Through intimate conversations between Mustafa and his mother Güllü, the novel explores the experiences of a Kurdish family who migrated to Sweden in the late 1970s. Central topics include Mustafa's shame towards his mother in his childhood and his realization that he doesn't truly know her. The conversations also reveal how difficult it was for Güllü to feel like an outsider in Swedish society due to language barriers. There is tension between generations regarding cultural identity, with some migrants wanting to hold onto their heritage while others assimilate more into Swedish culture.

1. Tett inntil dagene (Close to the days) -Reading Malmö through the eyes of a migrated woman and her son.
Through the novel “Tett inntil dagene“ Mustafa Can has lent me an eye into the life of a Kurdish family who migrated to Sweden in the late 1970’s. Throug
intimate conversations between Mustafa and his mother Güllü we get to learn about the situation of a migrated woman and her way of handling life in a
foreign country. Central topics in Mustafa’s story is the bad conciousness he has towards his mother because of the shame he has felt of her in his childhood.
He has realized that he doesn’t really know who his mother is. The anxiety of losing her before he realizes himself is a pointer on the complexity of migration
and resetteling as a topic.
One of Mustafa’s confessions A tender scene Güllü sees in Mustafa describes to the reader In the conversations between The lie on which Mustafa’s father
Keys to the novel
to Güllü is how he felt the idea retrospect while lying sick at how he developes a parallell life Mustafa and Güllü we get to learn bases his whole existense in
of inviting friends home rather home is the moment when she which he lives outside of his home how it feels to be an outsider Sweden on is the not unfulfilled,
unpleasant. The physical carachter learn to write her own name. The i Skövde. The symbolically loaded in the Swedish society due to but in his mind delayed plan of the
of their home was the source of act of signing a paper becomes Swedish everyday is something linguistic inabilities. Güllu tells return to Kurekava -their home
concern: It was not the muddeled a powerful ritual to Güllü and it which his parents are unable to about how she was ashamed to village. The first one in the family
exterior of the concrete blokcs, symbolizes a reclamation of power take part in. He also describes how meet Mustafa’s friends fearing that that returns to Kurekava is Güllü
the grafitti or the cheap solutions to act within the new society. shame of his mother has led him she was not smart enouhg to be -post mortem. The truth about
that caused the feelings, but to a neglection of any possibility of any interest to them. Mustafa their life in Sweden is written
the looks of randomness and of her partaking in his adomestic says to her she is at least as wise in stone: The longer they stay
temporality. life. In the case of Güllü the hinder as them, and by reading the book in Sweden the more Swedish
is communication. In case of his we know why: Güllü is very well they get -and their ancestors are
father it is about the lack of will to educated in low tech agricultural deprived of a cultural connection
dive deep into the Swedish culture. methods. to Kurekava.
The physical surroundings Many women are silent voices in The development of a parallell There is an immense source There is a tension between
Imbedded Information
are equipped with imbedded a multicultural society. To educate society is not necessarily due to of hidden competence among generations concerning the claim
information about the quality is one way of diminishing this a disgrace of the Swedish way of migrated women. Micro scale of cultural identity. This tension
of life. It tells if homes are being segregational feature of migrant life. Lack of communicating tools agriculture, healthy nutrition has in some cases led to radical
interpreted as setteled domain or societies. might be one reason, a desire to and holistic approaches towards practice of cultural expressions.
just territory of passing by. These cling to what has been left might household are some of the Alternatively, and in this certain
qualities regulates the expectations be another. knowledges. case, it means personal sorrows
of participation either internal in and a local loss of opportunities in
or external of the family. the abandoned land.
Domestic Temporality Identity of Education Parallell Society Hidden Competence Price of Migration

2. I have been pondering about
Rosengård and how it is so easy for
us to describe something unfamiliar
as something homogenous when it
is really not. Within Rosengård for
example, 60% of the population is
born abroad and 111 countries are
represented. I wonder if it might
benefit the prosess of discussing
Rosengård to see the phenomena
rising there as something Swedish
rather than something foreign.
Also, to distinguish between and
accomodate for the differences
within "easy-to-regard-as-but-not-
really-homogenous" becomes rather
meaningless: That would mean 111
categories. It might be more rational
to consider the inhabitants in
Rosengård as individuals rather than
Parallell societies
members of an ethnic minority?
When discussing culture and
ethnicity one can define culture as
something that manifests ethnicity.
And one can further divide between
the cultural content of an ethnicity
and the strategies for ethnic self-
identification. A research carried
out in Great Britain in 1997 shows
how these two aspects were
The blend of two structures and the rise of something new
intimately connected among 1st
generation immigrants, whereas in
the second generation ethnicity had
more importance as a symbol than
anything else. In practicality their
cultural behaviour did not differ
much from that of Britons of the
same age. (Modood et al. (1997:337))
The reading of Bateson has cast
another light on this topic through
his definition of social ecology.
He regards the development of
subsystems within civilisation as
something that eats up flexibility and
there for must be controlled. Malmö
has now it's bridge to Europe. How
does the bridge from Rosengård to
Malmö look?