NMR & ETMU Conference Programme-Compressed

20TH NORDIC MIGRATION RESEARCH
CONFERENCE & 17TH ETMU CONFERENCE
COLONIAL/RACIAL HISTORIES,
NATIONAL NARRATIVES &
TRANSNATIONAL MIGRATION
ONLINE / UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI
11-14 JANUARY 2021
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
© TILAT / SPACES, NORA SAYYAD

CONTENTS
Welcome 1-2
Programme 3-5
Open Rooms 6
Organizing 7
Comittee
Keynote
8-9
speakers
Panelists 10-11
Art & Artists 12-16
Posters 17-21
CONTENTS
Workshop 2 2- 2 6
Schedule
Workshops 2 7- 4 01
WS 1 27-41
WS 3 42-44
WS 4 45-48
WS 5 49-59
WS 6 60-65
WS 7 66-75
WS 8 76-86
WS 9 87-93
WS 10 94-98
WS 11 99-103
WS 12 104-107
WS 13 108-116
WS 14 117-122
WS 15 123-130
WS 16 131-134
WS 17 135-143
WS 18 144-149
WS 19 150-163
WS 20 164-169
WS 22 170-174
WS 23 175-179
WS 24 180-192
WS 25 193-196
CONTENTS
Workshops 2 7- 4 01
WS 26 197-203
WS 27 204-211
WS 29 212-221
WS 30 222-233
WS 31 234-240
WS 32 241-246
WS 33 247-252
WS 34 253-256
WS 35 257-264
WS 36 265-273
WS 37 274-280
WS 38 281-287
WS 39 288-296
WS 40 297-307
WS 41 308-314
WS 42 315-326
WS 43 327-335
WS 44 336-339
WS 45 340-345
WS 46 346-350
WS 47 351-358
WS 48 359-367
WS 50 368-377
WS 51 378-385
WS 52 386-391
WS 53 392-395
WS 54 396-401
Participants 4 02 - 40 7
WELCOME
You are warmly welcome to the 20th Nordic Migration Research (NMR)
Conference and the 17th Society for the Study of Ethnic Relations and
International Migration (ETMU) conference! Initially, the conference was
supposed to take place at the University of Helsinki in August 2020, but it had to
be re-scheduled due to the ongoing Covid-19 situation. After analysing the
situation and the options, we decided to organise the conference fully online as
it became clear that the global uncertainty regarding the pandemic and related
travel restrictions would continue.
The theme of the conference is Colonial/Racial Histories, National Narratives

and Transnational Migration. The conference aims to provide a multidisciplinary
platform for discussion on how the colonial/racial past and national narratives
of perceived homogeneity are shaping the ways that today’s diasporic
communities, racialized minorities, and Indigenous Peoples are treated in the
Nordic societies and how racial and class inequalities characterise current
Nordic societies. The conference also seeks to open up discussions related to
themes of resistances, resurgences and alternative horizons beyond such
hierarchies.
The Nordic countries have long been perceived themselves as outsiders to

colonialism, embracing narratives of the progressive, equality pursuing, and
human rights defending nation-states that stand out in international
comparison. This ‘Nordic exceptionalism’ can be understood as a form of ‘white
innocence’, building on wilful ignorance of the Nordic countries’ active
participation in colonial projects both overseas and in the Arctic region.
1
Our aim has been to encourage multidisciplinary approaches and we are
very excited about the mix of participants with various backgrounds,
including arts, in exploring the sense of belonging as well as narrating
and rewriting histories. Hence, we hope that the conference will be an
inspiring platform for new encounters and collaborations. The large
number of registered conference participants – over 550 – not only tells
about interest in the conference themes, but also about the need to
come together with colleagues from Nordic countries and beyond during
these exceptional times. One advantage this year in providing the
conference in the online format is that this makes participation possible
even for those who might not otherwise be able to travel from afar.
Despite having a long history of organising the conference series by both

associations, this is our very first online conference. We realise that this
online experience may be the first of its kind to many of the participants,
as well. Therefore, we have worked diligently to ensure that everything
will run as smoothly as possible. Having said that, we ask for
understanding in the case that unexpected technical hiccups arise. You
will receive links to all conference events listed in the programme a few
days before the conference.
We are looking forward to seeing you soon!
On behalf of the conference organizers:
Senior Researcher Marja Tiilikainen (Migration Institute of Finland; Chair

2019 ̶ 2020 of the Nordic Migration Research)
Director Saara Pellander (Migration Institute of Finland; Chair 2020 of the

Society for the Study of Ethnic Relations and International Migration)
Professor Suvi Keskinen (CEREN, University of Helsinki)
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11-14 JANUARY 2021
PROGRAMME ONLINE / UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI
Monday 11 Janu ary 2021 (CET+1)
09:00-17:00 Technical support and information available
10:00-10:30 Opening of the conference
Senior Researcher Marja Tiilikainen

(Migration Institute of Finland;
Chair 2019 ̶ 2020 of the
Nordic Migration Research)
Director Saara Pellander

(Migration Institute of Finland;
Chair 2020 of the Society for
the Study of Ethnic Relations
and International Migration ETMU)
Professor Suvi Keskinen

(CEREN, Uni versi ty of Helsinki)
Artist and Researcher Sepideh Rahaa

(Aalto University)
Vi ce-Rector Paula Eerola (Uni versity of Helsinki)
Mayor of Helsinki Jan Vapaavuori
10:30-12:00 Keynote by Professor Anders Neergaard

"Exploring the Swedish racial regime:
Theoretical challenges and dilemmas"
12:00-12:30 Lunch
12:30-14:00 Parallel workshops I
14:00-14:15 Coffee
14:15-15:15 Key note by Visual Artist Marja Helander

"New Paths"
15:15-16:30 Panel discussion: Arts as a way of

decolonizing knowledge
Chair: Artist and researcher Sepideh Rahaa
Visual Artist Marja Helander

Professor Mira Kallio-Tavin
Art Curator Abdullah Qureshi
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Tuesday 12 Janu ary 2021 (CET+1)
10:00-11:30 Parallel workshops II
11:30-11:45 Coffee
11:45-13:15 Parallel workshops III
13:15-14:00 Lunch
14:00-16:00 ETMU Award
Keynote by Professor Gloria Wekker

"White Innocence: race and cherished
self-narratives in the Netherlands"
Wednesday 13 Janu ary 2021 (CET+1)
09: 00-17: 00 Technical support and information available
10:00-10: 45 NMR General Assembly
10:45-11: 30 Presenting Helsinki University Press (HUP),

Nordic Journal of Migration Research and
the NJMR best article award
Editor-in-Chief, Associate Professor

Lena Näre (Chair, NJMR)
Communications and Publishing Manager
Anna-Mari Vesterinen (HUP)
Editor-in-Chief, Associate Professor
Synnøve Bendixsen (NJMR)
Pre se n ta ti o n o f H U P
Me e t th e N JMR e d i to ri a l te a m
Pre se n ta ti o n o f N JMR
N JMR b e st a rti cl e p ri ze a w a rd
11:30-11:45 Coffee
11:45-13:15 Parallel workshops IV
13:15-14:00 Lunch
14:00-16:00 Poetry by Kemê
Keynote by Professor Eduardo Bonilla-Silva

"What makes "Systemic Racism" Systemic?"
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Thursday 14 Janu ary 2021 (CET + 1)
10:00-11:30 Parallel workshops V
11:30-12:00 Closing of the conference
Artist Nora Sayyad
Announcement of the next

NMR Conference and ETMU Conference
Final words
12:00-13:00 Farewell lunch and matchmaking
Post-conference
14:00-16:00 PhD workshop arranged by

Society for the Study of Ethnic Relations
and International Migration (ETMU)
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OPEN ROOMS/ACTIVITIES
All links can be found on the Access Guide.
Technical Support Room
Technical Support Room is a separate Zoom-room open

during the conference days (see programme for exact times).
A conference assistant will be there to answer your questions
and help you with technical difficulties.
Conference Deli
The Conference Deli will be open during lunch breaks. Here you
can socialize with others over a lunch of your choice. This is a
place to get to know other participants and also the members of
the conference organizing comittee.
Notice Board
On the Notice Board you can leave information about yourself,

upcoming projects or something else you'd like to share. There
you can give out your contact info if you'd like people to be able
to reach you after the conference. The board is secured so that
only people with the link can access the site.
Workout
Due to the online format, the conference requires a lot of sitting

in front of the computer. To reduce back pains and cloudy brain
we have collected a set of workout videos to be explored during
the conference. The selection is diverse from energetic dance
classes to quick streching, so that everyone can find a suitable
exercise.
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ORGANIZING COMITTEE
Marja Tiilikainen, Migration Institute of Finland and NMR (Organizing Comittee Chair)
Suvi Keskinen, University of Helsinki (CEREN) (Organizing Comittee Vice chair)
Saara Pellander, Migration Institute of Finland and ETMU
Merja Skaffari-Multala, Migration Institute of Finland (Conference secretary)
Outi Kortelainen, Migration Institute of Finland
Miika Tervonen, Migration Institute of Finland
Anna-Leena Riitaoja, Åbo Akademi University and University of Helsinki (CEREN)
I-An Gao (Wasiq Silan), University of Helsinki (CEREN)
Sepideh Rahaa, Aalto University
Magdalena Kmak, Åbo Akademi University and University of Helsinki
Nina Björkman, Åbo Akademi University and ETMU
Organizations
Nordic Migration Research (NMR) Society for the Study of Ethnic Relations and International
Migration (ETMU) Migration Institute of Finland (MIF) Centre for Research on Ethnic
Relations and Nationalism (CEREN) at the Swedish School of Social Science, University of
Helsinki
Sponsors
Federation of Finnish Learned Societies Kone Foundation Otto Malm Foundation City Of Helsinki
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KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
What Makes
Professor Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
"Systemic Racism" Systemic?
Wednesday 13 January 2021
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva is James B. Duke Professor of Sociology at
at 14.00-16.00
Duke University, US. He describes himself as being trained in
class analysis, political sociology, and sociology of development
(globalization), but his work in the last 20 years has been in the
area of race. Prof. Bonilla-Silva has published on racial theory,
race and methodology, color-blind racism, the idea that race
stratification in the USA is becoming Latin America-like, racial
grammar, HWCUs, race and human rights, race and citizenship,
whiteness, and the Obama phenomenon among other things. In
all his work, he contends that racism is fundamentally about
"racial domination," hence, racism is a collective and structural
phenomenon in society. Among his many publications is the
widely read book Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism
and the Persistance of Racial Inequality in the Americas.
Professor Emerita Gloria Wekker
White Innocence: race and cherished

Gloria Wekker is a social and cultural anthropologist with
self-narratives in the Netherlands
specializations in Gender Studies, Sexuality, African-American
and Caribbean Studies. She was a professor in the Department of Tuesday 12 January 2021
Gender Studies, Faculty of the Humanities, at Utrecht University, at 14.00-16.00
and since 2012 she is emerita. Her books include The Politics of
Passion; Women's Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese
Diaspora (2006; was awarded the Ruth Benedict Prize of
American Anthropological Association in 2007), and White
Innocence. Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race in the
Netherlands (2016). Wekker has advised the Dutch government
on minority, health and women’s emancipation policies. In 2015
and 2016, she was a member of the Commission for
Democratization and Decentralization and chair of the Diversity
Commission at the University of Amsterdam. In 2017, she was
elected one of the ten most influential Dutch academics by
Science Guide, and she received the prestigious, governmental
Joke Smit Prize for her life-long efforts on behalf of women’s
emancipation. In 2019-2020, she occupies the King Willem
Alexander Chair for Low Land Studies at the University of Liège,
Belgium.
8
Exploring the Swedish
racial regime: Theoretical Professor Anders Neergaard
challenges and dilemmas
Monday 11 January 2021
Anders Neergaard, professor in sociology at the Institute for
at 10.30-12.00 Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO),
Linköping University. His research and publications span issues
such as labour migration, inequality regimes, racial
discrimination, trade unions, racist parties and structural racism.
Recent publications include Dahlstedt, M., & Neergaard, A. (2019).
Crisis of Solidarity? Changing Welfare and Migration Regimes in
Sweden. Critical Sociology, 45(1), 121–135; Mulinari, D., &
Neergaard, A. (2018). A contradiction in terms? Migrant activists in
the Sweden Democrats party. Identities, 1–19. Schierup, C.-U.,
Ålund, A., & Neergaard, A. (2017). “Race” and the upsurge of
antagonistic popular movements in Sweden. Ethnic and Racial
Studies, 0(0), 1837–1854. Ålund, A., Schierup, C. U., & Neergaard,
A. (Red.). (2017). Reimagineering the Nation. Essays on Twenty
First Century Sweden. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
The New Paths

Sámi artist Marja Helander
Monday 11 January 2021
at 14.15-15.15
Marja Helander is a Sámi photographer, video artist and film-
maker with roots both in Helsinki and Utsjoki. In her work, she
has studied various themes including her own identity between
the Finnish and the Sámi culture. Since 1992, Helander’s work
has been exhibited in two dozen solo exhibitions and over 50
group exhibitions in Finland and abroad. In her art, Marja
Helander often builds from her own background between two
cultures, the Finnish and the Sámi culture. What drives Marja as
an artist is curiosity and the willingness to always learn
something new. – This is why making video art and short films
has been so inspiring after a long career in photography,
Helander says. At the 2018 Tampere Film Festival, Marja
Helander was awarded the Risto Jarva Prize for her film
Eatnanvuloš lottit, Birds In The Earth. The Mänttä Art Festival has
selected Marja Helander as the curator for the 2019 exhibition.
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PANEL DISCUSSION:
Arts as a way of decolonizing knowledge
PANELISTS Monday 11 January 2021 at 15.15-16.30
Artist Sepideh Rahaa

Sepideh Rahaa (b. Iran) is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher and
educator based in Helsinki. Through her practice, she actively
investigates and questions prevailing power structures, social norms
and conventions while focusing on womanhood and everyday
resistances. Currently she is pursuing her doctoral studies in
contemporary art at Aalto University. Her practice and research
interests are representation in contemporary art, silenced histories,
decolonisation, Intersectional feminist politics, critical race studies
and migration. Since 2015, Rahaa has been actively participating in
debates and taking actions regarding the art politics in Finland by
being a member at Third Space Collective (2015-), Globe Art Point
(2016-, currently vice chairperson) and Nordic Network for Norm
Critical Leadership (2018-) among other collaborations. Her aim is to
initiate methods through contemporary art practice to create spaces
for dialogue. She seeks these interests through collaborative projects
such as A Dream That Came True?. Her current doctoral research
and work is supported for multiple years by Koneen Säätiö.
Professor Mira Kallio-Tavin

Associate professor Mira Kallio-Tavin (Doctor or Arts), focuses her
research on critical artistic and arts-based practices and research
in questions of diversity, disability studies, social justice and critical
animal studies. She has developed arts-based research
methodology within pedagogy and social context and in relation to
the questions of dialogue, community, ethics and philosophy of
contemporary art, and its education beyond anthropocentricism.
Her key research merits are with societally engaged critical arts-
based and artistic research. She is the chair of disability studies in
art education (DSAE) interest group in the NAEA (National Art
Education Association) in the United States, World councilor of
InSEA (International Society for Education Through Art), and the
founder of the International DSAE conference. She is the author
and editor of six books, and editor of journals Research in Art
Education (principle editor) and The International Journal of
Education through Art (editor). She is the Head of Research in the
Department of Art in Aalto University, Finland.
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Art Curator Abdullah Qureshi
Abdullah Qureshi is a Pakistani born artist, educator, and cultural

producer. Within his practice, he is interested in using painting and
collaborative methodologies to address personal histories,
traumatic pasts, and childhood memories. Through his on-going
doctoral project, entitled Mythological Migrations: Imagining Queer
Muslim Utopias, he examines formations of queer identity and
resistance in Muslim migratory contexts.
Qureshi's work has been exhibited internationally, including at the

National Gallery of Art, Islamabad; Alhamra Art Gallery, Lahore;
Rossi & Rossi, London; Uqbar, Berlin; Twelve Gates Arts,
Philadelphia; and SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco. He has
held numerous positions at cultural and educational institutions
including British Council and the National College of Arts, Lahore,
and conducted lectures, paper readings, and artist talks around the
world, including at the Film and TV School of the Academy of
Performing Arts (FAMU), Prague; Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki;
PRAKSIS, Norway; NARS Foundation residency program and
Residency Unlimited in New York, University of California, Irvine;
Valand Academy, Gothenburg; Manchester Museum; and Fábrica
de Arte Cubano, Havana.
In 2017, Qureshi received the Art and International Cooperation

fellowship at Zurich University of the Arts, and in 2018, a research
fellowship at the Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research,
Boston. In 2019, he joined the Center for Feminist Research, York
University, Toronto as a visiting researcher, and is currently a
Doctoral Candidate, supported by Kone Foundation, at Aalto
University in Finland.
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ART & ARTISTS
Nora Sayyad
Nora Sayyad was born in Sweden and lives and

works in Helsinki, Finland. Currently, she is
working on her MA studies in photography and
film at Aalto University School of Arts, Design
and Architecture. Her documentary work
includes cross-border and universal themes of
diversity. Her self biographical work challenges
the viewer by questioning cultural, personal and
temporal boundaries as well as borders which
restrict liberty.
TILAT / SPACES
Spaces discusses the stories of multicultural

upbringings of youngsters in Finland, where one is
constantly reminded of disparatation. Even though
many of these youngsters already have a strong
self- perception of their identity, they are often
willing to challenge mainstream thinking of them, in
and outside of their own communities. What bounds
these youngsters together are their diverse roots,
which reach far and the fact that they are all seeking
to find their own paths in life in surroundings that
aren’t always inclusive.
The photographs taken by

Nora Sayyad as part of her project
TILAT / SPACES can be found
12 on the conference website.
Shareef Askar
As a Finnish media artist and filmmaker,

Shareef Askar is interested in creating films
that explore the theme of identity in western
societies from the perspective of characters
with minority backgrounds.
Short film: Sameer
Working group: Shareef Askar,

Eeva Karoliina Mäenpää, Arja Pekurinen,
Carlos Marroquin, Samuli Salonen
Duration: 8 min
Language: Finnish with English subtitles
Sameer is an experimental short film about the hope of integration, longing for home
and the never ending bureaucracy of being accepted. The short film strives to portray
Finnishness and readdressing one’s own identity through the point of view of an
asylum seeker and a person of colour.
You can watch the film on our website.

13
Poetry by Kemê Pellicer
Kemê Wednesday 13 January 2021 at 14.00
Kemê is a multidisciplinary artist, poet, and

cultural worker based in Helsinki, Finland. As
an artist, Kemê works through photography,
performance, installation and text Exploring
the complexity of our construction and the
constructions we inhabit through concepts like
memory, representation, symbols, instability,
the unconscious or tales.
Her current artistic practice, supported by The

Arts Promotion Center Taike, is focused in the
intersection between, identity, art, community,
intersectional feminism and the quality of
myths as an open-source.
As a culture worker and trained diversity

agent, her work is centred on social justice,
orbiting around cultural diversity, migration,
antiracism and best practices in the art field.
Kemê has worked with several initiatives such
as Globe Art Point as project coordinator, Kiila,
Helsinki City (project: Culture Kids) or the
group Critical Friends (project: “An inclusive
cultural sector in the Nordics” led by Arts
Council Norway).
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Nilay Kilinç
Nilay Kılınç is a social anthropologist, writer

and documentarist. She is currently working as
a postdoctoral researcher at URBARIA,
University of Helsinki, undertaking research
about highly-skilled migrants in Nordic
capitals.
Bogdan Lupu
Bogdan Lupu is a Romanian-Italian artist based in

Helsinki. He considers himself an intuitive
expressionist painter with a dynamic combination of
styles, methods, materials and concepts.
Poetry and Painting: "Migrant Anxieties"
Poetry & Performance: Nilay Kilinc

Artwork: Bogdan Lupu
Director: Roosa Näsi

Cinematographer: Nora Sayyad
Editor & Producer: Nilay Kilinc
Minutes: 03:44
Language: English
Migrant Anxieties" is a literary and visual invitation to the intimate world of two migrants in
Helsinki. Whilst the writer and social anthropologist Nilay Kilinc performs her poem "Migrant
Anxieties", the artist Bogdan Lupu paints on his canvas in real time. The writer-artist duo turn
the migrant anxieties into moments of meditation, dialogue and inspiration.

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Documentary: 5 Questions on Anti-Racist Feminism
Why do we need antiracist feminism? Is there enough talk about class and activists'
self-care? What does effective activism look like?
In the video, the activists Ajak Majok, Aurora Lemma, Hai Nguyen, Arvind
Ramachandran and Victoria Odum discuss antiracist feminism in today's Finland.The
video (38 min) is a cooperation project between documentarist Carmen Baltzar and
researcher Suvi Keskinen.
The video was produced as an independent part of Suvi Keskinen's Academy of

Finland Research Fellow project “Postethnic Activism in the Neoliberal Era: Translocal
Studies on Political Subjectivities, Alliance-building and Social Images”. Find out more
about the project here.
Carmen Baltzar is a documentarist, writer and activist with Roma background. You
can listen to her at: Carmen Baltzar on racism faced by Romani people, Veikkaus and
betting

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POSTERS
In this section you will find the abstracts of conference posters.

Posters are presented in an online format and can we viewed
and commented freely during the conference. More information
about this will be available in the conference Access Guide.
Posters and presenters:
1. Leslie Ader:
Migration and solidarity in welfare states:
The dilemma of disability and mobility
2. Katri Heiskala:
Case study: The effect of dance movement therapy on body
image and psychological well-being of a refugee client with
PTSD Diagnosis
3. Sabrien Amrov:
How do Arab migrants produce a sense of belonging in
Istanbul’s Little Syria after the Arab Spring (2011-2013)?
4. Pirja Hyyryläinen:
The present past: Descendants of Carelian WWII evacuees
reviving heritage in 2020´s Finland
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Migration and solidarity in welfare states:
POSTER 1: The dilemma of disability and mobility
Leslie Ader, PhD Student, Université de Neuchâtel,

Fellow at NCCR-on the Move | leslie.ader@unine.ch & lesliea308@gmail.com
Migrants entering Western Europe have been heavily scrutinized by host states. In
some cases, this has resulted in discrimination, which is not prohibited by international
law. The case of people with disabilities is different. Disability is perceived as a
common ground for positive discrimination in terms of welfare rights and access to
benefits. There exists an intersecting policy contradiction between the “positive”
discrimination of disabled people and the “negative” discrimination of migrants, which
can be seen in the particular case of migrants with disabilities. The objective of this
paper is to establish the evolution of the disability norm, discourses and migration
policy-practices in Switzerland. In order to achieve these objectives, the following
questions will be posed: How is disability addressed in the Swiss Migration Regime
and what are the current practices? Furthermore, how has disability been defined and
categorized within the Swiss institutional discourse?
In order to answer these questions, this study will utilize process tracing and Wodak’s
Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA). Based off our initial preliminary results,
disability is still addressed via the “medical model” rather than the “social model” and
this focus creates a policy tension between migration policy practices and the
disability norm. On the discursive level, there are five specific themes/narratives that
surround the intersection of disability and migration. These themes are also framed in
a “medicalized” manner. By continuing to utilize the medical model of disability over
the social model, the migration practices of Switzerland will continue to neglect a
specific vulnerable group, migrants with disabilities, and deny them access to welfare
benefits that they desperately need.
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Case study: The effect of dance movement therapy
POSTER 2:
on body image and psychological well-being
of a refugee client with PTSD Diagnosis
Katri Heiskala, Universidad Nacional de las Artes,

Buenos Aires, Argentina | katri.heiskala@gmail.com
The support of Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) in rehabilitation of traumatized

refugee clients has remained understudied and underused in Finland. DMT is a form
of applied psychotherapy as a part of creative therapies. Its framework sits at the
intersection of art therapies and somatic psychotherapy. This study investigates the
effects of individual DMT on psychological well-being and body image of a refugee
client who has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The study
was carried out at the Deaconess Foundation’s Centre for Psychotraumatology for the
rehabilitation of war traumatized and tortured people in Helsinki. The research client
participated in the weekly therapy for 10-12 times in addition to the semi-structured
pre- and post-therapy interview. In the interview, information of body image was
created through the Body Image Survey (BIA). In addition, the interview included
multiple choice questions of psychological well-being. The client filled out a form to
assess her emotional state before and after each therapy session.
A narrative story was written of the observations made by the research-therapist.

These included nonverbal and verbal material of the client during the therapy. The
most important interventions used in therapy became developmental movement,
breathing exercises, mirroring and improvisation. The main reasons for using these
therapy methods were to integrate the client's connection with her body and identity
and to increase functional capacity and resources. Even short-term DMT seems to
have an impact on the client's psychological well-being and body image. The client's
emotional state was, on average, happier and less anxious, tired and angry after than
before the therapy session. At the end of the therapy period the client reported that
she felt that her fear states had diminished.
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How do Arab migrants produce a sense of
POSTER 3:
belonging in Istanbul’s Little Syria
after the Arab Spring (2011-2013)?
Sabrien Amrov, PhD Candidate, Geography and Urban Planning

University of Toronto | sabrien.amrov@mail.utoronto.ca, sabrienamrov@gmail.com
I investigate this question through a cultural and political ethnography of Little Syria
conducted from September 2019 to February 2020. Little Syria is a neighborhood in
Istanbul with a misleading name. Since the Arab Spring of 2011–13, it has become a
hub not only for Syrian refugees, but also for a growing number of migrants from
other Arab countries, including Yemen, Egypt, Libya, and Iraq. They are opening
language schools and providing religious courses in the Arabic language. Grocery
shops, cafes and restaurants with menus in Arabic fill the neighborhood. Informal
walk-in clinics with Arabic-speaking doctors have been set up in the small alleys of
Little Syria for refugees who are not registered with the municipality. A walk down
Cumhuriyet Caddesi -- the main boulevard of Little Syria colored with billboards
featuring Arabic typography -- could make a wanderer forget they are in Istanbul, a
city once the capital of the Ottoman Empire.
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The present past: Descendants of Carelian WWII
POSTER 4: evacuees reviving heritage in 2020´s Finland
Pirja Hyyryläinen, University of Jyväskylä | pirja.a.hyyrylainen@student.jyu.fi
In the 21st Century, the climate change, armed conflicts, and famine force people to
migrate, and settle in different areas and live in cultural diaspora. In Finland, there
were more than 410 000 people evacuated and relocated in 2nd World War 1939-
1945 from Carelia, Salla and Petsamo areas. Approximately one fifth of the Finnish
population are their descendants. However, the evacuees did not form a homogenous
group, as is often claimed in national narrative. Amongst them were minorities, such
as Carelian language speakers. My dissertation studies their descendants who are
reviving the culture and language of their predecessors in local community colleges.
My research question is: how the forced migration is present in the aspirations of
descendants of Carelian evacuees to revive the culture and language of the
evacuated generation?
The expected research results will indicate how a migrated minority culture is
remembered, constructed and maintained by descendant generations. In this poster I
am introducing my research design: oral history and diaspora research theories, as
well as “open notebook” approach. In my research I will conduct interviews with
community college participants from different areas of Finland. In addition, I also
analyze the material with oral history research and close reading methods. With the
concept of “other knowledge”, I intend to equalize the descendants’ voices with the
official institutional narrative. My research will add a multifaceted perspective to the
national narrative about one diasporic minority of immigration background.
21
WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
ALL TIMES (CET+1)
Parallel Workshops I - Monday 11 January at 12:30-14:00
WS 5. State-education between racialisation

and the possibilities of anti-racist strategy I
WS 7. Differentiated whiteness(es) besides hegemony? Tracing
gradations of whiteness I
WS 8. How (non-) whiteness acquires meaning: Discussing
racialization in the Nordic countries I
WS 13. Colonial histories and migration: Heritage, narratives and
materiality I
WS 19. Rethinking knowledge production in migration studies I
WS 20. Context of coloniality and the unconventional gaze:

Challenging the conventional gaze in study of minorities & the
“White Curriculum” in academia
WS 26. Integration at the local Level: Opportunities and
challenges I
WS 29. Let’s make it home: What critical storytelling and visual
arts-based methodologies offer I
WS 37. Disappearing migrants, disturbed intimacies and
emerging politics I
WS 38. Young refugees in the Nordic countries I
WS 40. Migration, family and life course I
WS 42. Transnational migration, diaspora communities and the
second generation I
WS 44. Europeanization, democracy, other: The racialized gaze
on Eastern European migrants
WS 45. Nordic Europe's Eastern others? CEE/Russian migration

and the Nordic states I
WS 52. Migration paths and identities
22
WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
ALL TIMES (CET+1)
Parallel Workshops II - Tuesday 12 January at 10:00-11:30
WS 1. Precarious inclusion: Migrants and refugees in contemporary

welfare states I
WS 3. Refugees and the violence of welfare bureaucracies in Northern
Europe
WS 7. Differentiated whiteness(es) besides hegemony? Tracing
gradations of whiteness II
WS 8. How (non-) whiteness acquires meaning: Discussing
racialization in the Nordic countries II
WS 11. Outside of the (colonial) box: White innocence of Nordic non-
engagement with racism and colonialism
WS 13. Colonial histories and migration: Heritage, narratives and
materiality II
WS 15. Sámi, Kven & Tornedalian identities, ethnicities and narratives I
WS 16. Appropriation or collaboration? Cultural production, colonial
histories and imaginations for the future
WS 19. Rethinking knowledge production in migration studies II
WS 26. Integration at the local Level: Opportunities and challenges II

WS 29. Let’s make it home: What critical storytelling and visual arts-
based methodologies offer II
WS 34. Forced migration and national memory politics in the Nordic
countries
WS 37. Disappearing migrants, disturbed intimacies and emerging
politics II
WS 38. Young refugees in the Nordic countries II

WS 40. Migration, family and life course II
WS 42. Transnational Migration, Diaspora Communities and the

Second Generation II
WS 43. Exploring Nordic Migrant Entrepreneurship: Intersectional
Understandings of Place and Context I
WS 45. Nordic Europe's Eastern Others? CEE/Russian Migration and
the Nordic States II
WS 48. The mutability of coloniality: Media representations, migration
practices, indigenous and diasporic experiences I
23
WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
ALL TIMES (CET+1)
Parallel Workshops III - Tuesday 12 January at 11:45-13:15

welfare states II
WS 4. Race and racialisation buried alive in welfare state practices

WS 6. Anti-Racism and hopes of living together
WS 8. How (non-) whiteness acquires meaning: Discussing racialization in
the Nordic countries III
WS 14. Settler colonialism and migration
WS 15. Sámi, Kven & Tornedalian identities, ethnicities and narratives II

WS 19. Rethinking knowledge production in migration studies III
WS 22. Communities, power relations and knowledge: Ethics and

innovative practices in politically engaged research methods
WS 24. How to do research on immigrant integration? I
WS 27. The only way out is through: The decolonial and decanonical turn
in contemporary art I
WS 30. Arts-based and participatory methods in research with refugees I

WS 36. The debated securities of migration: Theory and practice I
WS 40. Migration, family and life course III

WS 42. Disappearing migrants, disturbed intimacies and emerging
politics II
WS 43. Exploring Nordic migrant entrepreneurship: Intersectional

understandings of place and context II
WS 46. Historical and new forms of 'North-North' migration
WS 47. Asylum and refugee protection I

WS 48. The mutability of coloniality: Media representations, migration
practices, indigenous and diasporic experiences II
WS 50. Integration processes: Contestations, negotiations and
experiences I
WS 51. Labour, Precarity and Social Welfare I
24
WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
ALL TIMES (CET+1)
Parallel Workshops IV - Wednesday 13 January at 11:45-13:15

welfare states III
and the possibilities of anti-racist strategy II
WS 9. Femonationalisms, racialization, and migration
(Global Perspectives) I
WS 10. Racial/colonial legacies, gender, and feminisms in the Nordic
countries
WS 12. Coloniality of migration, racial Capitalism and decolonization of the
West
WS 17. Decolonizing power, knowledge and being in the Nordic countries I
WS 18. Museums and knowledge production in increasingly diversifying
societies I
WS 23. Practices and ethics of studying social media discourses of
migration, ethnocultural diversity and racism
WS 24. How to do research on immigrant integration? II
in contemporary art II
WS 30. Arts-based and participatory methods in research with refugees II
WS 31. Migration, globalization and education I
WS 33. Deportation and resistance in the Nordic context I
WS 35. Forced migration, family separation and everyday insecurity I
WS 36. The debated securities of migration: Theory and practice II

WS 39. The "others" amongst "us" : Immigrants, inclusion, and the law I
WS 41. Decentering adoption mythologies: Counter-narratives to rethink
adoption I
WS 47. Asylum and refugee protection II
WS 50. Integration processes: Contestations, negotiations and

experiences II
WS 53. Reception of asylum seekers and refugees
25
WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
ALL TIMES (CET+1)
Parallel Workshops V - Thursday 14 January at 10:00-11:30

welfare states IV
and the possibilities of anti-racist strategy III
WS 9. Femonationalisms, racialization, and migration
(Global Perspectives) II
WS 17. Decolonizing power, knowledge and being in the Nordic countries II
WS 18. Museums and knowledge production in increasingly diversifying
societies II
WS 24. How to do research on immigrant integration? II
WS 25. Official discourse on Muslims and Islam and its effects on

integration efforts
in contemporary art III
WS 30. Arts-based and participatory methods in research with refugees III
WS 31. Migration, globalization and education II
WS 32. Displacement and placemaking in architecture, urban, and social

design studios
WS 33. Deportation and resistance in the Nordic context II
WS 35. Forced migration, family separation and everyday insecurity II
WS 39. The "others" amongst "us" : Immigrants, inclusion, and the law II
WS 41. Decentering adoption mythologies: Counter-narratives to rethink

adoption II
WS 51. Labour, Precarity and Social Welfare II
WS 54. Societal Perspectives on Racism, Fear and Manipulation
26
Precarious
PRECARIOUS Inclusion: Migrants
INCLUSION: and Refugees
MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
1. in Contemporary Welfare States
IN CONTEMPORARY WELFARE STATES
Marry-Anne Karlsen, University of Bergen | Marry-Anne.Karlsen@uib.no

Mikkel Rytter, Aarhus University | mikkel.rytter@cas.au.dk
Numerous studies have in recent years questioned the usefulness of the concept of
‘immigrant integration’, since integration contribute to and expand the problems it
was meant to address in the first place (Korteweg 2017; Schinkel 2018; Rytter 2019). If
the concept of ‘immigrant integration’ is abandoned, we need to develop new
analytical concepts and perspectives to discuss the relationship between migrants
and refugees and the welfare state, and between immigrant minorities and the
majority population.
This panel invites papers that explore migrants and refugees’ various forms of
‘precarious inclusion’ in contemporary welfare states (Karlsen 2015, Rytter and
Ghandchi 2019). Precarious inclusion addresses the vulnerable position and fragile
relationship different groups of migrants and refugees have in relation to the labor
market and various welfare services and facilities (health, job security, neighborhoods,
racism, etc.). It also urges us to explore contested notions of rights and deservingness,
and how migrants and refugees are constituted and excluded as ‘others’. A central
concern is the interplay between welfare and immigration policies, including how
precarious legal status and return policies increasingly shape access to services and
the labor market. Finally, precarious inclusion seems to be a general feature of
welfare states that increasingly turn towards neoliberal policies and reforms. In this
respect, precarious inclusion is both a feature of the changing welfare state and a
particular way that different groups of migrants and refugees are included – but only
to a certain extent and always in exclusive ways.
Workshop Sessions (all times CET+1):
Parallel Workshops II: Tuesday 12 January 2021 at 10:00-11:30

SESSION ONE: Papers 1-4
Parallel Workshops III: Tuesday 12 January 2021 at 11:45-13:15
SESSION TWO: Papers 5-7
Parallel Workshops IV: Wednesday 13 January 2021 at 11:45-13:15
SESSION THREE: Papers 8-11
Parallel Workshops V: Thursday 14 January 2021 at 10:00-11:30
SESSION FOUR: Papers 12-14
27
Precarious inclusion as a strategy
PAPER 1: for governing irregular migration
SESSION ONE: Tuesday 12 January 2021 at 10:00-11:30
Marry-Anne Karlsen, IMER Bergen, University of Bergen | Marry-Anne.Karlsen@uib.no
The growing presence within states of populations without legal authorization to stay
raises urgent and troubling questions about state sovereignty, borders and the
valorisation of life in times of migration. Over the past decades, European states have
increasingly limited irregular migrants’ access to welfare services in order to
encourage them to leave autonomously. Yet, irregular migrants still tend to have
access to certain basic services, although frequently of a subordinate, arbitrary, and
unstable kind. In this presentation, I want to explore what is at stake in these limited
practices of inclusion. How, and to what extent can those excluded from membership
in the welfare state, but who are still present within its territorial borders, be lives to
be cared for? How can the concept of precarious inclusion shed light on different
rationalities and technologies of care and control employed in governing irregular
migrants? The presentation builds on ethnographic fieldwork of various intensities
carried out among irregularized migrants in Bergen and Oslo between 2011 and 2017.
28
Working for Protection?
PAPER 2:
How Afghan refugees navigate the violence of
precarious legal inclusion in Germany and Switzerland
Carolin Fischer, Department of Social Anthropology,

