"Jag skulle identifiera mig som en som är i från jordklotet och inte från något speciellt land." - En kvalitativ studie om hur unga vuxna Malmöbor med utländsk bakgrund hanterar sin identitet i sociala miljöer.

Sammanfattning: In a multicultural society, different cultures come in contact with each other which leads to many people need to relate to several cultures in their everyday lives. This study is aimed to highlight, analyze and discuss how young adult Malmö residents with a foreign background, reason about their identity creation in an environment where they are often reminded that they are different from the crowd. It also aims to study what possible strategies they have developed in order to reduce any stigma. The ambition was to distinguish similarities and differences in their stories about identity creation in an environment where they often are reminded that they are different from the majority. Nine qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with young adult Malmö residents with a foreign background between 20-30 years old. Pierre Bourdieu’s capital theory and Erving Goffman’s theory of stigma were used in this analysis. Interviewees highlighted that all respondents spoke about the importance of the environment's perception of their belonging to Swedish society. The fact that they frequently received questions about their origins led to the respondents experiencing exclusion in Swedish society when they became aware that they differed from the norm. Several of the respondents identify themselves as Swedish in combination with another nationality, while some of the respondents only identified themselves with their cultural heritage. The study also shows that the respondents were aware of others' opinions about their identity which did not match the group's identity, which can be both the majority society as a group but also family, relatives, ethnic group, etc. All respondents said that they try to adapt to different degrees in different social contexts to reduce the risk of stigma.