‘If You Wanna Go Fast You Go Alone,If You Wanna Go Far You Go Together’: Emerging Political Subjectivities in the Intimate Lives of Young Men with Migratory Experience

Abstract

This article investigates the formation of political subjectivity among young men with migratory experience in contemporary Sweden and how it unfolds in relation to the politicized context of migration and intimacy. By combining data derived from both ethnographic and participatory methods, the article explores young men’s intimate imagery, everyday relationality and experiences of being cast as outside ‘proper’ Swedishness. The article sheds light on contemporary sexual nationalism and how it shapes the experiences of these young men and also gives rise to ‘friction’, which is both uncomfortable and productive. By cultivating moral selves, crafting moral communities and taking a stance of ostentatious carelessness, these young men engage with and criticize racializing discourses that cast them as either villains or victims. In this process, they emerge as political subjects whose positions are always indeterminate and reflexively evolving.

‘Did you go with a banana boat?’ Laughter fills the small room. A group of young men sit around a table and share their personal stories and future dreams. When it is Yousif’s turn, he announces that he would like to marry soon. He wants eight children and adds, ‘with three wives’. A roar of laughter from the others gives away his statement as humorous. All eyes turn to the ethnographer, positioned as a white woman without a migratory background. ‘How would you feel about this?’ Absher asks. He then seizes the moment to have some additional fun: if Yousif wants eight children, Absher would like a whole football team of children with several wives. ‘And when I come home’, he shouts, ‘I would just … [makes thrusts with his pelvis]’. The room erupts in more laughter.

Absher, Yousif and their friends are participants in a research project on intimacy, migration and education. The interaction reveals some of the tensions that shape their experiences as men and individuals with migratory background in a contemporary Swedish context. Their laughter, in combination with their body language and sexual innuendos, simultaneously reclaims and amplifies the stereotype of the hypersexual male migrant. It may also critique polygamy as a marital practice and the notion of lust as the central force in romantic relationships. The young men could be seen to engage with and negotiate different visions and narratives that intersect in their everyday life in relation to intimacy. The modality of play, however, leaves the final meaning of their interactions indeterminate.

This article concerns the nexus between migration, intimacy and political subjectivity in the everyday lives of young men with migratory experience in contemporary Sweden. We observe how they experience and navigate sexual nationalism (Fassin, 2011, 2012) that casts them as problematic subjects associated with dysfunctional intimate practices and outside of ‘proper’ Swedishness. These men inhabit a space of ambivalence, where conflicting demands and expectations converge and exert influence over them while they struggle to appropriate, reformulate or resist them. This space carries a transformative possibility in the form of ‘friction’ (Tsing, 2005) that allows the political subjectivities of these men—as gendered individuals and as persons with migratory experiences—to take shape.

Setting the Context

Intimacy, albeit often portrayed and experienced as something deeply private, is intertwined with the political. As amply noted by several scholars, it cuts to the heart of the boundaries of belonging (see, e.g., Groes & Fernandez, 2018; Muchoki, 2017; Plummer, 2011). Fassin (2011, 2012) coined the term ‘sexual nationalism’ to describe how sexuality intersects with national identity and becomes a central border practice in determining belonging in contemporary Europe. According to Fassin, racializing discourses transfer desired values and practices, such as gender equality, freedom of choice, sexual diversity and experimentation—in short, ‘sexual democracy’—to the liberated, progressive and modern ‘Self’. In ‘sexual nationalism’, racialized ‘Others’ come to represent backward, oppressive or even perverse sexuality (Fassin, 2011, 2012; see also Farris, 2017; Puar, 2007). As an example, the images of hypersexual African men or frustrated Muslim men have justified violent nationalisms and tightened migratory regimes all over Europe (Balani, 2023; De Genova, 2017; Edenborg, 2020; Scheibelhofer, 2017). Balani (2023) argues that the racial regime in contemporary Europe can be understood as filtering through various myths of dysfunctional masculinities (or femininities) and undesirable kinship patterns. Idealized intimate arrangements—romantic love, companionate relationships and the nuclear family—rest on the notion of an autonomous self and are benchmarks against which various racialized ‘Others’ are measured. As pointed out by Farahani and Thapar-Björkert (2020), such preoccupation rests on both colonial imagination and racial stereotypes of ‘Muslim’, ‘Black’ or ‘African’ intimacy and masculinity (see also Balani, 2023).

