This is an article on the utopian life projects of immigrant youth in a disadvantaged Swedish community. These projects are analyzed through the concept of utopian diaspora biography which describes a process whereby a high level of aspiration concerning education and labour is accumulated as a consequence of the social, temporal and spatial dynamic of the biography. Utopian diaspora biographies, it is suggested, are fragile projects that reproduce political notions of meritocratic social mobility and individual agency. However, they may also explore individual possibilities and thereby challenge hierarchies in a segregated education and labour market. The risks and potentials associated with these modernist projects are analyzed through Ricoeur’s (1986) thoughts on ideology and utopia. It is suggested that the diaspora condition implies a movement between different internal systems of ideology and utopia — between a modern, Fordist system and a late modern, post-Fordist version. The article is based on life history interviews.
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