Scener ur ett kvinnorum

Abstract

This essay is about refuge women from Afghanistan and the ways they learn to understand not only the Swedish language, but also cultural codes and interpretations of emotions. How do the women respond emotionally to the things around them? How can people from other cultures create emotional bonds between their new lives and the past? How do they learn to feel and make experiences in the new language?

Drawing on experiences as a teacher of this specific group of women my conclusion is that the process of understanding and becoming at ease in a new language and culture is much more complex than just mastering the language, because the feeling of homeliness in a specific language is based on how well one have made the world it expresses intelligible. Learning how to behave, feel and express feelings verbally as well as non-verbally in the new cultural settings makes social relations with people from the new environment most important.