Contemporary Sweden, where political insecurity and economic precarity coincide with an increasing turn to right-wing politics, is not an exception to this trend. The intimate practices of migrant and racialized ‘Others’ have gained a specific place in political debates, policy and different ‘integration’ measures targeted at migrants. Expectations regarding gender relations, sexuality and body management are explicitly outlined in, for example, civic education, often placing migrant men under scrutiny as either successfully or unsuccessfully integrated (Bauer et al., 2024; Ennerberg, 2021). Moreover, Alm et al. (2021, p. 2) argue that the dominant narrative establishes Sweden as a ‘secular, gender-equal and LGBTQI-tolerant nation’, which poses as a model for the rest of the world to follow. Gender equality is particularly pronounced in Swedish sexual nationalism. According to Gottzén and Jonsson (2012), it functions as a cultural myth that projects undesired intimate practices to racialized ‘Others’, while ‘Swedish’ men are seen as free or even immune from the same. Non-white masculinity risks being equated with non-Swedishness (Farahani, 2013; Gottzén, 2013).

Within these parameters, young migrant men are often cast as either subjects or objects of crises in relation to intimacy. On the one hand, they are seen as carriers of a threatening hypersexuality or upholders of patriarchal relations and oppressive sexual regimes (see Edenborg, 2020; Herz, 2018). On the other hand, they are seen as vulnerable or even at risk, because of a reported lack of knowledge of sexual health and rights (Folkhälsomyndigheten, 2020; UMO, 2016). As pointed out by Riga et al. (2020), such a paradoxical positioning—as either a threat or a victim in need of interventions—runs the risk of denying the young men political subjectivity.

Friction and Political Subjectivity

Through critical masculinity studies, migrant men have emerged as gendered subjects, that is, developing in relation to other genders, and with structures of gender and power relations in the place of origin and in the host society (e.g., Donaldson et al., 2009; Farahani, 2013; Wojnicka & Pustułka, 2017). The focus on the migration–masculinity nexus has revealed how migration can cause ruptures and a ‘temporal dispossession’ (Ramsay, 2020) that inhibits men from growing socially as full gendered persons, representing a potentially emasculating experience of downward social mobility (Charsley, 2005), failure to provide (Birger & Peled, 2022) and loss of control (Rees & Pease, 2007). Research has also reflected on the role that migration might have in men’s ‘coming-of-age’ (Cole & Groes, 2017, p. 4), as a rite of passage. Other studies have thrown light on Muslim migrants’ intimacies (Britton, 2019), on migrants’ friendship and homosociality (Vlase, 2018) and on the complexities of the emotional lives of migrant men (Charsley & Liversage, 2015). Several scholars have explored how migrant men negotiate racializing discourses and Swedish exceptionalism in their everyday life (e.g., Farahani, 2013; Herz, 2018; Khosravi, 2009). Our study builds on these insights but directs the attention specifically to young men with migratory experience. Young people in general are often positioned as unruly and dangerous: young men are frequently seen as being a risk and at risk (Ravn & Roberts, 2019, p. 184). Contemporary debates talk of ‘the boy-crisis’ or ‘crises of masculinity’, which have been particularly associated with rural, working-class, migrant men and men living in underserved areas (Areschoug, 2019; Bunar et al., 2021; Jonsson, 2014). Even though much has been written on young people with migratory experience, research tends to focus on urban centres (Farrugia & Ravn, 2022). Our study contributes to the field by adding the perspectives of young men in a different context, outside of the major metropoles in Sweden. We also focus on intimacy as an arena for political subjectivity, which can offer nuanced understandings of young people, migration, sexual nationalism and belonging in contemporary Sweden.

