The Promise of Belonging: Racialized Youth Subject Positions in the Swedish Rural North

This article analyses how youth subject positions of the ‘racialized other’ are produced, and how these positions interconnect with the concept of belonging to the rural community. We do this by analysing 15 group discussions with 63 young people living in rural areas in northern Sweden taking a discursive psychology approach, and focusing on how discourses produce certain subject positions of ‘the racialized other’. Drawing on the concepts of the politics of belonging and the ‘stranger’, we argue that discourses on belonging to the (rural) community create boundaries that exclude ‘other’ youth, as well as resistance and contestation. The subject positions that such discourses produce represent racialized youth in stereotypical ways and imply a promise of belonging for certain ‘others’ based on their fulfilment of particular norms. However, such a depoliticized promise of belonging that places the responsibility for becoming integrated on the ‘others’ was also challenged. Firstly, in relation to criticisms of the welfare system, and secondly, in relation to racism as an unwelcome threat in rural communities.


Introduction
Northern Sweden (Norrland) is typically depicted in national media and political discourses as a region of substantial youth out-migration, in addition to being portrayed as a landscape of both care and despair that is nurturing for the young people living there, but that also has little to offer them in terms of services and activities (Jonsson, et al., 2020). Within Sweden, Norrland is also represented in a stereotypical way as both the 'most Swedish', but also backwards and traditional, in contrast to the most populated and 'modern' south (Eriksson, 2008). Such a picture aligns with broader hegemonic discourses of 'the rural' as idyllic, yet dull, marginalized and ageing (Eriksson, 2008) while also contributing to the invisibilization of young people living in rural areas, hereafter referred to as rural youth. Dominant representations of rural places also typically depict these areas as homogeneous and White, in contrast to multicultural urban settings (Butler, 2020). Even though rural Northern Sweden is ethnically and 'racially' diverse (Hedberg & Haandrikman, 2014;Karlsdóttir et al., 2018), its representation as homogeneous and White may produce notions of who is construed as belonging in this setting, and who is positioned as a 'stranger other' (Ahmed, 2000).
Against this backdrop, this article turns its attention towards processes of othering based on racialization, by analysing discussion groups (DGs) with rural youth. Racialization is here understood as multiple processes whereby bodies come to be seen as 'having' a racial identity (Ahmed, 2002). By adopting a discursive approach, we aim to analyse how youth subject positions of the 'racialized other' are produced, and how these positions interconnect with the concept of belonging to the rural community. Subject positions are here conceptualised as diverse, fluid, transitory and contradictory positions that a subject may occupy, adopt and/or contest (Furlong, et al., 2011;Harré & Van Langenhove, 1999). We also discuss these subject positions in relation to the entitlements, constraints and contestations that such positions may bring.

Representations of Rural Youth
Against stereotypical representations of rural youth, authors like Farrugia (2014) have problematized the metrocentric nature of contemporary youth studies that focuses on urban youth sub-cultures, while ignoring the consequences of globalization for young people outside the metropolises. In a parallel line of inquiry, rural studies have brought nuances and contradictions into the analysis of discourses on rurality. Within this literature, rural places have not only been represented as constraining, controlling and dull, but also as idyllic and safe, bound by closeness and solidarity (Cuervo et al., 2014;Leyshon, 2008;Stenbacka, 2011;Woods, 2004). Rural areas have often been seen as ideal for children but less so for young people, albeit with the relationship between youth and place being dynamic, covering feelings of despair and abhorrence as well as ambivalence, longing and belonging (Leyshon, 2008).
Rural places have in addition been considered a signifier of national identity and tradition. Such representation tends to portray rural areas as more oldfashioned, conservative, racist and White, as opposed to a dynamic and multicultural urbanism (Askins, 2009;Butler, 2020;Farrugia, 2014;Stenbacka, 2011;Woods, 2004). However, considering the rapid processes of globalization, such 1 3 The Promise of Belonging: Racialized Youth Subject Positions… stereotypical representations not only neglect the diversity of rural areas (Woods, 2004), but also disregard the opportunities brought by (inter)national migration for rural places to thrive and be economically productive (Hedberg & Haandrikman, 2014). Adding to this, some studies have shed light on the experiences of migrant groups and their exposure to racism in rural areas (Chakraborti et al., 2004;Norman, 2004;Woods, 2004). In this article, our approach to rural youth and rural place is one that embraces the dynamics of rural areas, the multifaceted experiences and diversity among the young people living there, and that do not regard 'the rural' as in opposition with 'the urban'.

