Förortsliv i periferin : En etnologisk studie om boendes upplevelser av ombildning och förändringsprocesser i ett av miljonprogrammens bostadsområden.

Sammanfattning: The studies main focus is to reach deeper insight about the values and meanings created and connected to the home environment. Building on interview material collected in the fall of 2017 in Akalla Stockholm the study examines different factors that impact resident’s emotions surrounding the area where they live in relation to change. Specifically the conversion of their homes, in one of the million programme housing areas, from a tenancy house to a condominium. Akalla was, in 2001, the first area outside the city centre in Stockholm that was allowed to convert municipally owned houses in to condominiums. A motivation for converting tenancy houses in segregated areas is the idea that diversity in the forms of residence has a positive impact on the area. The conversion can lead to gentrification of an area, the process of change where economically weak people are in different ways pushed out of an area to make room for the more economically strong individuals. The people I have interviewed have throughout the study positioned themselves in different ways to the phenomenon that is gentrification. The material shows that the assumptions and motivations regarding conversion of municipally owned houses will not necessarily lead to the wanted effects such as integration but will, on the other hand, have effects on the people who live there and their identification processes which is connected to the place where we live. It also shows that gentrification is a phenomenon that people position them self towards based on the possibilities and choices a person has in the society, it is a question of privilege. The term is loaded with value and its consequences cannot be seen only in the light of negative effects and exclusion.