University of Bern | carolin.fischer@anthro.unibe.ch
Anna Wyss, Maison d'analyse des processus sociaux,
University of Neuchâtel | anna.wyss@unine.ch
This paper engages with the effects of neoliberal trends in European migration and
asylum governance. We explore how and with what consequences conditions of
continuous precarity in conjunction with an integration imperative affect the lives and
self-images of recently arrived Afghan refugees in Germany and Switzerland. In both
countries, we observe a shift from granting residence permits based on humanitarian
reasons to granting permits based on labour market performance. As a result,
refugees are increasingly forced to earn their right to remain.
Building on qualitative interview data, critical engagements with the principles and
politics of integration and theories of violence, we argue that persons holding a
precarious legal status are under great pressure to fulfil neoliberal integration
requirements to secure their legal residence in Europe and to prevent being deported
to their country of citizenship. Employing the continuum of violence as an analytical
entry point adds important facets to our understanding of the effects of
contemporary asylum policies on their subjects. While enabling us to specify causes
and consequences of experienced violence, our findings also illuminate how those
affected by structural and symbolic violence are pushed into a situation in which they
unknowingly and unwillingly contribute to upholding precarity as a central instrument
and effect of asylum governance.
29
Legally stranded migrants in the Swedish welfare state:
PAPER 3:
The management of return migration and the intersection
of legal decision-making and superfluisation
Anna Lundberg, Linköping University | anna.b.lundberg@liu.se
This article presents a study of the contradiction between the rhetoric of return
migration, stressing that rejected asylum seekers should leave the country, and the
reality of how asylum seekers end up as legally stranded, in Sweden. Through an
investigation of 120 decisions adopted by the Swedish Migration Agency and an in-
depth qualitative analysis of two individual case files, the study reveals techniques
through which rejected asylum seekers end up as legally stranded. This “superfluous
position” in the welfare state, the article argues, is produced in decision-making by
migration officers in their everyday decision-making, through (1) a negligence with
regard to the key issue of practical hinders to enforcement, (2) a complex organization
of non-responsibility, and (3) an incommensurable circle of suspicion throughout the
asylum process towards people seeking refuge. These techniques result in destitute
for the concerned individuals rather than actual expulsion from the territory, and they
are in stark contrast to the idea of general welfare. They also tell a broader story of
increasingly differentialized access to fundamental welfare rights.
30
"Inclusion from Afar": A comparative analysis of the
PAPER 4: precarious inclusion of Afghans who served with
British and Danish armed forces
Dr Esra S. Kaytaz, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations,

Coventry University | esra.kaytaz@coventry.ac.uk
Narges Ghandchi, Department of Educational Anthropology,
School of Education, Aarhus University | ng@edu.au.dk
We expand on the notion of precarious inclusion through a comparative analysis of

the treatment and experiences of Afghans who served in Danish and British armed
forces or worked for the British government in Afghanistan. We draw on media
analysis and interviews with former Afghan locally engaged staff (LES) and
stakeholders in the UK and Denmark.
Former Afghan LES illustrate a particular case of ‘precarious inclusion’ as they

experienced a degree of ‘inclusion from afar’ while in Afghanistan first, followed by
exclusion if they sought residence in the UK or Denmark. Media and political rhetoric
from both countries refer to Afghan LES in inclusive terms as being ‘one of the boys’
and fearing for Afghan LES ‘left behind’ in Afghanistan. Settlement schemes promote
inclusion on reciprocal grounds: as compensation or an obligation to ensure
protection. Despite the strength of the moral and legal claims of belonging, Afghan
LES are excluded from Denmark and the UK in a number of ways. Firstly, schemes for
Afghan LES impose restrictive eligibility criteria only allowing a few access. Secondly,
Afghan LES who apply for asylum spontaneously experience exclusion similar to
other Afghan asylum seekers. Thirdly, Afghans LES who obtain residence as migrants,
through government schemes for example, are not guaranteed stable residence
despite protection claims related to their military service. Additional barriers to
inclusion are re-uniting with family members and lack of support on arrival.
We thus demonstrate the limits of perceived deservingness as a condition for

inclusion. In particular, restrictive immigration and asylum policies in both countries
underpinned by the ‘hostile environment’ in the UK and concerns about the welfare
state in Denmark coalesce to erode the possibility of secure and comprehensive
inclusion for Afghan LES.
31
What counts as an emergency situation?
PAPER 5:
The precarious inclusion of homeless EU migrants
in Norwegian social welfare legislation
SESSION TWO: Tuesday 12 January 2021 at 11:45-13:15
Turid Misje, PhD candidate, Centre of Diaconia and Professional Practice,

VID Specialized University, Oslo, Norway | turid.misje@vid.no
The situation of EU migrants who are homeless when in Norway is characterised by

poverty and lack of protection concerning basic needs such as health, food, and
housing. While most are legally in the country due to the European Economic Area
(EEA) agreement, the migrants of concern in this paper have no or weak affiliations to
the formal labour market. Consequently, they are not deemed amongst the
Norwegian welfare state’s members, resulting in limited and contested rights to
public welfare services.
Homeless EU migrants are amongst others explicitly excluded from individual

services under the Norwegian Social Welfare Act, meant to be a final safety net ‘for
everyone considered part of our society’ (Social Welfare Act Circular 35, 2012), except
from the right to receive information, advice and guidance. They are nonetheless
‘precariously included’ through the Social Welfare Regulation (2011) concerning social
services for people without permanent domicile in the country, including people
without legal residence. This regulation states that in an ‘emergency situation’ these
migrants have the right to economic assistance and temporary housing for a short
period of time.
In this paper I explore what social workers mandated with providing services under
the Social Welfare Act consider as relevant information, advice and guidance in
encounters with homeless EU migrants, and their reflections on what constitutes an
emergency situation in these cases. A particular focus is on how their deliberations
intersect with concerns of migration management.
The paper’s empirical data draws from interviews with social workers in the
Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV) (6) and the Social and
Outpatient Emergency Service (SAA) (3) as well as employees at the Health and
Social Services Ombudsman (1) and the County Governor (1) – all in Oslo.
32
Between passion and precarity. Understanding migration
PAPER 6: of young EU citizens as lived entrepreneurial subjectivity
Anna Simola, University of Helsinki | anna.simola@helsinki.fi
In this article I seek to better understand the migration of young qualified EU citizens
in conditions of precarious labour markets by applying Foucault’s notion of the
enterprising self. Drawing on interviews with young, university-educated Nordic and
Southern European migrants who worked under precarious conditions after moving
to Brussels, I demonstrate how their migration projects are defined by their
passionate attachment to work, as well as forms of self-developing, entrepreneurial
subjectivity. I further show how, along with policies that encourage them to initiate
migration projects in the name of their enhanced ‘employability’, young EU migrants
also become subjects to workfarist policies that coerce them to carry responsibility
for their own welfare and push them into legally precarious positions. Both of these
policy frameworks are apt to reinforce their compliance with employers’ demands for
flexibility and unpaid labour time, although to a lesser extent for the young Nordic
migrants with wider options in terms of welfare and labour market access in their
countries of origin. Opportunities thus arise for employers to treat young EU migrants
as disposable labour power, the reproduction of which is not of their concern.
33
"You can’t do anything if you don't have a personal number":
PAPER 7: Negotiating freedom of movement precarities in Sweden
Kathy Burrell, University of Liverpool | kburrell@liverpool.ac.uk
It has been clear for a while now that EU freedom of movement – migration -
privileges play out differently in different EU states. Far from enjoying the comforts
that freedom of movement security offers on paper, EU citizens can potentially find
themselves open to a whole series of vulnerabilities while residing in other EU
countries – not just in the workplace, but also in terms of welfare and residential
status. The work and welfare orientated conditionality inherent in EU mobile
citizenship, for example, has seen Italians deported from Belgium (Lafleur & Mescoli,
2018), and Czech and Slovak citizens subjected to unexpected welfare cancellations
in the UK (Guma, 2018).
This paper focuses on the particular experiences of Polish migrants in Sweden, a

national context which has seen pronounced tensions squaring a territorial welfare
system with the freedom of movement regime (Bruzelius, 2019; Erhag, 2016). Drawing
on in-depth interviews with Poles living in the Malmö region, this paper explores the
extent to which the personal number system, as a 'tacit technology' (Paulsson, 2016)
and the foremost welfare bordering tool in the Swedish state, dominates newcomers’
lives as they try to find a foothold in Sweden. From stories of being rendered
effectively undocumented by not being able to access a number (see Sigvarsdotter,
2013), to accounts of finding different ways around the system, participants’
experiences suggest that the personal number system in particular has indeed
become the cornerstone of an immigration and welfare regime characterised by
precarious inclusion, even for those with EU citizenship.
34
“Fear of the Norwegian Child Protection Services”:
PAPER 8: Reconfigurations of belonging of migrant families
SESSION THREE: Wednesday 13 January 2021 at 11:45-13:15
Anne Sigfrid Grønseth, Professor, Social Anthropology,

Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Lillehammer | anne.gronseth@inn.no
This paper is based on ongoing research that investigates the Norwegian state-
governed Child Protection Services’ (CPS) reasons, decisions and interventions
among migrant families. Conducting discussion groups and interviews with
employees in the CPS, it is noted a high sense of frustration related to families of
migrant background. Also from interviews with migrant families in contact with the
CPS, it is reported insecurity and difficulties. More so, it is underlined a fear that
migrant families not only loose custody of their children to another family, but that
their children tend to be estranged from a social and cultural identity which stands
apart from the original family. In line with this, local, national, and international media
debate migrant families’ “fear of the Norwegian Child Protection Services”.
In this paper I explore this fear with a special concern for how the state practice of
CPS, is highly normative as they seek to determine the “best” ways of child-rearing,
and tend to reflect dominant social values. Interest in children, and thus parental
practices, is a crucial aspect of ensuring the “proper” upbringing of the next
generation of “good” citizens. However, the content, form, and consequences of state
interference are culturally and historically specific, and informed by expert-views and
political and social processes. Defining “good” parental practices from “bad” ones
have crucial consequences for particularly migrant families, as it strongly affects their
sense of social acceptance and belonging, and tends to strengthen lines of exclusion
and marginalization. However, exploring the nexus CPS practices and migrant
families, I suggest a transformation in the relationship between CPS and migrants that
challenge and reconfigure the established ‘interest in the child’, and open for new
configurations of migrant senses of belonging and community.
35
Ambiguities of a Reinvented Space. Precarious
PAPER 9: Inclusion and Urban Justice Movements in Sweden
Carl-Ulrik Schierup | carl-ulrik.schierup@liu.se

Aleksandra Ålund | aleksandra.alund@liu
Ilhan Kellecioglu | kellecioglu.ilhan@gmail.com
The paper explores movements for social transformation in precarious times of

austerity, dispossessed commons and narrow nationalism. The authors contribute to
social theory by linking questions by critics of ”post-politics” to precarity studies on
changing conditions of citizenship, labour and livelihoods in the neoliberal city. They
discuss a contestative movement for democracy, and recognition and the common,
positioned in turbulent borderlands between ”invited” and ”invented” spaces for civic
agency, emerging from the multiethnic precariat in Sweden’s most disadvantaged
metropolitan areas. It has catalysed the reinvention of common spaces with roots in
the working class movement of the early twentieth century: the “House of the People”
(Folkets hus) as meme for contemporary community centres for civic education, the
formation of political subjectivity and activism contesting racialised inequality,
securitization and criminalisation.
The authors address this new-old commoning practice’ ambiguous positionality as it

manoeuvres through the troubled waters of metropolitan Stockholm, wrought by
predatory financialization, segregation, the commodification of crucial welfare
institutions and expanding interventions of competing civil society coalitions. What is
at stake? Co-optation and appropriation of urban activism by disciplinary
governmentality and corporate interests? Or do we see a ”war of position”, as a
transformative strategy in the making, as local urban activists forge networks and new
alliances across a broader civil society? To which degree are transversal dialogues
between different sections of civil society present? Do they provide opportunities for
participation concerning issues of equitable access to spaces for empowerment,
legitimacy and public voice?
36
Hyper-precarious processes in and beyond the Danish
PAPER 10: Integration Programme
Rikke Egaa Jørgensen | riej@pha.dk

Ditte Shapiro | dish@pha.dk
Based on an ethnographic study in and around a local community organisation

engaged in the Danish ‘integration programme’ in 2018-2019, this paper explores the
concept of hyper-precarity suggested by Lewis et.al (2015), as relevant in
understanding the various forms of ‘precarious inclusion’ shaping the fragile relations
between refugees, the welfare state and local communities. While ‘precarity’,
stemming from labour market research, can be understood as a central feature of
modern welfare states (Standing 2011), refugees enrolled in the ‘integration
programme’ authorized by the Danish state, are not only exposed to precarious work,
but to precarization of most aspects of everyday life. This expansion of precarious
processes might be termed ‘hyper-precarity’, a concept referring to the complex
production of multi-layered uncertainties encompassing transnational family life, loss,
local isolation, poverty, opaque bureaucratic procedures and legal insecurity,
governing everyday attempts to build sustainable lives. Caught in a powerful nexus of
immigration and labour market policies, accelerated by the recent shift from
‘integration’ to ‘repatriation’ (adopted in the Act of L 140), many refugees experience
severe stress, vulnerability and, in terms of labour market inclusion, exploitation
(Jørgensen & Shapiro 2019). Zooming in, not on the question of what precarity is, but
rather on what it does, we follow Jørgensen (2015) in his exploration of precarity in
practice. By examining how refugees are experiencing and navigating various forms
of ‘work integration’ and fragile relations to representatives of the welfare state and
local community, we argue for an understanding of precarious processes, both
including and excluding, sensitive to context-specific variations of everyday life.
Thereby, the paper contribute to the discussion of ‘precarious inclusion’ in the Nordic
welfare states.
37
When policies create precariousness: The case of
PAPER 11: illiterate refugees in the Norwegian welfare state
Turid Sætermo, Department of Interdisciplinary studies of culture,

NTNU | turid.satermo@ntnu.no
Linda Dyrlid, Department of Social Work, NTNU
This paper takes as its point of departure the critique against immigrant integration
research as conceptually flawed, and recent efforts to develop new concepts and
perspectives to create productive ways forward (Abdou 2019, Rytter and Ghandchi
2019, Klarenbeek 2019). Rytter and Ghandchi (2019) propose that we conceptualize
immigrants as finding themselves in various forms of vulnerable structural positions
that could be addressed through the notion of precarious inclusion. The paper draws
on our empirical research among settled refugees who are in practice illiterate, and
who have completed the obligatory introduction program in Norway. This group is
considered the most vulnerable, but also the most ‘problematic’, with regards to
national integration policies that increasingly insist on quick entry into the paid labor
market.
The first part of the paper shows how the discourse around marginalization has
shifted from focusing on cultural marginalization to economic marginalization, in
parallel with neoliberal reforms in the welfare state, including the adoption of
workfare-oriented policies. This, in combination with a labor marked that has fewer
and fewer entry points for people with low theoretical and technological
competencies, renders the politically predominant goal of paid employment largely
unattainable for this group. At the same time, notions of rights and deservingness in
the welfare state are often linked to economic productivity. Against this backdrop, the
second part of the paper presents and discusses findings from our research
interviews with refugees in this group, focusing on their experiences of inclusion,
exclusion and precariousness.
38
”Sometimes we lie a little”: Negotiating
PAPER 12: temporality in everyday social work with refugees
SESSION FOUR: Thursday 14 January 2021 at 10:00-11:30
Stinne Østergaard Poulsen, Assistant Professor, Institute for Social Work,

VIA University College Aarhus, Denmark | stip@via.dk
Since 2015 Denmark has passed a number of asylum laws aimed at limiting refugee
protection to a human rights minimum. As a result, all residence permits granted to
refugees are now all temporary and subjected to ongoing cessation assessments.
Refugees can no longer ensure their access to permanent stay through education,
employment or family ties. Refugees are therefore facing temporality and uncertainty
as a fundamental condition, as any decision of protection includes the constant risk of
future deportation.
However, this fundamental temporality is not reflected in Danish integration

procedures. Refugees are still presented to integration systems with a main, if not
sole, focus on employment for adults, and a long-term understanding of integration
for children focusing on education and civil society. Accordingly, the refugees are
facing a contradictory imperative: “Integrate and leave!”, but they seem to be left
somewhat alone with this contradiction, as the welfare professionals they meet, still
focus on a (legally outdated) understanding of integration in a long-term perspective.
In other words, the welfare-state refugees encounter in their everyday life is rarely
acknowledging the legal conditions, that the same state is granting.
Based on a research project with 27 social workers from integration teams from 8
municipalities, this paper will explore the logics among social workers who in their
daily practice negotiate, ignore or maybe even lie about the temporary legal
condition for the refugees they work with in order to carry out their main assignment:
Integration. They all describe how the temporality cause stress, anxiety and anger
among the refugees, but express different understandings of integration, equality and
power relations in social work in order to explain why they often ignore or conceal the
reality of the new temporary legal order.
39
Integration services as gatekeepers:
PAPER 13: creating precarious inclusion
Lotta Haikkola, Finnish Youth Research Network | lotta.haikkola@nuorisotutkimus.fi

Tiina Sotkasiira, University of Eastern Finland | tiina.sotkasiira@uef.fi
In this paper we analyse how welfare state practices and particularly state integration
programmes aimed at new migrants create precarious forms of inclusion and
particular types of labouring bodies. In the paper we bring together the analysis of
‘integration’ as a normative state project aimed at producing migrants’ ability to
conform to norms and cultural values (Olwig 2011) and the theorization of bordering
practices and differential inclusion (Mezzadra & Neilson 2013) to argue that also
migrants with access to welfare state memberships (documented migrants) are at
times precariously included due to the extensive waiting and training periods that are
integrated into state integration programmes. The rationale in the programmes is in
the creation of skilled workforce, but such goals are hampered by the extensive
processes of misrecognition and conflicts between biographical and bureaucratic
time. The paper is based on two ethnographic research projects on the fields of
integration and employment services for migrants in Finland.
40
Kept at an arm’s length: Comparative perspectives on
PAPER 14: migrants’ precarious inclusion in the Danish welfare state
Mikkel Rytter, Department of Anthropology Aarhus University | mikkel.rytter@cas.au.dk
In this paper I attempt to compare data from two ongoing research projects: One
project focus on recently arrived Afghan refugees in local ‘Integration programs’ and
the other on so-called ‘self-appointed helper arrangements’, that is, immigrant women
contracted by the municipality to take care of an ageing family member in his or her
own home. Obviously, the two cases are very different, but they point at some
significant similarities, such as: 1) A lack of sustainable connections to the labour
market. 2) Low paid jobs and the (in)visibility of the workers. 3) The omnipresent risk of
an immediate exit.
These three conditions constitute the kind of ‘precarious inclusion’ that characterize
sectors of the Danish labour market, where different groups of migrants are included -
but only to a certain extent. Based on the two cases, the paper discuss which new
analytical possibilities that may be gained by shifting away from the more conventional
(and problematic) focus on ‘immigrant integration’ and instead start to explore
migrants’ precarious inclusion in the welfare state.
41
Precarious Inclusion:
REFUGEES Migrants
AND THE andOF
VIOLENCE Refugees
WELFARE
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
BUREAUCRACIES IN NORTHERN EUROPE
Dalia Abdelhady, Lund University | dalia.abdelhady@cme.lu.se

Nina Gren, Lund University | nina.gren@soc.lu.se
The proposed workshop serves as a launching of the forthcoming edited volume by

the same time. The focus of the workshop is at the encounter between newly arrived
refugees and the bureaucratic structures of the welfare states. The workshop brings
together case studies from Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and the UK with two specific
aims: First, we scrutinize the construction of the 2015 crisis as a response to the large
influx of refugees and pay particular attention to the disciplinary discourses and
bureaucratic structures that are associated with it. This focus highlights the
consequences of the declared refugee crisis in changing policy environments and
especially those related to deterrence and re-bordering.
Second, we investigate refugees’ encounters with these bureaucratic structures and

how these encounters shape hopes for building a new life after displacement. This
allows us to show that the mobility of specific segments of the world’s population
continues to be seen as a threat and a risk that has to be governed and controlled.
Focusing on the Northern European context, our workshop interrogates emerging
policies and discourses as well as the lived experiences of bureaucratization from the
perspective of individuals who find themselves the very objects of bureaucracies. The
presentations are pre-selected based on the chapters included in the edited volume,
but we welcome discussions and critical review of the project.
Workshop Session (CET+1):
42
Minimum Rights Policies Targeting People
PAPER 1: Seeking Protection in Denmark and Sweden
SESSION: Tuesday 12 January 2021 at 10:00-11:30
Annika Lindberg, Institute of Sociology,

University of Bern/AMIS, University of Copenhagen | annika.lindberg@soz.unibe.ch
In recent years, Denmark and Sweden have adopted a series of deterrence measures
and policy restrictions targeting people seeking protection. This work focuses on the
enforcement of the countries' 'minimum rights approaches', which are policies that
limit or withdraw access to welfare services in view of deterring ‘unwanted’ migrants
from remaining in the country.The chapter builds on qualitative and ethnographic
research with state actors involved in migration enforcement in both Denmark and
Sweden, conducted between 2016-18. It addresses the question of how state officials
at the forefront of border bureaucracies (Brodkin, 2012) interpret and enforce these
policy restrictions.
By tracing the implementation of the minimum rights approaches in the two

countries, I demonstrate the particular forms of state violence enabled through the
intense presence of the state in the everyday life of (non)citizens in bureaucratized
welfare states. Moreover, the chapter discusses the necropolitical (Mbembe 2003)
realities that the minimum rights approaches produce for those who are
subordinately included or formally abandoned by the welfare state, and the
dilemmas they evoke for welfare state officials.
43
Living Bureaucratization:
PAPER 2:
Young Palestinian Men Encountering
a Swedish Introductory Program for Refugees
Nina Gren, Social Anthropology,

Lund University | nina.gren@soc.lu.se
This paper discusses the experiences of young Palestinian men in an introductory

program for refugees in Sweden. The program was designed to support people, who
had been accepted for asylum, in learning Swedish and in introducing them to the
labour market (Ennerberg 2017). Despite the good intentions of policy-makers, my
interlocutors often feel that it is a waste of time to follow the program. The program is
not adjusted to their aspirations and they have little possibilities to decide what to do
with their own lives while being enrolled in it. I argue that their frustrations can be
understood primarily as reactions to a bureaucratization of daily life and to the
institutional requirements that limit their sense of agency. Bureaucratization in this
case leads to resistance but also to hopelessness and changed plans.
Many migrants from war-torn countries, not least Palestinians, are prepared for
multiple losses in life and for enduring hardships. However, migrants are seldom
prepared for the bureaucratization of life that is set in motion in North European
welfare states when dealing with bureaucracy. In addition, I claim that the
bureaucratic labelling of my interlocutors as ‘refugees’ (Zetter 1991), whose reason for
migrating was fleeing persecution and conflict, conceals their aspirations to attain
higher education. As a result, my ethnographic material shows that introductory
programs that do not take educational ambitions into account may seem
meaningless and refugees may, either deliberately or not, ignore bureaucratic
requirements in an attempt to break out of immobilizing conditions.
44
Precarious
RACE Inclusion: Migrants and
AND RACIALISATION Refugees
BURIED ALIVE
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
IN WELFARE STATE PRACTICES
Trine Øland, Section for Education, Department of Communication,

University of Copenhagen | troeland@hum.ku.dk
Marta Padovan-Özdemir, Department of Social Education,
VIA University College | mapa@via.dk
Although dominant narratives would say that race and racialisation is of the past in
Europe, if ever existing in the Nordic countries (Keskinen, Skaptadóttir, and Toivanen
2019; Lentin 2014), critical research has pointed out that racialized welfare logics are in
play in welfare state practices (Neubeck and Cazenave 2001; Williams 1996; Øland
2019). One could say that modern colonial state practices with clear dividing,
racialized and hierarchizing practices have been buried alive and have lived on in
universalistic welfare state practices of benevolence and solidarity (Goldberg 2009,
Hesse 2007).
This workshop invites scholars to think about how we in our research practices make
it possible to encounter and identify evaded, silenced and forgotten logics and
practices of race, racism and racialization without applying a speculative mode of
thought. How do we recognise that colonial histories have lived on and play a role in
shaping current social, cultural and political relations, including our most profound
knowledge relations? What role do other racial histories and relations play? Are we
othering types of racialisation by focusing on coloniality? How can we notice
something that is thoroughly and insistently denied, yet effectively at work in
racialized people’s lives?
If race and racism work in a shape shifting manner (Neubeck and Cazenave 2001) in
addition to being denied and evaded, what conceptual and analytical vocabularies
could be developed to help us identify and name race and racism? Do we need
particular ways of presenting that which is buried alive and haunting in the
background of data, e.g., composed stories, fiction and other types of extended
creativity within the academy? We encourage papers focusing on conceptual,
analytical or methodological concerns in teasing out racial dynamics, complexity and
complicity.
45
"Actually, we never speak about it":
PAPER 1:
Dutch judges about ethnicity and culture in family
court cases on migrant children in the Netherlands
Iris Sportel, Dr. Institute for Sociology of Law,

Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands | I.Sportel@jur.ru.nl
In this paper, I discuss how Dutch courts deal with cases on children from migrant
families. Based on interviews with judges, lawyers, and child welfare professionals, as
well as an analysis of judgements and court files I will discuss how Dutch courts deal
with court cases on children from migrant families; how they take families' ethnic,
cultural, or religious backgrounds into account when taking decisions; and what
meanings they ascribe to ethnicity, religion, or culture in these cases.
Judges from the family divisions of Dutch courts need to take decisions on a wide
range of topics, dealing with issues ranging from divorce, child custody, and paternity
to child welfare and (in some courts) also youth criminal cases. In their decision-
making in family law cases, and especially in child protection cases, the most
important concept for judges is “the best interest of the child”, which leaves space for
different kinds of norms on what good parenting is and should be.
In these court cases, notions of ethnicity, culture and religion are at the same time
very present as well as remarkably absent. In the interviews, all judges told stories
about specific issues affecting cases of migrant families, such as criminal behaviour
by boys of Moroccan descent, single-mother families from former Dutch colonies in
the Caribbean, and issues regarding sexuality of Muslim girls. Judges generally
attributed these issues to the ethnic, cultural, or religious background of migrant
families, although some mentioned socio-economic causes as well. However,
ethnicity, culture, and religion tended to remain implicit, silently present in court
cases on children, unless there are very strong reasons to address explicitly. Even
when all professionals involved were aware that conflicting values negatively
impacted the legal position of migrant children, this was still not addressed explicitly
in court hearings or judgements.
46
PAPER 2:
Race and Reproduction in Scandinavia
Rikke Andreassen, Professor, Department of Arts and Communication,

Roskilde University, Denmark | rikkean@ruc.dk
Ulrika Dahl, Professor, Department of Gender Studies,
University of Uppsala, Sweden | ulrika.dahl@gender.uu.se
During the past 15 years, Scandinavian countries have witnessed significant changes
in family formations. Following the enactment of laws to permit various forms of gay
and gender neutral marriage, new legislation has made lesbian couples and single
women eligible for state-funded assisted reproduction. This paper discusses the
relationship between kinship, race and nation in the formation of family by critically
analyzing contemporary queer reproduction.
While assisted reproduction and the de-linking of gametes are components of a

larger global trend, the Scandinavian setting constitutes a unique case, given the
welfare states’ provision of free access to gametes and ARTs. This provision has not
only resulted in a very large number of children born into queer families, but it has
also democratised access to family making across social classes. The Scandinavian
case underscores how babies are made through a series of racialised medical and
commercial choices. In Sweden, state clinics and hospitals (racially) match gametes
with intended patients, whereas in Denmark, online commercialisation has rendered
sperm and eggs into commodities, presenting ‘race’ as a central consumer category
in conception and reproduction (Andreassen 2018; Russell 2018). To that end, it is of
particular interest that Denmark has become a major player in the sperm market,
exporting so-called ‘Viking sperm’ globally.
The inclusion of LGBTQ individuals into the national pool of reproduction can be
interpreted as homonationalism (Puar 2007). This paper proposes not simply to
understand contemporary queer reproduction as homonationalism but also to see it
as a historical continuation of the eugenic biopolitical initiatives of the welfare states.
Instead of viewing queer reproduction as a new and progressive step in LGBTQ
liberation, we aim to illustrate the ways in which queer reproduction mirrors former
biopolitical reproductive initiatives.
47
PAPER 3:
The methodological intervention of stock stories
Marta Padovan-Özdemir, Department of Social Education,

Research Programme on Society & Diversity, VIA University College | mapa@via.dk
Trine Øland, Section of Education, Department of Communication,
University of Copenhagen. | troeland@hum.ku.dk
In this paper, we engage with stock stories as a methodological intervention in critical

race studies of welfare. This methodological intervention is based on the idea that
race and racialization can be found buried alive and thus, haunting in the background
of the empirical sources (Goldberg 2009, 2015) in various shapes and shades
(Neubeck and Cazenave 2001). In order to excavate evaded and silenced forms of
race and racialization, we invigorate the CRT tradition of identifying majoritarian
stories (Solórzano and Yosso 2002), which we understand to be “description[s] of
events as told by members of dominant/majority groups, accompanied by the values
and beliefs that justify the actions taken by dominants to insure their dominant
position” (Love 2004:228–29). Consequently, stock stories cause privilege to appear
normal, and make welfare work seem neutral and apolitical, while referencing the
superordinated as ‘people’ and ‘othering’ the subordinated.
In this paper, we will explore how such stock stories can be excavated from historical
documents found in professional periodicals of teachers, social educators, nurses and
social workers from the periods of 1978-82, 1992-94, and 2014-16, when Vietnamese,
Bosnian and Syrian refugees, respectively, arrived in Denmark.
For these excavation purposes, we display our strategies and processes of coding
and re-reading the empirical material across professions, text genres, and time in
order to generate experimental assemblages as temporary points “of indecision on
the threshold of knowing” (MacLure 2013:181). Consecutively, we interrogate the
challenges of developing and exhibiting stock stories of colour-blindness,
potentializing, and compassion that are assembled from threads and fringes across
the experimental assemblages by means of docu-fictionalization and different types
of protagonists.
48
Precarious Inclusion:BETWEEN
STATE-EDUCATION MigrantsRACIALISATION
and Refugees AND
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
THE POSSIBILITIES OF ANTI-RACIST STRATEGY
Jin Hui Li, Department of Culture and Learning, Aalborg University | jhl@hum.aau.dk
Mantė Vertelytė, Aarhus University, DPU | mantev@ruc.dk
In the presence of accumulated migratory histories, the racialization of minoritized

populations, the rise of populism and the radical right, educational institutions are
understood to be those settings through which these processes are both being
(re)produced and potentially challenged. Since the 1960s’, with the increasing moral
panic over immigrant integration in the Nordic welfare-states, educational institutions
have become focal points for political attention and intervention for migrant
integration. It is through schooling and education that national discourses and policies
for minority integration/assimilation are introduced, implemented and
recontextualised. It is also through schools and educational programs that racialized
subject positions are being established, such as “foreign”, “bilingual”, “troublemaker”
or “Muslim” students, among others.
In this panel, we approach educational institutions as part of the formation of nation-

states’ through which racialized subjectivities, identities and visions of belonging and
nation are being produced. We invite presentations that discuss, for example, the
following questions: What intersecting markers of differences are produced in
educational institutions both historically and now? How does elementary schooling
shape the lives of people with migratory histories when they arrived to the Nordic
countries as children? How do social work interventions contribute to the racialization
of new migrants? What are the challenges for education to practice critical racially
literate pedagogies? How can education challenge reoccurring processes of
racialization in Nordic countries?
Parallel Workshops I: Monday 11 January 2021 at 12:30-14:00

49
The lived class and racialization: Histories of foreign-
PAPER 1:
worker children’s school experiences in Denmark
SESSION ONE: Monday 11 January 2021 at 12:30-14:00
J. Hui Li, Aalborg University, Dept. of Culture and Learning | jhl@hum.aau.dk
The recent years have seen a rise in moral panics concerning students with migratory
histories (particularly students perceived as non-Western descendants) who may not
be performing to standard (Fabrin & Buchardt, 2015; Gilliam, 2009). These discourses
reflect an assumption of a necessary upward class mobility through education for
these groups of students. Historically, they have (since the 1970s) been targeted as
requiring extracurricular efforts for inclusion in Danish education politics (Buchardt,
2016). They were categorized as “foreign workers’ children” in the 1970s’ education
policy, as they often were children of migrant guest workers who participated in the
so-called “guest worker programs” from the early 1960s. The ‘foreign part’ (often
understood as foreign ethnic culture) of the foreign workers’ children tended to be
emphasized in the media, policy and pedagogical materials targeting these groups
(Buchardt, 2016), whereas ‘the worker part’ seemed to be neglected. There seems to
be some historical frictions between the societal expectation of class mobility via
education on one hand and the neglect of matters of class in the curriculum for
migrant students on the other.
This paper unfolds the tensions through the migrant students’ own voices by using
oral histories of migrant students’ experiences of schooling in the Danish context from
the 1970s to the 1990s. This paper will hence explore how the migrant students
experienced the lived class (Skeggs, 1997) as tensions between the written
curriculum (where class is a neglected issue) and the practices of schooling politics
(where class is experienced by migrant students as interlocking with racialization
(Myong, 2007)).
50
PAPER 2:
Potentials of a generation
Steffen Bering Kristensen, PhD Fellow, Danish School of Education,

Department of Educational Anthropology (DPU) | sbk@edu.au.dk
Recently, a new category was introduced to the enduring Danish debate on the
schooling of migrants and their descendants – the so-called “third generation
immigrants” (JP). It was stated, based on grade averages compared to children of
Danish descent and those of the so-called “second-generation”, that they were; “also
lagging behind” (Berlingske). They became inscribed in the discourse on "failed
integration".
Based on long-term fieldwork in public schools in different areas of Copenhagen,

Denmark, I have had the chance to talk to more than twenty children, who ascribe to
this new category, but with a great diversity in family- and migratory history, that in
itself challenges the idea of homogeny in “generations” (Mannheim, 1970). Based on
my observations in school and interviews, I will take a step away from average
grades, and present how these children themselves construct unique identities in a
generational, habituated perspective through the lens of “potential” (Gilliam & Gulløv
2019).
I will discuss how my informants experience to be seen as “potentials” by teachers

and peers in an educational setting that continually highlight racialized subject
positions directly and indirectly - also serving as a micro-cosmos of Danish society
and debates today. I will discuss how these ideas of “potentials” mirror and oppose
my informants’ own ideas of “potential futures” by engaging with social imaginary
theory (Crapanzano, 2004, Strauss, 2006). I argue that markers of difference seems to
be transferred through generations within an educational context in racialized
subjectivity challenging ideas of “integration” (Rytter, 2018), and I discuss how a focus
on "generation" and parental migratory history could contribute to alternative
pedagogies, by showing how my informants challenges the intersecting markers of
difference themselves.
51
Securing the nation through good schooling: Media
PAPER 3: discourses of "the malleable child"
Asta Smedegaard Nielsen, Department of Politics and Society,

Aalborg University | nielsen@dps.aau.dk
The presentation takes as its outset analyses of media reporting on cases of migrant
children, first deemed deportable from Denmark, but who after the media attention
on their cases have had the deportation reversed, and have obtained residence in
Denmark. Throughout the cases the question of the children’s integration into Danish
society is foregrounded. I aim at demonstrating how parts of the reporting configure
integration as holding a promise of securing the nation through good schooling. This
configuration is premised on the figure of ‘the malleable child’, as good schooling is
represented as the key to transforming the children from being deportable migrants
into becoming potential Danish citizens of prosperity and well-doing. Additionally, it is
premised on the intervention from white Danish schoolteachers, pupils and their
parents as those who are actively enacting the transformation by inviting the migrant
children into their Danish schools, friendships and lives.
By highlighting Danish schooling, and other specific Danish skills and preferences, as
what can make the children become good citizens, the reporting comes to uphold
Danishness as specific ideal of the nation. In this sense, the reporting follows a self-
referential logic of ‘the nation’, where Danishness becomes foregrounded as that
which both is the nation, and what secures the nation in the future. Within this logic
‘the malleable child’ works as an ideal of total assimilation as it allows for an
imaginary of the migrant child as a tabula rasa upon which pure Danishness can be
inscribed and nurtured for the future. Additionally, it paves the way for a self-
performance of inclusiveness of the Danish people, together with a celebration of the
diversity it demonstrates by including the non-white migrant children.
52
Using race or not? Conceptualizing race
PAPER 4: in a Danish educational context
SESSION TWO: Wednesday 13 January 2021 at 11:45-13:15
Pernille Ahrong, Aalborg University,