Swedish Migration Policy and Reception
Immigration and integration have been recurring issues in the Swedish media and political debates during the last decade. The data collection for this research was conducted in the aftermath of 2015, when increasing numbers of refugees sought protection in Sweden. In November 2015, the Swedish government argued for a need for a "breathing space" in refugee reception and enforced a restrictive migration policy that limited the opportunities for protection and stay for asylum seekers and their families (Dahlgren, 2016;Öberg et al., 2017). Swedish integration policy has since the 1990s changed from a paternalistic focus on dependency, rights and cultural relativism, towards duties, workfare, neoliberalism and cultural pathologization (Dahlstedt et al., 2019). Refugees and asylum seekers have been the most visible targets (ibid; Eliassi, 2017). In this context, people who migrate are subjected to a culture of disbelief and discourses of (un)deservingness, with their motives for migrating being categorised as either 'legitimate' or 'illegitimate' (Stretmo, 2014;Wernesjö, 2020). These discursive shifts have consequences for individuals' lives, for instance in the sense of being stereotyped and subjected to exclusion and racialization (Djampour, 2018;Herz, 2019;Sharif, 2017;Wernesjö, 2015Wernesjö, , 2020. A particular category that has received increased attention in the media, policy and research is those asylum-seeking children and youth who are categorised as 'unaccompanied minors'. Beyond a number of studies focusing on health policy, and service provision (e.g. Derluyn et al., 2007;Kohli, 2006;Wimelius, et al., 2017), a growing body of research takes a critical perspective by analysing concepts such as racialization, home, belonging, masculinities, safety and deservingness (Hedlund, 2015;Herz, 2019;Horning, et al., 2020;Stretmo, 2014;Wernesjö, 2015Wernesjö, , 2020. Among other issues, this research has demonstrated how 'unaccompanied minors' are positioned as either vulnerable victims/or potential threats, but also how the children and youth themselves use, negotiate and resist such subject positions (Herz, 2019;Kohli, 2006;Stretmo, 2014;Wernesjö, 2020). With few exceptions place, and specifically rurality, has not been taken into consideration within this body of research. A study by Wernesjö (2015), however, underlines how the young people's experiences of belonging in a northern rural place are challenged by social exclusion, but also how they construct some sense of belonging based on relations with friends and certain adults.

Conceptual Framework: Politics of Belonging and the Stranger
In this article, we analyse DGs with young people living in rural Norrland, building upon two interconnected theoretical concepts: the politics of belonging (Yuval-Davis, 2006, 2010 and Ahmed's conceptualization of the stranger (Ahmed, 2000). The politics of belonging deals with how communities are created and sustained through boundaries that include some and exclude others (Yuval-Davis, 2006, 2010. The categorizations produced by these boundarymaking processes are not merely signifiers of difference; they are also positioned within a hierarchical system. In this way, boundaries contribute to the creation of an imagined community of those who are considered to belong ('us'), while excluding the 'others' who do not (Yuval-Davis, 2006). Yuval-Davis (2006) focuses on racialization processes and how the state justifies legal and social boundaries that make belonging difficult to achieve for certain categories, based on 'race', origin, language and/or culture. These power relations and processes of difference are central components of racism and processes of racialization (Fredrickson, 2015;Yuval-Davis, 2006), with contemporary discourses increasingly focusing on 'cultural' differences (Pon, 2009). In this article, we focus on how subject positions of the 'other' are produced based on racialization and difference-making. In doing so, we build on Ahmed's (Ahmed, 2000) conceptualisation of the 'stranger' as someone who is neither unknown, nor remote, but 'in their very proximity already recognized as not belonging, as being out of place' (p. 21). Hence, the stranger is not absent, but in their very presence is positioned as 'a body out of place' (p. 55). The imaginary of rural places as smaller, where everyone knows each other, represents 'strangers' as more notorious and visible there. From this perspective, the 'other' is stereotyped and reified. Being positioned as the 'other' and/or a stranger has multiple consequences for subjects, such as being exoticized, excluded, and/or held responsible for failed integration. In addition, the 'other' may be positioned as a victim in need of help, or as a potential threat, with the risk of being stopped, detained or even killed (Ahmed, 2000;Hällgren, 2005;Horning et al., 2020).
In multicultural societies, the boundaries between being positioned as a stranger or as belonging are represented as permeable-at least to a certain extent. Ahmed (2000) claims that hierarchies between strangers are created in processes such as these. While some strangers are allowed membership as living proof of the nation's multiculturalism, others are represented as too far from the national identity. The latter, conceptualised as 'stranger strangers' by Ahmed (2000), are kept on the outside as living proof that the boundaries cannot be transgressed without the risk of threatening the imagined core values of the nation.

