Orientalization of the Kurds and Reproduction of Colonial Categorization by Kurdish Youth in Sweden

Abstract

In this chapter, I will explore how young Kurdish women and men speak about themselves both as generalized objects of social discourse in Swedish society and as embodied historical subjects with specific experiences (Brah, 1996) that challenge stereotypical notions of Kurdish women and men as homogenous categories. The Orientalist discourse has had a remarkable impact on Swedish society and influences the ways Muslim immigrants are treated, debated, and otherized in public arenas and in everyday encounters with dominant subjects. The focus of this chapter is to show how dominant social discourses turn Kurds/Muslims/“Orientals” into generalized objects and how these discourses influence the everyday lives of young women and men with Kurdish backgrounds in Swedish society. This chapter not only highlights the various ways Kurdish families are devalued and stigmatized but focuses on argumentative strategies that young Kurdish men and women use to talk back against prevailing and culturally dominant categorizations of Kurdish families, young Kurdish women, and Kurdish fathers and brothers. In relation to the discourse of “honor killing,” young Kurdish women and men feel targeted and turned into objects of suspicion. While young Kurdish men view themselves as stigmatized as “woman oppressors” and “violent,” young Kurdish women are targeted by a hermeneutics of benevolent suspicion that is caring and wonders what kind of lives they are allowed to conduct within their families.