University College Copenhagen | pagn@hum.aau.dk
In recent years, the concept of racialization as a replacement for race has been used
to understand the processes through which racial meaning is linked to something that
is considered without racial meaning and as processes reflecting the structures of
privilege and power in society. Also racialization as concept has been framed as a
way not to reify the idea of race as a natural category.
This paper is a theoretical discussion of the concept of race in a contemporary Danish

educational context. It explores the relevance of the concept race as a theoretically
point of departure by raising the question: Using "race" or not as an analytical
category in a Danish educational context? Investigating race in Danish educational
contexts, challenges the overtly colorblind discourse in Denmark where talking about
race and racism is considered taboo, and where race is often displaced with ethnicity,
religion, and bilingualism.
Questions on why and how to use and conceptualize race in a Danish context arose
through resistance I have experiences during my Ph.D. project on racialization, race
and belonging among students (age 10 - 12). The resistance towards the use of race
analytically comes from different directions; from meetings with Danish Elementary
School teachers, supervisors, colleagues, friends, family, students I have met as a
lecturer, and myself. The unavoidable question to raise in this regard, and raised by
many other scholars before me, is if using race upholds the idea of biological races?
That investigating _race_ is reproducing the very thing that the research has been set
out to challenge? But what are the implications and consequences of acknowledging
not only the processes of how race come to exists (racialization) but also race as a
social category imbedded in lived experiences, belonging, visibility, and identity?
53
How to educate in a racialized world? Danish school
PAPER 5:
professionals’ reflections on boundaries between
education ideals and state problematization of "non-
Western" children
Gro Hellesdatter Jacobsen, Associate Professor,

Department for the Study of Culture, University of Southern Denmark | ghja@sdu.dk
This paper addresses how school professionals in Denmark reflect on the relation
between their everyday work at school and the demands of the outside society
regarding integration and immigration policies. In Danish policy and public debates,
the concept of integration is often related to problematization and racialization of
immigrants (especially the ‘non-Westerns’ which is an official state term), which
paradoxically seems to make successful integration unobtainable. In recent years,
Denmark has become known for its increasingly restrictive policies regarding
immigration and integration. However, an ‘exceptionalist’ understanding of the
country as a place, where discrimination on the basis of race and ethnicity is virtually
non-existent prevails. Not least school practice is characterized by self-
understandings related to colour-blindness and equality.
On basis of interviews with principals and teachers from six Danish schools with
students with migratory background, it is analysed how school professionals reflect
on their work on educating minority children in a societal context of restrictive
immigration and integration policies. A special emphasis is put on the construction,
maintenance and porosity of boundaries between school and the surrounding society
regarding education of minority children in professionals’ narratives. While colour-
blind and democratic strategies seem prominent, explicit anti-racist strategies are
less common. The paper aims at contributing to an understanding of professionals’
processes of navigating in, and demarcating themselves from, a highly politicized
context of immigration and integration policies and, on this basis, to the discussion of
possibilities for anti-racist strategies in education.
54
(The lack of) teaching anti-racism
PAPER 6: in Social Education in Denmark
Katrine Scott, Department of Social Education,

University College Copenhagen, Denmark | ksco@kp.dk
The AutoCorrect on my new work computer does not know the Danish word
"racisme" but corrects it to the English "racism". I am preparing a class on racialisation
in Denmark at my new job as a lecturer in Social Education (Pædagoguddannelsen).
Since 2014, it has been mandatory that all students in Social Education are taught the
subject Gender, Sexuality and Diversity. This is an exception in Denmark that is
otherwise often described as both “gender blind” (Nørgaard & Vittrup 2010) and with
an ideology of “colourblindness” (Marronage 2017). I am talking with my colleagues
about how the diversity part of the subject is taught, and it seems that it is mostly
understood in relation to gender and diverse family constellations. The concept of
ethnicity might be introduced, one colleague tells me. I search for literature on
racialisation and racism in Danish aimed at students in Social Education. I do not find
much. Searching with the words "immigrants" and "integration" on the other hand
provides a lot of hits. When I read texts that are used, I find that the social educators
are presumed to be white, and ethnicity is related only to children of migrants. The
teacher body in Social Education is remarkably white while classrooms consist of 50%
brown students. Half of the future social educators do not look like the ones in the
texts.
In this paper, I will reflect on the possibilities and challenges for critical teaching on
racialisation and anti-racism in Danish Social Education. The paper is building on my
own teaching experiences and an exploration of existing literature and practices in
Social Education.
Marronage (2017) Vigtige ord og begreber, vol. 2, pp 8-11.
Nørgaard, C. & Vittrup, B. (2010) Dét, de siger, bliver man selv! Om kønskompetencer i skolens praksis.
In: Åbne og lukkede døre - En antologi om køn i pædagogik, Kirk, Scott, Siemen & Wind (ed.),
Frydenlund, pp. 93-105.
55
Challenges for antiracist education in Danish schools:
PAPER 7: Theorizing antiracist education as mood work
Mante Vertelyte, Post Doc, Aarhus University, DPU | mante@edu.au.dk
How can education respond productively/positively to students’ racial-ethnic

experiences? As we know from Danish and international research, universities,
schools and extracurricular activity spaces are those institutions through which the
processes of racialization are (re)produced and potentially challenged. Antiracist
education then becomes a necessary intervention to encourage students and
educators to respond to the contemporary racisms and (re)production of white
privileges. Based on the ethnographic study at the Danish secondary multicultural
school, I will explore ways that antiracist education can facilitate spaces and practices
that could potentially pave paths for social change and affirmative critique.
First, I will map the challenges for antiracist education through analyzing everyday
racialized classroom encounters between students and teachers. Particularly, I will
discuss challenges for antiracist education through the notions of Nordic
exceptionalism and colorblindness. Second, I will discuss the theoretical and
conceptual implications for understanding anti-racist work as ‘mood work’. The paper
argues for approaching race and racism as an affective racial experience and
delineates implications that such conceptual operationalization could have for
antiracist education and critical pedagogies.
56
Equal belonging in post-migrant societies?
PAPER 8:
Othering practices in a new preparatory program
SESSION THREE: Thursday 14 January 2021 at 10:00-11:30
Iben Jensen, Aalborg University | ibenj@hum.aau.dk

Lene Kofoed, University College Absalon | lera@pha.dk
How is othering of migrant students practiced in an FGU school? FGU is a Danish

novelty that lumps together in one institution all educational programs for youth up to
25 years who are in need of upgrading to be able to proceed into upper secondary
and vocational education or get a job(Agreement 2017). FGU also brings together
teachers with different professional experiences.
A pilot study conducted by the authors shows how two FGU teachers in different
professional positions speak about migrants in very different ways. Both teachers
refer to migrants as a special group that either spoil the learning process in class or
on the contrary are far more interested in studying than the majority of the students in
FGU.
We will discuss our data from a post-migrant approach, which imply that the
aftermath of migration concerns society at large and not only those who migrated or
have parents who did. The approach emphasizes the societal negotiations, the
conflicts and the identity processes (Petersen & Schramm 2016).
In addition, we will introduce the concept of equal belonging, which Drymiotou

defines as the sense of having “’free-identity’ and comfortable belonging in a
community of equals” (Drymiotou 2018: 28). We will discuss the potentials of the
concept to bring the inequalities in a new institutional framework into the light.
Accordingly, our overall question is: Which forms of belonging are migrant students
offered when teachers negotiate their visions for an appropriate FGU student?
Drymiotou, E. (2018). Human rights, constitutional law and belonging: the right to equal
belonging in a democratic society. New York: Routledge.
Petersen, R. A. & Schramm, M. (2016): Postmigration. Mod et nyt kritisk perspektiv på migration og
kultur. Kultur & Klasse. Årg. 44 nr. 122
Agreement (2017). Aftale om bedre veje til uddannelse og job. www.uvm.dk
57
Theproduction of segregation, racism and whiteness
PAPER 9: in the school system: A Dutch-Belgian perspective
Ruben Hordijk, PhD Candidate, Gender Studies, Thematic Department,

Linköping University | ruben.hordijk@liu.se & rubenhordijk@hotmail.com
The Netherlands and Belgium share with the Nordic countries the collective ‘aphasia’
(Stoler 2016) with regard to their colonial histories and racist realities, delegating
racism to a distant past that has no relevant for an innocently white identity (Wekker
2015). The schooling system is key in understanding structural racism and its
transgenerational effects. For this conference, I would like to offer (1) a few
sociological notes on how the Netherlands and Belgium actively reproduce
segregation between whites and non-whites; and (2) some pedagogical notes on how
the curriculum assumes whiteness as the standard, based on research during my
academic pedagogical training in Leuven, Belgium and anecdotal experience as a
white subject growing up in the Dutch school system and studying decolonial option
and decolonization movements in the Netherlands.
By focusing simultaneously on the practical segregation in schools (e.g. it is not

uncommon to refer to ‘zwarte scholen’ (black schools) in the Netherlands) and the
curricular whiteness I am interested in the consolidation and production of racialized
subjectivities (white innocence) reproducing binaries of white/non-white, christian-
secular/muslim, autochtoon/allochtoon, national/foreigner. I will turn to historical
and contemporary attempts at decolonization in the school system from from anti-
colonial communist Anton de Kom (1898—1945; author of the Surinamese/Dutch
counter-history Wij slaven van Suriname), to the current Black Archives organization.
I hope that presenting Dutch and Belgian cases provide a hermeneutic to explore
differences and similarities in forms of exclusion and the reproduction of racism in the
Nordic countries, also within the context of the self-image of being the progressive
‘exception’.
58
Migrant youth’s narratives on the construction
PAPER 10: of their ethnic identity in secondary education
Emma Carey Brummer, University of Antwerp | imke.brummer@uantwerpen.be

Olga Cara, University College London, Institute of Education
Although the Netherlands sees itself as a particularly tolerant and colour-blind nation,
where it is said that ethnic background does not affect life chances and it is irrelevant
to how people are treated (Brown, 2012; Hondius, 2009), students from ethnic minority
groups often face challenges in school such as cultural differences and language
barriers, experience discrimination (Clycq, Ward, Nouwen, and Vandenbroucke, 2014)
and/or biased attitudes from peers and teaching staff (e.g. Douglass et al. 2016;
Hinnerich et al., 2015; Appel, Weber, & Kronberg, 2015; Agirdag, Van Avermaet, and
van Houtte, 2013). This paper focuses on how ethnic minority students in the
Netherlands define their ethnic identity and explores the interplay between students’
ethnic identity and feeling at home in school.
Identity constellations inside school show complex interactions between multiple

identities in different contexts. The narratives of the students with different migration
backgrounds coming from different schools show that they often are proud of their
ethnic heritage but struggle sometimes with the dominant discourse in school that
discourage certain behaviours, values and cultures. They tend to find a balance
between their ethnic identity and the dominant national identity and describe ‘minor’
events occurring in everyday school-life where they are positioned as the ‘other’. This
paper aims to advance critical thinking about students with different migration
backgrounds in the Dutch education system by examining the diversity of identity
positions and minoritised groups that are constituted as belonging to this category in
different contexts.
59
Precarious Inclusion: Migrants and Refugees
WORKSHOP 6.
WORKSHOP 1 in Contemporary
ANTI-RACISM ANDWelfare
HOPESStates
OF LIVING TOGETHER
Karin Krifors, Linköping University | karin.krifors@liu.se

Diana Mulinari, Lund University | diana.mulinari@genus.lu.se
Anders Neergaard, Linköping University | anders.neergaard@liu.se
Hansalbin Sältenberg, Lund University
These are times in which racism and far right politics is pushing forward within a
landscape of assimilationist agendas that target migrant and racialised groups in
Nordic societies. Yet, this is also a time of diverse resistance towards the consistent
and the new agendas of racisms. This workshop explores the possibilities of
imagining spaces beyond racism and the hopes of current anti-racist practices, as
well as its boundaries. We are inspired by the question: ’What, after all, are anti-racists
in favour of?’ (Gilroy 2000: 53) and invite participants to discuss histories, arts and
ethnographies that examine how anti-racisms, resistance and utopian labour is done,
in practice, within and against a Nordic exceptionalism. Is there a (postcolonial)
melancholia that prevent utopias to be envisioned or can we find better ways to
define these processes in Nordic countries? Can scholarships of hope be a way
forward?
We explore the possibilities of finding anti-racisms within institutionalised social

movements and organisations, art, literature, Nordic and transnational histories as
well activism of human rights, feminism, anti-capitalism, religion and other arenas.
The workshop also aims to discuss how these spaces beyond racisms can be
envisioned in current migration research and hope that participants will piece
together contributions to an important mapping of anti-racist engagements that have
been under-developed in current social theory (Lentin 2008, Jämte 2012). Such
interventions would address questions such as: what are the current possibilities of
anti-racist subject positions and what are the conflicts that get in the way of anti-racist
practices?
60
Antiracist translations:
PAPER 1: Negotiating class and race in Sweden
Lisa Karlsson Blom, PhD student,

Linköping University (REMESO) | lisa.karlsson.blom@liu.se
In my dissertation project I interview Swedish antiracists who are invested in a form of

work which focuses on structures and discourses, and which borrows much of its
vocabular from anglo-american theory and activism. Departing from excerpts of my
dissertation transcripts, I would like to discuss the strategies deployed by my
interviewees to translate and work with academic - and to some extent imported -
language in antiracist work. The work they do involves negotiations of class and race
on various levels, and shows that 'theory' and 'practice' cannot so easily be
seperated. The antiracist field in which I have focused my study, is a field which is
heavily criticized today in Sweden, from the Left as well as from the Right. The way
antiracists deal with this critique, and the way the critique itself is formulated, speaks
directly to a specific political moment in Sweden, in regards to class and race - but
also in regards to resistance and maybe also, hope.
61
Challenging white hegemony and re-imagining
PAPER 2: social futures: Postethnic activismin the Nordic region
Suvi Keskinen, University of Helsinki | suvi.keskinen@helsinki.fi
New kinds of activism has emerged in the Nordic countries, in which mobilisation
occurs on basis of being racialised as non-white or 'other' by the surrounding society,
instead of organising around ethnic group membership. This ‘postethnic activism’ has
developed through social media platforms, local action groups, residence area based
activities and art movements. In the Nordic societies where the racial formation has
been based on white hegemony the response in the public sphere has been divided:
while some media sources have provided space for the activists to contribute with
texts and programmes, the challenging of taken-for-granted notions of nation, race
and gender has also led to harsh attacks on individual activists and (what is perceived
as) identity politics.
Based on interview, observation and media data gathered in Sweden, Denmark and
Finland, this presentation examines how the activists develop autonomous spaces
with their own rules and thematic focus, as well as make interventions to mainstream
media platforms. In doing so, activists are challenging the hegemonic racial politics
and the politicisation of the social in the Nordic countries. While there is a tendency in
the neoliberal post-racial era, to de-politicise and individualise social inequalities, the
activists are creating knowledges that re-politicise questions of race, class and
gender. Simultaneously they are developing social imaginaries of alternative futures,
building on ideas of the ‘past in present’ and the ‘future in present’.
62
Migrants and community building: Emotional
PAPER 3: labour and integration work in social movements
Karin Krifors, Linköping University | karin.krifors@liu.se
This project builds on ethnographic observations and interviews with migrant

solidarity movement activists in three Swedish municipalities with relatively small
populations, located outside the larger urban regions. Activists with migrant and non-
migrant backgrounds are interviewed. These migrant solidarity movements often
have explicit anti-racist agendas, which has remained under-researched as a field
(Lentin 2008). The concept of conviviality, developed by Paul Gilroy with reference to
urban spaces where people live together across difference (Gilroy 2004), is applied to
notions of multi-culturalism and community-building (Neal et al. 2019) in the semi-
rural.
The activists describe a retraction of state services to refugees and newly arrived
migrants, which has served as a starting-point for the work of local community-
building. Previous studies of migration solidarity movements show that there is a
potential to create in-between spaces between citizens and non-citizens (Nordling,
Sager, and Söderman 2017), which is relevant for the negotiation between
integrationist agendas and anti-racist convictions.
The paper discusses the active participation of newly arrived migrants in local civil
society and social movements, how they are often considered resources in this work,
which shapes the emotional regimes of integration. Migrant activists engage in
community-building that gives them access to alternative subject positions and
experience convivial situations, yet they also feel compelled to perform as successful
and ‘integrated’ and often have limited access to a migrant community. The article
argues that migrants who are engaged in community work that has dimensions of
integration, which they are themselves subjected to from other areas of society,
perform a difficult and sometimes unrecognised emotional labour of negotiating
these tensions.
63
Perceived threat or perceived benefit? Immigrants’
PAPER 4: perception of how Finns tend to perceive them
Elvis Nshom, Department of Communication, California State University, San Marcos,

CA. USA | enshom@csusm.edu
Ilkhom Khalimzoda, Department of Language and Communication Studies,
University of Jyvaskyla, Finland | ilkhom.i.khalimzoda@jyu.fi
Mukhammadyusuf Shaymardanov, School of Business and Economics, University of
Jyvaskyla, Finland | shaymam@student.jyu.fi
Sadaf Shomaila, Department of Language and Communication Studies, University of
Jyvaskyla, Finland | shomaila.sadaf1@gmail.com
According to the integrated threat theory (ITT), the way locals perceive immigrants
largely contributes to feelings of fear and prejudice towards immigrants. Since the
inception of ITT, an abundance of research has since emerged utilizing the ITT to
examine how majority groups perceive immigrants. However, one of the setbacks of
existing research on the perception of immigrant, is that it has mainly focused on how
members of the host society perceive immigrants while neglecting immigrants’
impressions of how members of the host society tend to perceive them. Guided by
ITT which argues that immigrants are often perceived as a threat, and the threat
benefit model (TBM) which argues that immigrants can be perceived as a benefit as
well by the host society, this study particularly analyses immigrants’ perception of
how Finns tend to perceive them.
In Finland, the literature on the perception of Finns towards immigrant minorities is

well established, but studies that examine immigrants’ perceptions of how Finns tend
to perceive them to the best of our knowledge are non-existent. In order to better
understand Finnish-immigrant relations, research should not only focus on how Finns
perceive immigrants. Research should additionally explore the impressions or
perceptions of immigrants themselves about how Finns perceive them based on their
lived experiences. The data for this study has been collected but not analyzed. The
data was collected among immigrants from up to 40 countries living in Finland. As an
open-ended question, participants were asked to write on the anonymous google
form questionnaire about their perception of how they are perceived in Finland. A
total of 340 immigrants participated in the study and the content is currently being
analyzed through the lens of ITT and TBM.
64
Anti-Jewish Racism in mainstream
PAPER 5: Swedish political discourse
Hansalbin Sältenberg, Department of Gender Studies,

Lund University, Sweden | hansalbin.saltenberg@genus.lu.se
In this paper, forms of contemporary Swedish Jewish anti-racism, embedded in what

is now mainstream anti-Muslim discourses, are explored. Through an analysis of three
cases of what is labelled Swedish “banal anti-Jewish racism” occurring in 2019 –
including one Swedish municipality’s decision to ban “religious” food in public
schools, the contention from the leader of the Christian Democratic Party that
Christmas is a “Swedish” holiday which “non-Swedes” should respect, and the
decision of the congress of the Center Party to ban non-medical male circumcision of
minors – it is argued that forms of anti-Jewish racism are intrinsic to understandings
of Sweden as both a secular and a Protestant nation.
Moreover, the paper explores the workings of gender and sexuality within both anti-
Jewish and anti-Muslim discourses, notably the continuous feminization of the Jewish
“Other”. Furthermore, the notion of “gender equality” as a form of “Swedish
exceptionalism” is suggested to function as a regulator of how Jews and Muslims are
hierarchically ordered within the Swedish racial regime. Finally, it is argued that both
the Jewish and the Muslim “Other” are located outside the realm of “Swedishness” in
mainstream anti-Muslim discourses in Sweden, albeit in different ways and with
different political effects.
65
Precarious Inclusion: Migrants
DIFFERENTIATED and Refugees
WHITENESS(ES) BESIDES
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
HEGEMONY? TRACING GRADATIONS OF WHITENESS
Linda Lapiņa, Roskilde University | llapina@ruc.dk

Anna Maria Wojtynska, University of Iceland |annawo@hi.is
Irma Budginaitė-Mačkinė, Vilnius University | irma.budginaite@fsf.vu.lt
Earlier research problematises the hegemony of whiteness in the Nordic region,

relating this to silence about and silencing of race (Andreassen & Vitus, 2015;
Svendsen, 2013), colorblindness (Hübinette & Lundström, 2014), white nostalgia
(Danbolt & Myong, 2018) and white right to love the Other (Myong & Bissenbakker,
2016). The past decade has brought an increasing focus on race and racialisation in
the Nordic region; however, whiteness remains underexplored (Meer, 2018). With this
workshop, we are responding to calls to interrogate and further conceptualise
whiteness in the Nordic setting and beyond (Andreassen & Myong, 2017; Hvenegård-
Lassen & Staunæs, 2019; Loftsdóttir, 2017).
The workshop explores differentiated whiteness, moving beyond the binary of

white/non-white or (single, solid) hegemonic whiteness. We set out to investigate
how different whitenesses are enacted, negotiated and contested, and to challenge
how un(re)marked whiteness reinforces colonial complicity (Keskinen, 2009; Vuorela,
2016). The papers draw on different disciplinary backgrounds and geographical
locations, employing a variety of qualitative methods- interviews, fieldwork, visual
methods, autoethnography, affective writing and memory work.
Papers will explore the following themes, among others:
- whiteness and intersectionality;

- hierarchies and shades of whiteness;
- degrees of proximity and distance to (Nordic) whiteness;
- affectivity and embodiment.
We invite additional contributions, in particular with a focus on indigenous Nordic

whiteness. Alternative formats, such as arts-based interventions, are very welcome.

66
Whiteness and tactics of passing among young
PAPER 1: Russian-speaking migrants in Helsinki
Daria Krivonos, Centre for Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives,
University of Helsinki | daria.krivonos@helsinki.fi
In this paper, I analyse whiteness as a direct embodied experience of a differential

ability to navigate social space. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interview data
with young Russian-speaking migrants in Helsinki in 2014-2016, I analyse how, on the
one hand, young Russian-speakers utilize their embodied white capital strategically
to pass as white Finns. They attempt to pass as white Finns and not to pass as
‘Russians’, which may help them evade experiences of everyday and institutional
racism. On the other hand, I argue that the very effort to pass as white and the desire
not to be recognized as ‘Russian’ points to the unequal access to social positions with
a positive value. I demonstrate that passing as white involves the labour of learning
and approximating the habitus of the white middle-class body. The racialised position
of ’Russianness’ is then lived as a concern with an external categorisation. In other
words, these are the bodies which feel and remain ‘out of place’ despite phenotypical
whiteness, and for whom whiteness does not come as a habit. These efforts can be
then understood as tactics as an adaptation of the non-powerful as they cannot
capitalise on their positioning. I suggest that this differential proximity to hegemonic
European whiteness and the efforts to disidentify from certain racialized positionings
highlight the position of ‘contiguous Others’ (Dzenovska, 2014) in the purification of
European whiteness.
Dzenovska, D. (2014) "Bordering Encounters, Sociality and Distribution of the Ability to
Lead a Normal Life." Social Anthropology 22(3): 271-287.
67
“Rasiste Malvīne”? Tracing affects and affordances
PAPER 2: of Eastern European migrant whiteness
Linda Lapiņa, Roskilde University | llapina@ruc.dk
This paper draws on memory work and autoethnography to trace the figure of “rasiste
Malvīne”, which I use to analyse differentiated whiteness. I met Malvīne in 2004 at an
intensive Danish language course in Copenhagen. She was 19, a year older than me.
We were both from Latvia, we had Danish partners, and we both needed Danish to
enter the university. These likenesses seemed to align us. However, I felt we were
very different. Malvīne talked at length about how “immigrants” avoided taxes and
cheated “us”, the Danish welfare society. Buying nuts at the kiosk by the school, she
would demonstratively ask the brown cashier for the receipt, while I hovered in the
background, wishing earth would swallow me. I was confused and appalled: how
could Malvīne claim to be a part of a (Danish) “us” if we were both Eastern European
migrants in Denmark? I thought I knew better than “rasiste Malvīne”. I did not realise
that my anti-racist aspirations also presented a claim to Danishness, Europeanness
and (enlightened, tolerant) whiteness.
In this paper, I analyse how affective circulations contribute to different-but-complicit

migrant becomings and whitenesses. The paper contributes to research on affectivity,
whiteness and racialization in Nordic and European settings, in the context of East to
West migration in Europe. Tracing how intersecting markers of difference constrain
different claims to whiteness, I explore differentiated whiteness as an affordance and
as a practice of mobility.
68
“Intersectional, queer-feminist project” made by
PAPER 3:
white people? - An analysis of digital activist
debates on intersectionality in Germany
Katrin Schindel, PhD Candidate in the Department of Culture,

Media and Creative Industries King's College London | katrin.schindel@kcl.ac.uk
Intersectionality, the notion that sexism, racism, and classism (and other ‘-isms’) act as
interlocking systems of oppression, is nowadays celebrated as the most important
contribution of women’s and gender studies. However, what is often overlooked are
articulations of intersectionality outside of academia, such as in contemporary
feminist activism. While these two spheres – academia and activism – are often
researched separately, Jennifer Nash (2019) rightly reminds us that “[…] academic
debate about intersectionality acted as a laboratory for the debates that now
circulate outside of academic feminism, in popular feminism practiced on Twitter and
Facebook […].”
Thus, drawing on fieldwork from my PhD research, I will present current articulations
of intersectionality in digital feminist activism in Germany. As a discourse analysis of
two case studies (*innenAnsicht and Not An Object), conducted for my pilot research,
has shown, two themes connected to whiteness are recurring: First, the activists tend
to ‘declare’ their whiteness, which, according to Sara Ahmed, “can reproduce white
privilege in ways that are ‘unforeseen’” (2004). Secondly, the examined activist groups
simultaneously reject what they call ‘white feminism’. Similar to what Akane Kanai
examines in her research on self- identifying feminists in Australia who use the
Internet to primarily educate themselves about feminism (2019), my activist case
studies deem ‘white feminism’ as bad/wrong and not intersectional.
With intersectionality’s origins in Black feminism in mind, my presentation will

critically examine these two, seemingly contradicting themes around intersectionality
and whiteness.
69
PAPER 4:
A lesson in whiteness
Johanna Ennser-Kananen, University of Jyväskylä | johanna.f.ennser-kananen@jyu.fi
How may teachers enact whiteness and undermine social justice pedagogy? This
presentation offers an analysis of a 90-minute sequence in an English classroom of
an adult basic education program, which took place in the context of a Finnish
community college that serves learners with refugee experience. l, a white European-
heritage teacher, presenter of this paper, researcher on site, and substitute teacher at
that point, taught a lesson with a focus on ownership of English to 15 adults from
Middle Eastern and African backgrounds, groups who are commonly racialized in
Finland. Following a general sense of dissatisfaction with my teaching, I hoped to
uncover what role my whiteness played in the lesson. Drawing on Frankenberg’s
(1993) understanding of whiteness as a value and belief system and the premise that
whiteness shapes teacher practice and discourse (e.g., Picower, 2009), I used peer-
supported discourse analysis of the lesson transcript to better understand the
processes of whiteness that interfered with students’ learning and engagement. This
revealed that my researcher-teacher discourses and practices erased racial
differences between my learners and me, perpetuated Eurocentric ideologies of
argumentation, and positioned me as “white listening subject” (Flores and Rosa, 2015)
vis-à-vis the students.
A theoretical lens of Critical Whiteness Pedagogy (e.g., Matias & Mackey, 2016) helps
understand these findings within larger racist and Eurocentric structures of
educational and social systems. Findings from this analysis feed into
recommendations for teachers/teacher educators, particularly those who received
their education in predominantly white institutions but work in racially and culturally
diverse contexts. With Leonardo (2002), I call for “a third space for neo-abolitionist
whites as neither enemy nor ally but a concrete subject of struggle”, where white
teachers learn to recognize their complicity in white supremacy, and take action to
work against it.
70
PAPER 5:
The white mess: an excerpted story

In my dissertation project I interview antiracists in Sweden on issues of

race/whiteness, class and anti/racism. At the heart of many of the conversations lies
the question of person vs structure in racism, as well as in antiracism. This is
especially pressing when it comes to whiteness. What does it mean to be white? In
what ways does class affect whiteness as power and how does this relate to
antiracism as theory and practice? In what ways do whites resist whiteness and does
it mean getting rid of any of it? In my presentation I want to try a different format in
terms of knowing and telling. I will read a story or a long poem, building on excerpts
from my dissertation interviews, in an attempt of making the messiness speak.
71
"I am not a racist, but…":
PAPER 6:
Young Lithuanians’ (re)positioning in
ethnic and class hierarchies in Brexit Britain
Irma Budginaitė-Mačkinė, Vilnius University | irma.budginaite@fsf.vu.lt
Lithuania’s accession to the EU in 2004 granted the freedom of movement to

Lithuanian citizens. Their (apparent) ‘whiteness’ rendered (some of) them ‘invisible’
within larger British society. About a decade later the changing political context and
strong anti-EU-migration rhetoric during the Brexit campaign (re-)opened debates on
who has a right to live and work in the UK. It was particularly directed towards the
(economic) migrants from the new EU member states.
This paper analyses how young Lithuanians respond to such ‘discrediting’ rhetoric
and how they narrate experiences of being (apparently) ‘white’ and/or ‘not quite
white’ in Brexit Britain. Drawing on intake interviews with 36 Lithuanians under 35
years old (carried out February-March 2019) and follow-up in-depth interviews with 16
of them (November-December 2019), it explores how existing ethnic and class
hierarchies are (re)enacted and shaped by the intersecting markers of difference.
72
Narratives of purity, affinity and race
PAPER 7: in Iceland’s labour recruitment policies
Anna Wojtyńska, University of Iceland | annawo@hi.is
For long Iceland remind relatively homogeneous society if compared with many of
the Europeans states. Until late 1990s the immigrant population did not exceed 2%.
Apart of the economic factors, one of the reasons for a modest influx of foreign
citizens, was relatively strict migration policy, time and again informed by Icelandic
nationalism with its strong emphasis on ideas of purity, including purity of nation and
language. Accordingly, there could be observed recurrent scepticism towards
immigrants outside the Nordic countries in the public discussion throughout the XX
century. Recently, the swift economic expansion and concomitant acute labour
shortages caused unprecedented inflow of foreign labour to the country, mostly from
Poland. Polish citizens became far the largest immigrant group in Iceland, making 39%
of all immigrants in the country and 5% of the total population in 2018. In my
presentation, I will trace the possible reason for the curious predominance of Polish
migrants in Iceland. I focus on frequently applied rhetoric that evoked notion of
shared whiteness and alleged cultural similarities (but also anticipated temporality) to
justify recruitment of workers in Poland.
73
Precarious whiteness and circumscribed
PAPER 8: whiteness and in China’s ESL industry
Shanshan Lan, University of Amsterdam | s.lan@uva.nl
The rise of China’s economy has attracted an increasing number of middle- and
lower-stratum of white migrants to the country, in addition to the so called
transnational elites. The most visible group is foreign English teachers. The
diversification of jobs in China’s booming ESL industry reflects the racialization of
different groups of English teachers, with whites at the top and blacks at the bottom.
However, a change in China’s visa policy in 2016 has created a cleavage in white
identities by making distinctions between native English speaker teachers and non-
native English speaker teachers. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Beijing and Xi’an,
this research finds that changing state immigration policy helped produce legal and
financial precariousness among white ESL teachers who are non-native English
speakers. They not only face a hard time obtaining a work visa, but are subjected to
exploitation by migration brokers and Chinese employers due to their vulnerable
legal status.
Within the non-native English speaker category, there is also a hierarchy based on
nationality, with those from Western and Northern European countries ranked higher
than those from Eastern and Southern European countries. Although white teachers
who are native English speakers enjoy more privileges in the work place, they
nevertheless embody a form of circumscribed whiteness due to their minority status
and their racialization as foreigners and cultural outsiders in relation to local Chinese.
The paper argues that the power of hegemonic whiteness has been significantly
undermined in the context of transnational migration, to the extent that white
identities becomes fragmented, destabilized, and commodified in the Chinese
context.
74
Constructing the image of ‘migrants’
PAPER 9: through different shades of whiteness
Reiko Shindo, University of Warwick | Reiko.Shindo@warwick.ac.uk
This paper investigates how different degrees of whiteness constitute a specific

image of migrants. The paper focuses on the ways in which various shades of
whiteness are attached to the categories of immigration status, introducing the ‘color
line’ (Du Bois, 1903) into immigration policies. The paper is based on ethnographic
fieldwork on migrant workers conducted in Japan (Shindo, 2019). The Japanese case
is informative in this regard since Japan’s immigration policies reflect its own colonial
past: the Japanese imperial expansion of the 1930s and 1940s in the Asian region was
intertwined with the racial discourse where Japanese-ness was imagined both as the
ideal version of whiteness, thus superior to the rest of Asian countries, and the inferior
version of whiteness in comparison to the West (e.g. Morris-Suzuki, 1998; 2010). This
racial narrative is reflected in post-war Japanese immigration policies which are
based on the belief that ‘certain races/nationalities are better qualified to engage in
certain jobs’ (Shipper, 2008: 26).
The paper argues that these racialized immigration policies create competing images
of ‘migrants’ based on degrees of whiteness. Nikkei migrants – the Japanese émigré
and their second- and third-generation descendants mainly from Brazil and Peru –
are regarded as more ‘white’ than migrants from Asian countries because they are
ethnically tied to Japan. Meanwhile, migrants from Western countries such as the UK
and the US are regarded as racially superior to not only other migrant groups
including nikkei migrants, but also the Japanese because they are perceived as more
‘white’ in the Japanese society. The paper further argues that, depending on their
level of whiteness, migrants are given different immigration status in terms of the
types of jobs they are allowed to apply for, and the length of their stay in Japan.
75
HOW (NON-) WHITENESS ACQUIRES MEANING:
WORKSHOP 1 in Contemporary Welfare States
WORKSHOP 8.
DISCUSSING RACIALIZATION IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES
Laura Führer, University of Oslo | l.m.fuhrer@sosgeo.uio.no

Sabina Tica, University of Oslo | sabina.tica@sosgeo.uio.no
Across the Nordic region, whiteness is bound up with naturalized national belonging,
whereas non-white bodies are often read as ‘bodies out of place’. This being said,
racialization is far from a uniform social process. For example, (non-) whiteness
acquires meaning in different ways across national contexts, various social arenas,
and in interaction with other categories of difference (class, gender, sexuality, etc.).
Furthermore, there is considerable debate among scholars as to how racialization

should be defined and theorized. One way to remedy this is by discussing various
empirical cases. This session investigates: 1) Empirical case studies that shed light on
the construction of (non-) whiteness across different contexts and in relation to
various social categories. 2) How these processes can be conceptualized and
theorized.
We welcome papers addressing questions such as: How does (non-) whiteness
function in different contexts (e.g. sports, schools, political organisations, fields of art,
etc.)? Regarding racialization, what are commonalities across Nordic countries, and
what are idiosyncrasies of national cases? Which theoretical concepts - such as
racialization, race, visibility, phenotype, and whiteness - are most analytically
promising for different empirical cases

Parallel Workshops V: Tuesday 12 January 2021 at 11:45-13:15
76
The revelation of whiteness in Sweden:
PAPER 1: What does it do?

