1.
Aslan, Pinar, 1986-
(författare)
How Do They Make It? : perspectives on labour market participation among descendants of immigrants in Sweden
2019
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This is a compilation dissertation based on a comprehensive summary and four empirical articles. The overarching aim of the dissertation is to study influences on the occupational aspirations and attainments of employed descendants of non-European, non-Western immigrants in Sweden, from their own perspectives. The results are based on qualitative interviews with 9 men and 12 women, all born in Sweden with two immigrant parents. At the time of the interviews, the respondents were aged 25–35 years and had been employed for a minimum of six months, most of them for at least three years.Article I analyses and discusses family influences on the occupational aspirations of the descendants of immigrants. It employs a theoretical framework of cultural capital to demonstrate that descendants’ interpretations of their parents’ experiences and living conditions before, during, and after migration shape and positively influence their own occupational aspirations. The article also shows that siblings may function as important transferrers of knowledge and information.Article II examines how the descendants of immigrants perceive that interactions with public officials have benefitted their occupational aspirations and attainments. Using the concept of social capital as an analytical tool, the article draws three conclusions. First, public officials who establish a sense of connectedness in interacting with descendants of immigrants may transmit substantial symbolic resources to them. Second, it is important for public officials to support their clients’ personally meaningful goals and to focus on possibilities for achieving those goals. The article also shows that public officials may help descendants of immigrants to form and fulfil occupational aspirations by transmitting important knowledge and information to them.Article III explores how descendants of immigrants understand labour market conditions, and how these conditions influence their occupational pathways and strategies. The article employs the concept of habitus to analyse approaches and strategies on the labour market in relation to objective conditions. Three themes are presented in the article. The first theme, being in the “right” field, covers respondents working in branches with labour shortages and/or a high demand for employees with an immigrant background. These respondents used their personal backgrounds as “selling points”, turning the general disadvantage of having an immigrant background into an advantage. The second theme covers respondents who could learn through failing in entering and participating on the labour market, indicating a trial-and-error approach. The third theme deals with respondents who had actively searched for jobs in branches which value their particular skill set. The article highlights the important relationship between active individual agency and external, objective opportunities and constraints.Article IV explores perceptions of labour market participation in relation to gender norms and parenting ideals among men and women of migrant descent. Starting from the literature on work, family, and gender in a context of migration, and in relation to the Swedish social and political context, four themes are presented in the results. The male and female respondents viewed labour market participation from different, gendered, perspectives. The women saw labour market participation as a source of emancipation, whereas the men perceived it as a means for providing for a current/future family. Thus, while they depicted themselves as dedicated to norms of gender equality, they also expressed gender- biased views on work and family arrangements. These gender-biased views largely reflect those of Swedish people in general, as demonstrated in earlier studies. Nonetheless, the results reveal that the immigrant heritage of the descendants of immigrants influences their views on labour market participation, perceptions of gender norms, and parenting ideals. The article shows how these descendants interpret and actively challenge gender inequalities in the immigrant generation in ways that support intergenerational changes in work-family arrangements.
2.
Wikström, Eva, 1966-
(författare)
"Hela världen på vår tröskel" : lokala reaktioner på en utlokaliserad flyktingförläggning
2008
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis describes, conceptualizes and analyzes local reactions to the establishment of a refugee center in a small, remote mining community in Malmliden, rural Sweden, in the early 1990s. The purpose of the study was to explore and describe the local and wider contexts in which the reactions took place and to understand reactions in relation to these contexts. The study combined qualitative interviews, participant observation and the analysis of texts from different sources: daily press, historical and policy documents. Twenty-seven persons were included in the interview study (nineteen respondents and eight key infor-mants). Interviews with the nineteen respondents (nine men and ten women) were based on a semi-structured interview manual and were carried out during the winter of 1993 and the spring of 1994. Theo-retical frames and concepts were chosen in an elaborative way that was suitable for the empirical findings that gradually developed. In short, theoretical considerations that focus on social and political processes of inclusion and exclusion, ethnic relations and categorizations and the interplay between the social and the individual frame the analysis. The analysis is more closely informed by perspectives on how the atti-tudes toward the asylum seeker (as an immigrant but also as a welfare-state client), as a representation of “the other”, are socially produced.This study revealed that the inhabitants had dual reactions to the localized refugee center in Malm-liden. The reactions could neither be characterised as positive nor negative. They were summarized as ambivalent and were expressed spatially and socially. The spatial aspects include a number of inhabitants’ positive experiences of the refugee center as something that brought vitality to the slumbering neighbor-hood, while others thought of the refugee center as something disturbing and displaced. The social aspects involved a number of inhabitant’s embrace of the refugee center and the asylum seekers, whereas others distance themselves from the center and the refugees. While some inhabitants were enriched by the con-tact with asylum seekers, others dissociated themselves from the refugees and other inhabitants who were involved with the refugee centre. Some of the reactions were expressed as resistance. These reactions were mostly expressed latently, toward the authorities or local Policy makers and not directly toward the refugees or the refugee center The inhabitants blamed the establishment of the refugee center and those employed there for the poor state of things because they represented symbols of change and uncertainty. Therefore, initially the resistance could not be understood as rooted in emotional antipathy toward refu-gees as a (ethnic) group or as individuals, but rather as resistance against a perceived intrusion into the neighborhood autonomy. However, the strategies of the inhabitants were avoidance of contact with the refugee center and the stigmatization of the refugees. Therefore, the actions of resistance resulted in a racialization of place and ethnic segregation. The dual reactions of the inhabitants were contextual, and in which local as well as national circumstances played a considerable role in shaping the inhabitants’ experiences. At both national and local levels, the attitudes and practices directed toward asylum seekers and refugees were ambivalent. The reasons for the local acceptance of asylum seekers were ambivalent, and in which both actions of solidarity and economic considerations came into play. An external circum-stance influenced expectations and reactions to the refugee center was an ambivalent refugee policy which aimed to integrate the asylum seeker with a normalized habitat but with an institutional framing, which clearly made the asylum seeker into a client. Another external factor was the welfare state position of the asylum seeker, as he or she was positioned in an ambivalent juridical, social and political position. The overall conclusion is that the positions of the asylum seekers in the neighborhood of Malmliden were further stressed as welfare state clients and not as ordinary neighbors. A concluding image is that the contextual ambivalent positioning of the asylum seekers was reflected in the way the inhabitants regarded the asylum seekers as others in the neighborhood community.
