Academia and Cultural Production in Sweden: The Perspective of Postmigration

Migrantizing the museum - some suggestions from the post-migrant debate

The post-migrant debate has called into question the biopolitical construction of the nation-state: in particular its fictional division into a white, settled majority representing the ruling centre and ethnicised, racialised minorities being restricted to the social margins. Between this division, however, the practised grey zone of post-migrant society unfolds, which has its roots in migration but has long since become 'native' itself.

In what way can the museum, as one of the central nation-state institutions, be decentered and mobilised - or, to use a vocabulary of the debate, 'migrantized' - from such a perspective? Starting from a pointed summary of the general debate, my contribution will make correspondingly unsettling suggestions.

Regina Römhild

Institut für Europäische Ethnologie, Humboldt-Universität, Berlin.

Regina Römhild is a cultural anthropologist and professor at the Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt-Universität Berlin. Her focus is on a postcolonial anthropology of Europe, critical (post)migration and border regime studies, Mediterranean & political anthropology. She has co-established the Migration Lab and the Critical Europeanization Studies Lab at the Institute. She is also co-founder of the Amo Collective Berlin. Among her recent publications is “Migrantizing Europe. The Perspective of a Black Mediterranean”, in: Crossings. Journal of Migration and Culture 4 (2023) 1:105-110 and „Postmigrant Europe: Discoveries beyond ethnic, national and colonial boundaries“, in: Anna Meera Gaonkar et al. (eds.), Postmigration. Art, Culture, and Politics in Contemporary Europe, Bielefeld: transcript 2021, 45-56.

The unresolved coming out of the Maghrebi French gay character: reflecting on the place of queer sexualities in postmigration

The concept of postmigration describes a social condition where migration becomes a fundamental political force in shaping a nation’s identity and collective ‘we’ (Foroutan 2019). This condition is marked by transformations, conflicts, and negotiations that reshape the societal landscape (Spielhaus 2012). In literary studies, postmigration provides a critical lens to understand how cultural productions reflect these societal shifts, challenging traditional binaries and notions of the nation. Focused on how these transformations play out in character systems (Woloch 2004), my talk presents a case study on Maghrebi French gay male characters, who offer critical insights into how postmigration influences literary representation.

These characters, which I relate to figures from colonial and contemporary literature and social discourse, occupy a complex position in French fiction: they exist in a limited narrative space that questions the inclusivity of French queer narratives in granting sexual citizenship to Maghrebi queer characters. By examining the trajectory of selected Maghrebi French gay male characters in literature and film through the tropes of the fetishized object of desire, the closeted man, and the runaway, I will demonstrate that the de-essentialisation of a Maghrebi character in queer narratives often leads to a narrative of an unresolved gay male character. This precarious position can lead to innovative roles but frequently at the cost of collective ties or the characters’ own dignity, highlighting their symbolic presence as they navigate and move beyond the margins. The unresolved dynamics emphasize how representations of sexuality complicate the inclusive assumptions underlying the concept of postmigration.

Álvaro Luna-Dubois

New York University Abu Dhabi

Álvaro Luna-Dubois is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Literature, Creative Writing, and French at New York University Abu Dhabi where he also co-directs the research group Heritage, Memory and Mobility (HMM). His research focuses on diasporic narratives and cultural plurality in French and North African literature. His current book project explores the representation of the Maghrebi diaspora in contemporary French literature and visual culture.

Project team

Academia and cultural production as ‘postmigrant’ fields in Sweden project team (Maja Povrzanović Frykman, GPS/MIM, Malmö University, Eleonora Narvselius, Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences, Lund University, Cristine Sarrimo, SOL, Lund University, Barbara Törnquist-Plewa, Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University, Josepha Wessels, K3/MIM, Malmö University).

Maja Povrzanović Frykman

Maja Povrzanović Frykman is Professor of Ethnology at the Department of Global Political Studies (GPS) and an associate of Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare (MIM) at Malmö University, where the project is placed. She is an internationally recognized scholar of migration who has published widely on refugees, labor migrants, transnational migration, representations of migrants, and highly skilled migrants. Her research in the project is related to academia. She leads this project and serves as the contact person. 

Eleonora Narvselius

Eleonora Narvselius is an Associate Professor in European Studies at Lund University. In this project, she is utilizing the knowledge acquired from the project "Crafting Academic Heritage in Lund, Wroclaw, Lviv, and Kaliningrad." Her recent publication on the ways of addressing diversity and otherness in heritage institutions also provides valuable background knowledge. She has been involved in the NordForsk project MaHoMe, which examines the cultural impacts of migrant integration policies in the UK, Denmark, and Sweden, as well as in the Horizon2020 project SO-CLOSE, which focuses on integrating migratory heritage into the European public space. Her research in the project is related to academia.

Cristine Sarrimo

Cristine Sarrimo, Associate Professor in Literary Studies at Lund University, contributes her expertise in testimonial and autobiographical narratives and migration literature to the project. She conducts interviews with authors and cultural journalists and analyzes current debates on migration and migrant cultural production.

Barbara Törnquist-Plewa

Barbara Törnquist-Plewa is a professor of East- and Central European Studies at Lund University. Her area of expertise is cultural history, with a focus on identity, collective memory, and heritage in relation to nationalism, minorities, and ethnicity. Her work in this project is influenced by her past leadership of the COST research network 'In Search for Transcultural Memory in Europe', as well as her research on intellectuals in the cultural production and heritage sectors. In our project, she is responsible for conducting interviews with academics.

Josepha Wessels

Josepha Wessels is an Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer in Communication for Development at Malmö University. She is a visual anthropologist who wrote the world’s first monograph about the history of Syrian documentary cinema and video activism. She has conducted research on Syrians in the Öresund region, as well as a life history study of Syrians in Germany and the Netherlands. She is involved in a VR-funded research project on Refugee Migration and Integration in Jordan, Turkey, and Sweden, in collaboration with Gothenburg University. Additionally, she has unique access to artistic and social networks of Syrians in Sweden, which she uses for interviewing musicians, actors, artists, and cultural producers as part of our project.

Sarrimo, Cristine (2025, forthcoming) ”Negotiations of ethnic and cultural capital in the Swedish literary field: From immigrant writer to racialization and the impact of aesthetic value”, Scandinavian Studies 97(2).

Wessels, Josepha I. and Heléne Hedberg (2024) ”Tarab and transtopias: a postmigrant analysis of Arab music making and teaching in southern Sweden”, Puls: Journal for Ethnomusicology and Ethnochoreology 9, 61-82.

Povrzanović Frykman, Maja, Eleonora Narvselius and Barbara Törnquist-Plewa (2023) ”Postmigrant talks: Experiences of language use in Swedish academia”, Ethnologia Scandinavica 53, 114-135.

Povrzanović Frykman, Maja (2022) “Högutbildade migranter mellan privilegier och förfrämligande”, Nio-fem: Tidskrift om arbetsliv & profession 1/2022, 20-27.