Klassresor i ett skiktat litterärt land : En genusvetenskaplig studie av självbiografiska klassreseberättelser

• Main Author: Areschoug, Susanna
• Format: Others
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Centrum för genusvetenskap 2015
• Subjects: klass; klassresor; självbiografier; intersektionalitet; femininitet; maskulinitet; svenskhet; vithet; heteronormativitet; genusarbetsdelning; plats
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-264429

This study examines social mobility in autobiographical narratives in a Swedish context. The purpose of the study is to analyze ten published narratives which centers around experiences of individual class migration. The analytic focus is oriented towards how power dimensions such as gender, sexuality and racialization might have affected the possibility to advance in social hierarchy, but also towards how the narrators are reflecting and speaking about these different power dimensions. The analysis shows the narrators differing subject positions often affect the way they understand and construct notions of class injustace and their view of social mobility. Their stories are in warying ways informed by notions of gender, sexuality and Swedishness. This, together with possibilities to embody the concept of ”skötsamhet” (to be good, disciplined, in line) seem to affect in what ways a narrator can use the working class identity to bring authenticity to their story and, by extension, bring use to the working class position as a positive source of identity in the story of themselves. My conclusion is that a viewing of the working class as an homogenic group is insufficient since it is clearly structured by other power dynamics than just class. This in turn effects how one is able to move or orient themselves in a society structured by more power dynamics than just class. I therefore argue for an intersectional understanding of class and social migration.