Upward Mobility, Despite a Stigmatised Identity: Immigrants of Iranian Origin in Sweden

This study is about a relatively recent immigrant group — those with an Iranian background — and their pathways to advanced positions in the three fields of economics, politics and academia in Swedish society, despite the general processes of stigmatisation and subordination aimed at migrants from the global South. As the results of this study show, compared with other immigrant groups from the global South, individuals with an Iranian background, to a greater extent, were able to attain high-ranking positions in the fields of power investigated. These outcomes, as the results show, emerge from the resources that this group brought with them — their cultural and social capital — in interaction with external factors in their new country of residence (Sweden) over a specific time period.