2010-2016

The aim of this project was to investigate how social networks assume responsibility for social support among transnationally connected migrant populations. Our two cases were Assyrians/Syriacs in Sweden and Swedes and other Nordic citizens living in southern Spain. The everyday lives of both these categories are embedded in transnational space. Project leader Annika Rabo was responsible for the first case and Erik Olsson for the second. Fieldwork with participant observation and interviews remained as planned. We also studied more written material from organizations and associations than we initially had planned. The timeframe of the project was changed when fieldtrips to the Middle East became more difficult to carry out. Olsson had furthermore duties as director of the CEIFO-research program.
The research in Spain shows that the Swedes in Spain are truly transnationally connected which influence their lives as well as associations and businesses in Spain. Mobility between Spain and Sweden is significant and individuals maintain engagements to both countries. Olsson mainly focused on a number of large associations and he has demonstrated how they recruit members and gain influence in a Swedish context by acting as social clubs as well as agencies for service. Activities in the associations aim to produce a sense of home for the Swedes with the kind of activities and service which is thought to be in demand. The associations thus develop activities which tie into ideas of a particular lifestyle for Swedes in southern Spain. This includes everything considered as "a good life" in terms of pleasures, health, safe living and so on. Also fiscal issues are seen as important in this respect. The large associations mainly recruit Swedish rather than general Nordic members. In this way they maintain a community which is being realized in a Swedish transnational space. Also other actors like the Swedish church and certain businesses contribute to this space. The Swedish associations act in ways similar to many diaspora groups found in Sweden. One difference is that they are not involved with integrating their members into Spanish society.
The Assyrian/Syriac diaspora in Sweden and their relations to transnational service and welfare are geographically and politically very complex. They have four "home countries" - Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon - which in many ways divide their transnational engagement. The links to, and the situation for, Christians in these countries varies. They are also religiously divided into different churches and over ethno-national aspirations which is linked to the division over what to call themselves. Today there is less intense conflict compared to three decades ago between those calling themselves "Assyrians" and those calling themselves "Syriacs". The use of the former, however, still indicates a more national identity and the latter indicates an identity closer to the church. Today many young designate themselves as Assyrian/Syriac to underline a more inclusive position. There are a great many parishes, sports clubs and associations where transnational links among the Assyrians/Syriacs take on various expressions. The most salient feature, we found, is that investment in care and service is mainly directed toward the Swedish diaspora and towards the diaspora in the other countries to which they have migrated, rather than to Assyrians/Syriacs in the "home countries". In many cases the interest in, and engagement towards, the "home country" seem to be more of a marker of identity than concrete support. It is more common, for example, to go to Turkey as a tourist than to visit or send money to the holy places of the Syrian Orthodox church in the south east part of the country. Most Assyrians/Syriacs in Sweden have networks of family, kin and friends stretching across many countries in Europe and the Americas and this transnational space is of great importance for individuals as well as associations. The Assyrian/Syriac diaspora in Sweden is central in this transnational space with Södertälje as a kind of diasporic capital. Violence and war in Iraq and Syria have mobilized Assyrians/Syriacs in Sweden, but not to the extent we had anticipated. There are appeals from prominent Assyrian/Syriac politicians, journalists and other public figures to put a stop the genocide on Christians in Iraq and in northern Syria, and different organizations collect food, medical supplies and clothes. But support to compatriots in the Middle East is mainly funneled through kinship networks when families in Sweden open their homes to Christian refugees. Södertälje has once again become a town with a massive influx of new Christian refugees from the Middle East.
Our project has generated a number of new questions. An overarching one concerns how "integration" in Sweden and Spain respectively is expressed in numerous ways. Can this be seen also for other diaspora categories?
Can communities considered as "lifestyle diasporas" - cases similar to Swedes in Spain - reproduce themselves and "market" themselves over time despite the disappearance of individual members (by moving or dying)? Can such diasporas be compared to large corporations or companies with brands which survive despite shifts in ownership and staff?
Another question concerns the activities of associations towards "local" parties and movements. What, for example, are the relations between Assyrians/Syriacs and Swedish parties and grassroots associations? It would be very interesting to compare this case to that of the Kurdish diaspora which in the historiography of the Assyrians/Syriacs constitute a significant other.
Another question concerns the "political" interests of the large associations we have encountered. Why is it prestigious to take on work in the board of associations although the monetary return is nil? Recruitment to boards in the Assyrian and Syriac national associations is said to be more difficult today. Can this be understood in the light of similar processes in Sweden in general? Power struggles and competition within the diaspora found in both our cases can be studies also for other categories.
The project has been internationally connected through conferences, workshops and networks such as IMISCOE (an important European research network on migration). The project gave input to Diasporic Constructions of Home and Belonging (CoHaB), a Marie Curie Intitial Training Network which was financed between 2012 and 2015. Olsson and Rabo were part of the steering committee and we have recruited (internationally) three PhD candidates who started their training at the Department of Social Anthropology in Stockholm in September 2012. Within CoHaB we have arranged international workshops in Stockholm, e.g. "Middle Eastern Diasporic Communities" and "Social responsibility at a Distance: Caring, Parenting and Generation in Transnational Social Space". This workshop resulted in a thematic issue for the Nordic Journal for Migration Research (see below). We have also participated in conferences and project activities in other places. Rabo, for example, has presented project material in two conferences in Lebanon and in a large conference in Norway on European families.
Our field of research at the interface between civil society, care and transnational migration is growing and our project has met with interest among academic as well as non-academic actors. We have presented material for groups of informants as well as for example a conference on civil society in Uppsala.

Work on project publications is on-going. Erik Olsson has published an article in the journal
Äldre i Centrum (2013) and he is one of the editors of a special issue for the
Nordic Journal of Migration Research (open access, forthcoming 2017) devoted to lifestyle migration among Swedes and Brits in Spain. Olsson has also written the monograph "Guiden till Spaniensverige" (forthcoming Boréa 2017) focusing on how the associations create a community around ethnicity, lifestyle and transnationalism.

We have also started working on a joint article in English for an international open access journal where we focus on the concept "integration". Our material shows how people can cultivate their particular identity and still be successful in the "host" societies. We elaborate on this theme also in a report in Swedish which we think will be of interest for policymakers and practitioners in the field of migration.

http://www.socant.su.se/english/research/our-researchers/annika-rabo
http://www.socant.su.se/english/research/our-researchers/erik-olsson
http://www.socant.su.se/english/research/research-program-ceifo/research-projects
http://www.itn-cohab.eu/about-cohab

Publications
Annika Rabo
(2013) “Diasporic dilemmas. Assyrian migration to Sweden and activism for the homeland”,
 Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, vol 27, no.1&2, pp. 55-74.
       
(2014)”’Without our church we will disappear’. Syrian Orthodox Christians in diaspora and
 the family law of the church”. In Family, Religion and Law. Cultural Encounters in Europe.
 Eds. Prakash Shah with Marie-Claire Foblets & Mathias Rohe, Farnham: Ashgate,
 pp.181194.
       
(2016) “Conflicts and identities among Assyrians/Syriacs in Sweden.” Forthcoming in
Identity and Conflict in the Middle East and its Diasporic Cultures, Ed. Mazen Naous,
 Balamand: Balamand University Press.

Olsson, Erik
(2013), ”Svenskarna i Spanien – en ny diaspora?”, Äldre i centrum, 2013:1.