This article concerns the formation of political subjectivity as it unfolds in relation to the politicized context on migration and intimacy in contemporary Sweden. With inspiration from Riga et al. (2020), and the classical theories of subjection and subjectivation formulated by Foucault (1982), we regard this context as an architecture that produces a certain subject, that is, ‘the migrant man’, defined by contemporary sexual nationalism. The position harbours both constraints and possibilities. To fully understand the struggles of the young men, we borrow Tsing’s (2005) metaphor of ‘friction’. ‘Friction’ describes encounters and interconnections between people and ideas that form ‘awkward, unequal, unstable and creative qualities of interconnections across difference’ (Tsing, 2005, p. 4). Friction is relational as well as creative, and its outcome is always unpredictable.

Rubbing two sticks together produces heat and light; one stick alone is just a stick. As a metaphorical image, friction reminds us that heterogeneous and unequal encounters can lead to new arrangements of culture and power. (Tsing, 2005, p. 5)

Friction relates to the ambivalences and tension that manifest in young men’s lives and that are central in shaping their subjectivities. It refers to ‘the grip of the worldly encounter’ (Tsing, 2005, p. 1) between young men and the dominating discourses that pose them as both objects and subjects of crisis, and its productive potential.

Methodological Considerations

This article builds on an ongoing project on intimacy, migration and education. The project combines ethnographic methods, such as participant observation and interviews, with participatory methods that invite participants to creatively and dialogically explore themes relevant to their own lives through artwork, photography and film. Such methods have been used extensively with young people, migrants and vulnerable populations to centre their perspectives and concerns (for an overview, see Mata-Codesal et al., 2020). In our case, we found such methods warranted because of the sensitive research focus and the politicized climate around intimacy outlined above. It also involves an ethical stance based on care and engagement with the participants (see Mata-Codesal et al., 2020).

The project focuses on a partly rural region in Sweden. The area was chosen because of recent demographic changes in several municipalities due to the reception of refugees and migrants in 2015, colloquially referred to as the ‘wave of refugees’. Participant observation was conducted at two sites in the region over a period of 16 months, primarily in the form of hanging around ethnography and ‘go-along interviews’ (Kusenbach, 2003) in spaces of importance to the young people. Interviews could be individual or in pairs, depending on the wishes of the participants. At the time of writing, we have interviewed 17 young men. Participants were approached through contacts created by participant observation and snowball sampling. Participatory methods included multiple series of workshops engaging a total of 27 young men. For the workshops, we relied on contacts from fieldwork and collaboration with community researchers, who were employed to facilitate interactions in workshops due to their closeness to the participants in age, language skills, personal migratory experience or other factors.

The men are between 15 and 25 years old and have personally migrated to Sweden or have parents or guardians who did so. Such an approach allowed us to avoid reification of cultural identities (cf. Honkasalo, 2017, p. 6) while simultaneously exploring a wide range of experiences. The participants themselves tend to identify with different national or ethnic groups, such as Somali, Syrian, Albanian and Ugandan. Their experiences are shaped in different ways in relation to several axes of power, among them ethnicity, class and migratory status, and we pay attention to these intersections as they emerge in the participants’ lives and our data. Nevertheless, there are also shared features, such as their age and them being ‘on the move’ not only geographically but also between phases of life. Moreover, locality should not be seen as simply a backdrop to the young men’s daily life or activity: the region’s former mill towns, rural villages and towns are integral to how relationships are formed and subjectivities emerge (see Schwarz & Streule, 2024; Wojnicka & Pustułka, 2017). This is further emphasized by the fact that many of the young men live in underserved areas often associated with crime and poverty, a symbolic status that tends to ‘rub off’ on its inhabitants (Bunar et al., 2021). Finally, all the participants navigate racializing narratives associated with ‘African’, ‘migrant’ or ‘Muslim’ masculinities although in different ways. By identifying common themes in relation to everyday life, relationships and masculinity in the interaction and talk of the participants, we can trace the contours of the emergence of political subjectivity within these intersections.