In my disserttaion project I interview Swedish antiracists on issues of race/whiteness,

class and anti/racism. What I see in my material is that whiteness, as both identity and
as structure (and identity as bound up with structure) is a concept which my
interviewees make use of with a certain ease. Whiteness, as an analytical concept -
which is both specific and overdetermined - has become something of a buzz word in
some antiracist environment in Sweden in the last decade. Drawing from mostly
anglo-american theory and activism, it belongs to an analytical toolkit which in some
ways work very well to analyse the Swedish conditions, and in some ways not. I am
interested in the work of translation being done, or not, by antiracists in this regard. I
am also fascinated by how, while whiteness seems an easy topic for my interviewees
(whether they are themselves white or not) the non-white is clearly much more
difficult, especially when it comes to naming and formulating in language and
knowledge. One key point in critical whiteness theory has been to name whiteness, to
make it visible and known, in order to resist it. But what happens when something
becomes almost too easy to say? And what happens to that which cannot be called
and thereby also not appreciated in its diversity?
77
Towards a whiteness of drinking?
PAPER 2:
“Politics of fun” in the daily student life
of Greenlandic Students in Denmark
Marine Duc, Ph.D candidate, Université Bordeaux Montaigne,

Join Research Unit Passages UMR 5319 | Marine.duc@cnrs.fr
In this paper, I propose to focus on the way that social student practices involving
drinking in Denmark are producing a “politics of fun” (Bayat, 2013; Bonte, 2017).
Building on the experiences of Greenlandic students living in Copenhagen and
Aarhus area, I will show how alcohol consumption is participating in the (re)production
of raced and gendered norms in students’ sociabilities. Drinking is usually associated
with hedonistic practices and seen as a way to develop new social horizons,
sometimes cultivating a sense of performance. Coming from Greenland often with a
loose social network, the students I’ve met are considering those moments as
important spaces-times to connect with their fellow comrades.
However, the presence and experiences of Greenlandic Students in those daily

scenes of student life are interrogating how the specific context of students’ parties is
participating in racialization processes and to their negotiation. First, because in a
national context shaped by the whiteness of the university field, being there and
being visible can be yet a way to transgress the norm (an “art of presence” according
to Bayat). Second, because relation to alcohol consumption is crystallizing the
memory of colonialism, between personal trauma sometimes lived by the students
I’ve met, and the focus point of stigmatization of Greenlanders in Denmark. Therefore,
their minoritized experiences are showing the normative implications of this daily
student practice, drawing an in and out of the students’ world. I will rely on a
qualitative data set gathered during an on-going Ph.D. through more of eight months
of multi-sited fieldwork between Nuuk, Copenhagen, and Aarhus.
References:
Bayat A., 2013, Life as politics, AU Press, 318 p.
Bonte M., 2017, Beyrouth, états de fête. Géographie des loisirs nocturnes dans une ville post-conflit,
PhD thesis, 685 p
78
Reproducing whiteness and enacting kin in the
PAPER 3:
Nordic context of transnational egg donation: Matching
donors with cross-border traveller recipients in Finland
Riikka Homanen, Tampere University | riikka.homanen@tuni.fi
The multimillion-euro fertility industry increasingly tailors its treatments to infertile

people who are willing to travel across national borders for treatments inaccessible at
home, especially reproductive tissue donor treatments. Finland is the Nordic
destination for access to donor eggs, particularly for Swedes and Norwegians hoping
for a donor match that will achieve a child of phenotypically plausible biological
descent. Finns are seen as Nordic kin, and the inheritability of “Nordicness” is
reinforced at clinics. Drawing on ethnographic material from three fertility clinics in
Finland during 2015–2017, this paper discusses how Nordic relatedness and
whiteness are enacted in the practices of matching of donors with recipient parents.
The analysis shows a selective and exclusionary rationale to matching built around
whiteness: matches between donors with dark skin tone and recipients with fair skin
tone are rejected, but a match of a donor with fair skin and recipients with dark skin
may be made. Within the context of transnational egg donation, the whiteness or
Nordicness of Finns is not questioned as it has been in other historical circumstances.
Even the establishment of a state donor register offers a guarantee of kin-ness,
especially non-Russian kin-ness. It is concluded that the logics of matching protect
the “purity” of whiteness but not browness or blackness, enacting Nordic(kin)ness in
ways that are part of broader intra-European histories of racism and post-socialist
Othering.
79
Garden Parties and Transploitation:
PAPER 4:
The Production of Sexuality and Gender through
Whiteness in LGBT Denmark’s Infomercials
Tess Sophie Skadegård Thorsen, PhD Candidate,

Aalborg University | Tess_sst@hotmail.com
Scandinavian studies of media and film have taken an increasing interest in the
representations of race, gender and sexuality on screen. Oftentimes such analyses
view one axis of oppression at a time (Crenshaw, 1989). Furthermore, representational
analyses disproportionally center works that deliberately focus on minorities (i.e.
Women’s film, queer film), and rarely emphasize or analyze representations and
constructions of norm/ majority. In 2017 the Danish organization LGBT+ Denmark
launched their campaign ‘Empatisk Arbejdsmarked’ (Empathetic Labor Market), with
three short-film infomercials about LGBT+ workplace discrimination. The films feature
different forms of everyday-discrimination, directed at a variety of targets, based on
gender and/or sexuality.
This article examines the racial and gendered implications of framing sexual and
gendered discrimination within a specific racial landscape, in which the employees
who are targeted are white, and in which racial ‘others’ are construed as bystanders
or participants in the perpetuation of discrimination. Despite the potential anti-
discriminatory intent of such films, I suggest that the utilization of particular forms of
whiteness as backdrop for representations of other forms of discrimination than racial,
promotes a single-axis understanding of inequality, effectively producing LGBT+
minorities as plausible only when white. This politics of plausibility produces a
particular understanding of both whiteness and of gender and sexuality, which at best
overlooks the minorities who experience discrimination across multiple axes of
oppression, and at worst reconstitutes homonationalist narratives of queerness as
white (Puar, 2007).
80
Nordic Values, Anti-Immigrant
PAPER 5: Sentiment and Racial-Ethnic Exclusion
Aaron Ponce, University of Oslo | aaron.ponce@sosgeo.uio.no
In comparative research, the Nordic societies are often presented as homogenous

and monolithic, despite internal and intra-regional diversity. Part of the dominant
Nordic narrative is predicated on universalist welfare, solidarity, and sameness, often
in contrast to growing diversity. This study examines how Nordic publics view
immigrants and racial-ethnic difference, and whether national contexts shape such
attitudes. Using eight waves of the European Social Survey (2002-2016), the study
analyzes the guiding influence that values like self-transcendence and, in contrast,
conservation have on both generalized anti-immigrant sentiment and more targeted
racial-ethnic exclusion.
Results uncover significant country-specific differences across Norden. Findings

support the idea of a developing restrictive-inclusive continuum with Denmark and
Sweden on opposite ends, particularly with respect to racial-ethnic exclusion. This
continuum corresponds to a greater range of effects for racial-ethnic exclusion
compared to anti-immigrant sentiment as indicated by larger cross-country
coefficient differences. Furthermore, formal contrast testing shows that self-
transcendence and conservation show greater variation for racial-ethnic exclusion in
how each value functions, suggesting diverse national cultures surrounding racial
difference and whiteness. In contrast, self-transcendence and conservation each
works more similarly across countries for anti-immigrant sentiment, which could point
to a distinct regional approach to immigration more generally. Findings are discussed
in the context of universalist values and the salience of race-ethnicity in Nordic
societies.
81
PAPER 6:
Nation-ness as Performance

Helin Kontulainen, University of Helsinki | helin.kontulainen@helsinki.fi
Racism and nationalism are two ideologies that recurrently intersect each other,
conceivably due to their similar demarcation of “us” and “them.” It is possible then,
that theoretical frameworks surrounding the themes of nationalism and racialization
can provide new insights to research in both of these fields when utilized
intercontextually. This presentation introduces the novel theoretical framework of
“nation-ness as performance”, which was developed in my previous research
focusing on Kurdish performances of nation-ness in Finland. As a rather obscure term
used seldomly in previous research, ‘nation-ness’ is defined in this framework as a
term conveying “the state of being a nation.” It is hypothesized in this framework that
nation-ness is performed in a similar fashion to other social roles, such as gender; with
each “performance” reifying the category of nation-ness itself.
This presentation focuses on aspects of nation-ness that intersects with processes of

racialization. One such intersection between the two ideologies was exemplified by
an incident in 2006, where a popular Finnish newspaper’s use of a photo depicting a
black woman in Finnish national costume (kansallispuku) caused great concern in
certain circles. Through the lens of “nation-ness as performance”, the main questions
to be posed in this context are: “Can a non-white person be “Finnish”, all the while
being denied access to that nation’s folkloric signifiers?”, “How much of Finnish
nation-ness entails ‘whiteness’?” The presentation aims to demonstrate the utility of
“nation-ness as performance” in research surrounding the theme of racialization in
Finland and in the Nordics.
82
Racializing the nation and nationalizing race?
PAPER 7:
Examining the interrelation of categories that
relate to phenotype and to national belonging
Laura Maria Führer, University of Oslo | l.m.fuehrer@sosgeo.uio.no
My paper focuses on every-day categories of speech that belong to the topical fields
of national belonging and phenotype. Based on life story interviews conducted in
Oslo, Norway, I investigate how categories that situate people with regard to the
nation (Norwegian, immigrant, foreigner, ethnically Norwegian) and with regard to
phenotype (white, black, brown, dark) are entangled with one another. Previous
literature unpacks the categories ‘Norwegian’ (Lynnebakke & Fangen, 2011;
Vassenden, 2010), and ‘immigrant’ (Gullestad, 2002). Phenotypical categories,
however, have not received any attention in Norwegian sociology, where race-based
perspectives have so far been virtually absent (Andersson, 2018; Bangstad, 2017).
The analytical questions that guide the paper are: Which terms do participants use to
describe themselves or others, and what do they associate with these terms? Is there
agreement on the meaning of these terms? Are there assumptions about phenotype
inherent in the national-belonging categories, and assumptions about national
belonging in the phenotypical categories? What can be inferred from these
categories about how participants relate to the topics of national belonging and
migration-related diversity?
Theoretically, the paper is informed by critical race theory, the concept of
‘racialization’, and Rogers Brubaker’s (2002, 2009) concepts of groupness and
groupism. While the paper is built on data from Norway, it can also be read as a case
study of one European national context that, like many others, is influenced by color-
blindness (Goldberg, 2006; Lentin, 2008). As such, the paper sheds light on how
racialized categories of belonging operate in a seemingly race-less nation.
83
Conditioned hospitality? Norwegian authors with a visible
PAPER 8:
minority backgrounds’ experiences of participating in the
Norwegian field of cultural production
SESSION THREE: Tuesday 12 January 2021 at 11:45-13:15
Sabina Tica, PhD fellow, Institute for

Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo | sabina.tica@sosgeo.uio.no
Jørn Ljunggren, Postdoctoral fellow, Institute for Sociology and Human
Geography, University of Oslo
The homogeneity amongst artists in the Norwegian field of cultural production

persists, even though the government has implemented several diversity policies
over the years. Cultural producers do not reflect the diverse Norwegian population.
This constitutes a problem from a democratic perspective, as cultural participation is
an important aspect of integration, political participation, freedom of speech, and the
construction of national identity. Despite this, the sociological literature on cultural
participation among racialized minorities is surprisingly scarce. One approach to
explain the field’s persisting homogeneity is to explore the experiences of cultural
producers with a visible minority background (e.g. non-whiteness) who have
succeeded in gaining a position within the field. Hence, we ask the following question:
How do authors with a visible minority background experience their position in the
field, and how do they reflect upon their future opportunities?
Our aim with this paper is to shed light on the relationship between diversity initiatives
and social inclusion in this specific field. We argue that this relationship is not
necessarily as unambiguous as presented by government policies. The authors’
stories suggest that they feel welcomed in the field on the condition that they write
about immigrants. In other words, their non-whiteness seems to mediate their – in
Bourdieu’s terms - literary capital. Diversity policies seem to construct a double-
edged sword for the authors: They welcome the increased focus on diversity, while
simultaneously struggling to avoid the public perceiving them as ‘immigrant authors’.
84
Conditioned hospitality? Norwegian authors with a visible
PAPER 9:
minority backgrounds’ experiences of participating in the
Norwegian field of cultural production

Sanna Ryynänen, Department of Language and Communication Studies,
University of Jyväskylä | sanna.h.ryynanen@gmail.com
Throughout the current era, attitudes towards the Jews have been negative in Europe
(Jokisalo 1996; Laitila 2014, p. 8). In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, prejudice,
distrust, and contempt were spread through religious and educational texts, novels,
and media (Jokisalo 1996, pp. 129, 132–133; Laitila 2014; Matikainen 2003, pp. 241–242).
In Finland, the number of the Jews has always been very small, reaching its peak in
the 1920s and 1930s, when there were about 2 000 Jews in the country (Kantor 2012;
Laitila 2014, p. 37). Thus, there was no “threat” to Finland or the Finns. Yet, the ideas of
the “invasion of the Jews and Jewish capital”, familiar from European media, spread
also in Finnish papers (Jokisalo 1996, pp. 123–124; Kushner 2005, p. 217; Laitila 2014, pp.
43, 51).
In my presentation I will go through findings from my PhD study on how the Finnish
newspapers and magazines represented the Jews before the Second World War.
The study shows that the Jews were always depicted in a negative manner – only the
reasons given for the antipathy varied at different times.
References:
Jokisalo, J. (1996). Antisemitismin traditiot, kansallissosialismi ja Euroopan juutalaisten kansanmurha. In

J. Jokisalo (ed.) Rasismi tieteessä ja politiikassa : aate- ja oppihistoriallisia esseitä Helsinki: Edita (122–
147).
Kantor, D. (2012). Suomen juutalaiset. [online] Available at: http://magma.fi/post/2012/4/24/

suomen-juutalaiset. [Accessed 25 Apr 2019].
Kushner, T. (2005). Racialization and ‘white European’ immigration to Britain. In K. Murji & J. Solomos
(eds.) Racialization : Studies in Theory and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press (207–225).
Laitila, T. (2014). Uskonto, isänmaa, antisemitismi. Helsinki: Arator.
Matikainen, S. (2003). Suhtautuminen Romanian juutalaisten siirtolaisuuteen 1900-luvun alun

Britanniassa. In J. Eilola (ed.) Sietämättömät ja täydellinen maailma. Jyväskylä: Kopijyvä
85
Carmen Suria (1888-1967):
PAPER 10: Life story(s) of a Danish Romany
Steffen Werther, Phd, Södertörn Univeristy, Stockholm | steffen.werther@sh.se
The Danish singer Carmen Suria was born in 1888 as a child of Catalan Romany from
France. When she was three years old her father left her in the station hall of
Fredericia/Denmark with the gardener Bruno Robby, who adopted her in his family.
She grew up in the outskirts of Fredericia and later in Christiansfeld. As a teenager she
was taken to Copenhagen by a relative of her adoptive father’s and introduced to the
cultural circles of the capital. When in 1912 she was accepted at the Royal Theatre
School to become an Opera singer Carmen Suria due to her unusual background
became a national celebrity for a short time.
This paper does not aim at a complete reconstruction of Carmen Suria’s life. Even
though there are ample sources - newspaper articles, official documents and
(auto)biographical texts - there is no ultimate verification of some facts. Instead her
biography will be embedded into a broader context and analyzed with recourse to
Romani Studies. Among others, the way she herself and others described her life will
be related to stereotyped figures and narratives from the Danish and European
discourse on ‘gypsies’. The corpus above will be complemented by various other
primary sources, mainly originating in Denmark, such as contemporary newspaper
articles, registers and photographs.
86
FEMONATIONALISMS, and Refugees
RACIALIZATION
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
AND MIGRATION
Anaïs Duong-Pedica, Åbo Akademi University | anais.duong-pedica@abo.fi

Kasia Narkowicz, Middlesex University | k.narkowicz@mdx.ac.uk
There is a growing body of literature on the instrumentalization of women’s rights and

feminism in racist nationalist projects (Farris 2017). In this panel, we are interested in
the deployment of gender equality discourses and frameworks by various actors
within a nation in order to legitimize their democratic character while at the same time
concealing their colonial, anti-immigration and racist foundations.
The threat of sexual violence functions as a trope in orientalist discourses that

constructs racialized and immigrant men as violent towards women and LGBTQIA+
peoples. This fuels political and media discourses that participate in anti-immigration,
anti-black, islamophobic, anti-indigenous and colonial policies and projects in many
parts of the world (Guénif-Souilamas & Macé 2005; Ticktin 2008; Keskinen 2010;
Bouteldja 2018). This rhetoric is a pillar of civilizing forms of feminism (Vergès 2019)
that encourage Black, Indigenous, immigrant, Muslim, and racialized women to
disaffiliate from their cultures, religions, communities or peoples, in order to
assimilate and participate in settler/national/white/capitalist/civil society.
This panel is an opportunity to disrupt the “race to innocence” (Fellows & Razack
1998) which prevails in civilizing projects based on gender equality (Wekker 2016). It
encourages us to think through “white innocence”, feminist complicity and implication
in structural forms of oppression and domination within and beyond national borders.
In this panel, we also attempt to focus beyond Western Europe and include
perspectives from Central and Eastern Europe as well as outside Europe (Israel,
Canada, India, USA, Australia, etc.) where similar trends are noticeable.
We welcome abstracts that explore these issues and that encourage us to question
the taken-for-granted innocence of feminism and women’s rights in certain circles.
Through this panel, we aim to create a discussion that illuminates why a divestment
from forms of feminisms that (re-)produce Others and Othering and are based on
ongoing colonialism, the marginalization of racialized peoples and border policing is
an urgency. We also welcome papers that offer insight on the forms of resistance that
currently exist and that are possible, including through political solidarity and
coalitions.

87
Gendered anti-immigrant mobilisations
PAPER 1: in Poland and India
SESSION ONE: Wednesday 13 January 2021 at 11:45-13:15
Dr Kasia Narkowicz, Middlesex University,UK | K.Narkowicz@mdx.ac.uk

Dr Mithilesh Kumar, Christ University, India | kmithilesh@hotmail.com
This contribution is about nationalist politics aimed at excluding the nations Others
through femonationalistic narratives in two different countries; Poland and India. In
this paper, we discuss examples of how the bodies of refugees, immigrants and
Muslims are rendered as foreign, alien and thus dangerous to the nation’s body
politic. A particular focus is directed at how sexualised gendered bodies of “our
women” are central to these mobilisations, adding to the already existing work on
gender and the global right (Graff, Kapur and Walters 2019). Our attention is focussed
on India and Poland where right-wing populist parties have been in power since 2014
(India) and 2015 (Poland).
This paper engages in a dialogue between contemporary expressions of gendered

nationalism in these two contexts, aiming to map convergences between post-
colonial and post-socialist conditions and thus shedding a perspective on
femonationalism from outside of the Western core. Charting through several
examples from policy, media and public documents we employ critical discourse
analysis to foreground how the two countries enact nationalist right-wing politics and
give examples of how femonationalism is invoked in opposition to immigrants,
particularly Muslims. Our contribution seeks to tease out how the internal terrors of
each nation translates to the control and exclusion of bodies through sexual-racial
biopolitical management of lives and deaths.
88
The Entanglement of Anti-Muslim
PAPER 2:
Racism and Feminist Narratives – An Analysis of
Women’s Everyday Talk in Germany and the U.S.
Sabrina Schmidt, University of Erfurt, Germany | sabrina.schmidt@uni-erfurt.de
Notwithstanding the internal differentiation of feminist perspectives particularly since

its third wave (Karl 2011), racist and feminist discourses are still today deeply
intertwined. This holds true for ideological and practical manifestations of racism as in
restrictive policies on the hijab in public space (Şahin 2014), in media representations
of sexual violence by “foreigners” (Hark & Villa 2017) or in informal utterances about
“the Muslim other” in everyday talk.
Applying a theoretical framework that integrates knowledge-sociological approaches

on life-world communication (Berger & Luckmann 2013) with theories of media
appropriation (Hall 2001) and discourse-oriented concepts of racism (Wetherell &
Potter 1992), the presentation sheds light on the entanglement of liberal-feminist
narratives with racist ideologemes. It focusses on the realm of everyday talk of “white”
women in two postmigrant societies: Germany and the U.S.
Based on 24 semi-structured interviews conducted in metropolitan areas of both

countries, that focused on personal experiences with Muslims, the presentation will
discuss two main findings: 1) a set of intertwined racist/feminist narratives including
“emancipation” as an acknowledged way to get rid of a repressive Muslim identity,
“in-between-ness” as a collective burden for Muslim women in Western societies and
“self-exposure” as a way to de-/reflect one’s own racist dispositions. Feminist
discourse here serves as a legitimizing common sense that enables and conceals
patronizing strategies and “white” privilege. 2) four general modes of appropriating
racist ideologies in everyday talk that range from “conforming reproduction” to
“countering deconstruction”.
89
Gendered Islamophobia and Femonationalism in Italy:
PAPER 3: the “Veiled Sardine” Case
Marta Panighel,
University of Genoa | marta.panighel@edu.unige.it, marta.panighel@gmail.com
This paper aims to investigate gendered Islamophobia and femonationalism in Italy

through the analysis of a significant case study: the hate campaign that affected a
veiled Muslim woman who publicly spoke out against right-wing political leaders.
On December 14, 2019 Nibras Asfa, a young Muslim woman of Palestinian origins,
gave a speech from the “Sardines movement” stage in Rome. Born a month before,
the movement brought together thousands of people in many Italian cities, in
opposition to growing populism and racism. Following the diffusion of the video
showing her speech, Nibras has been violently attacked by right-wing parties and
newspapers. She has been accused to be an enemy of the “rule of law”, a “foreign”, an
“Hamas supporter”. Her very presence on that stage – or rather, the presence of her
veil – has been attacked also by some feminists, influential left-wing journalists and
opinion leaders. Indeed, according to Farris (2017) femonationalism is a political
convergence between three actors: nationalist right-wing parties, feminists and
femocrats, neoliberal policies.
In this paper we would like to carry out a discourse analysis on the debate about the
so-called “veiled sardine”, focusing on some pivotal aspects: the contemporary
discourse on Muslims and Islam in Italy, with particular attention to gendered
Islamophobia; the recurrence of Eurocentric universalism in the discussion on
women's emancipation; Italian Muslim women strategies of resistance. Within this
frame, it is interesting to study how the white dominant subject (either left-wing or
right-wing) reproduces itself by making it impossible to include in the national order
subjects other than itself. In the contest of southern Europe, who can call themselves
an Italian? An anti racist? A feminist?
Through the lens of Intersectional Feminism and Postcolonial Critique we will try to
answer these questions.
90
Equality for whom?
PAPER 4: Ignoring racism in Finnish universities’ Equality Plans
SESSION TWO: Thursday 14 January 2021 at 10:00-11:30
Anaïs Duong-Pedica, Åbo Akademi University | anais.duong-pedica@abo.fi
Recent research has shown the prevalence of racism in Finnish society (ECRI 2019;
FRA 2018). Universities are not immune to racial inequality; there has been several
media reports of racist incidents in various Finnish universities, and more broadly, the
whiteness of academia has been increasingly called into question. Under the Equality
Act and Non-Discrimination Act, all Finnish educational institutions, including
universities, are required to produce an Equality Plan (EP). These plans should aim at
identifiying and tackling discrimination, assess the impact of equality in practices as
well as implement measures to promote equality and increase participation (Ministry
of Interior, 2010). Given this, we ask how do Finnish universities define and assess
racial inequality in their EPs? Following this, what kind of tools do the EPs actually
provide to address/tackle racism?
In this presentation, we will discuss our analysis of the EPs drafted by Finnish
universities. Through a content analysis, we explore the ways in which Finnish
universities address their situation with regard to racial inequality, if they do at all.
More specifically, we ask how is equality and discrimination understood in the EPs
and how does whiteness shape them? We will discuss our findings through the lens
of critical theorization of whiteness/racialization.
91
The Experience of being a Muslim woman in a so-called
PAPER 5:
country of “gender equality”, Finland: “Am I a 'good'
woman? Am I endorsed by 'Western' standards or not?”
Zadar Edalati, Doctoral student, Tampere Peace Research Institute (TAPRI),

Tampere University | zahra.edalati@tuni.fi
In this paper, I shed light on the experience of Muslim immigrant women in Finland,
the country which has become famous through the so-called adjective, "equality."
This paper aims at broadening our understanding of the strategies of the “slow
violence” in the host society, especially by Finnish women, to exclude non-western
women, especially Muslim women, from society. This paper is based on in-depth
interviews around everyday experience with 15 young and middle age immigrants
with Muslim background, with or without veil. With the help of interpretative
framework in narrative analysis, the theory of gendered gaze and feminist peace, I
have examined the sense of sadness and women’s strategies for resistance. This
research is important because it explains the very personal feeling of non-seen
violence and looks at the mechanisms by which these women of minority
communities respond to the excluding strategies and in instances when depicted as
“others”.
I will further argue that the perceived normal picture of Finnish society as a safe and
equal space is contrary to the everyday experiences of Muslim women in Finland. The
experience of “colonial gaze” at bus stations, swimming pools, gyms, streets,
shopping malls, school meetings, and the experience of Muslim veiled mothers of
being discarded from the school’s WhatsApp groups, ignored at parents’ meetings
and ejected from swimming pools are concrete incidents which support the idea of
this paper. This paper takes a critical look at the liberal migration policies of the EU,
ethnic nationalism and Islamophobia as legitimized tools for excluding Muslim
women in Finland just of being women from South.
92
Gendered care, empathy and un/doing difference in the
PAPER 6:
Danish welfare state: Care managers approaching female
caregivers of ageing immigrants

Sara Lei Sparre, Department of Anthropology,
Aarhus University Denmark | saraleisparre@cas.au.dk
Intersectional mobilisations of gender equality

PAPER 7:
and protectionism in Finnish parliamentary sessions
and online discussions around immigration
Satu Venäläinen, University of Helsinki | satu.venalainen@helsinki.fi

Rusten Menard, University of Portsmouth | rusten.menard@port.ac.uk
In the Nordic context, discourses on equality frequently operate as readily available

tools for building and justifying anti-immigration standpoints. At worst, networks of
discourses on equality are drawn upon and used as rhetorical tools in justifying the
separation of ‘Us’ from ‘Others’ via exclusionary and discriminatory immigration
policies. In our research we have examined discussions around immigration in two
different contexts in Finland, online discussions and parliamentary sessions, with
specific interest in how immigration and immigrants are given meaning in relation to
views about Finnishness. Our presentation focuses on an analysis of these two
contexts conducted from the perspective of critical discursive psychology and
intersectionality. Our analysis employed analytical concepts of interpretative
repertoires and subject positions in order to shed light on the discursive building-
blocks of anti-immigration rhetoric and the associated processes of legitimating
exclusionary stances.
Our analysis illustrates how two interpretative repertoires, a repertoire of gender

equality as Finnishness and a repertoire of protectionism, are drawn upon in
discussions on immigration in both of these contexts and with similar functions. We
specifically demonstrate how these repertoires are mobilised in ways that enact
various exclusions along the lines of gender, nationality, political orientation, and race.
These repertoires intersect and co-operate in both of the analysed contexts in
constructing images of a threat posed by immigration toward Finnish society, its
values, and the safety and overall interest of its citizens. In terms of positioning, these
repertoires specifically work to enact distinctions between those who can claim
ownership of definitions and practices around gender equality, and those whose
ownership of these is denied.
93
RACIAL/COLONIAL and Refugees
LEGACIES, GENDER
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
AND FEMINISM IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES
Ella Alin, Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki |ella.alin@helsinki.fi

Nelli Ruotsalainen, KNOW-ACT project, CEREN, Swedish School of Social Sciences,
University of Helsinki | nelli.ruotsalainen@helsinki.fi
While the Nordic Countries often get lauded for their progressive gender equality
policies, they have capitalized on this image of progressiveness that further serves to
obscure Nordic colonial complicity (Keskinen et. al., 2009) and its on-going legacies.
Yet, many who live in these societies experience viscerally that these policies are not
enough, and their benefits not distributed equally. In Finland, white femininity is
inherently tied to image of the white homogenous nation. ”Protecting” white femininity
is weaponized through xenophobic and racist agendas, while white women are
expected to maintain the white nation through reproductive labor and bearing of the
culture. (Cf. Keskinen 2018, Urponen 2010.)
In this workshop, we want to scrutinize the racialized and gendered projects that
especially women and feminist movements have participated in on the course of
building Nordic nation states and welfare societies. From imperialist expansion, to
missionary work, the role of white women has been that of purveyors of morality and
virtue in imperialist projects (Carby, 1982). Nordic feminist movements and Nordic
women have participated in building a world in which racialized hierarchies still define
access to power, inclusion, and exclusion. The “contradictory location” (Lundström,
2014) of white women as wielding racial privilege while made vulnerable by their
gender, runs the risk of stumping feminist conversations on intersectional
accountability.
We welcome papers, presentations, and creative expressions that examine the
legacies of white femininity in the Nordic Region. We are interested in questions like:
What kind of political agendas have shaped Nordic feminist organizations, and how
do they relate to racial colonial histories in the Nordic countries? How has gender, and
especially white womanhood, been constructed in relation to racialized and colonial
histories in the North? How have feminist movements and organizations reproduced
or challenged the ideas of nation state, white nation and white superiority in their
work?
94
Gendered hospitality:
PAPER 1: The case of home accommodation of asylum seekers
SESSION: Monday 11 January 2021 at 12:30-14:00
Paula Merikoski, University of Helsinki | paula.merikoski@helsinki.fi
This empirical paper discusses observations from a research on home

accommodation of asylum seekers in Finland, which is one of the grassroots solidarity
practices that emerged as a response to the so-called asylum ‘crisis’ in 2015. Home
accommodation is in many ways linked to intersectional understandings of home and
political agency, both in the discursive level as well as in the everyday experiences of
people involved. Volunteering has typically been perceived as a middle-class white
female practice, and similarly the majority of people involved in these pro-asylum
activities, including home accommodation, are middle-class women. The home
space continues to be discursively constructed as female, intimate, and apolitical - a
notion which feminist literature on home has been challenging for decades (e.g. Blunt
& Dowling 2006). Furthermore, symbolic parallels between women, home, and nation
are present in the racialised and gendered political discourse that constructs male
asylum seekers as a threat. By opening their homes the hosts take part in the societal
debates over who is welcome to the country (cf. Anderson et al. 2011).
Drawing from feminist understanding of home and citizenship, this paper connects
private and political speheres of agency (Lister 2007; Yuval-Davis 1999). On the one
hand, by offering hospitality as a show of support for asylum seekers’ claims, the
hosts contest the exclusion of migrants from Finnish society, and thus challenge the
discursive divide between public and private. On the other, they introduce their
understanding of (Finnish/Nordic) gender norms and domestic values to the asylum
seekers they host, and cultural perceptions about women’s domestic and societal
roles are often discussed during home accommodation. This paper presents findings
about how the hosts narrate the hosting experience in relation to gender, sexuality,
class, and cultural differences.
95
PAPER 2:
“New fathers” and racialized migrant workers
Riikka Prattes, Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies,

Duke University | riikka.prattes@duke.edu
In this paper, I engage with literature from the social sciences on the phenomenon of
“new fatherhood” and offer a decolonial reading that contextualizes ideas and ideals
of “progressive” masculine identities among white men in European settings that are
shaped by narratives of colonial outsider-status. For the Scandinavian context that
has been captured with the term “colonial complicity” (Keskinen et al. 2009), for
German-speaking countries, “colonialism without colonies” has been coined
(Purtschert et al. 2016).
Instead of leading to more gender equality, in both contexts, discourses around “new
fatherhood” more often than not leave gender arrangements uncontested and,
instead, can lead to an increased demand for paid domestic services of masculine-
coded handymen work and feminine-coded household work provided by racialized
migrant workers (see Palenga-Möllenbeck 2016). That is, instead of a radical
redistribution of social reproduction along racialized gender axis, new ideals of
fatherhood can lead to a mere reassessment of the hierarchies of domestic tasks and
a related rearrangement of domestic responsibilities and do not shake the
gender/racial foundations of domestic and care work.
Reading for what is and is not new about “new” fatherhood, I highlight how
colonial/modern thinking (Quijano 2000, 2007) remains an anchoring point of many
narratives of gender-equal “progress” that is dependent on a) the othering of
“backward” masculinities, as well as b) the physical presence of workers who pick up
the slack and perform those tasks that are not highly valued within a modified
hierarchy of the work of social reproduction.
96
Enduring Colonial Struggles:
PAPER 3:
Understanding Present Experiences of Immigrants in
Finland through the Lens of the Past
Avanti Chajed, Teachers College, Columbia University | ac4373@tc.columbia.edu

Emmanuel Acquah, Åbo Akademi University | emmanuel.acquah@abo.fi
This review examines literature from the past two decades on experiences of
immigrants in Finland. By using the theoretical framework of enduring struggles, it
expands on how local practices of immigrant experiences are understood in the
Finnish context by situating those experiences in the larger global context of Finnish
history and sociocultural contexts, attempting to understand how those historical and
sociocultural factors influence experiences of immigrants today. Through these
historical and theoretical lenses, the article shows how global contexts of Finnish
identity, participation in colonialism while under Swedish rule, and history of racism
influence present-day society and specifically influence the practices of immigrants
today.
The analysis shows that membership and belonging in Finnish society is complicated
by visibility and colonial discourses of immigrants and migrants that still permeate
many aspects of Finnish society and come from its history of colonialism and
participation in reifying racial hierarchies among the Nordics. Immigrants must then
negotiate their identities in Finland through these existing discourses, choosing how
and when to resist or adopt to Finnish norms while interacting with and participating
in Finnish institutions that are also influenced by nationalist and colonial discourses.
The review has implications for research on immigrants in the Finnish context and on
multicultural education as by understanding immigrant experiences in a way that is
contextualized in enduring struggles, research in Finland may better serve the
educational and curricular needs of immigrant students.
97
PAPER 4:
Reflections of white womanhood in interracial relationships
Ella Alin, PhD candidate in Sociology, University of Helsinki | ella.alin@helsinki.fi
Interracial relationships are sites where both fears of and hopes for future racial
relations are projected. Openly racist views present them as a threat to the cultural
and biological continuity of the white nation (Urponen 2010). Others place hope for
the eradication of racism onto the relationship that proves that “love wins hate”, and
on the existence of “mixed-race” children. Many activists and scholars have argued
that relationship with a non-white partner, or having non-white children, does not in
any way eradicate racism of the white partner/guardian (for example Eddo-Lodge
2017).
In Finland, which has not been central force in the European colonial and imperial
projects, even though complicit in them, discussions on race and whiteness have not
been on the agenda to the extent they have been in for example the US over the last
century. This does not mean that aspirations to white Westerness have not been part
of the Finnish cultural politics, as Sanna Turoma (2015) has discussed.
Many whiteness researches have suggested that whiteness is invisible and unmarked
(Dyer 1997; Frankenberg 1993). Sara Ahmed challenges the idea of invisible whiteness
by arguing, that “[w]hiteness is only invisible for those who inhabit it, or those who get
so used to its inhabitance that they learn not to see it, even when they are not it”
(Ahmed 2007, 157).
In my presentation, I discuss the understandings and experiences of racialisation and

whiteness from the perspective of white women in interracial relationsips. One could
think that proximity to the “racial Other”, might make the white woman reflect on her
own positionality in racialisation, and perhaps make her “inhabit whiteness” with less
ease than without the relationship. Drawing from interviews with white women, I
discuss whether this is so, and how is the Finnish context present in their
understanding of ‘race’ and whiteness.
98
OUTSIDE OF THE (COLONIAL) BOX:
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
11. in WHITE
Contemporary
INNOCENCEWelfare StatesNON-ENGAGEMENT
OF NORDIC
WITH RACISM AND COLONIALISM
Faith Mkwesha, University of Helsinki, CEREN, Swedish School of Social Sciences,

Finland | faith.mkwesha@helsinki.fi
Jelena Vicentic, University of Belgrade, Political Science Department,
Serbia | jelenavicentic@live.com
Sasha Huber, Zurich University, Art and Media Department,
Switzerland | sasha@sashahuber.com
The workshop will examine representations of the other and different articulations of
Nordic exceptionalism in the imaginary and encounters with the other. Nordic
exceptionalism, constructed as a retreat from the discomforts of the Cold War and
the colonial/post-colonial realities of the latter part of the 20th century, can be
encountered in contemporary literature and public discussion. It appears as an
explanatory concept for the supposedly inherently altruistic, humanitarian and human
oriented policy of the Nordic states, both nationally and internationally. Historically, it
is presented as an anti-imperialist turn of the Nordic states, an ethical and self-
disinterested choice of a ‘third way’. Value-loaded and interventionist in its method
and manifestation, according to critical scholarship it qualifies the Nordics into self-
perpetuating status of ‘goodness’. Presently, the goodness and the exceptionalism
act as powerful self-validators., situated within the domain of identity – national,
regional, cultural.
The workshop aims to look into white innocence as both constitutive and integral
component of Nordic exceptionalism. Innocence is understood as the way of being or
the desired state of being, a resort to safety of not knowing and not wanting to know,
enabling structural racism and structural violence (Wekker 2016). The preselected
papers presented at this workshop will explore racialization processes, structural
racisms, everyday racisms and unconscious bias, construction of whiteness and
acquisition of white privilege, white innocence or white guilt, among other interwoven
themes.
99
PAPER 1:
Reflections of white womanhood in interracial relationships
Faith Mkwesha, University of Helsinki | faith.mkwesha@helsinki.fi
This paper is a vulnerable black woman’s decolonial reflections on a conflict that

arises in-tersections of whiteness, racism, homonationalism and colonial wounds.
Black feminist thought has gifted feminists and gender theorists with intersectional
theory that has enabled the analysis of intersecting social identities of race, gender,
class, place etc. This paper ar-gues that intentionality awareness and practice in
every day interactions can protect black and brown women from white women’s
violent vulnerability. Using the Privilege Identity Exploration (PIE) Model (Watt 2007),
this paper seeks to raise awareness on the complexi-ties that arise with the
intersection of race, history, gender, sexuality and class. The paper proposes race and
diversity consciousness in solidarity practices and identity politics as an important
part of decoloniality. The paper invites feminists of all colors, genders, sexuality and
formerly colonized to develop new forms of transcultural dialogues, practices and
alli-ances.
100
“Black Love” as a response to a society that never “means to
PAPER 2: exclude”: experiences from work with young Afrikans in Oslo

Baba A. O. Buntu, eBukhosini Solutions | buntu@ebukhosinisolutions.co.za
Afrikan young people living in Oslo experience marginalization and mis/non-

representation, but find themselves living in a society that claims to be non-
exclusionary. The presentation will draw examples from three decades of work with
young Afrikans in Oslo – with specific focus on of the later intervention called “Black
Love” – to trace the impact of being “visible” and “invisible” at the same time, and to
look at Black young people creating safe spaces as a decolonial necessity.
101
Denying Relationality:
PAPER 3: White Innocence in the Swedish Settler-Colonial State

