The Hip-hop culture has developed from a marginalized African-American subculture in South Bronx, New York, to a global billion-dollar commerce. Islam has flavored hip-hop from its beginnings; from early recordings to current rappers such as Talib Kweli or Jedi Mind Tricks. The formula of success has been its ability to adjust itself to the local contexts where it has emerged. In the end of the 1980s, Hip-hop became increasingly popular in Sweden. Today, in the beginning of the 21st Century, Hip-hop in Sweden has reached mainstream fame. Swedish rap often deals with themes of multiculturalism and positive suburban identity. Many rappers affirm their ethnic, religious and racial background. The presentation portrays the intimate relation between islam and Hip-hop culture in Sweden. Swedish rappers evoking Islamic principles and ideas in their rhymes and life styles are presented and discussed. Also, the flows of beats, rhymes and persons from the Middle East to Sweden and back will be described and briefly mapped out. This presentation is based upon field research and case studies among artists and other activists from the Swedish Hip-hop scene. The theoretical framework for the presentation draws on Social Movement and Globalization theories.

Challenging the Stereotypes of "Bad" Schools and "Bad" Neighborhoods: The Voices of Middle Eastern Youths from Swedish Suburbs In the 1960s, the Swedish Government implemented a housing program called "Miljonprogrammet" or the "Million Program" which aimed to create one million apartments to address the rising shortage of residences that accompanied the industrial growth of Swedish cities. At this time there was both a shortage of adequate residential spaces in general and modern spaces in particular to meet the projected growing numbers of working-class residents that were relocating from rural areas to cities (Ericsson, Molina and Ristilammi, 2002). By the early 1970s several things happened, two factors in particular were that industrial growth slowed and not as many persons moved from rural areas to cities as predicted leaving many of these apartments uninhabited. As immigrant populations began to increase, they were often relocated to these uninhabited apartments. Given negative portrayals in the Swedish news media, the neighborhoods created by the Miljonprogram were characterized as "unfriendly" and "uninviting" almost from the very beginning (Sernhede, 2002). As Sweden has progressed into the 21st century, the neighborhoods created by the Miljonprogram are still characterized as "unfriendly" and "uninviting" spaces by outsiders to these communities. Insiders, however, represent these communities in more complex and nuanced terms. For example, news media representations still generally characterize the Swedish suburbs as spaces of pathology, brutality, and deficiency (Elsrud 2008). In contrast, teenagers from Middle Eastern backgrounds speak in limited and specific terms about what's "wrong" with their neighborhoods; they speak in broader and more general terms about what's "right" with the suburbs. Even more, teenagers from the suburbs believe there to be no more, maybe even less, criminality found in the suburbs than that found in communities located in or near the center cities of Sweden. Additionally, Middle Eastern teens describe lower amounts of alcohol abuse and drug usage, higher amounts of friendships across a diversity of ethnic backgrounds, and lower amounts of bullying in their schools and communities. Based upon interviews and field observations across three suburban communities with teenagers from a variety of Middle Eastern ethnic and national origins, this paper sheds new light upon the so-called "unfriendly" and "uninviting" spaces of the suburbs. The theoretical frame that will figure prominently in this paper is Critical Race/Ethnicity Theory.

Stay sober! Meeting between Middle Eastern Immigrants and the Swedish Temperance Movement Like other Scandinavian countries, Sweden is becoming increasingly diverse. Since the late 1950s individuals born in countries in the Middle East have immigrated to Sweden. From this immigration follows a fascinating renewal of Swedish society. Swedish democracy is, to a large extent, built on 19th century "movements," such as the labor, women and temperance movements. These old movements have been weakened in the last decades due to the fact that the younger generations choose other forms of engagement. In the case of the temperance movement, however, a new trend has been observed as an "old" movement is renewed by both ethnic Swedes and "New Swedes" from the Middle East. The Temperance Movement encourages abstinence from substances that may be abused by members of a society, such as alcohol and drugs. Recently the old traditions of Swedish temperance movements and institutions are being challenged by "new" traditions of total abstainers coming from countries in the Middle East. The recent growth in membership of Swedish temperance movements is mostly due to enrolment by individuals from the Middle East. This value affinity between "old" traditions of total abstainers, a founding force of Swedish democracy, and "new" traditions, formed by immigrants from the Middle East, could serve as one venue for better integration of immigrant communities, an important element for the future evolution of democracy and human rights in Sweden. Furthermore, the case of the Temperance Movement in Sweden redirects the typical scholarly focus upon away the so-called "immigrant problem" in Scandinavia in particular and Europe in general. This paper is built on theories regarding community and conflict in the meeting between different value traditions as well as social movement theories. The theoretical perspectives are combined with in depth interviews with old "Swedish" and "new" members of the temperance movement in Sweden.

Academic studies of immigration tend to be dominated by debates about differences among voluntary versus involuntary immigrants, refugee versus non-refugee status immigrants, degrees of assimilation, integration, or marginalization of immigrant communities within a host society, the existence or absences of ethnic enclaves within and across immigrant communities, and so on. These debates are extremely important. However, academic debates such as these tend to lack the important and complementary backdrops of less subjective maps or geographical representations of immigrant communities. This presentation places Geographic Information System (GIS) and Geospatial technologies at the center of broader on-going debates within Migration Studies. Merging cartography and database technology that rely upon GIS, this presentation will provide a statistical overview and a spatial analysis of the "Middle East" in Sweden. Therefore, in addition to the important academic debates mentioned above, the migration and mobility of populations can be studied as temporal and spatial phenomena with varying characteristics depending on scale (national origins, households, and individuals) of the study. Analyzing the comprehensive body of statistical data from "Statistic Sweden" (a government agency that produces statistics on Sweden) this presentation seeks to answer questions linked to spatial migration and mobility. What are the demographics of movement and integration of people from the Middle East to Swedene Are these communities stable over time or do they tend to be more dynamica Are spatial dynamics restricted to the urbanization processes that occur within city boundaries or do spatial dynamics also occur across city boundariesr When in Sweden, to what extent do different groups (national, ethnical, religious) create sub-communities in the new countryn Moreover, do different groups move internationally among Scandinavian countriesr These are the types of important background factors that will be mapped and analyzed in this paper.