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occupy specific social positions in the new country and develop heterogeneous
communities, identities and attitudes to both the host country and to their country
of origin. In anthropology and cultural theory, for example, there is a growing liter-
ature about different kinds of communities, subjectivities and identities, which the
current global migration creates. This literature examines the histories, experiences,
discourses and communities of exiles, immigrants and guest workers in the diaspora. 7
However, there is not only migration between countries, but also internal migration,
between parishes and cities within a nation state. 8
The relationship of migrants to their places of birth is complex. For diasporic
communities, newspapers and magazines published in the old countries can play an
important role in maintaining a connection to ‘home’. Correspondingly, provincial
newspapers are important for internal migrants. Some of the media products that are
sold in the shopping centre are foreign and provincial newspapers and magazines.
They are purchased by both external and internal migrants and they are also available
at the library as a service for city residents. Here we focus on migrants’ use of news-
papers and periodicals; a use that links two places: the library’s reading room and the
visitors’ birthplace. 9
Celal, one library visitor, sees his country of birth as the place where he was formed
as a person: ‘I did not come to earth from the sky, but grew up in a specific place, in
an environment, in a district … that’s why localization is important for me … but if
one cannot strike a balance between localization and globalization it is easy to
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become a nationalist or localist racist.’ Celal and Pablo, who are both refugees, asso-
ciate the distance that separates them from ‘home’ with a lack of control of, or influ-
ence over, the events there. The fact that Celal cannot return (for fear of
imprisonment) makes him see that country as ‘a utopian country, far away … waiting
over there’.
For Pochi and Carlota, who both came to Sweden only a few months before the
interviews to live with their boyfriends, the ‘home country’ is the place where they
have their roots, a constant reminder that it is important to continue talking about.
The prospect of returning is not the all-pervading vision for all those we inter-
viewed. Pablo has decided to stay and regards Sweden as his new home, where he has
been given opportunities that he did not have in his native country. Carlota and her
Swedish boyfriend have not yet decided what to do, while Ingemar regards the very
north of Sweden as ‘home’, even after forty years in Stockholm. Although he is about
to retire, he does not want to return to live there because that region is ‘dying’.
The reasons why the newspapers and magazines from ‘home’ are important vary,
but many answers recur in the interviews. Most often people say, ‘I want to know
what is going on there.’ The will to know is expressed both by those like Pochi and
Celal who express a strong sense of longing, and by those like Pedro who emphasize
that they do not feel any nostalgia. To be well informed about what is going on in
Colombia helps Pedro to imagine how his family is. Another reason mentioned is a
wish to maintain contact with one’s native culture and language. Celal thinks that
newspapers from Turkey express a view of the world that is different from the one in