Analytical Approach: Discursive Psychology and Subject Positions
In this article, we adopt a discursive psychology approach (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002), focusing on how different subject positions of racialized youth were 1 3 The Promise of Belonging: Racialized Youth Subject Positions… produced. From a discursive approach, language is constructive, as it impacts upon the ways in which people reason and act. The interaction between participants is thus understood, not as communicating some inner pre-existing subjectivity, but rather as producing subject positions that they can claim, resist, be pushed into or displaced from (Malhi, et al., 2009;Pettersson et al., 2016). We opted for discursive psychology since it focuses on everyday discourses of 'ordinary' people (as our material can be considered), and because of the centrality that it gives to subject positions (which was especially relevant for our study).
From a discursive perspective, subject positions are not understood as identities that capture individual experiences, but as locations, produced by discourses, thus only partly representing experiences. Subject positions produce boundaries between those who occupy them (or are forced into them) and those who do not. However, this does not preclude the possibility that individuals can simultaneously occupy different subject positions or move between positions in different discourses. Subject positions then 'connect the wider notions of discourses […] to the social construction of particular selves' (Edley, 2001, p. 201). Through discourse, diverse subject positions are created, with speakers actively positioning themselves and others within different (and sometimes contradictory) positions (Malhi et al., 2009). It is easier for some individuals to adopt and/or be ascribed to certain positions, based on skin colour, language, names or claims they have made about themselves (Malhi et al., 2009;Rastas, 2005). Positions both open up and close down possibilities for those positioned within them (Harré & Van Langenhove, 1999). In terms of racialization processes and racism, we concur with Rastas (2005) in understanding 'racializing categories as articulations of the subject positions available for individuals and groups in the discursive practices produced and reproduced by racism' (p. 151).

Setting and Data
The data for this study was collected as part of a larger project on young people's health and care access in rural northern Sweden (Jonsson et al., 2020). The focus on rural municipalities was grounded on the fact that there is scarcity of research on rural youth especially approaching it as a diverse group. This gap exists despite the fact that municipalities in the Swedish rural north are home to the Sámi population and a number of migrants, especially asylum seekers, many accommodations centres and residential care homes for unaccompanied minors are located in sparsely populated areas or small towns with available housing. To compensate for the lack of research accounting for the heterogeneous experiences and diverse perspectives of rural youth, the project strived to include voices from young people with diverse ethnic backgrounds, in addition to age, sexuality, gender and (dis)ability. Specifically, the empirical material underlying the current research consists of 15 DGs with young people living in five different rural municipalities in northern Sweden. The five municipalities were chosen to represent different regions and also different situations in terms of population, distance from larger cities, etc. (See Table 1, and also Jonsson et al. (2020) for more information on the municipalities chosen.)

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The DGs involved a diverse group of participants in terms of gender, ethnic background, sexual identity/orientation and functionality. Sixty-three young people aged 15-27 years participated in the study (29 women, 33 men and one non-binary). The data collection was conducted in spaces such as schools, youth centres, youth councils and residential care homes for youth categorised as 'unaccompanied minors'. Furthermore, the DGs were moderated by three researchers (aged 32-63), who all identified as women, were White, and lived in urban areas in northern Sweden, following a semi-structured interview guide with open-ended questions intended to allow for undirected and spontaneous discussions in the group. The guide covered topics on young people's situation regarding 'life in the rural area', 'health situation', 'access to health care', 'strategies for care and support' and 'suggestions for improvements to strengthen rural youths' social/health situation'. See Table 1 for an overview of the DGs conducted.
The DGs were transcribed verbatim. After reading the transcripts several times to familiarize ourselves with the material, we proceeded to code parts of the DGs that referred to racialization and othering processes. We specifically looked for statements regarding 'others', how these 'others' were positioned and how they related to the rural community. In addition, we looked for issues that were overtly expressed or challenged, but also those that remained silenced. After a first inductive analysis, we incorporated the theoretical concepts of the politics of belonging and the 'stranger' to further analyse the material. The analysis was conducted in Swedish in order to keep closeness to the data. The writing of the findings was conducted directly in English but the excerpts from the DGs remained in Swedish, until the final draft of the findings. We then translated the excerpts into English, and modified them slightly in order to improve readability but without altering the meaning. This was done by three authors whose mother tongue is Swedish and are fluent in English (AG, FJ, UW); one of them was also directly involved in the data collection (FJ).
Ethical approval for this study was granted by the regional ethical board (Drn. 2017-217-31). All participants gave informed consent and were all older than 15, which is the legal age of consent in Sweden. In accordance with research ethics, we have protected the participants' identities by excluding their names and other information that could reveal their identities.