The project was vetted by the Ethical Review Board in Sweden (dnr 2021-03227). Matters of voluntarism, informed consent and confidentiality were a priority through all stages of the research process and continuously discussed with participants (see Block et al., 2013). Specific power relationships are implied in the ethnographic encounter, in terms of gender, age and access to different forms of capital. Combining different methods allowed us to mitigate these concerns to a certain extent. Our positions as researchers are also different, which allowed the young men to position themselves in different ways in relation to us. Anna migrated from a southern European country to Sweden: many of the young men joked about ‘Swedes’ or explained things they learnt in school to her, assuming she would not know. Their interaction allowed for comparisons between migratory experiences and different ways of relating to them. Åsa, on the other hand, was positioned as Swedish and white, and approached for school and career questions as well as sensitive questions such as advice on romantic relationships or how the body functions. Both positions called for reflexivity around power and privilege as well as the shifting vulnerabilities among the participants (see Block et al., 2013). In some instances, such as exemplified by the opening paragraph, the young men also played with and challenged the inherent power asymmetries in the ethnographic encounter.

By focusing on the young men as migrants, we risk reinforcing the idea of the migrant experience as particularly problematic or as the defining characteristic of the young men’s lives (see Goicolea et al., 2023). While we acknowledge this risk, we also argue that it is important to listen to young men in this position. We consequently pay attention to matters of representation, especially in terms of avoiding monolithic and reified presentations of men’s subjectivities (see Lems et al., 2019).

‘The Halal-way’: Intimate Imagery

Erion grew up in Sweden but identifies as Albanian and Muslim. He explains that he does not want to ‘lalla runt’ (mess about) anymore and is now ‘someone who cares about relationships’. Moreover, he recently met someone he genuinely cares about. They are, as he expresses it, doing things the ‘halal-way’, which for Erion means entertaining the possibility of a life-long romantic relationship while simultaneously not being physical in any sense. Erion is not entirely sure what the correct steps forward are, maybe engagement and then take it from there. ‘That’s the correct way, right? [glances at the community researcher, a young pious Muslim woman] Well, it’s not really halal as we have a relationship, but for being in 2024, it’s totally okay’.

Many of the young men claim they have never been in a relationship, and, like Erion, to be unsure how to approach and relate to a potential partner in the appropriate way. Simultaneously, they envisage themselves as marrying and becoming fathers soon. For these young men, relationships should not be entered lightly but require a certain etiquette in order to be worthwhile. It involves respectability towards others and the self. It can imply involving the parents, refraining from multiple partners and from being too close friends with women. The young men also have high expectations on the future partner: companionship, respect and loyalty are presented as defining qualities of a lasting relationship, and also that the partner, always envisaged as a woman, is a good person and known as such by the family and community. Participants talk amongst themselves about ‘red flags’ in a girl, a term circulating also on social media: partying too much, having male friends or excessive social media contacts, especially with men, but also lacking respect for family, culture or religion. In such discussions, the participants often underline that they do not mind other people behaving in such ways, but that they do not want that for themselves. Adrian, who is currently in a relationship he describes as serious, says, ‘It’s just not working for me, unfortunately’. He then explains that it is important not to force anything on his partner; any change in behaviour should emanate from her own commitment and character. Therefore, he does not want to tell his girlfriend to remove male friends from social media, for example, because it would be like he is controlling her. ‘But if she removes them to be with me, mashallah [puts hands together] I will marry her’.

The young men hence navigate different visions of desirable intimacy that permeate their everyday lives and that are rooted in religious convictions, familial relations, social media trends, notions of respectability and also in the importance of freedom of choice and of the autonomous self. It also involves racialized discourses associated with sexual nationalism (cf. Farahani, 2017). Erion and Adrian recognize such discourses and position themselves in relation to them. Adrian upholds a vision of respectability within romantic relationships while simultaneously distancing himself from any suspicion of being a controlling partner. Similarly, by entering the trope of ‘2024’, Erion distances himself from what he understands as undesirable: he presents himself as not determined by culture, but as an autonomous subject engaging both with the halal etiquette of relationships and the circumstances at hand. The intimate imageries of the young men are thus marked by friction as they engage with several universals, such as freedom of choice, individual autonomy, proper etiquette and relationality and accommodate these in a constructive yet indeterminate way (see Tsing, 2005, p. 8).

