Professional status as a shield: racialized class mobility and the negotiation of belonging in Sweden

In the Swedish national context, class mobility and work are commonly framed as pathways to inclusion and belonging. Drawing on in-depth interviews, this article examines this promise by exploring how class-mobile racialized second-generation migrants in Sweden negotiate belonging in and through work, both within workplaces and in relation to the imagined national community. By integrating boundary scholarship with research on belonging and racism, the article advances a processual understanding of racialized class mobility. The findings show that professional inclusion at work is shaped by racialized demands of Swedishness that structure everyday interactions, evaluations of competence, and access to informal relations. At the level of the imagined national community, professional status becomes a resource that must be continuously mobilized to assert legitimacy rather than a stable basis for belonging. The analysis thus shows that while professional status enables workplace inclusion, belonging through work remains conditional at the national level.