Methodological Discussion
Conducting research on the issue of othering and racialization brings challenges. We acknowledge that, by focusing on the subject positions of racialized others, we also risk contributing to stereotyping, by limiting their experiences to one particular aspect of their lives. However, we are not depicting individual experiences but positions that only partly represent their experiences. That said, it is important to acknowledge that such positions are also brought into being by us as researchers. The ways in which 'others' were produced and labelled in the DG have to be understood within the frame of the larger research project, which focused on investigating possible inequalities in access to services for certain groups of young people, based on aspects such as sexuality, functional diversity, and ethnicity/racialization 1 3 The Promise of Belonging: Racialized Youth Subject Positions… Compulsory school years 7-9 (Jonsson et al., 2020). By focusing on identifying grounds of discrimination and rights violations, we were at the same time, paradoxically, contributing to reinforcing boundaries and discourses on the vulnerability of certain groups.
The aim of the current article was developed following an emergent design, meaning that the aim of this specific study was not the aim in focus when the data was collected. While this is a limitation, the fact that the aim was developed based on results emerging from the data speaks to its relevance. The fact that diverse young people (with regards to ethnicity and 'racialization') participated in the DG can also be considered a limitation of this study: we are not focusing here on the perspectives of one particular group (i.e. unaccompanied youth or Swedish born youth with Swedish parents). Despite acknowledging this potential limitation, we decided to include diversity for two reasons: (1) the difficulty with, and problems of, classifying participants in relation to ethnicity and racialization, (2) the fact that our focus was not on experiences or perceptions but on eliciting the discourses that are collectively used (by a diverse group of young people who live in rural areas) to make sense of a phenomenon.

Labelling the 'Other'
In the discussions, the participants talked about discrimination, racism, differences and inequalities between 'Swedish youth' and 'others'. These 'others' were, however, not a stable or homogeneous category, but rather shifted depending on the topic discussed. The labels used to differentiate between 'us' and 'others' also varied between the different DGs and between different participants, because some of the participants positioned themselves as racialized 'others', with reference to their migration background. Among the labels most used were 'immigrants', 'refugees' and 'unaccompanied' (minors). Additionally, in some occasions, the 'others' were labelled as those 'who are not Swedish', 'who come from Africa or somewhere' or as 'those who don't speak Swedish'. The 'other' was positioned as a stranger withrelatively recent-experience of (forced) migration. The heterogeneity of these 'others' was mentioned as a way of distinguishing between strangers and stranger strangers (Ahmed, 2000) as we will analyse further below, but also in terms of resisting generalizations and the stereotyping of experiences.
Labelling as a process contributes to 'othering' in terms of generalizations, and stereotypical views of those subjected to it. As the following sections will show, labels are used to produce a difference between the imagined categories of 'us' and 'them'. For instance, labels such as 'not speaking Swedish' produce a position of being 'in deficit' (Fejes & Dahlstedt, 2017;Laanemets et al., 2013). Thus, seemingly neutral labels also produce otherness and racialized subject positions.

The Behaving or Misbehaving 'Other'
In this section, we discuss how the 'other' is positioned in relation to social and tacit rules of what is constructed as appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. The