For Hussein, who arrived from Syria more recently and attends an introductory language class, freedom of choice in relationships is coded as explicitly Swedish. He engages with the concept when referring to couples who cohabit, ‘here’, before marriage. Although Hussein is not comfortable with it, he recognizes that accepting new ways of relating to love and sexuality is necessary to be accepted. ‘Here in Sweden, there is a thing that is called frihet’, Hussein observes, shrugging as he explains the local acceptance of the term to the ethnographer whom he positions as non-Swedish. According to Bauer et al. (2024), a focus on values has become increasingly key to integration measures after 2015. Values such as democracy, gender equality and freedom of choice are often articulated in these contexts as specifically ‘Swedish’ and as such need to be embraced for belonging not to be revoked; they are presented as non-negotiable (see also Ennerberg, 2021). For young men such as Hussein, these values are thus an entry point in learning how a proper Swedish male citizen should be. Hussein’s vacillation shows how the insistence on certain values as specifically Swedish gives rise to a new sensibility in a way that is intentional and reflexive. His words speak both to the specific requirements (if not pressures) that integration measures pose to young newcomers and to the capability of young men to relate to them in a productive way. For Hussein, one needs to learn and play the game to pass as deserving. He explains:

If we live in Sweden, we must follow … wait, I lost the word …. Ah, rules! Rules, we must follow rules. For example, my father doesn’t like that my mum works, but she has come here to Sweden, and she works. Yes, we must follow … rules.

Mastering a plethora of rules becomes the quintessence of ‘integration’; rules seep into every aspect of life, to an extent that Hussein, struggling to accept a cold winter that he does not like, explains that ‘We must follow the rules now, and weather here is very important!’

‘I Am not Like That’: Cultivating a Moral Self

A common saying among different groups of young men is that ‘love comes after marriage’, which is often contrasted with transient and unreliable feelings like ‘the crush’. Marriage and long-term monogamous relationships are presented as a suitable container for developing the right sensibilities, often expressed as commitment, loyalty and respect. For many of the young men, such words are not merely sentimental promises, but expressions of a distinct relationality that requires a work of self-fashioning as men ready for romantic relationships. According to Hakim, it is better to stay away from relationships until you are mature enough to sustain one properly; to engage with girls for fun is destructive and easily becomes like drugs. Dressed in immaculate jeans and sneakers, he reflects on his life as a young Muslim and the advantages he feels he is afforded by religion:

I have never had a girlfriend, never even sipped a little bit of alcohol, I have never done stuff you could think that the youth do now. I don’t like it, because I think like when you look at it, you think it’s just kids having fun, but they do that to escape something, and most people do it just because everyone does it. I’m not like that.

Discipline, purpose and commitment become imperative of self-cultivation, of continuously improving oneself. Like the women involved in an Islamic piety movement described by Mahmood (2005), the young men present themselves as restrained, pious and modest, and actively strive to realize such dispositions in their everyday lives. Through the disciplining of ‘bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct and way of being’ (Foucault, 1997, p. 225), the self takes its proper form. However, such a moral self does not exist in isolation but is immersed in a political community that assigns meaning to it. Abiding to certain rules or regulations does not mean docility but is central to the formation of men as political subjects (see Fassin, 2011; Mahmood, 2005). The cultivation of the self unfolds in contrast to what the young men perceive as dominant around them: promiscuity and lust, which might be fun at best, but also empty and shallow. Lurking in the background are the myths of sexual nationalism, such as the promiscuous migrant man, that gained salience after events such as sexual harassments in Cologne and Stockholm in 2016 (see de Hart, 2017; Edenborg, 2020; Herz, 2018): by cultivating a chaste self, this association can be kept at bay. As described above, the young men are aware that self-discipline might be associated with oppressive practices that sexual nationalism ascribes to the racialized ‘Other’. Their insistence on commitment is voluntary, and the quintessence of a desired relationality secures their space as autonomous subjects.