Eóin Ó Cuinneagáin, Linnaeus University | eoin.o.cuinneagain@lnu.se
Owing much to Gloria Wekker’s (2016) bookWhite Innocence, the paradoxes of

colonialism and race, the experiences and testimonies of the victims of Dutch racism
and colonialism articulated over several decades by race-critical scholars (Mullard et
al, 1988; Nimako, 2012; Essed, 1989; Hondius, 2009; Hira 2017) were brought into focus
in White academia. This was due to White academia being obliged to engage as the
book gained so much popularity because of Wekker’s emphatic revelation of how
race and coloniality organize labour and knowledge within Dutch universities as she
systematically deconstructed the Dutch self-image of a tolerance, openness,
liberalism as rooted in the denial of the 400 years of Dutch colonialism, the
enslavement of millions and the theft of Black and indigenous lands, life and dignity.
Exemplified by Wekker’s lecture in Copenhagen University in May 2019, White

Innocence has reverberated around the Nordic region. This is combined with the
three decolonial workshops organized by DENOR and the Anti-Racist Academy
offering new platforms for the discussion of Swedish coloniality and racisms. It seems
the tide is turning on the Swedish settler-colonial state’s construction itself as an
exceptional, temporally-short-lived or a marginal agent of coloniality (Pred, 2000; Fur,
2006; Habel, 2012; Huebinette, 2012; Jansson, 2018). Illuminating Swedeb as a settler-
colonial State, which continually legitimates its occupation of Sámi territories and the
extraction of Sámi knowledge, life and resources, demands paradigmatic
developments to comprehend the ways Swedish Whiteness disentangles itself from
its embeddedness in coloniality. Moreover, incidents such as the sabotage of race-
critical scholar Masoud Kamali (2020) strengthens the need for both analytical rigor
and anti-racist solidarity in this area. This paper presents several vignettes that seek
to provide more analytical tools to comprehend the interrelated and co-constructive
operations of Swedish White innocence and Swedish exceptionalism. The vignettes
are the result of analysis of narratives in Swedish discourse surrounding COVID19 as
well as participant observations of Swedish Whiteness as grounded in the experience
of a White Irish ‘half-outsider’ situated in the Swedish settler-colonial state and its
colonial universities.
102
Pillars of societies:
PAPER 4: Development aid and a retreat to (white) innocence

Jelena Vićentić, University of Belgrade | jelenavicentic@live.com
The idea of Norway as a ‘humanitarian superpower’ involves development aid and

humanitarian engagement contributing to an enhancement of its status in the
international community, enabling access to ‘a seat at the table’ that would otherwise
remain elusive to a small state at the edge of Europe. It is through development
activity targeting an imagined South that the state, national institutions, non-
governmental organizations, and the general public are interconnected. The
importance of the Norwegian model of development aid toward the construction of
the national identity reflects the standing of the development-industrial complex in
the maintenance of political stability and preservation of elites.
Nordic exceptionalism, commonly identified as a positive attribute in the context of

development aid, appears within the development narrative as fair-minded, separate
and disconnected from western colonial history and its mechanisms of race
production. Under decolonial interrogation, the narrative reveals the normalization of
and reconciliation with (white) privilege as deserved by its application for the ‘greater
good’; continuities of the colonial past and present are obscured by centring on
development as a means of departure toward (white) innocence. This paper
considers perspectives of social and economic colonial continuities and the
significance of development aid as a tool of Nordic exceptionalism in identity
construction with a civilizing mission at its roots.
103
COLONIALITY Migrants RACIAL
OF MIGRATION, and Refugees
CAPITALISM
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
AND DECOLONIZATION OF THE WEST
Faith Mkwesha, Helsinki University, CEREN, Finland | faith.mkwesha@helsinki.fi

Jelena Vicentic, University of Belgrade, Political Science Department,
Serbia | jelenavicentic@live.com
Decolonial theory identifies the continuities of colonial power relations and the
persistent presence and effects of coloniality. This workshop will take a decolonial
historical view on the themes spanning from the Scramble for Africa at the 1884 Berlin
Conference through to the continuing colonial power relations that shape the
processes of Europeanization in the Nordic region today and also inform
representations of migration in Europe. Applying the concept of Anibal Quijano’s
‘coloniality of power’ and more specifically Encarnación Gutiérrez-Rodríguez’s
‘coloniality of migration’, we will focus on the connection between racial capitalism
and the asylum–migration nexus, and their mutually constitutive nature.
This workshop will look into the colonization of the peoples and the nations, resource
exploitation, both accompanied by the imposition of Western political designs and
culture that results in destabilization and dispossession in the majority world. Drawing
on Kiernan’s approach to the history of Eurocentrism (1996) and examples from
various geographical regions and historical eras, the papers preselected for this
workshop aim to explore white superiority complex (‘lords of human kind’ attitudes)
and its outcomes, including multiple standards in the allocation of the right to
citizenship, movement, and cosmopolitanism. This will forefront issues of racialized
practices of European colonialism and imperialism, migration policies and how they
produce hierarchical categories of migrants and refugees, as we consider how
migration is related to decolonization aspirations in the West.
104
PAPER 1:
The Firsts Series (2017-)
SESSION: Wednesday 13 January 2021 at 11:45-13:15

Sasha Huber’s ongoing portraiture series tackles systemic racism put upon people
from the African diaspora across time and space.
The new series in progress The Firsts, researches historical and systematic racism
and its debilitating effects on members of the contemporary African Diaspora, with a
focus on women being moreover underrepresented throughout history. The
suppression put upon this community has hindered equitable societal and economic
developments, which are linked directly to White supremacist thought and action.
The Firsts portraiture series suggest that this hindrance is the reason why today it can
still be possible to be the ‘first black person’ to achieve specific goals across many
fields of practice and countries. Some individuals have courageously paved the way
for future civil rights actions still to come, and institutionalized racism and prejudice in
its execution within the western paradigm has been successful in holding people
back, or their achievements have not received the deserved recognition and
acknowledgment.
The Firsts is also dedicated to first persons from the African Diaspora that have
migrated to various European countries in the 19th and 20th century. The first portrait
is made of teacher Rosa Emilia Clay (1875-1959). She ended up in Finland in 1888 with
a family of missionaries, like many children brought from Ambomaa (now Namibia). In
1899 she became the first person from the African continent to be granted Finnish
citizenship. Due to racism and differential treatment, Clay decided to move to the
United States in 1904, where she was the director of the American Community Choir
and Theater, a teacher of the Finnish language and an active cultural activist of the
labor movement after moving to the United States in 1904.
105
Decolonial approach to Identity formation
PAPER 2: of an African woman in Finland and the U.S
Faith Mkwesha, University of Helsinki | faith.mkwesha@helsinki.fi
This paper examines the process of identity formation of an African Finnish woman in
Finland and U.S. represented in the autobiography The Rosa Lemberg Story, written
by the historian Eva Ericson (1993). Rosa Emilia Clay (1875-1959) was the first Afro-
Finnish black person to be granted a Finnish passport. She came to Finland with a
couple who were missionaries at a Finnish missionary school in Namibia when she
was thirteen years old. Her mother was a native African Moslem woman and her
father was a white British man. The aim was to learn European education. Then she
would go back to work at the Finnish mission school in Namibia. However, when she
finished school she decided to stay in Finland. She was deployed to teach in a rural
school in Finland. The parents rejected her, calling her a Negro and some spat on her.
She left and went to a bigger city Tampere were she was an active singer and
teacher. Struggling with racism she emigrated to the United States of America. She
did not go to black communities, but, she went to live in a white Finnish immigrant
community.
Employing decolonial of the mind (DTM) theory, the paper problematises colonial
structure and western theory of identity formation, and explores the social relations in
Finnish communities represented in the autobiography. I argue that the West,
specifically, Finland in this case, conceptualises citizenship and identity through the
lens of individuality and race. The paper seeks to theorise identity formation theory of
a decolonial model. Finland had no colonies. The question is: how did racist ideas
penetrate Finnish society? How did the story of the black African woman come
about? How does the African woman view her own identity?
106
Irish migration: The first line of defense in the White settler-
PAPER 3: colonial project?
Eóin Ó Cuinneagáin, Linnaeus University | eoin.o.cuinneagain@lnu.se
Building on Cedric Robinson’s (1983) concept of racial capitalism, Encarnácion

Gutiérrez-Rodríguez (2018) advances the term coloniality of migration to understand
how racial and colonial logics organize labour recruitment and border and migration
control technologies today. She shows how the settler-colonial states of Argentina,
US, Canada, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand were formed in relation to explicit
recruitment of White Europeans to the extent they are phantom limbs of White
Christian Europe. Drawing on Aníbal Quijano (2008) she shows how coloniality
continues colonialism’s racializing logic under the European hegemonic doxology of
‘racelessness’. This paper reflects on where Irish flesh fits into the coloniality of
migration. How were Irish bodies used to construct the colonial project? How were
the Irish inculcated into Whiteness? How do Irish oppressions perform Whiteness and
how are they repurposed to defend White supremacy?
Although a victim of colonialism, the Irish played a pivotal role in European settler-
colonialism. Some academics have thus argued that there are exaggerated
verisimilitudes between colonialism in Ireland and those in other British colonies. The
application of this logic of sameness led to the proliferation of the ‘Irish Slave Myth’,
one example of how Irish oppressions can be appropriated to generate bad faith
responses to questioners of settler-colonialism. Yet, the retrospective playing down
of the severity of English colonialism in Ireland dovetails onto conservative projects
that endorse the denial of coloniality and cir-cumvention of the construction of racial
capitalism in Ireland and on Irish flesh. This paper asks if it is possible that the
appropriation of Irish oppressions can do decolonial work in the face of the myth that
the Irish cannot be racist because of history of colonialism.
107
Precarious
COLONIALInclusion:
HISTORIES Migrants and Refugees
AND MIGRATION: HERITAGE,
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
NARRATIVES AND MATERIALITY
Jenny Ingridsdotter, Dept. of Culture and Media studies. Umeå University,

Sweden | jenny.ingridsdotter@umu.se
Anne Gustavsson, IDEAS, Universidad Nacional de San Martín, CONICET,
Argentina | anne.gustavsson@gmail.com
The starting point for this workshop is that historical colonial orders impact the way
migration is represented and understood today. The idea of the Nordic countries as
separate from colonial history and thus colonial knowledge production, affect the
way migrants, racialized minorities, diasporic communities and indigenous peoples
are encountered, narrated and acted upon in the contemporary Nordic states.
In this workshop we examine in which ways the relations between colonialism and
migration are located in time and space, both locally and globally. We will address
multiple spatial, temporal and material relations between coloniality and migration
that has taken place both from, to and within Nordic countries, in the past as well as in
the present. How does colonial history impact on Nordic migration and what role do
colonial history and its processes play in understanding migration in Nordic states
today? In the past, Nordic citizens, have for example, occupied diverse roles in the
construction of colonial and postcolonial nation states, both within the Nordic
countries and beyond, through i.e. settler colonialism in the Americas or colonial
quests in the Arctic region.
We welcome papers that examine questions of migration and mobility in relation to

colonial history, postcolonialism/decolonization/coloniality, and settler colonialism.
How can we understand and think about migration studies through these prisms?
Examples of questions are in which way colonial processes has impacted on the way
we classify and construct narratives about migrants and other groups – which role
play for example ideas about race and whiteness in questions of migration and
mobility? Or examinations of the role colonial processes have played for how national
states are constructed and for example how these processes affect the perception of
what it means to be a Nordic citizen today; whom can be included in that category?
We would also like to turn our attention to the way Nordic explorers, travelers and
migrants have contributed to colonial projects across the globe, how are we, for
example, to understand heritage processes and materiality such as letters, diaries,
photography, film, artefacts, maps etc. which have been produced through
expeditions or settler colonialism? All contributions related to issues such as these
are welcome to the workshop.

SESSION TWO: Papers 5-8 108
“Flaming American Fever”: Emotions and Coloniality in Anna
PAPER 1: and Edvard Skogman’s Letters from Argentina 1906–1907
Liisa-Maija Korhonen, Doctoral Programme in History and Cultural Heritage,

University of Helsinki | liisa.korhonen@helsinki.fi
On May 12, 1906, Anna and Edvard Skogman and their daughter Elisabeth embarked
on a voyage to the New World to become pioneer settlers of a Finnish agricultural
colony in Misiones, Argentina’s tropical frontier. However, the life of the Finnish family
in Colonia Finlandesa lasted only until July 1907, when Anna died of tuberculosis in
Buenos Aires and Edvard and Elisabeth, by then impoverished, began their journey
home. This conference paper, based on my journal article of the same title, draws
connections between the local and the global: between one family and a wider
framework of coloniality. The letters of Anna and Edvard Skogman describe a settler
colonial setting and a contact zone that are complex and escape rigid categorizations.
The letters reveal the ways in which everyday life in the Selva Misionera was
emotionally and corporeally experienced by the settlers, as well as the ways in which
otherness of nature and indigenous people was confronted and imagined by them.
Taking the Skogman family and settler colonial Argentina as its case study, this paper
contributes to the discussion of Finns’ participation in colonial practices in the making
of global modern world.
109
White Innocence in Finnish Children’s Literature:
PAPER 2: Anni Swan’s Uutisasukkaana Austraaliassa (1926)
Raita Merivirta, University of Turku | raimer@utu.fi
Finns still tend to claim exceptionality and innocence with regard to colonialism and
imperialism based on the fact that Finland never had any colonies. This paper argues
that imperialism and colonialism were disseminated and practiced also in Finland
through, among other things, producing and consuming children’s literature, both in
translation and in texts written originally in Finnish. It is argued that though Finns, in
most cases, did not become ‘active colonizers’ in the narrowest sense of the term,
Finnish (children’s) minds were ‘colonized’ by the imperialist and colonialist ideology
running through a great section of British and subsequently also Finnish children’s
literature at the turn of the twentieth century. Imperialist and colonialist children’s
literature normalized and naturalized imperialist world order and colonialism,
encouraging readers to accept this ideology and the values that came with it.
As an example of such children’s literature in Finland, this chapter examines a text by

the well-known Finnish children’s writer Anni Swan (1875-1958). Swan authored a
serial on a Finnish settler family in Australia which was originally published in the
children’s magazine Sirkka in 1926 under the title Uutisasukkaana Austraaliassa [As a
Settler in Australia]. The serial focuses on a Finnish family that settle in Queensland
after experiencing some hardships in Finland. While working on the sheep farm the
family has bought from an Englishman, they come into contact with Aboriginals: some
works as their servants, others attack their farm. This paper examines Finnish white
innocence in the text that offers stereotypical and racist images of Aboriginals and
describes Finnish settler colonialism without acknowledging it as such.
110
Whitewashed history: Migration, coloniality and ‘race’
PAPER 3: in Finnish historiography
Miika Tervonen, Migration Institute of Finland | miika.tervonen@migrationinstitute.fi
The presentation, based on an ongoing book project, analyses the portrayal of

migration, colonialism and ‘race’ in the genre of national histories, written in 19-20th
century Finland. I argue mainstream national narratives have ‘whitewashed’ the past
by portraying Finland as essentially a static and homogeneous society, disconnected
from legacies of European colonialism and racism. I examine a process by which
migrants (as well as minorities) were systematically omitted or marginalized in
historical accounts, rendering mobility and diversity as exceptional - and, by
extension, problematic. This connected with a bypassing of past colonial ties and
impulses, including participation in overseas settler colonialism, and European
colonial and missionary projects. Meanwhile, late 19th - early 20th century World
histories and historiography of Finnish emigrations point to an ambivalent relationship
towards migration. Emigration is thus conceived as a threat to the size and
homogeneity of the population, but also as a sign of its vitality, tying into racial notions
of 'natural' hierarchies between peoples.
111
Mobility and Coloniality:
PAPER 4: Swedish immigrants in 20th century Argentina
Anne Gustavsson, Postdoctoral research fellow, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones

Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) and Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales (IDAES),
Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Argentina | anne.gustavsson@gmail.com
Jenny Ingridsdotter, Postdoctoral research fellow, Department for Culture and
Media Studies, Umeå University, Sweden | Jenny.ingridsdotter@umu.se
This article provides a historical perspective on Swedes that settled in northern

Argentina in the early 20th century. When studying contemporary societies and the
forms of heritage making that take place among descendants of immigrants, or in the
wake of the internal colonialization processes of 19th and 20th century Argentina,
how are we to regard Swedish citizens in this region and the role they played? Were
they settlers or colonizers? How did they perceive themselves and how were they
perceived and treated by the Argentine authorities? What role did they have in the
colonization of indigenous land and what kind of interactions did they establish with
these populations? Comparing two empirical settlement cases from the northern
Argentine provinces Formosa and Misiones, one related to cattle ranching on large
estates and the other to small scale yerba mate production, the article examines the
role of Swedish citizens in independent nation states with internal colonialization
processes characterized by a settler colonial logic.
112
"Entangled in Seaweed": Greenlandic Tupilak
PAPER 5: as a Figure of Coloniality/Migration in the Arctic
Magdalena Zolkos, Goethe University Frankfurt | Zolkos@em.uni-frankfurt.de
This paper takes a starting-point in the circulation of material objects—the

Greenlandic figurines of ill-wishing (tupilak), which ignited fascination and anxiety of
Danish colonial missionaries and ethnographers in the 18th and 19th centuries, and
gave rise to a souvenir market in the 20th century. Tracing the lives of these objects in
colonial narratives, reproduced mythologies and material productions offers a unique
micro-perspective onto Danish settler-colonial presence and migration in the Arctic,
and has a potential for generating critical perspectives on the distinctive political and
cultural failures at decolonization.
My focus is the Utimut Process of cultural heritage restitution in 1980s-90s when

much of Greenland’s ethnographic and artistic material held at the Danish National
Museum was divided and repatriated, but which notably did not produce a critical
debate on the relationship between Nordic coloniality and the circulation of people
and objects in the Arctic. Rather, the process (re)produced a narrow and de-
politicized idea of Greenland’s postcolonial nation-state. Structuring the movement of
cultural heritage objects away from the former colonial center towards the
peripheries (including return of a valuable collection of tupilaks), it directed resources,
expertise and infrastructure to facilitate the repatriation.
While at the surface it remained deliberately non-political, expert- and consensus-

based, I argue that the process drew on a problematic fantasy of disentanglement of
colonial pasts and of immobilization of these objects. Taking the tupilak figurine as an
ethnographic and critical prism onto the relationship between coloniality and
migration in the Arctic, I trace a counter-narrative to the fantasy of disentanglement
and immobilization: that of mobile mnemonic entanglement of stories, peoples and
objects that spans the past and the present.
113
Comparison Ethnography Cases of Syrian Kurdish
PAPER 6:
and Arab Refugees: Contemporary Colonialism as
a New Dynamic of Migration
Baris Oktem, PhD candidate,

University of Exeter | bo243@exeter.ac.uk, brsoktem@gmail.com
The Syrian refugee crisis in Western countries with regards to humanitarian aspects
has been defined as ‘the worst humanitarian disaster since the end of the cold war
(Berti,2015; 41). The turmoil and violence have triggered a mass migration both within
the region and beyond borders. Since 2011, about 12 million including internal
displacement, the highest number in records, has appeared and the number is
increasing day by day.
The research aims to analyse the manner in which the historical colonialism updates
and reformulates over time -morphing through different names such as
decolonization, neo-colonialism, post-colonialism - and its effects on the lives of
Syrian refugees in contemporary migration and migration routes. The paper seeks for
comparative cases of Syrian refugees by specifically focusing on Syrian Kurds and
Arabs to make ethnocultural comparison within one nation but showing differences in
backgrounds.
What external factors shape and influence the image of the desired and destined
places for Syrian refugees while seeking refuge, is one of the main research
questions of the paper. By conducting the semi-structured interviews, participant
observations and visual ethnography methods in refugee camps with Syrian refugees
for an understanding of the their perception and motivation in the context of
migration routes, especially in Turkey as a first step to save their life from war in a
neighboring country; Greece as a gateway into Europe, and Germany as a destination
for settling down.
The research is specifically interested in refugees' perception of Western European

countries, which have historical and contemporary bonds with colonial history. Also,
whether refugees’ ideas, perceptions and desires are shaped by external powers
such as media in the sense of Simulation and Simulacra (Baudrillard;1981); ideologies
in the frame of states’ apparatuses (Althusser;1970); and identities as a desire and
model of living condition such as modernity (Bhambra; 201)
114
Boundaries of Europeanness:
PAPER 7: Situating the ‘Postcolonial Bodies’ in Poland.
Bolaji Balogun, The University of Leeds, UK | b.balogun@sheffield.ac.uk
There are similarities in the historicity of many European nations especially in relation
to colonialism and imperialism in seeking to extend the economic strength of
continental Europe. It has been firmly established that Britain, France, the
Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal held colonies in either Africa or the Americas or in
both continents purposefully for the exploitation of raw materials. Scandinavian
countries – Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden – attempted similar territorial
expansion but not greatly successful. In this sense, colonial ambition and imperialism
appear marginal to the West when in fact they have been central to the configuration
of mainland Europe, including its peripheral nation-states. This allowed the nations of
Central and Eastern Europe to imagine themselves outside the European colonial
projects and perceived to be untouched and not influenced by the colonial past.
Taking this absence as a point of entry, I bring ‘Race Optic’ – a critical perspective that
queries the ways in which racial divisions are shaped by colonial experiences – into a
conversation with coloniality. This discussion seeks to explore the ways in which 'race'
and racism engage with postcolonialism and migration in Poland – a country that is
often theorised as peripheral of Europe. Studying the everyday lives of sub-Saharan
African immigrants in Poland provides an opportunity to situate ‘postcolonial bodies’
and what their representation, as bearers of ‘halo of blackness’, signifies during a time
when European boundaries are undergoing transformations. In doing so, I provide
often neglected manifestations and implications of ‘race’ and racism in the everyday
experiences of black and mixed-race Poles of sub-Saharan African background
(either born or raised in Poland). To this end, I locate postcoloniality as part of the
configuration of nations of Central and Eastern Europe.
115
PAPER 8:
Re-Sounding Frederiksgave
Lene Asp Frederiksen, PhD,

Linköping University, Sweden | lene.asp.frederiksen@liu.se
In this paper I present a selection of recordings from a recent field trip to Ghana along
with methodological reflections on how to voice dialogical narratives on colonialism
made possible by digital media. By considering the colonial period as an early
globalized network experience of spatial, temporal and cultural overlaps, long before
the media reality we see today, unique opportunities arise for reflections about the
experience of being displaced and staggered, geographically and temporally, as both
a historical and contemporary living condition.
My work takes a media archaeological and ecological approach to history by

addressing colonial environments (in this paper in particular cultural heritage sites) as
historical archives and as what the media theorist John Durham Peters’ calls
‘elemental media’. Peters defines media as nature-culture environments, and from
this outset, through an ecological framework for the investigation of coloniality, I
intend to read landscapes (buildings, gardens, ruins) as media ecologies that can be
inscribed and (re-)read in various ways. I do this within the context of a current
ambition in academia and cultural institutions alike to decolonize the colonial archives
(Ann Laura Stoler 2009, Simone Osthoff 2009). But instead of reading archives ‘along
or against the grain’ I suggest an expansionist view on what a colonial archive might
be, and how knowledge of history might be stored.
116
WORKSHOP 14.
SETTLER COLONIALISM AND MIGRATION
Amiirah Salleh-Hoddin, University of Helsinki | amiirah.sallehhoddin@helsinki.fi

Anaïs Duong-Pedica, Abo Akademi University | anais.duong-pedica@abo.fi
Settler colonialism is “the specific formation of colonialism in which people come to a

land inhabited by (Indigenous) people and declare that land to be their new home. [It]
is about the pursuit of land, not just labour and resources. [It] is a persistent societal
structure, not just a historical event or origin story for a nation-state. [It] has meant
genocide of indigenous peoples, [and] the reconfiguring of Indigenous lands into
settler property” (Rowe & Tuck, 2017: 4). Examples of settler colonial states often cited
are Canada, the United States, Australia, Israel and South Africa. What has not been
as discussed in settler colonial studies are the Nordic countries of Finland, Sweden
and Norway, in relation to the Sámi, present in all three.
With the increasing movement of people in a globalised world and the related
struggles for recognition, equality, and social justice, we are broadly interested in the
discursive forms that migration and identity politics may take in settler colonial
contexts. Contributions may explore the ways in which categories and groups such
as “settlers”, “immigrants”, “arrivants” and “Indigenous” are conceptualised and co-
exist as well as the dynamic power relations between them and the settler state. In
doing so, we aim to render visible the mechanisms through which immigration may
be used to reinforce and/or resist the settler colonial project. For example, Trask
(2000) first conceptualised Asian settler colonialism in Hawai’i by unpacking the
politics of the term “local”, which can be conceptualised as a settler move to
innocence (Tuck & Yang 2012). Other such mechanisms can be found in the ideology
of multiculturalism in settler colonies (Chua 2003; Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernández
2013), which places Indigenous peoples among other “immigrant groups” that must
compete for recognition.
Critical contributions can depart from these questions but do not need to be bound
by them:
• How can we shed light on mechanisms which draw non-Natives of colour into the
settler colonial project? See e.g.: “Settler Homonationalism” (Morgensen, 2010)
• What shifts when an Indigenous standpoint is adopted instead of a settler colonial
nationalistic one with regards to immigration?
• How can we think through a politics of solidarity for non-Indigenous people of
colour and/or migrants in standing with Indigenous people that allows to challenge
not only the structure of settler colonialism, but also global capitalism and oppressive
border regimes?

117
PAPER 1:
The Complex Project of Decolonizing Anti-Racism in Canada

Kenna Sim, student, Master of Arts in Ethnic and Migration Studies,
Linköping University | kensi689@student.liu.se
Canada is a settler colonial nation-state. While it contends to be multicultural and

postnational, the continued effects of colonialism and racism are ever-present, and
meaningful actions towards decolonization have not been taken.
Scholars, activists, and some government officials have called for a strengthening of
relations between migrants and Indigenous communities. Currently, there is a debate
going on in Canada about the relationship between migration, antiracism, and
Indigenous self-determination. Antiracism contexts in Canada have been criticised for
excluding Aboriginal people and perspectives. This is further complicated by the
notion of immigrant settlerhood, in which immigrants are conceptualized as settlers
for contributing to and ultimately benefiting from settler colonialism. At the same
time, migrant justice is a fundamental act of resistance against global imperialism.
Furthermore, conceptualizing all migrants as settlers is problematic because Canada
as a settler colonial nation-state has benefitted from the unfree and precarious labour
of racialized migrants, both historically and in contemporary times. This is not just a
theoretical debate happening within academic institutions, and these tensions are
permeating into the everyday lives of Indigenous people and migrants. While many
call for solidarity, it leaves us to wonder what solidarity would look like and if it can be
achieved.
This workshop will look at the key debates concerning immigrant settlerhood,
decolonizing antiracism, and solidarity between Indigenous groups and migrants
within Canada, as well as focusing on a few initiatives across Canada to build
relationships between Indigenous and migrant communities.
118
Unsettling (the idea that) "we're all métis-se": Métis-
PAPER 2: se/colonial futurity, political discourse and decolonization

Anaïs Duong-Pedica, Abo Akademi University | anais.duong-pedica@abo.fi
New-Caledonia (N-C) became a settler colony under French sovereignty in 1853. It is

one of the oldest colonies of the French empire & has been on the UN list of non-self-
governing territories for over thirty years. The islands were first used as a penal
colony for convicts from France and North Africa. Later, the migration of free settlers
& indentured labourers following the development of nickel exploitation & plantations
contributed to make N-C a racially and culturally “diverse” society. Immigration was
notably encouraged by the French government to put the Kanak Indigenous
population in a position of minority. This paper is part of a project on the politics of
‘mixed-race’ identity in Kanaky-New-Caledonia (KNC). It aims to uncover the
coloniality of the statement “on est tous métis-se” (“we’re all mixed-race”) in a racially
and politically polarised space where there is an ongoing struggle for independence
led by kanak peoples.
This paper presents data gathered during a 6-months stay in KNC before and after
the November 2018 referendum for independence. It uses semi-structured interviews
with self-identified ‘mixed-raced’ (métis-se) people from KNC, but also political
debates and campaigns as well as art that signal an investment in the idea that, in
KNC, “we are all mixed-race”. The paper attempts to trace the origin of this idea and
the political need for its use at a time of decolonization. Further, it exposes the
political discourse of multiracialism as exclusionary and as a mechanism of
Indigenous disappearance in the settler colonial context. In challenging and
deconstructing the orientations toward a multiracial or métis future, that individuals
and institutions imagine, wish or advocate for, I aim to call for a desolidarization from
modes of thinking and being that support the French colonial project, even when it
masks itself as inclusive
119
Modh Díchoillíneach: Decolonial Reflections on Method
PAPER 3: from an Irish Immigrant in the Swedish Settler-Colonial State

Eóin Ó Cuinneagáin, Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies,
Linnaeus University | eoinocuinneagain@gmail.com
Central to decolonial research is relating oneself and one’s knowledge practices to

space, axiomology and biography, or in other words the land that one stands on, the
tools we use to understand reality, and who our ancestors are/where they have been.
In my doctoral project I study the coloniality of perception on the island of Ireland
during an Drochshaol, a time when, under the island’s full occupation by the British
regime, one and a half million Gaelic Irish people died of starvation while twice as
much food was on the island to feed the population. My project attempts to decenter
Anglocentrism in the domains of Irish cartography and aesthetics that were created
during this time and centre Gaelic song as an epistemic practice that bears witness to
and delinks from modernity/coloniality.
While I contemplate the violences endured by my ancestors under coloniality in

Ireland, I find myself occupying space as a White immigrant in the Swedish settler-
colonial State employed at a university named after Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish
botanist who was part of the Eurocentric drive to categorize and name all living things
as well as laying the foundations for biological racism as we know it today. I exist in a
Settler-Colonial State that continues to occupy Sámi lands, deontologize Sámi lives, a
State that has sterilized 60,000 Roma men and women, and racializes Black and
Muslim immigrants.
This paper offers a reflection on what it means to do research on coloniality as

grounded in the experiences of both a descendant of colonized people and a White
‘half-outsider’ immigrant in the Swedish settler-colonial State; how best can our
research be related to space and ongoing racist/colonial violences? How can our
knowledge praxis strategically act against Whiteness, White epistemology, and
epistemic racism in the context of a settler-colonial State?
120
PAPER 4:
Mapping Finnish Settler Colonialism in Canada

Samira Saramo, Dr, Senior Researcher,
Migration Institute of Finland | samira.saramo@migrationinstitute.fi
The history of Finnish immigration to Canada, as told by scholars and the

communities themselves, has remained notably detached from the history of
Canadian settler colonialism. Instead, tales of Finnish perseverance, sisu, and an
assumed inherent familiarity with rugged “wilderness” have come to form the
foundational mythology for Finnish settlement in Canada from the late-nineteenth to
mid-twentieth centuries. In the context of current efforts to unpack Canada’s settler
colonial history and present, however, the silences in Finnish immigrant history prove
unsatisfactory and problematic.
By layering Finnish immigrant narratives of place, settlement, and belonging with

frameworks of Canadian settler colonialism, it is possible to begin to reframe and
reconsider how Finns have contributed to and upheld structures of Indigenous
dispossession. In this presentation, I will share how I have begun to do this work by
incrementally building a multisensory and multilayered open digital map of the
Canadian province of Ontario that aims to promote dialogue about Finns as actors of
settler colonialism.
121
Filipinx settler colonialism and migrant solidarities
PAPER 5:
in Hawai‘i: Contesting the “American Dream”
with Indigenous and decolonial futures

Karin Louise Hermes, PhD Candidate inAmerican Studies, Humboldt-Universität zu
Berlin | khermes@hawaii.edu
My research on human-environment relations in Indigenous Hawaiian epistemologies

focuses on the Hawaiian concept of aloha ‘āina (“love of the land”), a sustainable
narrative of caring for the land. These Hawaiian epistemologies, grounded on a
conceptualization of land as relational, and forms of resistance provide an ethnically-
inclusive and sustainable counterdiscourse to settler colonial epistemologies on land
use.
The inclusion of the Philippines in my research of Oceania is based on research

positionality and the wide-ranging migration of Filipinx in the region due to U.S.
colonialism, and in argument of Austronesian migration histories to “disrupt” the
colonial and geopolitical borders of Asia/Pacific. Particular decolonial narratives
between the Philippines and Hawai‘i lie in the shared history of territorialization in
1898 during the Spanish-American War and the U.S. presidency of William McKinley.
From a framework of territorial decolonization, the Filipinx settlers in Hawai‘i are in a
more unique position of migrant/settler solidarity in calls for U.S.
deoccupation/decolonization/demilitarization. To be kept in mind is the prevalence
of mixed ethnicity and multiple identification, as one can be simultaneously Filipinx,
Hawaiian, or other Indigenous and Pacific Islander, which must be stressed against
any colonial impositions of blood quantum measurement. Nominally a sovereign
nation-state, widespread pro-Americanism and neocolonial exploitation in the
Philippines can be argued to be insufficiently post- or decolonial in mindset, requiring
mutual decolonial counternarratives to U.S. hegemony.
In this paper I explain the particular terminology of “native,” “local,” and “settler” in
Hawai‘i, as well as their overlapping or divergent responsibilities towards Indigenous
sovereignty and decolonial futures through aloha ‘āina. In reassessing these terms
and responsibilities from Filipinx migrant perspectives, I seek to emphasize the
connections or shared narratives that have been obscured by Spanish and U.S.
colonialism in the Philippines, as well as interrogate the settler solidarity and practices
of migrant Filipinx in Hawai‘i.
122
SÁMI, KVEN & TORNEDALIAN
WORKSHOP 15.
1 in Contemporary Welfare States
IDENTITIES, ETHNICITIES AND NARRATIVES
Stine Helena Bang Svendsen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology |

stine.helena.svendsen@ntnu.no
Elisabeth Stubberud, Norwegian University of Science and Technology |
elisabeth.stubberud@ntnu.no
This workshop explores contemporary and historical identities, ethnicities and narratives of
selfhood and belonging among Sámi, Kven and Tornedalian people. The focus of the workshop
is the region where Sámi, Kven and Tornedalian people have coexisted since the 17th century,
and where these ethnic identities have developed alongside one another. In this region, recent
articulations and narratives of Sámi, Kven and Tornedalian ethnicities are fraught with tension
and conflict, despite a long history of cohabitation and intermarriage (Larsen 2008).
The production of seemingly homogenous nation states in the Nordic region has been based
on racist and assimilationist policies against indigenous people and national minorities in the
region (Keskinen, Skaptadóttir & Toivanen 2019). Sámi, Kven and Tornedalian people are
autochthonous to the region, in the sense that they/we resided there before Swedish and
Norwegian colonization. Nevertheless, both Kvens and Tornedalians have been conceptualized
as “immigrants” to Sweden and Norway, and Kvens have also been framed as a threat to
Norwegian national security to the state due to their/our perceived allegiance to Finland
(Eriksen & Niemi 1981). Furthermore, both Sámi and Tornedalian peoples were subjected to
racial classification by early 20th century racial biologists (Kyllingstad 2016, Persson 2018).
In the workshop we explore the colonial and racial histories that inform current Sámi, Kven and
Tornedalian ethnic formations. How did assimilation policies known as “Nowegianization” and
“Swedification” affect minority ethnic relations? How did the early 20th century racial formation
affect ethnic relations between minority groups in the region? What are the historical and
contemporary relationships between Sea Sámi and Kven people in coastal areas? How are
differences between Sámi, Kven and Tornedalian people articulated and narrated today?
Sámi, Kven and Tornedalian revitalization is currently a significant driving force for salvaging
threatened languages and articulating ethnic identities in the region. What characterizes
revitalized identities in the region, and how do they accommodate ethnic complexity and
multiple belongings? We invite papers that look specifically at Sámi, Kven or Tornedalian
issues, papers that engage in analyses of interethnic relations, as well as articulations of
identities. We particularly invite contributions that employ decolonial perspectives on ethnic
relations.

123
PAPER 1:
“We’re all mixed”: Ethnopolitics and Sámi and Kven identity

Elisabeth Stubberud, Postdoctoral Researcher,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology | elisabeth.stubberud@ntnu.no
Stine H. Bang Svendsen, Associate Professor,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology | stine.helena.svendsen@ntnu.no
How is ethnic belonging articulated in a place with a historically mixed population?

