“When we one day have a job and pay taxes, we will be appreciated and respected”: young Afghan migrants’ narratives on (non)belongingness in the context of Swedish migration discourse

Guided by the concept of belonging and drawing on interviews with 13 young Afghan refugees who arrived in Sweden as unaccompanied minors, this study explores their constructions of Swedishness versus Afghanness, and how they negotiate and position themselves in relation to these concepts. The analysis demonstrates their narrative strategies for interpreting and resisting official media and political portrayals, advancing what they perceived as respectable elements of Afghan culture as counternarratives. Official representations of unaccompanied (particularly Afghan male) migrants framed how they positioned themselves, their future prospects, and their sense of belonging within the new Swedish social context.