Commitment can also be a pact with oneself not to waste precious time. Abdul says that he does not want many friends because he must focus on his studies, which is a prerequisite to succeed. Education is ‘not for free’, he puts it. Similarly, Farzan, originally from Afghanistan, argues that having a girl is potentially a waste of time for someone who needs to hurry up in life to gain a place in society. For these men, the experience of being in transit exerts a toll: while wanting to commit, they recognize that precarity and repeated mobility make commitment impossible. John, who has grown up in a family who emphasizes the importance of commitment, painfully discusses its impossibility without permanent resident permit, when his living conditions may change any time by the decision of the Migration Agency: ‘Committing is the key, but … to me right now like … we’re still not on a permanent stay, so for me to commit to someone is … today I’m here, tomorrow I won’t be here. Commitment is not good in those terms’. While navigating different demands and expectations, these men weigh their dreams against the limitations of a life on the move and try to be the men they aspire to be in these circumstances.

Everyday Relationality: Cultivating Moral Communities

During a workshop in Smallville, the participants worked with an exercise to identify crucial events and influences in their life stories. Warsama was the first to share his story. He envisioned his life as consisting of three interrelated streams: religion (reading and learning about the Quran), family (in Somalia, London and Sweden, and for which he thanked God) and the friends he made in Smallville. It was clear that the group in the room shared an everyday life together: through sports, school, shopping in the neighbouring town and playing FIFA or Fortnite, they continuously rubbed shoulders and kept track of each other. The pattern was similar in other towns and neighbourhoods, where young men move in groups, occupy local pizzerias or leisure centres and interact intensely on social media or through video games. Male friends stand out as important, often referred to as ‘brothers’, ‘colleagues’ or just ‘the boys’. The categories of friends and family are often blurred and not always distinguishable: ‘friends’ often included both brothers and cousins, and the men talked of them interchangeably as part of their most intimate networks (see Bergnehr et al., 2020).

Many of the young men claim that their relationships are defined by a specific, yet elusive quality called ‘respect’ and often describe this quality as key to friends’ interactions as well as to relationships with girls or with elders. Moreover, the young men often distinguish their way of making relations from the ‘Swedish way’, with ‘Swedes’ being too quiet or unable to joke. According to Hakim, Swedish people do not like to talk even among themselves in contrast with his own neighbourhood where ‘people are from Somalia, or Middle East … we have a connection already, we’re more open’. The young men thus described a failed relationality on part of their ‘Swedish’ counterparts. Bashir, who is one of the central figures of a close-knit group of friends hanging out at the local leisure centre, says:

I think that not listening to anyone else and just listen to yourself in some sense it could be ignorance, or arrogance … If you wanna go fast you go alone, but if you wanna go far you go together.

The ‘Swedish way’ is hence deemed lacking because of an overly exaggerated individualism. Several studies have emphasized the relational and transnational character of migrant masculinity, formed in relation to both men who have remained in the country of origin and models in the majority society (Farahani, 2013; Wojnicka & Nowicka, 2022). To subvert postcolonial power relations, migrant men might strategically show off qualities such as industriousness (Kukreja, 2020), physical strength or erotic prowess (Aboim & Vasconcelos, 2020), thus contesting the hegemonic white masculinities to which they might never have access. For many of the participants in our study, it is the capability of building and sustaining close relationships that makes them feel worthier vis-à-vis ‘local’ men.

In contemporary debates in Sweden, young migrant men and men living in underserved areas are associated with shootings, riots, sexual harassment and the so-called ‘no-go-zone’ that are controlled by gangs (see Farahani & Thaper-Björket, 2020; Schclarek Mulinari & Keskinen, 2022). According to Balani, the racialized gang is demonized as an alternative kinship structure that threatens both the nuclear family and the ideal relationship between an autonomous individual and the state, similarly to the extended family and the religious community (Balani, 2023, p. 94). Religion, the extended family and the network of male friends are, however, precisely the cornerstones of relationality mentioned by Wasama and his friends in Smallville as essential for their sense of self and for feeling at home in the world. They are equated to values such as loyalty, responsibility and even love: the young men’s relationality is grounded in an ethics of care, rather than mischief and criminality. By insisting on the relevance of being embedded in larger networks as foundational to a good life, the young men cast themselves as subjects able to create moral communities. Friction with public discourses on the gang enhances the significance of relationships, which are imbued with care and respect. The frequent distinctions made by the young men from ‘the Swedes’ become a tool to contest, even resist, the reified image of the migrant by projecting undesired qualities to the groups in power. Again, such relationality is both cultivated through a reflective stance and represents an organizing principle of everyday life and its relationships. It involves disciplining oneself and others through upholding the right way of interaction. A moral community requires considerable effort to be maintained and is continuously emerging, as are the subjects involved in forming the relationships that constitute it.

