Ambivalent solidaritet: Nation, migration och rasifiering i Svenska Kommunalarbetareförbundet 1972-2002

This thesis explores the historical relationship between the Swedish labour movement and the complex issues of migration, ethnic discrimination, and racism. More specifically, it analyses the way in which the Swedish Municipal Workers’ Union (Kommunal) understood, formulated, and problematized migration and racism between 1972 and 2002. While previous research on Kommunal has primarily focused on class and gender dynamics within the Union, this study broadens the focus to investigate the intersection between race/ethnicity, nation, and national belonging within a labour union that has been of paradigmatic importance in the formation of the Swedish welfare state. The study departs from the theoretical premise that social communities, like the Swedish nation, rely on the establishment of discursive boundaries of both inclusion and exclusion. Based on this, it employs the concepts of differential inclusion and racialization to analyse how Kommunal defined these boundaries concerning migration, migrant workers, and racism. By analysing a wide range of source material, including reports, investigations, and study materials produced by Kommunal since the 1970s, it further elucidates how differentiating discourses have shaped distinctions among various groups, both within the Union and in the context of child caregiving work. The results show that Kommunal’s solidarity with migrant workers during the investigated period was marked by ambivalence. While the Union aimed to include migrant workers and to promote their rights, it continuously depicted them as inherently different, attributing to them an immigrant-ness that was imagined as something passed down from one generation to the next. Despite changes in rhetoric and policy, this racialized boundary, which functioned to distinguish 'Swedes' from 'immigrants', remained remarkably resilient. As a result, migration to Sweden was understood by Kommunal as being the underlying cause of racism and xenophobia. Kommunal also reduced both racism and xenophobia to either anti-immigration sentiments or marginal cases of violent acts. The thesis concludes that Kommunal’s framing of migration to Sweden, its portrayal of migrant workers as fundamentally different, and its interpretation of racism as a marginal phenomenon, together contributed to reinforcing an image of Sweden as a modern, rational, egalitarian, and tolerant nation. This highlights the complex relationship between racialization and the broader nation-buildin