En narrativ analys av läsarbrev på sajten AVpixlat. Syftet är att identifiera en konkurrerande logik för att avge sin röst på Sverigedemokraterna i detta parallella offentliga rum.

The Sweden Democrats (SD) is portrayed in a negative light in the mainstream public debate. Simultaneously, voter support for the party has grown significantly. In the 2014 national elections they achieved 12, 9 per cent of the national votes in Sweden. Although, they have not changed the policy in their desired direction, they were close to cause a re-election. This ostensible contradiction is the starting point for our study. We aim to understand how an SD vote can appear as logical choice for many voters. We use narrative analysis to examine one possible site for alternative narratives; i.e., the article series ’From the seven-parties-clover to the SD’ at the website Avpixlat. Our material consists of 33 personal letters by individuals who have reflected on and motivated their decision to leave the established parties and vote for the SD instead. Our analysis shows that the party political preferences of the narrators are interwoven with their life stories. A deliberate choice to vote for a party outside the political mainstream signifies the politicisation of self-identity construction and world-making processes. The narrators do not reject mainstream norms generally, but instead demonstrate their belonging to ordinary society. In the narratives, sympathizing with the SD is associated with feelings of shame and a fear of being ostracized by friends and colleagues if one´s views became known. Feelings of shame constitute a powerful mobilisation tool for the SD to gain a foothold in the public debate, of representing an alternative voice in a multiple public sphere of combining elements of both Culture and Welfare.