‘I Don’t Care’: Feigning Carelessness as a Political Position

‘I see those stereotypes a lot’, says Bashir, ‘when they see me outside, they see me as a black guy; when they know my religion they see me as a black Muslim guy’. Bashir was born in Somalia and lives with his mother and sisters in what has been called a ‘risk area’ in a provincial town. According to him, people often mistake him for a drug dealer, although he has never used or sold drugs. Indeed, it has happened so many times that he sees it as ‘just like daily life’. Racism in Sweden, he states, will never go away, but in his opinion, life is too short to care about stereotypes. This also applies to stereotypical images of migrant men stealing women:

For people, oh, people would say ‘now they come to our country to take our women’ … or blablablah, these stereotypes … but … even if they said it straight to my face I wouldn’t give a fuck.

Similarly, Bojan claims that everyone is treated differently in Sweden because of their skin colour or country of origin. He was born in Sweden from parents who fled from Bosnia during the war and describes himself as being made up of different parts: he likes Sweden, but his heart is in ‘the home country’. Once, he recounts, he took the bus with three black friends. His phone stopped working and he had to buy new tickets, whereas some other boys, who Bojan describes as Swedish, had the same problem and did not have to buy anything. Bojan says he was furious, but he relented. ‘I felt like I wanted to kick something, but then I just don’t give a shit, I can’t be bothered’.

When talking and spending time with the young men, it became evident that experiences of being treated differently than so-called Swedes seep in their everyday life and interactions. It is, as Bashir says, a part of their daily lives: in passing through the small town, in interaction with teachers, in the locker room or at the football pitch. They experience being lumped together in monolithic categories such as ‘the migrants’ or ‘the Muslims’ and associated with undesired qualities, such as criminal behaviour or threatening intimate practices. As visible in the narratives of Bojan and Bashir, these experiences differ in relation to racial hierarchies in Sweden. Many of the young men also reproduce racial categories when talking about their peers and often distinguish themselves from other groups (see also Lund & Voyer, 2020); the most pertinent distinction is, however, between so-called Swedes and themselves. In one of the workshops, the young men devoted considerable time in discussing the set-up of their football team and whether other participants were to be considered Swedes or not, even if they were ‘white-passing’. They contended that there were no Swedes in the team, although many of them were born in Sweden, had lived there for quite some time or had one Swedish parent.

Many of the young men claim to feel at home in Sweden and that there are many good things associated with living here: free education, good economy, safety and resources for living a good life. However, the friction between feeling at home, being associated with the dangerous ‘Other’ and navigating racial categories is painful and tiresome. Literature has observed how young people enact different strategies to cope with such experiences, such as underplaying certain aspects of their identities and not making ‘a fuss’ (Gilliam, 2021) or elaborating ‘narratives of gratefulness’ (Wernesjö, 2019). Many of the young men participating in our project avoid reinforcing the image of an angry and violent migrant man when confronted with racism. ‘If you resist, then they become right’, Bojan says, while his friend fills in with, ‘It only confirms the image that migrants are all the same’. This could be seen as an internalization of the self as ‘Other’, as famously described by Fanon (1986) and as modifying one’s behaviour in relation with this image (see also Farahani, 2012).

However, as visible in the narratives of Bojan and Bashir, the young men also revert to another tactic, equally reflexive but less docile: ostentatious carelessness. The young men present these incidents as not affecting them: they ‘can’t be bothered’ or ‘wouldn’t give a fuck’. Farzan, answering a question about whether he feels treated differently at school, says:

I don’t care what people say. There are some who think ‘ah that person is bad’, I say ‘aha … ok’. They say to me ‘damn idiot’, I say ‘ok, thank you very much’, I applaud.