How does (seemingly) past events come into play in these articulations of belonging?
We explore the articulations of Sámi and Kven ethnicity in
Børselv/Pyssyjoki/Bissojohka, Northern Norway. From being a bi- and trilingual
community, the village and surrounding areas is now mainly Norwegian speaking.
Børselv has been affected by assimilation policies, the burning of Finnmark during
WW2, followed by modern reconstruction where all signs of “the old ways” were
discouraged. Sámi and Kven ethnicity was simply incompatible with the modern way.
Yet ethnic revitalisation movements resulted in the Sámi parliament (1989) as well as
Kven organisations. In both instances, the social movements work to enhance the
rights for Sámi and Kven populations – but the claim to these rights depend on the
groups being clearly distinguishable from each other.
For people in Børselv/Pyssyjoki/Bissojohka, the conceptualisation of ethnicity in the

revitalisation projects presents problems. The distinctions of ethnicity in the village
appear different from those used to argue for rights vis-à-vis the colonial nation-state.
The revitalisation projects depend on presenting distinguishable groups, but locally it
may be hard to tell Sea Sámi and Kven families apart. How are ethnic distinctions then
made in the village? How does blood, language and personal identification qualify or
disqualify? Sámi and Kven people can always become Norwegian, but how do
people in the village relate to the revitalisation movements? Ethnic hybridity is a fact
of life in the region – but how can we acknowledge hybridity without undermining
formal rights, such as the protection of ILO 169 for the Sámi population? These
political questions feed into people’s personal accounts of ethnicity and are of crucial
importance to the revitalisation movements’ political strategies.
124
PAPER 2:
Ethnic complexity and contemporary Kven identities

Gyrid Øyen, UiT - The Arctic University of Norway | gyrid.oyen@uit.no
Trine Kvidal-Røvik, UiT - The Arctic University of Norway | trine.kvidal@uit.no
This article deals with contemporary Kven/Norwegian-Finnish identity articulations in

Northern Norway. Kvens, along with Sámis, have been at the receiving end of
extensive Norwegianization policies with an aim of cultural integration in the
Norwegian nation state. A characteristic of Northern Norway is the development of
national policies along ethnic divisional lines. A neat and tidy image of ethnic division
has however been challenged as political and social movements inside Norwegian,
Sámi, and Kven political systems emphasize hybridity and simultaneous belonging to
different ethnic groups. The Norwegianization reinforced heterogeneity among
minority populations by situating individuals and groups differently in colonial
processes. For Kvens, an ongoing lack of visibility can be seen as a form of continued
Norwegianization, as indicated by the title of the first Kven film: The silent people’s
quiet death? The need for visibility of Kven culture is relevant ito political mobilization
and cultural community.
As part of this, recognizable overarching symbols are needed, as expressed by key

Kven institutions (i.e. Kvenforbundet, Vadsø museum-Ruija Kvenmuseum, Ruijan
Kaiku) and explored by Kven artists such as Åsne Kummeneje Mellem and in art
projects such as Kven Connection. In this article, we bring with us the above-
described situation, specifically as relevant to Kven identity articulations. A backdrop
for our research is the “Kven Capitol” Vadsø, a place characterized by Kven history
and culture, and an interesting contemporary context with a Kven Brewery and a
Kven festival. The article is based on in-depth interviews with people connected to
Vadsø in various ways. We are curious to learn how Kvens, and others who relate to
Kven/Norwegian-Finnish culture, narrate their identities today. Our findings speak to
ongoing political, institutional, and commercial dynamics relating to
Kven/Norwegian-Finnish culture.
125
Tornedalian perspectives in Swedish education?:
PAPER 3: A decolonial minority pedagogy in Upper Secondary Schools

Pär Poromaa Isling (PhD), Umeå Centre for Gender Studies,
Umeå University | par.poromaa-isling@umu.se
Britt-Inger Keisu (Associate professor), Umeå Centre for Gender Studies,
Umeå University | britt-inger.keisu@umu.se
National legislation emphasises the responsibility for school to act to enhance

national minorities to develop a cultural identity. Furthermore, to ensure that minority
perspectives, i.e. language, culture, history and religion, are part of ordinary teaching.
However, despite these policy incentives Sweden receives harsh criticism for its
failure to realise this commitment and protect the national minorities languages and
culture. Studies applying a decolonial perspective resemblance the critique as pupils’
possibilities to practise the Tornedalian language and culture in Swedish upper
secondary- and compulsory school are lacking (Poromaa Isling, forthcoming a; b). An
un-explored field within the research of Tornedalian as minority, are especially
contemporary critical studies on educational institution and teaching. We aim to
examine the challenges and opportunities encountered in pursuing a decolonial
pedagogy that integrates the national minority groups perspectives into the ordinary
educational practices.
With data consisting of 28 interviews with pupils, teachers and principals a thematic
analysis illuminates opportunities for change. Analysis highlights that pupils and
adults share a common interest and awareness on Tornedalian minority issues.
Hence, pupils demand and adults’ interest and knowledges in these subjects
constitute promising prerequisites and facilitators for a decolonial pedagogy that
challenges the Swedish norms which has hindered this development. Poromaa Isling,
P (forthcoming a) Young Tornedalians in Education: The Challenges of Being National
Minority Pupils in the Swedish School System. Poromaa Isling, P (forthcoming b)
Tornedalian Teachers’ and Principals’ in the Swedish Education System: Exploring
Decolonial Minority Practices in the Aftermaths of ‘Swedification’
126
PAPER 4:
Not Enough Sami? – Affects of Postcolonial Identity

Ugnė Barbora Starkutė, Faculty of Philosophy,
Vilnius University | starkuteugne@gmail.com
Postcolonial indigenous identities are often multiple, fragmented, situational, and

hybrid. However, the affective side of it is rarely discussed, but it may reveal new
ways of understanding what it means to be indigenous today. The purpose of this
presentation is to share some of my findings and interpretations of how and why
people speak about indigenous Sami identity in affective and emotional terms, more
pricisely, about shame and inadequacy feelings, which were unexpected findings of
my fieldwork in Finnish Sapmi. Whether in the assimilatory times it was shameful to
be Sami, today it is shameful not to be ‘proper’ enough. This I argue occurs in the
context of the long-lasting essentializing depiction of an indigenous group being
traditional and very different from the majority of modern society, as well as from the
need to emphasize distinctiveness through performance and embodiment of
ethnicity. However, this forms something L. Berlant has called ‘cruel optimism’ – an
unachievable ideal version of identity ‘when something you desire is actually an
obstacle to your flourishing’(1). The expectation of “authenticity” may create an even
greater loss of identities by making people feel “not enough Sami”.
In this presentation, I would like to elaborate on the findings of the research and
briefly introduce my PhD research plans as a continuation of the presented topic.
(1) Berlant Lauren. 2011, Cruel Optimism. NC: Duke University Press. pp.1
127
Tackling Racialized Discrimination
PAPER 5: of the Sámi in Judgments of the Norwegian Courts

Carola Lingaas, VID Specialized University, Oslo, Norway | carola.lingaas@vid.no
“Hello, they belong on the ‘vidda’, not here with their ridiculous clown costumes they
are marching around in. If you smell lighter fluid, a Sámi is not far away, with his 1.30
meters and his smell of fire”. A Norwegian court convicted a man for this degrading
and racist statement. It was the first judgment that dealt with hate speech against the
Sámi. The accused claimed he did not have a hateful or discriminatory motive, but
intended to be funny.
This paper discusses how Norwegian courts in their case law deal with racialized
discrimination of the Sámi population. It will draw historical lines to social Darwinism
as practiced in Norway, where measurements of the Sámi’s lung volumes, head size,
eye and hair color were compared to the ‘regular’ population. Alfred Mjøen (1860-
1939) conducted this anthropological research at the same time as political debates
about the Sámi’s rights in Norwegian society were taking place. The official
Norwegian position was that the Sámi were not an indigenous population of the North
and therefore had no inalienable rights. The Norwegian physician and physical
anthropologist Halfdan Bryn (1864–1933) even suggested creating the best possible
conditions for the Sámi to be able to continue their nomadic life, which would lead
“this little valuable race element to die a natural death”. The Sterilization Law in
Norway of May 1934 was a direct consequence of this research on so-called
‘unharmonic race relations’.
Norway has come a long way since racial hygiene was a mainstream scientific
approach. Yet, still today, one in three Sámi report experiences of discrimination. The
judgment of 2019 shows that the judicial system takes seriously racism and
discrimination of the Sámi. This paper will discuss how the courts tackle criminal
utterances that manifest a racial understanding of Norway’s indigenous population.
128
Two modes of Equality: Assimilation
PAPER 6: and Emancipation in the Sami- Norwegian Discourse

Alessia Marzano, MA student in Human Rights and Multiculturalism,
University of South-Eastern Norway (USN) | alessiamarzano@rocketmail.com
In this essay, I argue that the concept of equality regarding the implementation of
policies in a multicultural society can be subjected to context. While equal dignity is
uniformly applied to all society members, equal respect is based on the necessity of
recognizing the differences.
To illustrate these two different modes of equality, I draw on two examples while
analyzing the Sami-Norwegian discourse. The first example is the question raised by
Kaare Fostervoll, the Director General of NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation),
in 1955, whether the government should have aimed at cultural preservation or to
cultural and linguistic development leading to full equality. The Norwegian
government, applying a policy of “equality” in the reconstruction of Northern Norway
after the Germans’ destruction in 1944, was implementing de facto a hegemonic
model to assimilate the Sami minority. '
The second conception of equality can be exemplified by Boaventura de Souza

Santos et al. ’s promotion of non-relativistic dialogues between different knowledges
and epistemologies, the invitation to the decolonization of knowledge and power
towards an “equality of opportunities.”
A politics of equality should not lay on asymmetries but rather recognize the infinite
cultural and epistemological diversity as the point of departure for the co-
construction of an alternative, democratic, and just society.
What can be the right balance between recognizing fundamental rights and
protecting cultural differences? Moreover, what are the repercussions on identity,
individual and collective, linked to these two dimensions? To answer these questions,
I explore the historical background that led to Sami policies, paying attention to the
local/global and individual/collective dimensions. Ultimately, in a Western
hegemonic “monoculture” still accepted as a symbol of development and modernity,
I argue that Sami alternative epistemology, among others, has a lot to offer to the
world we live in today.
129
Sami indigenous memories in the extractive
PAPER 7: landscape of settler-colonial Kiruna, Sweden
Kaisa Huuva, PhD-student in Sami studies, Department of language studies,

Umeå University | kaisa.huuva@umu.se
130
APPROPRIATION OR COLLABORATION?
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
CULTURAL PRODUCTION, COLONIAL HISTORIES
AND IMAGINATIONS FOR THE FUTURE
Johanna Turunen, Department of Music, Art and Culture studies

University of Jyväskylä | johanna.k.turunen@jyu.fi
Samira Saramo, Migration Institute of Finland samira.saramo@migrationinstitute.fi
Cultural appropriation’ has emerged as a central notion in discussions over the

ownership of various cultural practices in the increasingly multicultural environments
of modern societies. From Hollywood cinema production to small-scale artistic
production, from museums to political activism, from yoga-classes to textile patterns
and ethnic dresses, mobilizing the term has enabled the critical analysis of colonial
histories as well as violent power hierarchies in the present. It has also paved way for
claims for recognition as well as reclaiming pride in specific cultural heritage. At the
same time, however, the ambiguous nature of the term has also evoked confusion
and questions of ownership.
From a theoretical point of view, we can claim that human beings have always
borrowed from other cultural contexts, modified, reinterpreted and redeveloped
cultural traits, motives and ideas. Moreover, current theorization on culture as a form
of living does not support an understanding of cultures as static, clear-cut entities
with ‘pure’ heritages. From a practical and political point of view, we can ask if
appropriation as a frame blocks some forms of collaboration and fruitful interaction.
When is a cultural practice or product understandable from the frame of
‘appropriation’, and when would ‘collaboration’ be a more fruitful approach? Can
reference to appropriation create hesitance that blocks away some possibilities for
co-operation? We invite contributions that address the tensions between
appropriation and co-operation in various empirical contexts, or take a theoretical
stance on the issue.
131
“Svärta rinner också i mina ådror.”
PAPER 1:
The Swedish Mission in the Congo as Narratives
of White Innocence in Contemporary Literature
Hanna Rinderle, Scandinavian Department,

ALU Freiburg, Germany | hanna.rinderle@skandinavistik.uni-freiburg.de
As in the other Scandinavian countries, the narrative of Swedish exceptionalism, i.e.

the idea that Sweden played no role in European colonialism and therefore assumed
the role of a humanitarian great power in the post-colonial world order, has been
established since the 1960s in connection with, for example, Dag Hammarskjöld’s and
Olof Palme’s political commitment and the country’s early humanitarian and
development aid in Africa.
This self-image, however, ignores the fact that the Swedish military served in the
Belgian colonization of the Congo and that Swedish missionaries were and still are
extremely active in the Congo. Even if the Christian mission is certainly not a direct
form of colonization, one still has to question to what extent the mission and the
stories about it contribute to the image of Swedish non-engagement and, thus, also
prevent a discussion about colonial and imperialist heritage in today’s Sweden.
In recent years, several literary works have been published in which descendants of
Swedish missionaries process this part of Sweden’s history and at the same time
speak of it as part of their own family history. In my presentation, I would like to
investigate the narrative strategies that are pursued in some of these texts in order to
stage the Christian mission outside of the European colonial box and bring it closer to
the colonised Congo and its inhabitants. I would like to argue that authors like Lennart
Hagerfors and Johanna Nilsson illustrate the Swedish mission as an innocent
civilization of the African country and, by doing so, prevent a debate about the
Swedish entanglement in European colonial history.
132
Race and space:
PAPER 2: Ethnographic study of “racial landscapes” in Bordeaux
Mélodine Sommier, Erasmus University

Rotterdam, The Netherlands | sommier@eshcc.eur.nl
This study examines “racial landscapes”, that is, the way discourses about race and
racism materialize in everyday surroundings in the city centre of Bordeaux (France).
Racial landscapes capture the contradictory nature of European discourses of race
and racism that dismiss Europe’s racist past even though it is embedded in “the
archite(x)ture of European space” (Goldberg 2006: 340). This context resonates with
the city of Bordeaux which was a major actor of slave trade but started to
acknowledge this past only recently. This study examines Which discourses of race
and racism are (re)produced and contested in Bordeaux?
In winter 2020, the researcher took photographs in Bordeaux city centre that she
perceived to signify race and racism based on literature about racial landscapes
(Redclift, 2014) and discourses of race and racism in France (Fila-Bakabadio 2011) and
in Europe (Essed & Trieniekens 2008). Visual and critical discourse analysis were used
to access the city as a semiotic and discursive terrain.
The findings draw attention to the voices that made race (in)visible. The municipality
focused on offering narratives about the “memory of slave trade”, constructing race
and racism as something of the past. In contrast, businesses and shops represented
race today through signs directed at the communities they target. The findings also
point to the role played by neoliberalism as the city centre replete with shops and
restaurants revealed the commodification of culture around carefully marketed
markers of exotic otherness. Different discourses of diversity connected to the
intersection between race and class also emerged as tourists’ needs were heavily
catered for, while shops by and for racialized minorities were contained within a few
specific areas. The racialization of specific places revealed the whiteness of many
others and the literal relegation of racialized individuals to the periphery.
133
Decolonizing European cultural heritage:
PAPER 3: Critical consciousness or appropriation of colonial pain?
Johanna Turunen, Doctoral candidate, University of Jyväskylä,

Department of Music, Art and Culture studies | johanna.k.turunen@jyu.fi
There is an enduring question around what to do with colonial collections in European

museums. Attached to it is another, less often asked question: How do colonial
collections connect to broader ideas about European heritage? In this presentation, I
focus on decolonization of the European cultural archive – an often subdued and
covert structure of cultural knowledge deeply linked to European exceptionalism and
coloniality – that lays behind these different museum exhibitions and our ideas of
European cultural heritage. Confronting this archive has very different outcomes for
different groups. For the disenfranchised minorities (either postcolonial, indigenous or
other) facing the violence and coloniality of the European cultural archive may be
traumatic, which is why debates on decolonizing museums have highlighted the need
to approach museums as places that enable cultural empowerment. For the white
majority, however, facing this history of violence and learning to take responsibility
over colonial histories would be crucial and much needed step towards breaking the
colonial divide. How can we bring the trauma of the colonized and the need to learn
from past horrors together in ways that enable shared critical consciousness to
emerge without resulting in mere appropriation and reproduction of colonial pain?
I will focus on thinking through the relationship between museums, heritage and the
cultural archive and the different implications their decolonization has especially from
the perspective of critical consciousness. Critical heritage studies have sought to
frame cultural heritage not only as a contemporary phenomenon but also as
construct that is deeply invested in our ideas of the future. However, I argue that in
order for cultural heritage to become a vessel for social change in contemporary
Europe it needs to find ways to challenge its colonial roots.
134
DECOLONIZING POWER, KNOWLEDGE
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
AND BEING IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES
Suvi Keskinen, Swedish School of Social Science,

University of Helsinki | suvi.keskinen@helsinki.fi
Stine Helena Bang Svendsen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
stine.helena.svendsen@ntnu.no
Adrian Groglopo, Department of Social Work,
Gothenburg University | adrian.groglopo@socwork.gu.se
This workshop aims to discuss in depth the problems of coloniality and the processes
of decolonization taking place in the Nordic countries. The workshop will bring
together scholars and/or activists already engaged in decolonial processes across
the Nordic countries. We welcome contributions that focus on problems related to
the coloniality of power, knowledge, and being including, but not limited to racism,
Islamophobia, settler-colonialism, and Eurocentrism. These problems and/or the
processes of resistance to them can be addressed from a variety of
cases/settings/contexts such as the educational systems, the asylum and
immigration systems, social work, the political sphere, decolonial activisms and/or
artistic interventions. The workshop is organized by members of the Decolonial
critique, knowledge production and social change in the Nordic countries (DENOR)
network, and welcomes contributions from existing as well as new members.
More information about DENOR: https://socwork.gu.se/forskning/pagaende-

forskningsprojekt/denor

135
Narrative mapping of the self
PAPER 1: over exile and desired community
Ali Ali, Doctoral Program: Gender, Culture and Society,

University of Helsinki | ali.nhavi.ali@gmail.com , ali.ali@helsinki.fi
I present a draft text on self-hood in exile; how the self is imagined within the
navigation for a desired life and what that entails of political aspects of identification,
affinity and solidarity. The text is based on a year-long (auto-)ethnographic research in
gender-political communities in Helsinki. The text centers subjectivities of people
whose legalized residence in Finland is recognized based on the need for protection
due to sexual-othering in home communities. I center these lives due to their
particularity of problematized belonging to the so-called origin/home-community. I
see these lives as realms where the self unfolds in its intimacy, communality and
politicalness, bearing witness to the intimacy of the political and the centrality of
situated lived experiences to politics.
I start with discussing/problematizing conventional tropes of categorization while

recognizing the impact these have on the subject’s sense of self and community,
whether these are problematized, submitted to or celebrated by the subject. Next, I
transcend that to look into possibilities of affiliations and alliances that arise from
shared understanding of precarity and the necessity for a political imagining that
honors vulnerability, rather than from essentialized belonging or desired inclusion to a
privileged community. The aim is to tune into possibilities of solidarity that do not
reiterate and solidify normative structures of identification and othering/exclusion but
both recognize the stakes in precarious subject, and value the realm of precarity as a
realm of possibility to rethink what matters. Throughout the text, my subjectivity
transcends sterile theorization or detached narration. Instead, it is positioned at the
core of the discussion on precarity of exile. In that, I draw on my position as one of the
precarious subjects desiring community and conceptualizing politics of
solidarity/affinity and survival within the collectives/communities/groups speak of.
136
Anger, shame and whiteness:
PAPER 2: Using memory work as an educational tool
for reflections on racialization, otherness and privilege
Iram Khawaja, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Psychology,

Aarhus University | Irkh@edu.au.dk
This paper is based on many years of experience in teaching topics such as

otherness, marginalization and whiteness on a postgraduate level in Copenhagen
Denmark, and looks into the processes at play when using memory work to facilitate
narratives of racialization and (non-)belonging. Memory work is an auto-ethnographic
research method (Haugg 1987, Davies et al 2001), but is in this context used as an
educational tool to create space for critical reflection on the embodied meaning of
race, otherness and whiteness. The paper aims to illustrate and discuss how it is
possible to facilitate constructive discussions on race, whiteness and otherness in an
academic environment where the majority of the teachers and the students are white.
Using poststructuralist and postcolonial key concepts and perspectives such as
power, discourse, otherness and positionality, the paper addresses some of the
structural and ambiguous power relational dynamics at play in educational settings
where diversity and otherness is rarely included in curriculum.
The analysis will look into the different positionalities, power struggles and the
affective landscape of a classroom, where some moments become more affectively
charged resulting in feelings of anger, shame or resistance, when dealing with topics
such as white privilege and racism. These processes are especially interesting to look
into when the position of the teacher is occupied by someone who can be seen as
belonging to the group of racialized others. The position as professional/academic
and the personal position of the teacher can be confounded thus requiring new ways
of fashioning the educational context and goal. As educators we need to look more
closely at the processes that reproduce the existing power relational structures we as
researchers set out to examine, and sometimes destabilize and decolonize. This
paper proposes memory work as one of the methods that can be used in this regard.
137
Arctic Ocean Railway,
PAPER 3: indigenous identity appropriation and the politics
of settler colonial knowledge production in Finland
Laura Junka-Aikio, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow, University Museum/UMAK,

Arctic University of Norway (UiT) | Laura.o.junka-aikio@uit.no
Following Queer Affects in Bureaucratic Migration Spaces

PAPER 4: in Denmark: On Truth, Queerness and Colonial Histories

Marie Lunau, PhD fellow at Roskilde University (RUC) | lunau@ruc.dk
This paper offers theoretically informed and qualitative empirical insights into forced
queer migration in a contemporary Nordic welfare state. The paper will explore the
affective experiences of seeking asylum based on sexual orientation and/or gender
identity in Denmark. The paper considers the role of past and ongoing forms of
Nordic coloniality by reflecting on the ways in which the Danish asylum system
assess queer asylum seekers’ claim for protection. The politics of inclusion within the
Danish welfare state appear to be predicated on ideals of normalised national white
queerness and homonormativity that come to determine queer asylum seekers’
legitimacy and access to inclusion. Queer migrants’ paths to protection play out in a
geopolitical context where the hope of life, asylum and citizenship are infused with
scrutinising practices and normative imaginaries of ‘truthful’ queerness. The paper
seeks to highlight how gendered, sexed, and racialized inequalities are reflected and
(re)produced in the Danish asylum system. This framework allows for an exploration
of the ways in which emotions, sexuality, gender identity, asylum politics and
movements are interwoven and regulated by colonial and racial histories.
138
“They will kill us with that pen”
PAPER 5:
Administrative violence: Another kind of war
on young people seeking asylum in Sweden

Torun Elsrud, associate professor, Dept. of Social work,
Linnaeus University | torun.elsrud@lnu.se
Åsa Söderqvist Forkby, PhD, Dept of Social work,
Linnaeus University | asa.soderqvist@lnu.se
“They will kill us with that pen, [they] just write with the pen, a signature. They will not
shout at you, they will not fight with you. They will just say, ‘yes, I understand’, and
then, when you leave, they just write. And you can do nothing.”
Based on young Afghans' experiences of multiple rejections in Sweden, this paper

will discuss “administrative violence” as a form a neo-colonial power performance to
exclude unwanted and “othered” people from the Swedish welfare state. The paper
will address experiences of different acts of administrative violence, from asylum
rejections and loss of residential care accommodation to rejections on applications
for economic support performed by the social services. For some project participants,
having escaped from violence and deaths by weapons in the country they once left,
the signature of a Swedish administrator’s pen becomes just as violent and life-
threatening as the situation they left behind. For Swedish society, the administrative
signatures become a means to neutralise and legitimise politics of exclusion and turn
racist discourses into bureaucratic practice.
This paper draws on two ethnographic research projects in asylum reception

contexts. One project focuses on the social dimensions of hope among people who
wait to have their cases assessed while the other addresses the significance of local
civil networks for coping with and resisting ongoing politics of exclusion. Twenty
youngsters, initially having sought asylum in Sweden, have been followed through
participant observations and recurrent interviews for more than two years. While
some of them remain in Sweden, others have opted for re-escaping to the migrant
‘quarantines’ of Europe, joining a growing ‘deportspora’ of people having been made
‘deportable’ through signatures and pen strokes.
139
Academia, activism and intelligiblepractices: Reflections
PAPER 6: on complicity and imaginaries in activist-academic spaces
Nanna Kirstine Leets Hansen, PhD fellow, Roskilde University | nkh@ruc.dk
The relationship between academia and activism is in many ways problematic. On the
one hand, there is a tendency in academia to either co-opt or ignore insights coming
from activist struggles. On the other, activist practices are not necessarily exempt
from being complicit in the reproduction of dehumanising structures and, as such,
defining oneself as activist or ‘being an activist in academia’ does not automatically
resolve problems caused by the coloniality of power, knowledge and being. Yet,
drawing a line between academic and activist endeavours can also prove
problematic if we are to challenge the very ‘grammar’ of coloniality. In this
presentation, I want to discuss dilemmas and problems that emerge when thinking
academia and activism as either two separate or closely related categories and/or
identities. I focus particularly on notions of professionalism, the (self-)critical
scholar/activist and decolonizing practices to analyse how ideas of ‘the professional’
and critical thinking make certain academic and activist actions intelligible and
rational. This in order to discuss how to challenge the (re)production of oppression
and negligence in both academia and activism.
140
Tharangambadi revisited:
PAPER 7: Diasporic capital and decolonial (re)turns
Tess Sophie Skadegård Thorsen, Aalborg University | tess_sst@hotmail.com

Mira Chandhok Skadegård, Aalborg University | Mcsk@hum.aau.dk
Since the 2017 centennial for the sale of the former Danish West Indies (now US Virgin
Islands), discourses, activism, and studies of colonialism and decolonizing have been
on the rise in Denmark. However, little attention is paid to the Danish colonial
relationship to India which has existed since 1620. This relationship is shaped
simultaneously by the Danish colonial fort, or ‘trading post’, in Tharangambadi in Tamil
Nadu, India, as well as the Danish (coerced) migrations of Indians to Danish St Croix,
where 321 Indians worked in indentured servitude (Roopnarine, 2012).
In this article, Indian-Danish mother-daughter scholars Mira Chandhok Skadegård and

Tess Skadegård Thorsen employ an autoethnographic methodology of exploration
through thinking-together. This collaboration-through-correspondence methodology
actively resists the boundaries research has set up for how (and with whom) we are
able to do analytical work (Chandhok Skadegård & Skadegård Thorsen, 2019). By
utilizing kinship-ties, both as a form of indexing through citation and as a structure for
analytics, the pair delve into their own decolonization of their relationship to Indian-
Danish diasporic capital (Raj, 2007).
References:
Raj, Aditya. Ethnographic Study of the Creation and Usage of Diasporic Capital for Education and
Identity Construction of Indian Diasporic Youth in Montreal. Diss. McGill University, 2007.
Roopnarine, Lomarsh. "A Comparative Analysis of Two Failed Indenture Experiences in Post-
emancipation Caribbean: British Guiana (1838-1843) and Danish St. Croix (1863–1868)." Ibero Americana
Nordic Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 42.1–2 (2012): 203-230.
Thorsen, Tess Sophie Skadegård, and Mira Chandhok Skadegård. "Monstrous (M) others—From
Paranoid to Reparative Readings of Othering Through Ascriptions of Monstrosity." Nordlit 42 (2019): 207-
230.
141
The art of yoik in care: Sami caregivers’
PAPER 8: experiences in dementia care in Northern Norway
Soile Päivikki Hämäläinen, UiT The Arctic,

University of Norway | soile.hamalainen@uit.no, soilepaha@hotmail.com
Purpose: Yoik is the traditional vocal art of the Sami, the indigenous people of
Fennoscandia. The Sami people, their land and their culture have been subject to
colonisation and assimilation for centuries, hence the practice of yoik was lost in
many regions. Despite an increasing awareness of the benefits of health musicking,
yoik is only sporadically included in musicking practices in dementia care contexts.
Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore Sami caregivers’ yoik experiences in
formal and informal care contexts.
Design: Qualitative in-depth semi-structured interviews with 17 Sami relatives of care

receivers, and healthcare professionals. Qualitative content analysis from subthemes
to main themes was used to identify themes.
Findings: The research revealed two key findings: 1) yoik enlivens, empowers, induces
“good feelings” and enables reminiscence functions in elderly persons with dementia
or impaired overall functioning, 2) yoik is not systematically applied in in-care
contexts due to the history and consequences of assimilation and colonisation.
Originality/value: This study explores some of the consequences of colonisation and
assimilation on healthcare services and provides insights into an under-researched
topic, the function of yoik as a music-based practice for the well-being of older
adults. The study reveals that yoik can act as an attunement tool. Yoik may manifest
and enhance connectedness to oneself, to the natural environment and to the
community. This type of attunement lies at the heart of person-centered care.
142
Swedish Social workers' Conceptions
PAPER 9:
of Islam, Muslims and Somali Culture:
Exploring Epistemic Vulnerability as a Resource for Justice.
Rannveig Haga, Religious Studies, Södertörn University | Rannveig.haga@sh.se
The Social Work researcher Brené Brown (2012) writes on how the courage to be
vulnerable transforms the way we live, parent and lead. I want to ask how the
courage to be vulnerable also transforms the way we know. How can a greater
acceptance for vulnerability transform what we think we know about people, more
specifically Muslims.
Commonly vulnerability is seen as a lack and a position of helplessness, and scholars,

activist, humanitarians and those who work within institutions work to assist
vulnerable people so they can overcome such a negative state. In line with recent
work in philosophy, the humanities and social science, I explore vulnerability as a
productive position. Moreover, in this paper I want to focus on vulnerability as a
productive position also for those who assist and help, rather than to focus on the
vulnerability of those who are at the receiving end.
In my previous research I found that Somali mothers in Sweden and Finland

experience that their lived realities, needs as parents and their experience-based
knowledge become marginalized under the hegemonic gaze of “expert professional
knowledge.” Such knowledge is often presented as neutral but are based on specific
experiences and discourses on good parenting, healthy childhood, and child behavior
in the secular Nordic context.
I attempt to make space for the voices and experiences of Swedish-Somali Muslims
by questioning knowledge production and philosophical assumptions regarding
epistemology: what can be known and how can it be known, including how this
influences the way Muslim users of social services are met as subjects of knowledge.
In order to explore the subject I use the concept of Epistemic Vulnerability and
Epistemic Justice.
143
MUSEUMS Migrants and
AND KNOWLEDGE Refugees IN
PRODUCTION
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
INCREASINGLY DIVERSIFYING SOCIETIES
Anna Rastas, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University | anna.rastas@tuni.fi

Leila Koivunen, European and World History, University of Turku | leila.koivunen@utu.fi
This workshop investigates the roles of museums and other cultural heritage
institutions in knowledge production of past and present in increasingly diversifying
societies. The rise of identity politics among marginalized communities, anti-racist
interventions and activist projects on decolonizing museums as well as other projects
aiming at including marginalized communities’ perspectives in knowledge production
have forced museums and other heritage institutions to rethink their traditional roles,
their working methods and exhibition policies.
Papers in this workshop focus on changes in museum work and knowledge

production. How cultural heritage institutions have participated in re-writing national
histories in order to include ethnic and racialized minorities. How, and by whom, the
(future) histories of local ethnic and racialized minority communities should be
documented and archived? How co-curation and other collaborative methods have
been applied in heritage institutions in order to represent diversity and to contest
normative whiteness and exclusive practices that are still common in cultural
production? What is the role of museum professionals, artists, and activists with
migrant, diasporic, ethnic, and/or racial minority backgrounds in contributing to the
transformation of heritage institutions? How the epistemic advantage of
minority/marginalized perspectives is acknowledged in museums? How ethnic, racial
and other boundaries are established, or crossed, in projects aiming at more inclusive
knowledge production?
The workshop combines the theoretical frameworks and research questions of the
University of Turku History of Colonialism Research Group (directed by Leila Koivunen)
and the research project Rethinking diasporas, redefining nations. Representations of
African diaspora formations in museums and exhibitions (directed by Anna Rastas,
funded by the Academy of Finland for the years 2015-2020), but we welcome papers
focusing on museums and marginalized communities also from other theoretical
perspectives.

144
PAPER 1: Beyond Faith: Muslim Women Artists Today

Saskia Warren, Senior Lecturer, Human Geography,
University of Manchester | Saskia.Warren@Manchester.ac.uk
Jana Wendler, Research Associate, Human Geography,
University of Manchester | Jana.Wendler@Manchester.ac.uk
In this paper we discuss co-curation and knowledge production in a major exhibition

showcasing five contemporary Muslim women artists at the Whitworth, a leading art
museum in Manchester, UK. Setting the artists’ artwork in conversation with pieces
from the Whitworth’s collection, Beyond Faith staged a dialogue on issues of
in/exclusion with themes explored of identity, faith, culture, otherness and belonging.
Underpinned by an AHRC-funded research project, we explored how the exclusivity
of art institutions, systemic barriers to entry and negative media stereotypes have led
to a notable absence of female and minority work in museum spaces and the wider
cultural economy. Beyond Faith aims to address this chasm by increasing the
diversity of work shown at the Whitworth, to interrogate its collection from different
viewpoints, to raise the artists’ profiles, and to inspire cultural career pathways for
young people from under-represented backgrounds. It emerged from an original co-
curated approach that included the artists, researchers and curators in selecting work
and developing interpretation. Opening in June 2019, its run was extended until
February 2020, with over 200,000 visitors. The exhibition was complemented by a
series of public events including a launch night, family workshop day, an “In
Conversation” session with the artists, a discussion on arts careers for under-
represented groups led by the Whitworth Young Contemporaries, and guided
schools and student visits (c. 950 people).
Audience feedback sheets, visitor cards and follow-up interviews provide insights into
how the exhibition impacted visitors from different backgrounds and their relationship
with the art museum space. We discuss how this research-led and participatory
approach offers a model of engaged pluralism for co-curation, museum education
and audience impact that is especially significant in socio-spatial contexts of
increasing urban diversity.
145
Collaboration and appropriation:
PAPER 2:
Negotiations between expertise, lived experiences
and cultural memory in a Swedish museum

Charlotte Engman, Department of Culture and Media Studies,
Umeå University | charlotte.engman@umu.se
This paper draws from the project Ongoing Africa in the Museum of Ethnography,
Stockholm. The project builds upon the notion of the museum as a contact zone,
where people of different belongings meet in ongoing asymmetrical power relations.
Ongoing Africa is a dialogue project that seeks to raise new perspectives on the
African continent together with Afro-Swedes. A part of this is to explore the
collections collaboratively. In this particular contact work (as in many other museums)
it has been widely acknowledged that the institution’s knowledge about many of the
African objects maintained by the museum is lacking, or inaccurate. This lack is
addressed by inviting individuals who may be inscribed, or inscribe themselves, within
the African diaspora and the specific cultural contexts of the objects’ origins. As much
as a co-constructive activity, the contact work is also believed to function as a trust
establishing practice with a target group that seldomly visit the museum.
By drawing from interviews with museum employees and participating actors, this
paper explores negotiations of expertise, lived experiences and cultural memory.
Objects embody common hubs for personal interest, memory circulation and
collective identifications, and they also function as a means by which the participants
exercise control in the institutionalization of heritage. Whilst the borders between
private and public spheres of the museum are blurred in a particular moment,
employees struggle with finding ways of archiving and acknowledging knowledge of
community members in a structure built for expertise. As much as a space of trust
and co-creation, the contact zone might as well evolve into appropriation: knowledge
created might either be contested or eaten by the institution.
146
From Erasing to Narrating:
PAPER 3:
Challenges in plantation museums’ transition
from whitewashing slavery to interpreting it

Doron Eldar, Ph.D candidate, Department of Social and Economic Geography,
Uppsala University | Doron.eldar@kultgeog.uu.se
Plantation museums across the southern US attracted researchers’ attention for their
whitewashed narration of the region’s antebellum history and glorification of the Old
South. Researchers and activists have increasingly called for changes to this narrative
due to its contribution to white supremacy. These calls, however, neglect to address
the important question of how plantation museums that actively erased the history of
enslavement can also be the appropriate and capable narrators of that history.
To better understand the dynamics and dilemmas faced by plantation museums

choosing to narrate the history of enslavement, I conducted field research in two sites
in Louisiana. The first, Oak Alley Plantation, has recently transitioned from a
whitewashed narration to one attempting to center slavery. The second, Whitney
Plantation, positions itself as a counternarrative site centering the enslaved
perspective, therefore providing insights concerning the particular challenges
associated with the narration of enslavement.
My paper shows via case comparison that to be truly transformative, plantation

museums must adhere to a range of careful considerations founded in the
recognition of their own contribution to racial injustice. These include 1) the sites’
white ownership and ability to narrate a story involving black trauma and
perseverance; 2) the notion of profit-making from this history’s commodification; 3)
the increasingly diverse expectations from tourists, especially as debates regarding
collective memory are highly politicized in the current political climate; 4) the great
emotional labor demanded from guides; 5) an adjustment to the plantation’s income
generation model; 6) reinforcing the relegation of African American history to the
realm of oppression and trauma; and 7) the spatial decontextualization of the
antebellum plantation which renders slavery as a white “southern” phenomenon
rather than an American one.
147
PAPER 4:
Gallery education as the radical act of hospitality
Riikka Haapalainen, School of Art, Design and Architecture,

Aalto University | riikka.haapalainen@aalto.fi
The Kirpilä Art Collection is a museum located in the art collector Juhani Kirpilä’s
(1931-1988) former home in central Helsinki. Its collection consists of a large collection
of paintings and sculptures representing Finnish art from the 1850's to the 1980’s.
The public program of the museum has recently changed: the museum has begun to
offer gallery talks with queer insight on a regular basis. These queer talks reflect on
the one hand the personal life of the art collector Kirpilä. On the other hand, talks aim
to challenge the normative ways of mediating art and art history -- to give visibility
and voice to the presumably marginalized and silenced.
In my presentation, I discuss the norm critical methods of gallery education. The

Kirpilä Art Collection as my case study, I ask, what kind of knowledge and learning
queer gallery talks bring forth and to whom. I critically examine the educational and
institutional practices of the museum with the concept of radical hospitality by
Jacques Derrida and the notion of undercommons introduced by Stefano Harney and
Fred Moten.
148
From margins to museums:
PAPER 5: Intersectional approaches to museum work.
Anna Rastas, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University | anna.rastas@tuni.fi

Leila Koivunen, European and World History, University of Turku | leila.koivunen@utu.fi
Marginaaleista museoihin (From Margins to museums, in print) is a book exploring the

relationship between museums and social equality with a particular focus on
marginalized communities and cultures. The theoretical framework of the project is
based on decolonial theory and discussions on intersectionality. The book deals with
the roles of museums in knowledge production of past and present in increasingly
diversifying societies by bringing together various issues of marginalization, case
studies of many different museums and collections, as well as different types of data
and methods of analysis. In our presentation, we discuss how the articles included in
this edited volume, written by twenty researchers, museum professionals, and
activists, bring visibility to how discussions on decoloniality and the social
responsibilities of museums have been actualized within museum work, both in
Finland and globally.
149
RETHINKING Migrants and
KNOWLEDGE Refugees
PRODUCTION
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
IN MIGRATION STUDIES
Lena Näre, University of Helsinki, Finland | lena.nare@helsinki.fi

Paula Merikoski, University of Helsinki, Finland | paula.merikoski@helsinki.fi
Olivia Maury, University of Helsinki, Finland | olivia.maury@helsinki.fi
In recent years, calls for de-centering migration research by looking for alliances and
similarities with other marginalized groups (Rajaram 2019) have increased. Similarly,
there have been demands to ‘de-migranticise’ migration and integration research
(Dahinden 2006) to overcome the nation-state migration apparatus, which easily
leads to the reproduction of naturalized categories of difference.
Moreover, there have been critiques of the ‘categorical fetishism’ in migration

research (Crawley & Skleparis 2018), which both seeks to separate refugees and
asylum seekers from migrants and to classify only certain persons as ‘migrants’
(Anderson et al 2009) while others are treated as part of the cosmopolitan elites or
expatriates. These critiques call for epistemological rethinking of the study object in
migration studies as well as of the racialized and colonial continuities in knowledge
production. This workshop calls for papers that offer ways to rethink migration studies
by focusing on its colonial/racial pasts and on present colonialities of knowledge. We
welcome conceptual, empirical and methodological papers as well as work that
combine art and research.

