Disowning knowledge: To be or not to be 'the immigrant' in Sweden

How do young people make sense of, challenge or inhabit racialized categories in their everyday lives? Through the narratives of five young people in Sweden, this article explores how the social production of 'the immigrant' works to structure their perceptions and experiences. An in-depth ethnographic account makes visible both the workings of a 'racial grammar' of 'the immigrant' and the contradictions of how this grammar is played out in the 'dilemmas' faced by 'Swedish' and 'immigrant' young people. It is argued that the grammar, arising in complex external structural and historical processes, is internalized as an 'ingrained stigma' and 'partial truths' that are performed and reproduced at the level of experience and interaction.