit an till olika element i den svarta kulturen. Tidigare utgjordes dessa ”vita negrer” av relativt små och esoteriska subkulturer. Med hiphopkulturen är denna exklusivitet bruten. Med rap-musiken har det växt fram en hel subklass av vita grupper som inte bara gör svart musik och försöker efterlikna svarta utan t o m ser sig som svarta och också av andra vill bli betraktade som svarta. 3rd Bass, House of Pain och Beastie Boys är exempel på några sådana rap-grupper.2 De fem New York-grabbarna i Young Black Teenagers, som varken är svarta eller tonåringar, utgör kanske det mest extrema exemplet. De har gjort sig kända som proklamatoriska antirasister. Genom att göra låtar med titlar som ”I’m proud to be black” och genom att hävda att ”blackness is a state of mind”, d v s att svarthet inte i första hand har med hudfärg att göra, dekonstruerar de givna föreställningar och griper på ett handfast sätt in i den akademiska diskussion som länge hävdat att kategorier som ras och etnisk identitet är sociala konstruktioner. Även i Sverige finns det vita grupper som identifierar sig med det svarta Amerikas politiska kamp eller kanaliserar sin egen frustration och bristande framtidstro genom afro-amerikanska stiluttrycks aggressiva avvisande av all frihetsinskränkning och repressiv överhet, ofta i kombination med föreställningar om svart maskulinitet som ”cool” och ”hard”. Med hjälp av identifikationen med dagens svarta ghetto-kultur kan man göra motstånd mot den dominerande vita medelklasskulturens mansideal och prestationssträvande

Social mobilization or illicit drug use and street crimes : Two strategies among young urban outcasts

This presentation deals with processes of marginalization and patterns of segregation in contemporary Sweden, which have transformed the former welfare state towards increased segregation and inequality between different social groups. Two ethnographic studies on young men (one carried out by Lalander and another by Ove Sernhede) living in stigmatized metropolitan areas are used in discussion and analysis. During the 1990s we could see the birth and growth of new forms of poverty in multi-ethnic suburbs of the metropolitan districts of Sweden. During the last two decades, youth subcultures oriented towards Reggae and Hip hop have grown and attracted many young people in these metropolitan areas. This article focuses on how two youth collectives in two metropolitan areas developed different strategies to cope with discrimination, second class citizenship and territorial stigmatization. In both these collectives it is possible so see how informal learning processes, embedded in cultural praxis of the youth groups and empowered by a connection to African-American music cultures, enable these groups and individuals to express themselves. The youth collective in one suburb articulates a social and political criticism that could be compared to the cultural aspirations of the labour movement in the early part of the last century. The youth from the other neighbourhood have a strong fascination with criminal out-law culture and do not articulate themselves in the same way as members of the other group. Still their cultural expressions must be understood as ways to deal with their positions as marginalized, immigrant youth

Från förorten till innerstaden och tillbaka igen - gymnasieskolan, valfriheten och den segregerade staden

The freedom to choose which school you want to attend in the Swedish school system can be understood as an opportunity to overcome the urban segregation. Each year there are pupils from the suburb of Beryd in Gothenburg, who choose to leave their suburb to attend an upper secondary school in the inner city. But several of these pupils choose to return to the upper secondary school in Beryd. The aim of this article was to study why these pupils choose to leave Beryd, and why they return. Through interviews with ten pupils at Berydsgymnasiet we examined how the shift between the suburb and the inner city raised questions concerning identity, place and belonging. The study shows how the pupils encounter with the inner city schools is connected with a strong feeling of alienation and non-belonging, an experience that is highly related to the segregated and hierarchically structured urban space

Hip-Hop - What's in it for the Academy? Self-Understanding, Pedagogy and Aesthetical Learning Processes in Everyday Cultural Praxis

Since hip-hop first appeared in New York over 35 years ago, it has been associated with social activism and education. Accordingly, it is not surprising that academic institutions in universities and K-12 schools are interested in hip-hop. In this article, we will highlight the ‘hip-hop academisation’ and map out a new direction in a dialog between hip-hop and the academic world. By investigating the relation between hip-hop and pedagogy through interviews with prominent members of the hip-hop community in New York City as well as an analysis of ‘universal’, collective, and aesthetic learning processes in a local, Swedish youth-based hip-hop collective, we intend to open up a theoretical discourse on hip-hop and emancipatory pedagogy. Our empirical data are collected through ethnographical methods

Social mobilization or street crimes : Two strategies among young urban outcasts in contemporary Sweden

This article deals with processes of marginalization and patterns of segregation in contemporary Sweden, which have transformed the former welfare state towards increased segregation and inequality between different social groups. Two ethnographic studies on young men living in stigmatized metropolitan areas are used in discussion and analysis. During the 1990s we could see the birth and growth of new forms of poverty in multi-ethnic suburbs of the metropolitan districts of Sweden. During the last two decades, youth subcultures oriented towards Reggae and Hip hop have grown and attracted many young people in these metropolitan areas. This article focuses on how two youth collectives in two metropolitan areas developed different strategies to cope with discrimination, second class citizenship and territorial stigmatization. In both these collectives it is possible so see how informal learning processes, embedded in cultural praxis of the youth groups and empowered by a connection to African-American music cultures, enable these groups and individuals to express themselves. The youth collective in one suburbs articulates a social and political criticism that could be compared to the cultural aspirations of the labour movement in the early part of the last century. The youth from the other neighbourhood have a strong fascination with criminal out-law culture and do not articulate themselves in the same way as members of the other group. Still their cultural expressions must be understood as ways to deal with their positions as marginalized, immigrant youth