150
PAPER 1:
Moving ‘The Gaze’ Beyond Binaries -Migrant lives
Philomena de Lima, Professor, University of the Highlands

and Islands-Inverness College, Scotland | philomena.deLima.ic@uhi.ac.uk
Belinda Leach, Professor, University of Guelph, Canada | bleach@uoguelph.ca
International migrants have come to be singled out as ‘the other’ from all the other
categories of migrants. The objectification of international migrants in the public,
political and policy gazes is mirrored in the persistent but contrasting tropes of
migrants taking jobs away from ‘locals’, a threat to national security, national identity
and the welfare state, on the one hand . On the other hand, they are defended as a
valuable and a much needed economic resource to plug labour/skill shortages and
/or as ‘victims of tragedy’ who must be saved and quickly returned home( de Lima
2016).
The paper seeks to disrupt these binaries by drawing on preliminary findings of a

pilot research project in two rural communities - Southern Ontario, Canada and the
Highlands in Scotland, UK. It combines a single mobility framework’(Skeldon 2008:36)
the concept of translocality and a life course approach to analyze and understand
internal and international migration/mobilities as not only “different geographical
responses to the same processes of modernization and development” (DeWind and
Holdaway 2008b:18), but also as a response to dynamic geopolitical configurations
and hierarchies of power. By drawing on these frameworks and approaches , the
project aims to identify novel ways in which internal and international migrants and
mobilities might be conceptualised and studied as two aspects of the same
phenomenon both conceptually and methodologically to avoid essentializing
tendencies and instrumentalist tendencies.
151
Peripheries and autoethnographic
PAPER 2: knowledge production in social work
Inka Söderström, University of Helsinki | inka.soderstrom@helsinki.fi
In this presentation, I explore the intersections, separations, and meeting points of

otherness in the context of my doctoral study about Finnish social work with queer
forced migrants. Social work tends to be categorized according to different ‘target
phenomena’ and service user groups – such as ‘immigrants’, ‘disabled’, or ‘substance
users’. This kind of classification is sometimes justified for practical reasons but it
creates a picture of unambiguous and essentialist identities that the service user must
fit in order to enter the service. Other identity positions that are not considered
significant in relation to the service needs of a person – like sexual orientation, gender
identity, or race – often remain invisible in social work. There is a risk of forgetting that
every person that neatly fits in one service user category inhabits also other positions
and identities than the one that is regarded as a basis of their service needs.
In Finnish social work there is a tendency of researching or working with different

marginalized service user ‘groups’ from a seemingly neutral and professional, in
practice normative and colonial perspective. The barrier between social worker’s
professional self and personal self is thick, and the reflection of one’s own social
positions is often lacking. In my dissertation I am asking, what happens if I include my
own experiences of otherness – of being in the periphery of the social work field as
well as the cis-heteronormative society in general – as part of my research setting
and analysis. In Finnish social work, the peripheral otherness is often researched from
the colonial center, not (openly) from another periphery. The peripheral experiences
are different with each other, and some peripheries are further away from the center
than others. However, they intersect, and it is the intersections of peripheral otherness
and belonging that I am interested in.
152
PAPER 3:
Race dis/continued: what does migration name?
Rogier van Reekum, Department of Public Administration and Sociology,

Erasmus University Rotterdam | vanreekum@essb.eur.nl
This paper approaches the entanglements of race and migration by considering how
the social fact named migration was and is composed through knowledge
infrastructures that extend between state administrative practices, social scientific
methodologies and politico-economic accounting. Like race, migration can be
understood as a socio-technical fabrication that takes shape in and comes to have
effects for orderings of space, life, and value. Europe/whiteness instates the view
from nowhere through which ‘migrations’ and ‘races’ become discernable. As such,
the composition of migration has been crucial for the transformation from European
imperialism to a system of postcolonial nation-states and the further construction of
EUropean borders. It is argued that contemporary forms of knowledge production do
not merely bear the marks of colonial legacies still to be amended but constitute
ways of dis/continuing race in the infrastructural relations between state
administrations, research methods and economic accounting.
First, while it can be shown how ‘migration’ has come to replace ‘race’ - purportedly
instating universalist and disinterested forms of knowledge production -, these shifts
should rather be understood as dis/continuations of race into new stratifications of
worthy and unworthy lives in and for Europe. No longer doing race is, precisely when
we consider the infrastructural work of composing migration as a matter of European
concern, a crucial way of continuing its effects and extending its colonial legacies.
Second, composing migration into a knowable and governable phenomenon was
always already crucial for the colonial apparatus of race. Far from a mere, postwar
shift from ‘race’ to ‘migration’, the dis/continuation of race also means that the
historically intricate entanglements of race and migration have been re-organized into
knowledge practices that seem remarkably capable of both hiding and highlighting
race.
153
From law’s discourse on refugees
PAPER 4: to refugees’ discourse on law
Magdalena Kmak, Åbo Akademi University,

University of Helsinki | magdalena.kmak@abo.fi
The aim of this paper is to go beyond legal discourses on refugees rooted in

victimization-securitization narrative, that dominate in the European Union, and bring
up to light alternative relationship between refugeeness and law. Instead of the state-
centered law’s discourse and its impact on the development of refugee subjectivities
the paper turns to explore a refugees’ discourse on law. After briefly discussing the
dominant narratives as embedded in legal changes initiated during and after the so-
called ‘migration and refugee crisis’ the paper turns to the analysis of alternative
narratives on migrants and refugees, in particular, the narrative of generativity taking it
beyond the constraints of methodological nationalism and eurocentrism. In particular,
the paper discusses the impact of exile experience on refugee law by looking at the
work of scholars exiled from Nazi Germany in the 1930s: Hannah Arendt, Louise
Holborn, and Otto Kirchheimer.
The work of these scholars encompasses both the development of the legal
definition of refugee, their legal status as well as the politics and the daily
experiences of refugee protection arrangements. Four themes are most prominent:
the change in the conceptualisation of a refugee; humanitarianization and
politicization of exile; feelings of humiliation and shame that closely link with asylum;
and insufficiency of refugee law, on conceptual and practical levels, to address the
position and real problems faced by refugees. Interestingly, despite the differences in
the legal regimes and the realities of refugee protection experienced by these
writers, their analysis of the status of the refugees or the legal and political situation of
asylum, feels particularly important in light of contemporary approaches to refugees.
154
Rethinking ‘waiting’
PAPER 5: as an analytical lens in migration studies
Christine M. Jacobsen, Centre for Women's and Gender research,

University of Bergen, christine.jacobsen@uib.no
In this paper, I take (my own and others’) ethnographic work in the WAIT-project
(Waiting for an uncertain future: the temporalities of irregular migration) as a point of
departure for reflecting on the meaning of ‘time’ in the knowledge production of
migration studies. ‘Waiting’ has become an important trope for articulating and
examining questions of power, lived experience and affect in recent research on
asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. The tendency to portray irregularized
migrant’s waiting as ‘exceptional’ – a distinct temporality related to their migration
status – has also been problematized. Such exceptionalism has been read, drawing
on Johannes Fabian’s seminal critique of temporal Othering, as a denial of the
coevalness of refugees, and suggestions have been made to foreground instead the
predicament of being stuck in the present as emblematic of contemporary
configurations of neoliberal capitalism. In the paper, I discuss ways in which we may
develop waiting as an analytical lens while steering clear both of exceptionalism and
of purging the present of temporal multiplicity.
155
Knowledge production in asylum practices:
PAPER 6: Towards refugee epistemologies
Lena Näre, University of Helsinki | lena.nare@helsinki.fi

Olivia Maury, University of Helsinki | olivia.maury@helsinki.fi
In this paper we analyse knowledge production involved in residence permit and

asylum practices as assemblages of power and knowledge emerging around
(migrant-refugee) subjects, identification practices and documents. Drawing on the
notions of border thinking (Anzaldúa 1999) and border epistemology (Mignolo and
Tlostanova 2012), we suggest the notion of refugee epistemologies as theories of
knowledge stemming from refugee subjects and knowledge. Refugee
epistemologies challenge the quotidian disqualification and dismissal of refugees’
and migrants’ subjective knowledge of their own history and life experiences
characteristic to asylum governance and the categorical fetishism (Apostolova 2015)
inherent in knowledge production about migrant-refugees. Drawing on multi-sited
ethnographic research among Afghan and Iraqi migrant-refugees in Finland, we
examine our research participants’ struggles to claim knowledge about the world and
about their own life and experiences.
156
Exploring categorical fetishism through
PAPER 7:
the categories of ‘migrant’ and ‘refugee’
in the context of the Tibetan migration
Rebecca Frilund, Northumbria University | rebecca.frilund@northumbria.ac.uk
This presentation discusses ‘categorical fetishism’ in migration and refugee studies

(Crawley & Skleparis 2018) through the empirical example of Tibetan refugees’
migration to India and onwards. Crawley and Skleparis (2018), who have studied the
use of categories ‘migrant’ and ‘refugee’ after the so-called refugee crisis in Europe,
demonstrate how these are politicised categories, and how the media and different
institutions are trying to separate the ‘real’ refugees from ‘economic migrants’. They
argue that this does not meet the realities of those who move when many people live
months or years in countries other than they originate from.
This resonates with the case of the Tibetan asylum seekers who migrate to Europe
via India; European countries do not recognize Tibetans as refugees if they have been
living in India (which does not have a refugee law). They need to proof that they come
from China and that they have been persecuted in order to receive refugee status.
Otherwise, they will be expelled back to India. As Scalettaris (2007) argue, while the
category ‘refugee’ emphasises the protection needs of those considered refugees, it
leaves others out. This is evident in the case of the Tibetans who do not escape war
but rather settler colonialism in Tibet and sociocultural marginalization that they face
both in China and in India. Although the separation between ‘refugee’ and ‘migrant’
serves the interests of the policy debates, not their use as analytical categories in
scientific enquiries (Chimni 2009; Scalettaris 2007), I call the Tibetans outside Tibet
refugees just like many other scholars (e.g. Dolma et al. 2006). I have chosen to do so
because I do not want to hinder their possibilities to get asylum particularly as they do
not tend to have much other options for global mobility. This problem is further
discussed in my presentation.
157
Reluctant resettlers and the object of migration research:
PAPER 8: The case of forced migration from Donbas
Emma Rimpiläinen, Institute of Social & Cultural Anthropology

and Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS),
University of Oxford | emma.rimpilainen@sant.ox.ac.uk
People on the move often reject the labels that others, be they state actors, members
of the public, or researchers, impose on them. One current example of this is how
people displaced by the war in Donbas, Eastern Ukraine, reject the label pereselentsy
(migrants, literally ‘re-settlers’) typically used in Ukraine and Russia, the countries
hosting the majority of them. Especially in Ukraine, this rejection is motivated either by
concerns for retaining agency or by a sense of abandonment by the state. Many
internally displaced people in Ukraine declare themselves to be refugees rather than
pereselentsy because of the state’s failure to protect their homes from conflict in the
first place and subsequently failing to help them materially after displacement.
Although they have not crossed any international borders in search for security, in
their view the state has abandoned them.
The question of definitions ties in with a broader problem with studying Donbas
displacement: that of researching a dispersed community that does not recognise
itself as such. While some forced migrants from Donbas keep in touch across state
borders, others are openly hostile towards their one-time compatriots who are
perceived to have made the wrong kind of mobility choices. Also, especially in Russia,
Donbas migrants do not tend to socialise with others from the same region and try to
integrate into the local society as seamlessly as possible. In light of these examples,
the question arises what is the justification for studying forcibly displaced people
from Donbas as a community, group, or even a “community of fate.” Using data
collected during ethnographic fieldwork in Ukraine and Russia from 2018 to 2019, this
paper problematises the study of migrants as a goal in itself. It makes the case for a
holistic view of migration as a process and set of practices affecting the whole
society.
158
Let´s talk about Intimacies and Sexualities
PAPER 9: in a Migration Context - but how?
Mona Röhm, University of Salzburg | mona.roehm@sbg.ac.at
Recently, topics, such as gender, sexualities, and intimate relationships, experience

processes of instrumentalization and culturalization within Europe´s hegemonic
discourse on migration, as we have seen after the so-called Cologne incidents in
2015. This is particularly the case regarding questions of ‘integration’ of Muslim
migrants where the cultural ‘Other’ is contrasted to superior values concerning the
superordinated topic of gender. Based on ongoing empirical research with Afghan
migrants in Austria, this paper shows the necessity of reflecting on specific categories
and colonial perspectives on intimacies and sexualities.
This includes firstly a precategorization which is often applied in research, when it

comes to questions of sexuality. Taking a Euro-centric stance in using categories and
definitions of sexualities leads to ignoring diversity and the multifacetedness of
categories at all stages of research. Secondly, colonial images are not only
reproduced by media referring to ‘foreign’ and threatening sexualities but also
applied by researching intimate relationships, such as marriage or similar
relationships, with the background of postcolonial superiority. In this regard, romantic
love, for example, is often taken as a norm and idealistic beginning of a relationship. A
normative and generalizing perspective like this leads to a negative valuation of
diverging forms of relationships.
Therefore, this paper calls for an inductive research design on topics of sexualities
and intimacies and emphasizes the necessity of reflecting on one´s own positionality
and previous experiences. Finally, this paper demonstrates the responsibility of social
science to show complex realities instead of simplifying them with surveys on
‘integration’ matters. Generalizations, stated as proved by science, would inevitably
lead to the instrumentalization and culturalization of small but striking details, to
justify restrictive migration policies and exclusionary practices.
159
Rethinking skilled/unskilled
PAPER 10: migrant categories through race and coloniality
Reiko Shindo, University of Warwick | Reiko.Shindo@warwick.ac.uk
This paper examines how a specific understanding of ‘migrants’ is produced through

the history of race and coloniality. In particular, the paper focuses on the separation of
‘skilled’ migration from ‘unskilled’ migration to investigate how such division is
constructed to imagine ‘migrants’ primarily as unskilled manual laborers from
economically-deprived countries. The paper does this by drawing on the example of
Japan. The Japanese case is illuminating in this regard since Japan’s contemporary
immigration policies reflect its own colonial past: the Japanese imperial expansion of
the 1930s and 1940s in the Asian region was founded on the racial discourse where
Japanese-ness was imagined in terms of racial superiority to the rest of Asian
countries and inferiority to the West (Morris-Suzuki, 1998; 2010). This racial narrative is
reflected in the post-war Japanese immigration policies which are based on the belief
that ‘certain races/nationalities are better qualified to engage in certain jobs’ (Shipper,
2008: 26).
The paper argues that these racialized immigration policies construct the category of
the migrant through an arbitrary division between skilled and unskilled migrant
workers. People from Western countries are identified as ‘skilled’ migrants not
necessarily because they have skills but because of their favorably positioned
racialized status. Meanwhile, those from Asian countries are identified as ‘unskilled’
migrants although they engage in jobs which require skills: because of their less-
favorable racialized position, their skills are undervalued.
Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the paper further argues that the racialized image
of migrants fails to identify possibilities of solidarity formed among migrants,
regardless of the skilled-unskilled division. The paper suggests instead that the
perspective of precarity might help us to better appreciate such possibility of alliance.
160
PAPER 11:
Temporal borders and the coloniality of migration
Olivia Maury, PhD candidate, Faculty of Social Sciences,

University of Helsinki | olivia.maury@helsinki.fi
Issues of spatiality have traditionally overruled questions of temporality in migration

studies. However, there has recently been a rise in interest for the temporal aspects
of migration. The proposed paper examines temporal borders in the lives of non-
EU/EEA student-migrants in Finland with a focus the deceleration of mobility and the
punctuation of lived time as a tool of control as well as a source of productivity. The
data analyzed in the paper consists of in-depth interviews (N=33) with non-EU/EEA
migrants holding a one-year temporary student’s residence permit in Finland and
wage working alongside studies.
Borders constitute a foundational defining feature of the capitalist state, through

which states legally and politically produce and mediate the social, spatial, and
temporal differences that can be capitalized upon (De Genova 2016). The paper
engages with the notion of ‘coloniality of migration’ (Gutiérrez Rodríguez 2018) in
order to examine how the temporal borders emerging as immediate effects of
migration policy in the student-migrants everyday lives reflect the logic of coloniality.
I argue that the temporal borders articulate a “not yet” (Chakrabarty 2000) toward
non-EU nationals in concert with other regulations, hence instituting a para-legal
framework with the objective of filtering migrants’ presence in the EU. The paper
hence examines how the temporal borders imbricated in a logic of coloniality of
migration plays into a capitalist system increasingly concerned with ‘moments as
elements of profit’ (Marx 1976). The paper contributes to the discussion on the
temporal aspect of the coloniality of migration by shedding light on how non-EU/EEA
precarious student-migrants temporarily and momentarily are captured in the
capitalist productive fabric.
161
Rethinking Migration, Peace and Security in
PAPER 12: Mozambique and Zimbabwe, 1976-2017
Bernard Kusena, Senior Lecturer Department of Economic History,

University of Zimbabwe | bkusena@yahoo.com
The phenomenon of migration is not new, yet there have been conflicting
interpretations on its nature and impact on source and host countries, as well as on
migrants themselves. Thus, several researches on migration in Southern Africa
portray Zimbabwe as only a sending country (Mcduff, 2015, Chikanda and Crush,
2014), but this perspective is not the objective reality of migration in this region.
Zimbabwe’s role as a receiving and transit country in migration has been
overshadowed by increasing numbers of its people who have been leaving the
country (Dore et al, 2010). Such a narrative misses caveats in migration trends
common in Southern Africa. The physical, psychological and emotional impact of
such migration continues to be overlooked. Munck (2008) observes a new tendency
for more countries to be crucially affected by migratory movements at the same time,
termed ‘globalisation of migration’, while current flows of migrants are fundamentally
different from earlier forms of mass migration (Papastergiadis, 2000). On the increase
is ‘a massive, hard to categorise, contemporary migration’ (Urry, 2000).
Thus, this paper refocuses attention on Zimbabwe to hypothesise that the harsh
realities of migration are located within the migrants’ lived encounters. It shifts the
debate to reconsider migration as a security issue by provoking new questions. For
instance, does Zimbabwe consider migration as a security paradigm in relation to
Mozambican migrants? What have been the lived experiences of migrants in view of
their loss of homes? In this reframing of migration, the paper engages with migrants’
untold stories to ventilate and demonstrate how migration discourses around
displacement or trauma contribute to new conceptual challenges. It gives nuance to
these debates via qualitative methodologies that deploy globalisation and
securitisation of migration as the framework of analysis.
162
Challenging Present Narratives of Migration in Britain
PAPER 13:
through the Re-enactment of Colonial Migration
in Rose Tremain’s The Colour
Carmen Zamorano Llena, Associate Professor of English,

Dalarna University, Sweden | cza@du.se
The study of migration literature has often been characterised by the reproduction of
Beck’s (2002) “methodological nationalism” due its frequent focus on literature
produced by migrant writers as separate, while at the same time challenging the
tenets of the literature produced by writers of non-migrant background. Recent
critical approaches to the study of literature (Walkowitz 2006) have underscored the
significant role of this migration literature, in the context of globalisation and of the
increasing “cosmopolitanization of reality” (Beck 2006), to render the logic of the
nation state within the discipline of literary studies as “unmeaning” (Damrosch 2003: 1),
thus arguing for its “denationalisation” (Dimock 2001: 176). Still, within this context of
emergent understandings of national literature as transcultural, migration literature
has often maintained the migrant background of the author as the main criterion for
inclusion in this system.
In the British context, English writer Rose Tremain’s work signifies a challenge both to
dominant disciplinary categorisations of migration literature, and to contemporary
approaches to the study of migration and collective identities through the re-
examination of past national experiences of migration in a context of colonization. By
mostly resorting to Rothberg’s “noueds de mémoire”, this paper contends that in her
historical novel The Colour (2003) Tremain resorts to re-enacting migration to the
British colony of New Zealand during the 1860s gold rush as a way of underscoring
the points of contact between different experiences of migration past and present.
Thus, Tremain contributes both to de-migranticising (Dahinden 2006) migration
literature and to highlighting the role of transnational migration in (re)shaping national
narratives of identity.
163
CONTEXT OF COLONIALITY AND THE UNCONVENTIONAL GAZE:
WORKSHOP 1 in Contemporary
CHALLENGING THEWelfare StatesGAZE IN STUDY OF
CONVENTIONAL
WORKSHOP 20.
MINORITIES & THE "WHITE CURRICULUM" IN ACADEMIA
Rashmi Singla, Department of People & Technology, Roskilde University,

Denmark | rashmi@ruc.dk
Berta Vishnivetz, Institute of Social Work, International Department, Metropol University
College, Denmark | bertavis@gmail.com
Inspired by participation in a workshop focused on structurally disadvantaged groups

conducting research in a global North context (Shinozaki & Osanami Törngren, 2019), we plan to
explore more comprehensively, the dynamics involved in applying an unconventional gaze, both
in research by minority researchers and in questioning the “White Curriculum” in academic
program.Our approach is informed by Said’s notion of Orientalism (Said, 1977) which identifies
exaggerated differences between the East/ South & West/ North, and a perception of the Other
as exotic, backward, uncivilized. However, we take this perspective further in order to ensure
that minority’s voices are listened to. We also include the concept of epistemological violence in
the empirical social sciences (Teo, 2010). This implies indirect and nonphysical violence when
the subject of violence is the researcher, the object is the Other, and the action is the data
interpretation showing the inferiority or problematising the other, even when data allow for
equally viable alternative interpretations. What happens when the Other - the racialised minority
- is the researcher or when the “White Curriculum“ is criticised?
The colonial history of racialised minorities is invoked in unpacking the contested multiple
positions of the minority researcher, especially in conducting research about the privileged
majority groups. Historical colonisation processes are examined in a critical review of the “White
curriculum” in specific Nordic contexts, which hardly includes the perspectives of the racialised
minorities and indigenous populations. Furthermore, concrete illustrations of questioning of
entitlement of unconventional researchers e.g. Indian anthropologist Reddy’s classical study of
Danish Society (1991) are included. The implications of the unconventional ‘gaze’ on power
relations and knowledge production illustrate how immigration, the challenges of adaptation,
criteria for mental health diagnosis and citizenship laws are historically based on White Western
ideologies and the role they play in shaping and defining some experiences, possibilities and
limitations of racialized immigrants and indigenous/ native people in diverse contexts. Moving
forward, beyond these problematisations is also a part of the workshop.
The format of the workshop is partly open. We aim for an unconventional workshop form, which
combines individual presentations and designated discussants followed by interactive round
table discussions. After short presentations, we would like to open the discussion to the
audience. We also investigate possibilities of collecting the presentations and discussions for a
reflective paper and possible publication.

164
Challenging the Western view on minorities
PAPER 1:
and its consequences for mental health:
A historical review of the impact of colonial dominance
Berta Vishnivetz, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Institute of Social Work, International

Dpt. Metropol University College | bertavis@gmail.com
Based on witnesses, experiences from Fanon, Mbembé, Duran who describe the
devastating impact of the ways colonizer/colonized relationship was /is authorized
by the Western sciences of medicine and normalized as psychology. Fanon unveiled
how the oppressive mechanisms exerted by the Colonial system, being it a racist
system, generates harmful psychological constructs. It creates a disjuncture in the
colonized subjectivity when submitted to white norms that consider the native as a
merchandise, leading to dehumanization.
The 21st Century is an age that resembles the characteristics described by Fanon
who unveiled how mental disorder took a political form among the colonized as
practices of oppression and repression have been internalized even epidermalized,
resulting in neglecting his /herself as a human being.
Parallels will be drawn between the impact on mental health by the violence the
Colonial system exerts on natives and minorities in contemporary Western societies.
The consequences of dehumanization are still observable among minorities’ daily life
as internalized oppression and intergenerational trauma which are ignored by
Western public health systems. Examples of it in America, UK and Denmark will be
presented.
165
Experiences of otherness, community
PAPER 2: and diversity in higher education
Iram Khawaja, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Psychology,

Aarhus University | Irkh@edu.au.dk
In Denmark several research studies have shown processes of exclusion and othering
at play at the level of the school in regard to ethnic minoritized students, highlighting
teachers’ lower expectations (Lagermann 2018, Gilliam 2018) and the general
structural and ideological foundation of the Danish public school to be based on
ideals of uniformity and equality (Kofoed 2005). Higher education, however has been
an overlooked field of interest, and not much attention has been paid to the
increasingly diverse body of students in higher education. How is this diversity in
ethnicity, race and religion being managed and met by the higher education faculties
and institutes, and more importantly how is it lived by and through the students
coming with different cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds? Many universities in
the Nordic context are increasingly prioritizing diversity as a key point of focus, but
which kinds of diversities are focused on and made room for?
This paper is aimed at presenting preliminary analysis of interviews conducted with

ethnic minoritized students in higher education on their experiences of engaging in
often racially majoritized student environments, curricula and teacher faculties. Based
on poststructuralist and postcolonial concepts of racialization, otherness (Said 1978,
Hervik 2004), subjectification and discursive possibilities of becoming (Butler 1999,
Davies 2000) following questions will be examined; which kinds of strategies are
employed in becoming an accepted member of the student body, which kinds of
communities are present or constructed in regard to enhancing a sense of belonging
and what kinds of structural barriers to inclusion are experienced? The paper is an
attempt to present an unconventional ‘gaze’ on power relations and knowledge
production, focusing on the subjects implicated and their ways of negotiating the
different gazes they meet.
166
Democratizing scholarship:
PAPER 3: Critical reflections on the ’white curriculum’
Birgitte Schepelern Johansen, Institute for Cross Cultural and Regional Studies,
The Minority Studies Section, University of Copenhagen | bjohansen@hum.ku.dk
The question of how to secure the access of otherwise marginalized voices into the
conversations of especially Western academia, has been on the agenda of scholars
working on migration and minority issues for quite some time. The question continues
longstanding debates about eurocentrism, colonialism, black and minority history,
and critical feminist scholarship, which in different ways have problematized the
systematic exclusion of certain forms of knowledge from the academic
consciousness. From the outset, this has been a question of justice, and during the
last couple decades, especially the composition of curricula has been a battleground
for challenging what Miranda Fricker has termed epistemic injustice. For those
criticizing the ‘white curriculum’, it crystalizes a range of interrelated problems: the
impairment of shared knowledge, the continuation of inadequate understandings of
past injustices and their continued relevance, and the lack of possibility for
minoritized students and scholars to identify themselves in the curriculum.
In this paper, I wish to explore the curriculum debate as a debate about the
democratization of knowledge. In the critiques of the ‘white curriculum’, appeals to
anti-discrimination, equality, and the right to representation abound – values that
resonates with a particular democratic vocabulary. However, in its (re)connection of
texts, racialized bodies, moral responsibility and epistemic authority (e.g. in talk of
‘black knowledge’, or ‘white ignorance’) the curriculum critique also challenges other,
more conventional understandings of anti-discrimination etc., which to some extent
are exactly predicated upon the disconnection between social identity, skills and
knowledge. Engaging current debates on white curricula, I aim to unpack these
different re- and disconnects and discuss the understandings of democratization they
imply.
167
Racialised minority as the researcher:
PAPER 4: Challenging epistemological violence
Rashmi Singla, Department of People & Technology, Roskilde University,

Denmark | rashmi@ruc.dk
This presentation deals with the racialised other as a researcher with a point of
departure in the epistemological violence in social sciences (Teo, 2010).
Epistemological violence implies indirect and nonphysical violence when the subject
of violence is the researcher, the object is the other, and the action is the data
interpretation problematising- and showing the other as inferior, even when data
allow for equally viable alternative interpretations. This violence can be countered
when the other, the racialised minority is the researcher. However, there may be other
consequences, some negative, to this position underlining the power differentials and
dynamics.
The study ‘Danes Are Like That’ (1993) conducted by an Indian professor of
anthropology Prakash Reddy, in Denmark, demonstrated that the Rest could study
the West. However, the study initially received harsh, critical comments by Danish
scholars and later ignored. Similarly, results of ‘Youth relationship, ethnicity and
psychosocial intervention, a doctoral study by an Indian origin researcher (Singla,
2004) received some attention by the academic community regarding the ethnic
minority youth, while the results about Danish youth were just overlooked.
These examples lead to the questioning of overlooking such research. Moreover, this
‘gaze’ by the minority researcher unravels power relations and knowledge
production, disturbs the dominating power structure in academia, which is historically
based on White Western ideologies defining experiences, possibilities, and limitations
of minorities in these contexts.
Strategies for moving forward such as creating spaces for equal participation,
collaborating across the geographical and ethnic borders, are presented.
We are open for further strategies and discussions with the workshop participants.
168
Moving on to Create Equality,
PAPER 5: Inclusion in the Communities: The Unconventional Gaze
Berta Vishnivetz, Dr, Associate Professor, Institute of Social Work,

International Department, Metropol University College, Denmark | bertavis@gmail.com
Rashmi Singla, Dr, Associate Professor, Department of People & Technology,
Roskilde University, Denmark | rashmi@ruc.dk
In the last presentations, we zoom on a quest for equality, inclusion in different

contexts. In this presentation, we make a point of departure from the works of
philosophers and educators like Paulo Freire, Achille Mbembe, Fred Newman, who
encouraged development of numerous paths to creating equality, inclusion, restituting
human dignity among non- privileged groups and academics. Moreover, within a
critical framework by anthropologist Laura Nader relating to the West and the rest*, we
advocate research endeavors that remain aware of the knowledge/power nexus
avoiding the pitfalls of a still existing, earlier mentioned“Orientalism”, mentioned in the
workshop abstract.
A brief review of the theoretical fundaments of the above three philosophers is made,
and how their teachings have and still influence non-privileged communities all over
the world. Their teachings are expanded and are still applied: previous
contextualization in Europe, Africa and Asia. Examples of projects performed by
professionals and volunteers trained by Freire and Newman are presented.
Advocating research endeavors, we start from a notion of power as a capacity for

action, proposing eclecticism and explicit comparisons as methods apt to capture the
continuous social transformations that occur as a result of encounters /exchanges
between and across cultures/ communities. We appeal to recognize our common
humanity by placing dignity, mutual respect, and humility at the center of our
relationship with those often portrayed as ‘barbarian others’, invoking connections,
similarities, and cross-cultural fertilization processes. Through these examples, we
further explore strategies of collaboration with the workshop participants to create a
fairer research environment.
169
COMMUNITIES, POWER RELATIONS AND KNOWLEDGE:
ETHICS AND INNOVATIVE PRACTICES

WORKSHOP 22.
IN POLITICALLY ENGAGES RESEARCH METHODS
Camilla Marucco, University of Turku/Activist Research Network | cammar@utu.fi

Linda Bäckman, Åbo akademi I Linda.i.backman@abo.fi
What innovative practices allow to do research in ways that are aware of and undo
hierarchies, colonialities, borderings and racialisations? What power relations exist
between academic practices and various forms of resistance, knowledge and
organisation performed by diasporic communities, racialised minorities and
Indigenous Peoples? Without assuming their own necessity to the endeavours of
these groups, how can researchers contribute to societal transformation in multiple
spaces from the local to the global?
This workshop welcomes participants from various disciplines, viewpoints, genders,

ethnicities and career stages to explore together questions of societally, politically
aware and engaged research, also understood as activist research (Becker 1967;
Collins 2013; Hale 2001, 2008; Suoranta & Ryynänen 2014). Accepted presenters are
encouraged to share the practical, ethical and methodological challenges they have
faced in their work, as well as lessons learned or unlearned. Contributions regarding
innovative ways of dealing with the intersections of academia and activism are
especially appreciated.
This workshop is part of the activities of the Activist Research Network, a collaborative
initiative co-coordinated by Leonardo Custódio and Camilla Marucco. Since 2017, the
Network has witnessed the urgency of discussing knowledge production, intersecting
positions, participation and collaboration among researchers at all career stages,
working in different fields in Finland and abroad. This workshop offers a
conversational space to jointly examine such compelling questions in relation to
colonialities, racialisation and transnational migration.
This workshop will be carried out in discussive form and

therefore the papers are not scheduled or put in numerical order.
170
PAPER:
Methodological Temptations

Caroline Betemps Bozzano, PhD Candidate at TEMA,
TEMA Genus Linköping University
Email: caroline.betemps@liu.se
What kind of relationships are established with the people involved in the knowledge
production process? Is naming differences enough to be accountable? How to
acknowledge and disrupt not only the position of the ones who share their
knowledge in these studies, but also the material conditions of those who listen and
write their stories? These are some of the questions that I would like to stress during
this conversation based on my research on decolonial feminisms in dialogue with
feminists in Brazil and Spain.
My location and background is that of a white sudaka migrant, born in Brazil and living
in Europe, a sex/gender dissident and an activist, worker and researcher. For those of
us who, by origin, social class, sex, gender, race or other untaggable identities, do not
hold a hegemonic position, academia still remains a strategic arena where we seek to
deconstruct racist and victimizing narratives. But how to survive the attempt?
In this talk, I will dwell on these ethical and methodological aspects. Considering that
from a decolonial approach the methodological issue is also an epistemological one.
Our methodological choices can also tell our intentions, the assumptions we have,
the desire of knowing, of belonging, our political commitments. In that sense, they are
not mere tools we choose to analyze a specific situation. They can show who we are
through what we do.
On the second part, I will open a discussion around the methodological tools I used in
my research, namely: active participation, broken ethnography, migrant auto-bio-
ethnography, and the semi-(un)structured polyphonic conversations. And, more
importantly, the political agreements I have with the persons that participate in my
research, among others the offer of co-authorship, the exchange of work through a
bank of time, the co-responsibility over the research and the commitment in
disseminating the content outside academia, among others.
171
Amplifying deviating perspectives in
PAPER:
Participatory Design: Resisting a culture
of normalized compliance and situated knowledge

Natalia Villaman, Aalto University / We See You | natalia.villaman@aalto.fi,
Floris Van Der Marel, Aalto University | floris.vandermarel@aalto.fi
Contemporary societal structures are designed in ways to strategically exclude

marginalized communities from certain fields of action through legitimized practices
(Keshavarz, 2016). The vast majority is unable to influence decisions affecting their life as a
result of, for example, intersections of gender, ethnicity, religion, social capital, physical
and mental ability (Margolin & Margolin 2002). Despite numerous attempts to draw from a
more diverse set of knowledge and experiences, we still live in a world that systemically
silences certain groups of people, undervalues other ways of understanding, expressing,
attributing value, assessing meaning. The persistent devaluation of non-dominant ways of
knowing stands in the way of people’s ability to participate, or be heard, thus hindering
genuine social transformations, and increasing gaps regarding categorization,
discrimination and inequality, among others. Particularly vocally and aware of this issue are
two vast and interrelated groups: activists and minorities, whose everyday revolve around
politically and socially aware matters of concern (Latour, 2004). Their perspectives,
actively and collectively challenging the status quo, are often deemed detrimental to the
public order, and are therefore commonly associated with discourses charged with
rebellious, contentious, faulty, and subversive connotations.
Being designers, researchers and activists who are freely allowed into spaces for
discussion, we have decided to use said privilege to critically analyze and question how
acknowledging the political nature of design could foster reconceptualizations. Design,
intended as a discipline withholding the capacity to normalize practices through actions,
processes and materiality (Villaman, 2020) plays a key role in upholding or dismantling
current power regimes. Both research and practice can be used as a means to reinforce or
reconsider situated knowledge and (im)balances in power dynamics. For the conference,
we would like to explore the importance of resistance when it comes to a culture of
blindly accepting orthodox ways of doing and set frames by actively disrupting the theme
of continuity (Foucault, 1969). Collaboratively, we will reflect on existing narratives around
marginalization and power imbalances, to attempt to identify what is not being questioned
and which non-dominant ways of knowing are being undervalued. Then, we will explore
what form resistance could take, how to dismantle what is so strongly assembled and
what participatory design could do to normalize the amplification of deviating
perspectives. By purposefully challenging the status quo through critical, well-informed
and ethical research, we aim to contribute to the general understanding of notions around
dominant discourses, power, and discussions on the possibility of creating change.
172
Enriching the Bourdieu’s concept of habitus: Can the
PAPER: Theatre of the Oppressed promote its transformation?

