Remitting Cultural Capital: Involvement of the Iraqi Diasporas in Sweden and Denmark in democratization in Iraq after 2003

Sammanfattning: Members of Iraqi diaspora in the democratic countries can play role in democratization in Iraq as part of the bottom-up approach. This thesis is trying to present this role through the experiences of those members who are making regular visits to Iraq, 1 or 2 visits a year since 2003. Thesis studies that, to what extend they were able to transfer cultural capital they obtained from the hosting countries to their country of origin. Throughout the interviews, thesis investigates how much these visitors to Iraq, i.e. members of Iraqis diaspora living in Sweden and Denmark, were able to use religious rituals and political activities to present and transfer this cultural capital. Unstructured meetings have been used to reach out potential interviewees. Then, semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data for the thesis. Theories like transnational migration, social and cultural capital in addition to the concept of Lifestyles have been used to analyze the experiences of the interviewees.Thesis comes up with the arguments that, it is important for the democratization in Iraq to benefit from the cultural capital those members of the Iraqi diaspora possess. Thesis also recommends that, in order to increase the benefit from diaspora, an organized work is needed to be done by formal, semi-formal and non-government organization. Strong and constant links need to be built between the members of Iraqi diaspora and their country of origin.