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The Promise of Belonging: Racialized Youth Subject Positions… following extract from DG 14 with girls in 9 th grade (15-16 years old) introduces the first dyad of subject positions-'the behaving or misbehaving other'. In the rural municipality where the girls live, there were separate classes for newly arrived refugee youth who did not speak Swedish sufficiently, and they were also playing sports separately from the other pupils. In the following exchange, the moderator asked about this form of segregation and a discussion that centred on the behaviour of the 'other' unfolded: Moderator This exchange illustrates how newly arrived migrant pupils are positioned not only as 'others' but as misbehaving 'others' who do not abide by tacit norms of how to behave. In addition to the construction of difference, the focus is also on deficits, as when Respondent 3 stated that 'they can't behave'. The young people in this discussion acknowledge the possibility of including these 'others'. However, this inclusion is conditional by demands that the 'others' adapt to 'Swedish rules, laws, and everything'. This exchange sheds light on important tacit rules and normative notions of 'Swedish-ness'. Although there seems to be a consensus in the DG on this issue, it is not evident what these norms and rules entail. 'Normal' is connected with a privileged position of 'Swedish-ness' and as belonging, and the prescriptive nature of 'normal' is not problematized, but rather constructed as something for everyone to aspire to. In the same way, Ahmed describes multicultural societies as embracing certain strangers, while positioning other-stranger strangers-beyond the boundaries of belonging (Ahmed, 2000). Othering is one of the ways in which racialized youth are excluded from belonging. However, passing-or rather being positioned as-normal or "kind of normal" is a way in which belonging is made possible, or where the demarcations of belonging are redrawn. However, the statement "kind of normal" is important here as it also marks a difference at the same time.
Adding to the above notions, the young people's exchange needs to be situated within the contemporary public discourse on integration, and its focus on personal responsibility and cultural pathologization (Eliassi, 2017). Because what the exchange also conveys is how belonging-or the promise thereof-appears to be contingent upon individual efforts of adapting their behaviour to tacit norms and rules. Individual misbehaviour, rather than structural discrimination and racism, was also represented by the young people as reasons for why 'Swedish' youth avoided and excluded those whom they categorised as 'others'. This was discussed later in the same DG 14: Respondent 2: So often, people avoid being close to them [unaccompanied minors].
[laugh]. Respondent 2: That's true. Respondent 1: Yes [laughter] … Yes, but then they're … it sounds really awful. Respondent 2: It sounds like we're very racist, but it's not like that. Respondent 1: No, it's more like… we've chosen our friends. Respondent 3: And I'm like … if a Swede behaved as badly as an immigrant, then I wouldn't like the Swede either (DG 14) The participants talk explicitly about avoiding social contact with 'unaccompanied minors', by making reference to (their) misbehaviour. At the same time, Respondent 1 acknowledges that such statements may 'sound really awful' and immediately positions herself and the other participants against being labelled as racist. Respondent 3 does this by turning the attention away from 'race' or nationality towards behaviour, saying that 'if a Swede behaved as badly as an immigrant, then I wouldn't like the Swede either'. In doing so, she constructs 'Swedes' who misbehave as deviant exceptions, while simultaneously constructing 'immigrants' as inherently misbehaving. This distinction between the behaving and misbehaving 'others' can be interpreted as a sign of the increasing legitimacy of anti-immigration discourses and cultural racism, which are common in a Swedish context (Eliassi, 2017). A central aspect of cultural racism involves language and the (im)possibility of communication as a justification for failure to integrate. We elaborate on this in the next dyad of subject positions.

The 'Other' as Capable or Incapable of Speaking Swedish
Proficiency in the Swedish language has been constructed as key for inclusion, for accessing services, social networks and future opportunities (Fejes & Dahlstedt, 2017). The ability to speak Swedish delimits the next two subject positions that are available for 'other' youth, as the following conversation in DG 5 between the moderator and three boys in ninth grade (15-16 years old) exemplifies: Moderator: But those who don't speak Swedish so well, do they go to your class or? Respondent 1: Those who have trouble with Swedish, they usually go to class C. Moderator: Yes, ok… Respondent 3: And then, it becomes like their own... their own group by themselves. Respondent 2: Yes. Respondent 3: But like, when you see them in the corridors, you say hi and, like, are nice to them as well.

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The Promise of Belonging: Racialized Youth Subject Positions… Moderator: Yes, mmm… Respondent 1: And we play basketball together and stuff.
[general agreement]. Moderator: Yes, ok. Respondent 2: Mm, but now, those who are in our class, they can speak Swedish. Respondent 1: Yes, they speak Swedish so it's pretty easy to hang out with them. (DG 5) In this exchange, not being proficient in Swedish was represented as the main reason for segregation between different groups of students in the school: as exemplified by Respondent 1, who said: 'those who have trouble with Swedish, they usually go to class C'. Against the backdrop of language proficiency as a process, students in the segregated introductory classes for migrants will be moved to 'ordinary' classes with 'Swedish' youth when they have attained a certain level of proficiency in Swedish. Language proficiency thus brings with it a promise of moving from one subject position to another. Mastering the Swedish language is constructed as a sign of fulfilling expectations of how to behave properly and brings with it the promise of belonging by becoming proficient. The question is, however, to what extent rural places were represented as facilitating the fulfilment of such a promise. In the following statement from Respondent 2 in DG 12, a boy living in a home for unaccompanied minors, rural places were portrayed as creating obstacles for migrants to learn Swedish and enter the labour market: A general trend towards centralization and neoliberal policies in the Swedish welfare state during the last few decades has contributed to the downscaling and/or closing down of services in rural areas (Enlund, 2020;Gotfredsen et al., 2020;Jonsson et al., 2020). For migrants living in such areas, this has consequences for the pathway to inclusion. These obstacles and structural constraints are represented in Respondent 2's statement, such as the lack of teachers, but he also focuses on individual responsibility by first saying that 'we have to learn', and later 'I have to learn' [emphasis added]. In the same DG, the lack of Swedish language teachers was represented as a problem, and a reason for why some of their peers had stopped going to class. Despite these narratives of constraints in the educational system, they also used and reproduced neoliberal discourses of individual responsibility for becoming successful and employable, and mastering one's own destiny. This aligns with the shift in Swedish integration policies, which now focus more on duties than rights (Dahlstedt et al., 2019;Schierup, et al. 2011). In other words, proficiency in Swedish is represented not only as a key or an (ideal) norm, but also as something that can be achieved by taking individual responsibility. Similarly, not being good enough is constructed as an individual and personal failure, and as a sign of self-segregation and lack of deservingness. Deservingness is also at the core of the following two subject positions, constructed in relation to the Swedish welfare system.