Nikolai Kunitsõn, PhD student lect., Tallinn University | nikolai.kunitson@tlu.ee
Leif Kalev, Professor, Tallinn University | leif.kalev@tlu.ee
The bourdieusian theory of practice aims to explain how people act in a society
utilising the concepts of field, habitus and capital (Bourdieu, 2003). For Bourdieu,
changing the habitus is difficult but possible and it requires “counter-training,
involving repeated exercises” (Bourdieu 2000: 172), but he gives no clear
methodology how to achieve it.
The Theatre of the Oppressed (TO), an arts-based critical participatory methodology,

developed by Augusto Boal (2000), has its roots in deweyan pragmatism (Dewey
1910) and freirean critical pedagogy (Freire 1990) and is a collection of series of
techniques that aim to identify the existing habits and transform the subjects and the
society. The Theatre of the Oppressed is more ambitious than its roots, challenging
the role of passive spectator and aiming to break down the barrier between audience
and actors, allowing participants to become ‘spect-actors’ (Boal, 2000).
Ontologically, the TO is similar to critical theories, meaning that the aim of the
research is also to develop critical consciousness of people and to transform social
structures (Boal, 2000). Epistemologically it stresses that the obtaining of knowledge
comes not only from rational analysis, but from co-creation with participants using all
senses. Thus it offers a resource for influencing or potentially even transforming
habitus.
The aim of the presentation is to discuss the potential of the TO to expand the habitus
of different subject positions in order to reduce the potential conflict between people
in society and delve deeper in the possible ways for achieving this objective. This is
especially relevant in integration policies and practices. In addition, we will share the
practical, ethical and methodological challenges experienced while working for more
than 10 years with different marginalized groups in Estonia and elsewhere.
173
Worldly research in the field of migration studies:
PAPER:
Opportunities and challenges experienced
in the work of the Swedish Asylum Commission

Torun Elsrud, Linnaeus University | torun.elsrud@lnu.se
The point of departure for this paper is the opportunities and challenges experienced
in the work of the Swedish Asylum Commission – Commission for review of
legislation, law enforcement and legal security for people who applied for asylum in
Sweden during the period 2015-17. The Asylum Commission was formed in the spring
of 2019, by researchers and people with extensive knowledge about asylum in
Sweden (e.g. people who have experiences as asylum seekers, social workers,
teachers, and members of NGO’s and other networks in the civil society). The aim of
the commission is to initiate critical enquiries of changes in the Swedish asylum
process, based on asylum seekers’ own lived experiences and perspectives.
The background to the Commission are changes in Sweden’s migration management

in recent years and recurring testimonies in various settings depicting a very difficult
situation for children, adolescents, and adult asylum seekers. These testimonies
concern unpredictable and degrading decision-making processes, increasing
homelessness, mental illness, broken families and more violent deportations to
countries affected by armed conflict. The Asylum Commission aims to initiate
academic and activist work departing from asylum seekers’ own perspectives and
lived experiences. The work, inspired by participatory action research (lisahunter et al.
2013), is carried out in close collaboration between asylum seekers, researchers,
professionals. (e.g. social workers, teachers), the voluntary sector and civil society
actors (e.g. god man, Vi står inte ut, Ensamkommandes förbund). Thus, one important
ambition with the work is to rely upon the expert knowledge of all participants in the
commission and working within a collective for shared understandings, analysis and
action.
174
PRACTICES AND ETHICS OF STUDYING
SOCIAL MEDIA DISCOURSES OF MIGRATION,

WORKSHOP 23.
ETHNOCULTURAL DIVERSITY AND RACISM
Markku Sippola, University of Helsinki | markku.sippola@helsinki.fi

Emma Nortio, University of Helsinki | emma.nortio@helsinki.fi
Liisa Tuhkanen, University College London | liisa.tuhkanen.11@ucl.ac.uk
Social media has become an integral part of everyday lives of ordinary people as well
as societal discussions. Recent research has shown that social media plays a central
role in the ways in which processes, situations and social categories related to
migration, intergroup relations and racism are discussed in different contexts. While
the field of research examining social media interaction and its dynamics in the
context of migration and diversity is growing fast, the discussion on how to carry out
such research or ethical questions related to studying social media remain rather
scarce and scattered. According to our experience, the practices related to
considering e.g. anonymity, informed consent or the relationship between the
researcher and research “participants” can vary between research projects. Thus,
there is a need for discussing problems related to research ethics as well as
disseminating good practices. In this open workshop, we aim to answer this need by
critically approaching to the studies of social media discourses and dynamics in the
context of migration and diversity.
We welcome papers that examine social media interaction from various theoretical
and methodological perspectives and invite studies that examine the most popular
social media channels such as Facebook or Twitter, but also other channels such as
discussion forums, blogs and other interactive sites that evolve around user-
generated content. Such interactive sites can provide, for example, sensitive material
or access to ‘mobile commons’ for socially vulnerable groups of migrants, where
researchers have to consider carefully how to approach the data. We welcome
presentations discussing ethical questions but also encourage other submissions
presenting ongoing empirical or conceptual research projects related to social media
and migration.
175
Online and on the way:
PAPER 1: Revisiting the role of the smartphone in migratory space

Alina Achenbach, KU Leuven,
Belgium | alina.achenbach@student.kuleuven.be, alina.achenbach@hotmail.de
“Only one thing hadn’t become use- and worthless, unlike everything else that once
constituted him and that they had taken from him, (…) his e-mail address.” This quote
from Francesca Melandri’s novel Sangue Giusto captures how digital media become
the only way to construct a coherent identity between past and future when a young
Ethiopian refugee has to leave everything behind.
Social media is often evoked as the space enabling other identities, while at the same
time taking place under a veil of anonymity impossible to conceive of in physical
space. Accordingly, the very physical impacts or aspects of social media discourse
and dynamics become all the harder to study – or might fall through the cracks of
researchers’ attention altogether. Indeed, the social media using subject is usually not
imagined as a moving subject itself – and especially migratory subjects thus do not fit
such an imaginary. Yet the essentiality of the smartphone for (transmediterranean)
migratory movements in the 21st century has been noted both by journalists and
academics: what Gillespie et al. (2018) call the “digital passage to Europe” seems to
have resounded even more powerfully in public media than academic research,
provoking a polemic discussion on whether smartphones are a luxury good
“disqualifying [refugees] from humanitarian help” (Awad et al., 2019).
Situated at the intersection of media theory and philosophy of technology, this

research project aims at putting the migratory usage of the smartphone (and
derivative technologies) on center stage while both doing justice to digital and
physical spatialities and temporalities that migrants and refugees experience in the
course of their journeys. It is meant to shift the focus of contemporary technology
critique away from the usual urban and postindustrialized center of digital media
usage toward migrant subjectivities.
176
Immigrants and Public Health:
PAPER 2: Social Media Portrayals of the Migrant Caravan to the U.S

Felipe Agudelo, MPH, PhD. Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health,
Simmons University, Boston, MA. USA | agudelof@simmons.edu
Social media has become the primary method by which U.S. residents get news
(Parrott et al. 2019). This means that platforms like Twitter have become an important
source of what the public knows and think about immigrants. Thereby, some
representations about immigrants are created and reproduced in social media to later
become the foundation of popular beliefs and stereotypes around immigration.
Overall, this research explores how the news posted on Twitter in the context of the
migrant caravan to the U.S. in 2018-2019 shapes the reactions and comments of
twitter users around this event. The first purpose of this study was to examine the
news frames shared by different news outlets on Twitter around the migrant caravan
from central America to the U.S. in late 2018 and early 2019 and its impact on public
health. The second purpose was to explore how Twitter users react to these frames
involving immigrants and their impact on American public health.
The search of these tweets was conducted through the inclusion of the keywords,
immigration, caravan, and health, on the tweets posted between October 1st, 2018
and January 31st, 2019. After this search two news frames emerged related to
immigrants and public health. These two frames were: Immigrants as carriers of
disease, and immigrants as a financial burden for healthcare. In the case of the frame
of immigrants and their relationship with disease, stereotypes related to the lack of
vaccinations, carrying new diseases, the presence of diseases already eradicated,
and the overall health status of the caravan were found. In the case of the second
frame were immigrants are portrayed as a financial burden for healthcare,
stereotypes related to the illegal use of healthcare by immigrants, and the association
of the caravan with illegal immigration were found. Moreover, the portrayal of the
caravan as a threat to taxpayers’ money in order to subsidize the health needs of
immigrants and refugees was also found within this frame.
177
Developing practices for investigating hybrid mediation
PAPER 3: of ‘the refugee crisis’ by Suomi Ensin and Rajat kiinni!

Gwenaëlle Bauvois, CEREN, University of Helsinki | gwenaelle.bauvois@helsinki.fi
Niko Pyrhönen, CEREN, University of Helsinki | niko.pyrhonen@helsinki.fi
The large-scale arrival of asylum seekers and refugees to Europe in 2015 stirred
media debates, changed political orientations and agendas, and developed new
kinds of mobilizations. Among those mobilizations, we have witnessed a surge of anti-
immigration groups. In Finland, several groups emerged, among the most prominent
were Suomi Ensin (Finland First) and Rajat Kiinni! (Close the Borders!). These two
groups were among the most vocal on Facebook, receiving salient mainstream
coverage until the end of 2015.
We explore how these two far-right anti-immigration groups presented and

(re-)framed the Finnish context of ‘the refugee crisis’ on Facebook. We focus on the
emotive narrative that welds real and imagined developments into a story of an
encompassing ‘crisis’ (Moffitt, 2016) and the trajectories through which these
reinformative far-right framings found their way into to the mainstream media and
public debate at large between September and November 2015.
For this purpose, we have collected all the Facebook posts during the peaking
months of the refugee crisis mediatisation in Finland (from September to November
2015) in the Facebook page of Suomi Ensin and the Facebook group of Rajat Kiinni!.
Analysing this data, we identify what kinds of content - URLs, pictures, videos and
memes - are used by the page administrators and the group members (the latter
being ethically more challenging to study) to ‘perform crisis’, where this content
originates in, and what types of action the groups seek to incite among their
members.
178
Ethical practices, precautions and limitations to studying
PAPER 4:
social media discussion groups: Examples from Estonian-
and Russian-language Facebook groups in Finland

Markku Sippola, University of Helsinki | markku.sippola@helsinki.fi
Jaanika Kingumets, Tampere University | jaanika.kingumets@tuni.fi
Liisa Tuhkanen, University College London | liisa.tuhkanen.11@ucl.ac.uk
Despite a growing number of studies on social media platforms, the discussion on the
ethical challenges relating to this type of research is still in its initial stages. This paper
addresses the practical and ethical challenges we encountered and the precautions
we took when studying Facebook groups aimed primarily at Russian- and
Estonian/speaking minorities in Finland.
The anonymity and the (lack of) consent of those whose online behaviour is being
studied are among the most important questions to consider. When it came to the
Russian-language communities, we chose to study only public groups and pages, i.e.
sites the content of which is visible to all Facebook users regardless of whether they
are themselves members of the group and where the expectation of privacy is
therefor lower than in private and closed groups.
However, as this option was not available with the Estonian-language groups, and as
we believe that the researcher cannot assume all Facebook users are aware of the
privacy settings of the groups that they engage with, we took several extra steps to
protect the anonymity of those participating in the discussions. For example, we
chose not to use any direct quotes from the groups in our papers, even in translated
form, as these could in theory be traced back to individual participants. For the same
reason, we chose not to identify the groups we studied, limiting ourselves to a
general description of their nature and purpose.
The proposed paper will discuss these choices in more detail and explore other
challenges and limitations to conducting social media research among potentially
vulnerable communities. It seeks to contribute to the much-needed discussion on
need of ethical, thought-out approach when examining social media, an important
area of social life in the 21st century.
179
HOW TO Migrants and Refugees
DO RESEARCH
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
24.in Contemporary Welfare States
ON IMMIGRANT INTEGRATION
Berit Gullikstad, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, NTNU

Guro Korsnes Kristensen, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, NTNU
Turid Sætermo, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture,
NTNU | turid.satermo@ntnu.no
Angelina Penner, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, NTNU
Integration is a key concept in migration research, yet its meaning and analytical value has
since long been contested and debated. One line of critique has been that the concept is too
vague and that studies of integration tend to rest on unquestioned assumptions about who is to
be integrated into what. Another critique holds that the concept – also when used by
researchers - is normative and assimilationist. Recently, claims have been voiced that when
using integration as analytical lens, we are in fact contributing to constructing the migrant
‘other’, and thus to sustaining racist and classed structures of power and inequality (Schinkel
2018).
At the same time, as migration researchers we continuously encounter the concept of

integration both as policies, and as a socio-cultural ideal that our interlocutors are grappling
with in their everyday lives. How, then, can we do research on immigrant ‘integration’ in our
academic endeavors? Leila Hadj Abdou (2019) suggests that we turn the lens around and study
instead the ideas and understandings that are articulated through the concept of integration. In
this workshop we will present research that explores meaning-making processes related to
integration by studying how ‘integration’ is narrated, understood and experienced by different
interlocutors in different contexts. We invite papers that takes such empirical research as a
starting point to reflect on conceptual, methodological, and/or analytical dilemmas of doing
research on immigrant integration. The aim is to open up for critical reflections on the various
practices of doing integration research, including the work researchers do to avoid the pitfalls
of reproducing migrants as ‘others’.
Questions we wish to explore include: Which meanings do different subjects ascribe to the
policies and practices of immigrant integration, and how can we fruitfully study these? Can
research on immigrant integration produce new understandings of experiences with
settlement, interaction between newcomers and the host society, and the social and cultural
change that follows immigration, and if so; how?
Parallel Workshops III: Tuesday 12 January 2021 at 11.45-13.15

SESSION THREE: Papers 9-12 180
Ethics of relational and representational
PAPER 1: disclosures in qualitative migration research
Justyna Bell, Norwegian Social Research (NOVA),

Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway | jubell@oslomet.no
Agnieszka Trabka, Jagiellonian University,
Krakow, Poland | agnieszka.trabka@uj.edu.pl
Paula Pustulka, University of Social Sciences and Humanities,
Warsaw, Poland | pustulka@swps.edu.pl
This article engages with the framework of performativity to unpack ethical

challenges of interviewing migrants in the setting of shared ethnic background of
researchers and participants. From a temporal perspective of shifting contexts from a
shared space of the research process, to the post-research reciprocity management,
it focuses on the particular aspect of disclosure. Drawing on several qualitative
studies performed by the authors as Polish migrant researchers with Polish migrant
communities in Norway, Germany and the United Kingdom, the article documents the
ethical challenges that come from a shifting “audience” of the research performance.
Specifically, it discusses how the researchers perform their roles in the field with the
focus on rapport building (relational disclosure), to then addressing how this
performance changes when the dissemination of findings (representational
disclosure) begins and continues over time. A methodological innovation lies in a
clear focus on the cluster of ethical disclosure dilemmas and the article contributes to
a lively debate on ethics of ‘insider research’ in migration studies.
181
Failing Forward?! Reflections and Prospects
PAPER 2: on Integration as Object of Studies
Angelina Penner, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture,

Center for Gender Studies NTNU, Trondheim | angelina.penner@ntnu.no
In recent years, multiple research projects – including my own – about integration

have been financed and set in motion by research councils and other (political and
economic) stake holders. Integration became almost like a buzzword, not only in
popular understanding, but in multiple academic disciplines as well. With the
heightened attention to integration research, also criticism thereof has risen. While
some accuse integration researchers to be leftist ideologists and politically biased,
researchers like Willem Schinkel (2018) or Mikkel Rytter (2018) argue for an
abandonment of immigrant integration research, as it is ignorant towards or covering
up its methodological biases and neocolonial frameworks. Others suggest rethinking
integration research, e.g. by “turning around the telescope” (Leila Hadj Abdou 2019) in
order to question what the ideas and practices around integration reveal about the
people and institutions managing and applying them.
In my paper, I want to take these critical thoughts seriously and ask, whether there
are ways to change research designs that address or include integration from within.
Taking my own qualitative study in a rural town in Norway, as example, I want to
reflect on my positionality as researcher, as well as on my methodological choices
and their actual and potential consequences. Inspired by feminist, queer and de-
colonial thought, I employ a critical lens on my relationships with my informants, the
frameworks I use and the styles of writing I aspire.
From its self-reflective starting point, this paper has a broader ambition, because as
many others I wonder about immigrant integration as a research object: whether and
how and for whom it ought to be relevant.
182
Framing the integration of highly skilled refugees:
PAPER 3: Perspectives from the labor market
Micheline van Riemsdijk, Uppsala University | micheline.vanriemsdijk@kultgeog.uu.se
Immigrant integration is a widely-used, and some critics would argue over-used,

concept in migration studies. Ideally, it refers to the multi-directional processes of
adaptation of immigrants and a range of actors in the host society (Strang and Ager
2010). In practice, however, the onus of adaptation is often placed on the immigrant. A
“successfully integrated” immigrant has adopted the norms and values of the host
society, is proficient in the target language, and is gainfully employed. In the case of
highly skilled refugees, language programs, civics courses, and fast-track programs
aim to prepare them for the labor market as quickly as possible. These initiatives have
a clear “integrative” focus, aiming to familiarize highly skilled refugees with social
norms and expectations in the workplace and society at large.
This presentation examines the framings of refugee integration by various labor

market actors, including providers of Swedish language courses, fast-track programs,
the Swedish Public Employment Service, and refugees themselves. The findings are
based on interviews with these actors and a study of integration-related documents,
conducted in 2019 and 2020. The discussion of the research findings will reflect on
the roles of researchers and non-academic actors in the framing of refugee
integration. How do research questions and the choice of methodology, as well as
normative assumptions of researchers and labor market actors, frame the social
integration of refugees? And how could this awareness possibly contribute to a more
nuanced understanding of social integration in the labor market?
183
Forced migration, institutional encounters
PAPER 4: and trust/mistrust in the local welfare state
Liselott Sundbäck, PhD student, Faculty of Education and Welfare Studies,

Åbo Akademi University | liselott.sundback@abo.fi
Previous research show how new inequality regimes arise in the wake of global
mobility. However, we know less about how forced migrants themselves and welfare
professionals make sense of mistrust/trust in institutional encounters in Finland and
Sweden. This study focuses on the welfare state and encounters with young forced
migrants through street-level bureaucratic encounters and administrative bordering.
The aim of the study is to examine sense making of institutional encounters between
young migrants and welfare state professionals, analyzing administrative bordering
and institutional (mis)trust from a bottom- up and top-down perspective. Central
research questions are to identify which the key local welfare state arenas are
wherein institutional (mis)trust is built between young migrants and local welfare
state professionals.
Data will be collected through individual semi-structured interviews and participatory

observations in two different settings; the Finnish Capital Region and in the Capital
Region of Sweden. In this study newly arrived migrant refers to someone who has
migrated to the hosting country in the past three years. The study focuses on young
migrants aged 17-25.
One of the articles will focus on methodological and ethical challenges in research
with structurally vulnerable forced migrants. This proposed paper would emphasize
ethical questions important in the beginning of the research process, such as
collecting data, contacting and interviewing young migrants. How to build and sustain
trust between the researcher and the young migrant? How to keep a constant
dialogue during the research process to avoid the possible feeling of abuse? How
and at what stage can results be shared with the research subject? And last but not
least, how to reflect on power asymmetries and equality in research with young
forced migrants?
184
Researching the social labor market integration
PAPER 5: of highly skilled refugees in Sweden
Ioanna Blasko, Department of Social and Economic Geography, Uppsala

University | ioanna.blasko@kultgeog.uu.se
The presentation will focus on integration in the context of highly skilled refugees in
the workplace in Sweden and discuss some of the conceptual and analytical
dilemmas that arise in such a study. The project focuses on highly skilled refugees,
since they have not received as much attention in traditional migration theories as
other types of migrants (van Riemsdijk and Wang 2017:2). Research has also shown
that they face greater difficulties in integrating into the labor market than other types
of migrants (Bevelander 2011).
The project includes interviews with decision- and policy-makers, employers,

integration initiative representatives and highly skilled refugees, and it is important to
consider the underlying assumptions about what integration means for the different
actors, including us as researchers. Moreover, there are underlying assumptions
about who is most responsible for integration into the workplace and the labor market
– the refugees themselves, employers, or government agencies. The presentation
will include a discussion of how we can study the integration process through
structure and agency theories, keeping in mind the possible processes of “othering”
to which the research might contribute to. Such research also needs to consider an
inherent dilemma – portraying refugees as in need of structural help to integrate may
fall in line with negative media images of refugees as “others”, “victims” and passive
actors who lack agency (Wilmott 2017; Esses et al. 2013; Abid et al. 2017). On the other
hand, ascribing them “too much” agency may instead suggest that they are solely in
charge of the difficulties they face when integrating into a Swedish workplace, and
even undermine their initial case for refugee status (Bakewell 2010).
185
Unpacking ‘integration’:
PAPER 6: Exploring wellbeing in work and non-work domains of life
Maja Povrzanović Frykman, Malmö University | maja.frykman@mau.se
In response to the question about new approaches to the processes of migrant

settling and inclusion commonly named ‘integration’, this paper presents some
conceptual and analytical considerations related to two collaborative interview-based
projects on highly skilled migrants in Sweden and Norway (Povrzanović Frykman &
Mozetič 2019; Povrzanović Frykman, Guribye, Hidle & Mozetič 2019). While the
experiences of migrants who are skilled and employed remain below the radar of
studies focusing on labour market issues, analytical distinction between the work and
non-work (family, social and private) domains of life (Languilaire 2009) opened up for
an understanding of a complex interplay of personal, social and structural factors
affecting their settlement and inclusion.
The paper furthermore exemplifies how wellbeing as the conceptual framework of

those projects facilitated nuanced insights into how reasons for migration, gender,
age, education, employment conditions, family circumstances, and transnational
obligations may impact different life domains in different ways. These insights urged
the conclusion that inclusion based on skills and employment is not to be taken for
granted, and that more general questions about exclusion, racialization, integration
and citizenship, which are typically posed in relation to unskilled, are distinctly
relevant also for the highly skilled. Exploring wellbeing in work and non-work
domains of life thus allows us to unpack ‘integration’ as a matter of power relations
related to the intersections of migrant status, ethnicity/race and class, while pursuing
it as embodied forms of practice and relational social processes.
186
Public narratives of local integration as success:
PAPER 7: What do they contribute to?
Berit Gullikstad, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture,

Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) | berit.gullikstad@ntnu.no
The paper departs from the ongoing academic debate on the concept of integration,
and in particular Hadj Abdou's proposal that we should investigate the ideas and
understandings that are articulated through the concept of integration (2019). It
means to approach the integration of immigrants as a phenomenon that reveals more
about those who articulate ideas and decide integration measures than it does about
those subjected to integration, and further that integration is not studied as a goal or a
solution, but as part of that problem it is meant to resolve (Rytter 2019). A research
strategy could be to problematize the problem by exploring what assumptions are
made in the majority’s understanding of the world and what integration will mean to
them (Rytter 2019:690). Another strategy is to explore the ideas and understandings
that are at the local level where the integration efforts take place ((Hadj Abdou 2019).
This paper is a result of a project studying the phenomenon of immigrant integration

(both work migrants and settled refugees) from the perspective of discursive
understandings and practices at the local level in Norway. A finding is that local
voices of the majority represented in local newspapers and among local authorities
are expressing that immigrant integration is a success for the community, in forms of
contributing to economic growth, as well as social and cultural enrichment. The emic
narrative of ethnic diversity as something good for the local community seems to be
strong.
The paper will discuss, by empirical examples, if and how the local narratives of
success and ethnic diversity can contribute to the problematization of the
(re)production of naturalized categories of difference. Do such narratives open up for
more complex understandings of immigrant integration? Or do these narratives
primarily contribute to serve local ends? If so, what are the effects?
187
Ethnography and the Power of “Irrelevance”
PAPER 8: in Understanding Integration
Sarah A. Tobin, Senior Researcher Chr. Michelsen Institute,

Bergen, Norway | sarah.tobin@cmi.no
In policy-specific or “relevant” research in studies of migration and integration, the

researched individuals’ status as refugee oftentimes becomes the defining
characteristic, over and above other important aspects of personhood, agency, and
action. This framing defines refugees as people who have moved typically once from
one “homeland” to another, singular space, sometimes overlooking the multiple
migrations and movements of people, the ways in which families are split families
across different geographies, their socio-economic linkages, as well as their political
allegiances. As such, ethnographic research that focuses on “the refugee” can
sometimes be reductive.
Furthermore, “policy-relevant research” puts pressure on researchers to prioritise

categories, concepts and topics defined by policy makers and actors in the
humanitarian-development nexus. The pressure to produce policy-relevant work
oftentimes pushes researchers to focus on particular topics that are dictated by, or
fall in line with policy-oriented projects and institutions. Here, the latter set the rules
and terms of engagement to decide which policy outcomes are preferable. As a
result, individuals are erased and research becomes – de facto – research into
institutions and organisations. This reduces studies easily and readily to that of
bureaucracy, as well as narrow organisational forms of rationalising and classifying
information.
In this paper, I discuss “policy-irrelevant research” and argue that it should be

enhanced through ethnographic methods. Ethnography can render visible what is
invisible; critique some underlying assumptions and highlight what is taken for
granted in social fields. Beyond that, ethnographic accounts of human action serve to
question socially-constructed labels and categories, which reveals much about
integration.
188
Immigrants as productive/unproductive others
PAPER 9: in the Norwegian integration regime
Linda Dyrlid, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

(NTNU) | linda.dyrlid@ntnu.no
Turid Sætermo, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
Several recent articles have pointed out some problematic aspects of researching
immigrant integration, in particular the harmful othering it may contribute to produce
(Rytter 2019, Schinkel 2018). In this paper, we pick up on the call to ‘turn the lens
around’ (Abdou 2019) and take the concept of integration as our object of study,
exploring what ‘integration’ as frame do for different categories of migrants in
Norway. The paper proceeds through three sections. In the first section, we examine
the shift that has taken place in national integration policies, from being primarily
concerned with achieving a balance between cultural differences and national
belonging to being primarily concerned with immigrants’ economic productivity. This
shift, we argue, has created new ideas of who needs what kind of ‘integration’, and
who is to be considered ‘integrated’.
The second section draws on our empirical research on labor migrants and settled
refugees; and discusses how they are conceptualized differently with regards to
presumed ‘need’ for integration and subjected to different official integration policies.
In present integration system, settled refugees are subjected to a compulsory,
extensive, and linear integration program, whereas for labor migrants from the EU it is
voluntary, flexible and minimal. The third section discusses some consequences of
the ways that policies establish a link between expectations of
productivity/unproductivity and ideas of ‘integration’ challenges, capacities and
needs. In conclusion, we reflect more broadly upon how research that critically
address underlying assumptions of ‘integration’ can contribute to unsettle, rather than
reproduce, ideas about immigrant ‘others’.
189
PAPER 10: How to “do good” in research on immigrant integration?
Guro Korsnes Kristensen, Department of Interdisciplinary

studies of Cultures, NTNU | guro.kristensen@ntnu.no
Inspired by John Law’s contention that research method is performative in the sense
that it helps produce realities and new versions of the world, and that research can do
both “good” and “bad” (Law 2004), this paper seeks to reflect upon the realities that
are produced through research on immigrant integration, and how individual
researchers can avoid "doing bad" and strive for "doing good".
In the last couple of years, several researchers have criticized research on immigrant
integration for (re)producing immigrants as “the other” (see for example Rytter 2019,
Schinkel 2018), calling for a more critical approach to studying immigrant integration,
to elude harmful effects on those being categorized as immigrants.
To do critical research in the fields of immigration and integration implies to scrutinize

specific policies and practices, and to identify what perceptions these policies and
practices rest on, and what effects they might have both on society at large and on
specific categories and groups. In many cases it means to identify racist, classed and
gendered structures of power and inequality, with the aim of destabilizing hierarchies,
empowering stigmatized and precarious groups and fostering democracy and
participation. And this everyone would agree can be easily classifies as “goods”.
However, when this critical lens is applied on for example the local community,
specific parts of civil society, or small integration offices, there is also a risk that the
research findings, when read by those being studied, might produce feelings of
shame and hopelessness, as well as a reluctance towards a continuous engagement
in the complex processes of immigrant integration. Is that also to "do good", or is it
also something “bad” about this research, and if so; how could this “bad” be made into
“good” without removing the critical lens?
190
Researching ‘Family-level Integration’
PAPER 11: among Reunified Migrant Families
Tuire Niinimäki-Silva, MSc, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Social Research /

Social work Doctoral Programme of Social and Behavioural Sciences,
University of Turku | tmniin@utu.fi
The question of family level integration is a topical issue in Finland. During the series
of restrictions on refugees’ right to family reunification, that have happened within
recent years, the families’ “integration potential” and the presence of family members
has been used both as a supporting and a counter argument. The family’s
significance for individuals’ integration and well-being interests not only social
welfare professionals who encounter multicultural families but also the
representatives of the economy: there is growing competition to recruit foreign
labour, and to encourage them to settle down with their families.
However, there is lack of academic research on what "family level integration"

actually means. It has been observed that for many immigrants “integration” may
prevail in public life, but inside home “separation” and culture maintenance is the
chosen strategy. In the Scandinavian context, it has been argued that the families are
seen as a barrier toward successful integration into the local society, because they do
not follow the local social norms concerning family relations.
The presentation is based on my ongoing doctoral dissertation "The Integration

Experiences of Reunified Migrant and Refugee Families". I conducted ethnographic
interviews with ten families and individuals, who have moved to Finland for family
reasons. The participants represent different linguistic, ethnic and religious
backgrounds. In my research, I am interested in how families perceive of “family level
integration”, particularly when the family members have been separated because of
the family reunification process.
I will reflect on the methodological and theoretical challenges in my research, for

example: How to grasp the meaning of integration on family level, compared with
individual level? Is integration even a pertinent concept in day-to-day lives of
reunified migrant families?
191
Multi-agency collaboration in integration work:
PAPER 12: Joint learning without shared vocabulary?
Sari Vanhanen, Migration Institute of Finland | sari.vanhanen@utu.fi
This paper focuses on the ‘tacit definition’ of integration by looking at collaborative

practices in integration work at local level. In general, multi-agency collaboration
between actors at the public, private and third sector, and within and crossing
institutional frames, is widely emphasized. The aim in collaboration is to promote two-
way integration by joint learning and interactive knowledge practices. Although multi-
agency collaboration is realized in different forms, the key question may stay unclear:
how the concept of integration is understood, interpreted or entitled in various
contexts?
Here, the perspective in integration is of preventive police work in which proactive

multi-agency collaboration is key. Even though collaboration is underlined, one
significant conclusion in my empirical research was that it remains invisible in the
police organization. This dilemma requires finding qualitative tools how to document,
reflect and analyze collaborative processes and learning. In the analysis, multi-
agency collaboration emerges as an opportunity for developing the work practices
that aim at dismantling practices of ‘Othering’. This requires an ability to engage in
active dialogue with minority groups and other stakeholders in promoting everyday
security and inclusion. Moreover, my study brought forward the question of
vocabulary, i.e. which relevant words and expressions to use when the aim of the
collaborative work is to strengthen people’s experience of belonging and community
engagement.
In this paper I continue discussion on how to (re)define professional vocabularies in

integration work by asking: how integration work is narrated in practice? And how the
understanding of integration is shared or controversially, remains silent or ‘self-
evident’ in multi-agency collaboration in the field of integration?
192
OFFICIAL DISCOURSEMigrants and Refugees
ON MUSLIMS AND ISLAM
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
AND ITS EFFECTS ON INTEGRATION EFFORTS
Nina Björkman, Åbo Akademi University | ninbjork@abo.fi

Zeinab Karimi, University of Helsinki
The majority of the large numbers of asylum seekers who have arrived in Europe
since 2015 are Muslims. Frequently referred to as the European migrant or refugee
crisis, these events served to further intensify already ongoing public debates about
the growing presence of Islam in Europe, the distinction between “good” and “bad”
Muslims, and the successes and failures of European integration efforts. These
debates have thus in large part centered on the category of “radicalized individuals”,
which has developed into an increasingly central trope of official discourse on Islam
following the events of 9/11.
This workshop focuses on the impact of current official and institutionally embedded
discourse on Muslims and Islam across European countries and its potential effects
on integration processes. Regardless of national context, official institutional
discourse plays a central role in the generation of particular “languages of description
and explanation” (Gergen 2009) about Islam and Muslims. As such, it also works to
inform those depicted, thereby limiting the discursive resources of those who find
themselves in the position of subjects of such representations. Muslim populations
therefore often find themselves varyingly constrained by such official institutional
discourse in their efforts to articulate and explain their own understandings of their
religion and culture.
This workshop invites both theoretical and empirical papers focusing on the character
of current official discourse on Muslims and Islam as found in e.g. statements and
various types of documents and practical manuals of government agencies,
migration authorities, and other institutional actors involved in integration work in and
across different European national contexts. The workshop especially welcomes
papers focusing on the reception of such discourse among Muslim immigrants
themselves and its effects on integration efforts.
193
Against the Fear of Complexity:
PAPER 1: De-racialising the Muslim Migrant in Elif Shafak’s Honour
SESSION: Thursday 14 January 2021 at 10:00-11:30
Carmen Zamorano Llena, Associate Professor of English,

Dalarna University, Sweden | cza@du.se
In 2000, the Parekh report foresaw two possible futures for the country, namely, a
narrow and inward-looking tendency that would only accentuate the rifts between
the nations of the UK and its denizens and, on the other hand, a country that had the
potential to develop as “a community of citizens and communities,” provided it
underwent a series of transformations, including the “rethinking [of] the national story
and national identity” (xiii). The increase in anti-Muslim racism after 9/11 (Poynting &
Mason 2006), the perceived crisis of multiculturalism and the increasing dominance in
the public sphere of populist, ultra-conservative discourses signal that this
transformation of national identity has not occurred in the terms of the report but
rather as a consequence of what Appadurai has termed the “fear of small numbers”
(2006). Several studies have pointed to the criminalisation of Muslim communities in
newspapers, and the way in which media reports on honour killings have
“misrepresented ethnic minorities and engendered a sense of mainstream moral
superiority” that envisions the Muslim migrant “other” as morally inferior (Gill 2006).
In her 2012 novel Honour, British-Turkish writer Elif Shafak questions the
“representational violence” (Shapiro 1998) exerted by media by imaginatively
engaging with the complexities of the socio-cultural conditions in the home and host
countries that lie behind the unreported realities of perpetrators and victims of
gender violence against women in a family of Turkish Kurdish migrants to Britain in
the 1970s. This paper will contend that Shafak’s Honour embodies a type of ethical
engagement with this “representational violence” that fosters a way of imagining the
nation differently through the perspective of its Muslim migrant “other.”
194
Cultural racism in Flemish secondary education: A critical
PAPER 2: race analysis of teachers’ narratives about Muslim pupils
Michiel Lippens, Department of Training and Educational Sciences,

Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Antwerp | Michiel.lippens@uantwerpen.be
Elke Struyf, Dr, