To Örebro University

The purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to a deeper understanding of how the national community is reproduced and delineated in relation to class, gender and racialisation. It uses a qualitative methodology and interviews with people chosen to represent an economic margin, and is theoretically informed by Pierre Bourdieu, Beverly Skeggs and others. In interviewees’ accounts about work life and societal change, traces are found regarding how the national community is delineated, and how value for the community is claimed or denied.

The main findings are that a national community is connected through the idea of value for the community, and that the dominating ideas concerning this value change over time in accordance with economic, political and discursive processes. Recognition is a condition for access to the labour market and for the right to contribute to the future of the community. The values and the community are not homogenous; there is room for competing values and thus competing ways of recognition.

Those with less recognised resources get their value for the community questioned in relation to current hegemonic values. Adaptability to the needs of the labour market in terms of expectations of geographic flexibility and the right attitude are common demands that implicitly presumes economic and social resources.

Misrecognition of resources and value also relate to the social process of racialisation. Whiteness can be regarded as the result of recognised national inclusion in a country such as Sweden where the ideal of light skin and blue eyes have gained hegemonic position through history. Class relations as well as male domination over women works through the same mechanisms of misrecognition and excluded experiences.