The 'Other' Who Abuses or Who Is Abused by the System
The positions of the 'other' who 'abuses the system' versus the one who is 'abandoned or mistreated by the system' come to shape discourses on migration and deservingness, particularly in terms of disbelief towards asylum seekers (Finch, 2005). In the DGs, the subject position of abusing the system was manifested in representations of asylum-seeking youth, in particular those categorised as 'unaccompanied minors', trying to pass as minors when 'they', in the words of one participant, 'are like 40'. However, 'migrant' youth resisted such positionings in two different, although interconnected, ways. Firstly, by positioning themselves as hard-working and study-oriented subjects, who refrain from claiming social benefits, and as a future resource on the labour market, especially in 'ageing' rural places (Wernesjö, 2020). Secondly, by shifting the focus away from the 'culture of disbelief' towards the vulnerable position of asylum seekers, as well as away from cultural or individual deficits, towards discrimination and racism. In this counter-discourse, the focus is on the uncertainty and arbitrariness of key decisions, such as the granting of residence permits, that profoundly affect their lives and on positioning the 'other' as abandoned or abused by the system. This counter-discourse is illustrated in the following exchange from DG 1: Respondent 3: This girl, I was like her before, there are no differences between us. But now I can stay in Sweden. I'm here. I haven't changed anything since I got my residence permit. Yes, I'm the same person. Why do you [the authorities] act like that? Respondent 1: Sometimes it feels like they throw dice about who can stay and who can't. That's how the authorities run people over, just because they can. (DG 1) In this exchange, Respondent 3 and Respondent 1 reflect on the arbitrariness of residence-permit decisions, and the uncertainty of who will be allowed to stay. The last sentence also illustrates how the unequal power relation between asylum seekers and the Migration Agency is constructed: '[the Migration Agency] run people over, just because they can'. Albeit the differences between these positionings of 'migrant' youth as either active, hard-working and responsible or as vulnerable victims, they both intimately connected to deservingness. Positionings of the 'other' as deserving could in this regard be interpreted as a way of claiming a place of belonging to the community, by virtue of such traits.

