Social anthropological study of immigration/immigrants through the eyes of local immigrant artists -exploring empowerment of immigrants and their identity construction through music in highly developed and multicultural society of Oslo, Norway

Abstract

With the ever-increasing inflow of immigrants, issues surrounding immigration and immigrants in Oslo/Norway continue to be a hot topic in Norwegian news media and public debate today. In the academia, immigration-related topics have been likewise an interest of many social science researchers. As an attempt to address familiar topics in the field of immigration studies from a fresh and different perspective, this paper is a social anthropological study which focuses on immigrant musicians in the multicultural Oslo as a target group. The main objectives of the paper are to look into 'empowerment' of immigrants and identity construction of immigrants in a highly developed multicultural society as well as to examine a number of immigration-related topics and concepts in the course of addressing the first two themes. Issues and concept of 'empowerment' of immigrants are explored primarily through music and in the context of their experience as an immigrant artist and their daily lives in Oslo. The identity construction of immigrants is similarly analyzed based on their perspectives as they shared thoughts in relation to a unique artistic environment of the multicultural Oslo, their basic ethnicity/nationality-based identity and the general population of their host society. A number of relevant topics and concepts in the field of immigration studies are addressed and analyzed according to voices of local immigrant artists as well as relevant literature in the subject area. Despite being considered as a highly developed multicultural society, Oslo may have potential for further development as evident in its art/music scene characterized by the infusion cultural diversity and hybridization.