'A LITTLE LESS HERE, A LITTLE MORE THERE' PAKISTANI WOMEN IN SWEDEN:CONSTRUCTING MEANINGFUL IDENTITIES ACROSS BORDERS

Abstract: In this study, Pakistani women who have migrated to Sweden, lend their voices to the conflicts they face and the negotiations they have made in their new abodes; in lieu of the changing cultural contexts and its impact on internalizations of significant and generalized others from their early socialization. This has resulted in an evolution of their habitus amid a new cultural field allowing them to construct new meaningful identities through firstly, gender role negotiations within the ‘private patriarchy’; and secondly by competing for space within the ‘public kyriarchy’ that conditions integration on a detachment from the family and an active participation in the labour market. The resistance, reactions and hopes for future life that are analysed through these narratives emphasize the omnipresence of an empowered agency that has been intact throughout the process of migration; that hibernates, evolves into a new habitus and emerges against changing cultural fields.