The Threatening or Threatened 'Other'
The subject positions in this final section are constructed based on emotions, fear, and perceived threats. For example, in the DG with young people living in a 1 3 The Promise of Belonging: Racialized Youth Subject Positions… residential care home for unaccompanied minors, some of the participants talked about not being invited to activities, not being greeted by people they have met before, or of people avoiding sitting next to them at bus stops and on buses. Through these mundane practices, they were excluded from a place of belonging and positioned as potential threats. Several studies describe these processes (Hedlund, 2015;Herz, 2019;Stretmo, 2014;Wernesjö, 2020), and Ahmed discusses how the recognition of someone as a stranger occurs when 'they' get too close to the familiar 'us', which contributes to emotions of fear and the development of physical boundaries (Ahmed, 2000).
In the following exchange from DG 14 with girls in ninth grade (15-16 years old), the participants talk about a recent case of rape in the municipality they live, which provides an explicit example of how the position of the threatening 'other' is produced: Respondent 1: Last week, there was a woman who was raped and then it was one of the immigrants [who did it]. And the rest of the immigrants in his circle of friends were there when it happened, so you don't think they're such lovely people. (DG 14) This quote illustrates how the subject position of the threatening 'other' also contributes to the homogenization and stereotyping of certain groups, based on ethnicity/ 'race', age, gender, and circles of friends. Generalizations such as these were repeatedly manifested in the same conversation, such as when Respondent 2 later complained that there were some 'immigrant youth' doing 'bad things', with Respondent 3 replying 'yeah, that's kind of everyone'. Even though gender is not made explicit, the DG revolves around boys/young men with experiences of migration, thus revealing how this subject position is a highly racialised and gendered figure (Ahmed, 2000;Alexander, 2000). Racialised young men are often represented as potential threats to public order and the welfare state in the media and political debate, as well as representing a 'problematic masculinity' that conflicts with representations of Sweden as a gender-equal society (Bryan, et al., 2011;Herz, 2019). In contrast, the DGs rarely-if ever-talked about girls with migration experiences.
In contrast, the position of the 'other' as the one subjected to threat was highlighted in the DGs as vulnerabilities and youth at risk. This position challenges not only portrayals of 'young immigrants' as threatening, but also the discourse of rural places as calm and safe (Woods, 2004). In the following statement from one participant in DG 6 who had recently received a residence permit to stay in Sweden, the Swedish migration policy and process is represented as producing fear of deportation and as threatening asylum seekers' sense of safety: Respondent 1: I have a residence permit, but before I didn't. I know how it feels.
[…] You can't sleep very well. You're worried all the time. You can't focus or study so well. You can't survive [laughter] ... you try to live, but you can't. You think all the time, what will I do now? [laughter] Yes. Especially when I was at school. I was gone the whole class. I sat at school, in the lesson, and then the teacher who talked, talked, talked about everything, like history or something.
And I was gone. I didn't listen. I couldn't listen. It was very hard. Especially for those guys who maybe have their application for a residence permit denied three times, or four. It's like you just want to go and kill yourself. (DG 1) Such representations of fear and unsafety are usually not taken into consideration in proposals to enhance safety for young people. In addition to promoting youth engagement in 'proper' leisure activities (Gotfredsen et al., 2020), safety tends to focus on streetlights, the removal of vegetation around streets and parks and the prevention of bullying in school and on social media (Jonsson et al., 2021). Hence, the ways in which safety is constructed particularly concerning those considered to belong, at the same time excluding others who are subjected to different threats. The paradoxical question then is whether it is possible for subjects to be positioned both as subjected to threats, and consequently in need of protection, and as threats in themselves. Horning et al. (2020) have already framed this aporia in what they call 'double-edged risk'-being at risk, despite being viewed as risky. The coexistence of these two contradictory positions could also be reminiscent of integration discourses based on vulnerability, paternalism and rights, alongside the currently predominant discourses on independence, duties and cultural pathologization (Eliassi, 2017;Hübinette et al., 2014).
Racism was also portrayed as a threat to which 'racialized' young people were subjected. In DG 9 with members of a municipal youth council (a consultative body of local level government represented by young people), some participants discussed the existence of racism in their community and the threat posed by rightwing extremism and neo-Nazi movements such as the Swedish Resistance Movement (SMR): Respondent 2: But then maybe everyday racism is just as big [a problem]. And we've had some sort of organized hate crime against a family here.
[…] Respondent 1: Yes, are they the ones who've been harassed? Respondent 2: Yes, it's [name] and his family who've been terribly ill-treated. Respondent 1: But in any case, there's no real racist organization in town like there is in other cities. Respondent 2: Like the Swedish Resistance Movement. (DG 9) In this exchange, racism is both represented as 'everyday racism' (Essed, 1990) and as overt/extreme forms, which are primarily located/connected to extremist and neo-Nazi groups and to other places (Mc Cluskey, 2019). Such categorization of racism results in the representation of their hometowns as places without racism. Such statement may be interpreted as challenging metrocentric discourses that portray rural places as 'more racist' (Mc Cluskey, 2019), and as a way of distancing themselves and the place they live from other rural places where neo-Nazi organization are more active and present.
When it comes to the difference between everyday and overt/extreme racism, Mulinari and Neergaard (2014) have argued that the latter can be understood as the racism of the 'losers', i.e. people in precarious working-class positions. The former 1 3 The Promise of Belonging: Racialized Youth Subject Positions… is instead a characteristic of the middle class who may openly condemn overt/ extreme racism but still benefit from White privilege in racialized structures. Class, which is not the focus of analysis in this study, could explain the distinctions made in the DG 6, involvement in spaces as youth councils has been described as characteristic of middle-class youth (e.g. Areschoug et al., 2020;Svensson, 2006), which could help explain why they take up anti-racist subject positions and disassociate from overt (and everyday) racism.
Along similar lines, in DG 3 with young girls in high school (16-18 years old), racism and its consequences were downplayed by representing racism as pure ignorance, and as an artefact of the past.
Moderator: But do you feel that you've had a good enough upbringing here that you think that sometime in the future you might move back, or is it like, never again? Respondent 1: I don't know, it's like, this place is stuck in old times. And it's like… not so well developed when it comes to racism for example and… Respondent 2: I think that older people, many of them, like adults and young people, but mostly adults, they haven't received the same education as we have. Respondent 1: It's like, the last two years, I feel that we've started to read about racism and gender equality and so on. Respondent 2: Exactly, it feels like we, our generation who are more on social media, we've got a broader view on things. So, the slightly older generation, say maybe from 23 years maybe […], that they're a little more stuck in that. (DG 3) In this DG, participants distanced themselves from racism, by representing it as backward and unfashionable, and connecting it to older age groups and people with limited education. In doing so, the participants simultaneously position themselves as young, educated, progressive and-as such-not racist. In contrast to their representations of adults in rural places, they also position themselves as more positive towards multiculturalism and societal change. This quote aligns with previous research that has pointed out how a disassociation from the rural tends to be more common among middle-class young women who have the opportunities, and are often encouraged to, leave rural places (e.g. Kåks, 2007).

