"Tiggarnas" olika subjektspositioner : En diskursanalys av hur "tiggare" porträtteras i media

The purpose of this study was to examine how “Eastern European beggars” are discursively presented in Swedish newspapers. Due to the fact that these people are considered as strangers in Swedish society, and on the assumption that our image of “them” also implicitly constructs “us”, the aim has also been to examine the relation between “us” and “them”. The empirics consist of 9 editorial pages and 9 debate articles from the two largest morning newspapers Dagens nyheter and Svenska dagbladet. The articles were published between 2014-01-01 and 2016-04-16. Discourse theory was used as a theoretical and methodological base to analyze the articles. Theories of Power and Normativity and Orientalism were also used to deepen the analysis. The findings consist of 9 discursively presented subject positions that are about the beggars throughout the articles. These positions exist in a conflicted discourse about the “beggars”, whereby a struggle between different identification possibilities is made visible. The major conclusion is that the collective identity of the “Swedish people” is fundamental, and therefore it becomes difficult or even impossible to talk about the “beggars”, and at the same time avoid the exclusion of them from the Swedish community