Youth do care and feel a range of emotions: anger, frustration, fatigue surfaced in our conversations. However, in a context in which one is singled out way too often, ostentatious carelessness is a winning tactic, and the only thing feasible in a life full of quick changes often determined by state agencies. By acting as if they do not care, the young men are exercising both reflexivity and a degree of agency in a precarious context. According to Vigh, ‘reflexivity’ is ‘the heightened awareness of the way we interpret the social environment’ which kicks in where ‘our social routines are challenged’ (Vigh, 2008, p. 9). It may be the accumulation of ‘multiple traumas and friction’, rather than a ‘sudden tear within … everyday normality’ (Vigh, 2008, p. 9) that causes a ‘crisis’ in the life of an individual. The young men navigating sexual nationalism seem to progressively grow in themselves a painful awareness, which does not translate in bursts of violence—but rather in a reflexive, strategic ostentation of nonchalance.

Conclusions

We have explored how young men with migratory experiences navigate the architecture of sexual nationalism that marks the intersection of migration and intimacy in contemporary Sweden. We claim that this architecture produces a certain migrant subject—racialized, male and young—that is placed outside ‘proper’ Swedishness and deemed in need of both monitoring and protection (see also Riga et al., 2020). These formations are not just abstract but also permeate the everyday world of the young men in a myriad ways. However, ‘the grip of the worldly encounter’ (Tsing, 2005, p.1) between sexual nationalism and the local realities of the young men holds the seed for new arrangements and transformations (Tsing, 2005, p. 5; see Brice, 2023). Friction is not merely endured but also actively inhabited: it implies racism, material and social suspension, core to the contemporary migratory regime, and simultaneously, the will or imperative to find oneself worthy and existentially emplaced as a man with migratory experience.

Friction arises within everyday relationality and dreams of love and companionship, arenas in which the young men are especially suspected of undesirable intimacies by the logics of sexual nationalism. As pointed out by Brice, friction means neither resistance nor acceptance but rather ‘a mode of encounter which produces diverse strategies for surviving and thriving’ (Brice, 2023, p. 67). From this ambivalent ground, moral selves are crafted, and political subjectivities emerge. The participants position themselves by discussing and reconsidering their moral compass. The self that emerges is often disciplined, restrained and committed in contrast with forms of emerging adulthoods that have experimentation and sexual freedom as key components, and which tend to dominate conceptualizations of young people, also in contemporary youth studies (MacDonald & King, 2021).

The specific relationality advocated by the young men is central for overcoming the sense of being ‘visible but unseen’ (Khosravi, 2009, p. 605), that is, visibly marked as ‘migrants’ but invisible as subjects with their own hopes and dreams. By cultivating moral selves embedded in moral communities and social relations—a process that is both disciplining and enabling, and that implies elements of respect, duty and managing oneself according to social expectations as well as emotional closeness and an ethics of care (cf. Cense, 2018)—the young men refuse to be positioned as objects in need of intervention to participate in society. An ethics of care is a tool for working against racializing discourses and a node in emergent political subjectivity. However, for the young men who more recently arrived in Sweden and live amidst a restrictive migratory regime marked by temporary residence permits and increasing pressures to adapt and prove oneself worthy in a short time, maintaining meaningful relationships or practicing an ethics of care becomes as dramatically important as difficult.

Lastly, we have argued that position of ‘I don’t care’ does not imply inertia or docility but is rather a political position. By showing ostentatious carelessness in a world that constantly reminds them of their difference or restricts the possibilities to form relationships and feel at home, the young men perform a small act of defiance that also secures a space of their own amidst pressures to act or be reformed (see also Riga et al., 2020). It is also vital to recognize that the oscillations in the young men’s talk and interactions reveal how they consciously inhabit and play with different positions; contradictory demands and expectations can find space in the same moral landscape. It is not a matter of ‘(dis)identifying’ with different forms of masculine subjects in an either/or fashion (see Farahani, 2013, p. 155), but rather being able to entertain both, or many, options. The emergence of political subjectivity—and gendered relationships and responsibilities—is never fixed, but rather constitutes a polyvocal, contradictory and ever-evolving process.