Concluding Discussion
This study shows how discourses on belonging to the (rural) community create boundaries that leave out 'other' youth, imagined paths to transgress such boundaries, and also resistance to and contestations of the boundaries themselves. While the data was collected in a particular northern Swedish context, there are areas in other EU countries where rural municipalities are affected by similar processes of dismantling the welfare state and a mixture of out and immigration patterns. In addition, the shifts in political and media discourses related to immigration and integration that we describe as happening in Sweden have parallels in other EU countries, 1 3 which makes our findings relevant beyond rural northern Sweden. It is our wish that the cases analyzed here could illustrate how young people are racialized and made invisible in other contexts around the world.
The subject positions depicted in this study represent racialized youth in stereotypical ways, while also implying a promise of belonging that is extended to certain 'others', based on the fulfilment of particular norms. Such a promise represents boundaries as permeable to specific others while placing the responsibility on the individual 'other' to 'integrate' (Yuval-Davis, 2006, 2010-here constructed as being a matter of learning proper Swedish and behaving in ways that cannot be interpreted as abusive or threatening, in order to be accepted and to belong. 'Others' is thus one of the ways in which racialized youth are excluded from belonging In Ahmed's words, 'others' are guests who need to be on their best behaviour to be accepted (Ahmed, 2000). Such a promise of belonging does not demolish boundaries, but instead generates hierarchies of strangers (Ahmed, 2000)-those with the potential to be accepted, and those who by virtue of being represented as misbehaving, abusing the system or posing a threat, have to be left out in order to preserve the imagined values of the community. It represents the 'others' as deficient, and the host community as benevolent, at the same time as this benevolence is highly conditional.
There are reminders here of neoliberal discourses on personal responsibility, with those living in rural areas being responsible for shaping their own lives and future (Enlund, 2020); such a promise represents an effort to remove race from the foundation of boundaries, providing justifications for segregation based on individuals' poor choices, bad behaviour or not trying hard enough, instead of structural factors such as racism and discrimination. The issue of Swedish language proficiency as key to inclusion emerges here as a perfect example of this individualized responsibility and promise of belonging. One may wonder whether mastering the language is enough to ensure that one's voice will be listened to and considered. Our findings, in fact, highlight that speaking from certain positions makes it harder for one's voice to be heard.
While rurality was at the core of our analysis, belonging (and othering) for racialized youth was constructed more in relation to the national identity of being Sweden (or more specifically being a Norrlander), than to an abstract rural identity. This can reflect that the boundaries between rural and urban are more permeable and less central than racial boundaries constructed around the national identity. It can also reflect that the identity of Norrland (eminently rural) is somehow equated to the national identity (in line with discourses on rural places as better keeping the essence of national identities (Butler, 2020;Stenbacka, 2011). Thus, when participants discuss belonging it is hard to disentangle national identity from the Norrland identity (that is in essence rural).
The depoliticized and optimistic promise of belonging was resisted and challenged in the different subject positions. Firstly, in relation to criticisms of the welfare system for not considering the needs and safety demands of racialized youth, with the added challenge posed by the dismantling of welfare services in rural areas-represented for example on the difficulties to provide enough teachers to allow young people to learn Swedish. Secondly, in relation to racism as a threat to the well-being of racialized youth. Our findings challenge the representation of rural areas as safer, more welcoming and supportive, highlighting how processes of racialization exclude 'other' young people from belonging to the community. At the same time, our findings also nuance the representation of rural places as more backward and racist than the cities, in the sense that racism was also portrayed as a threat and as something that is not welcome (at least by some young people and at a discursive level) in rural communities.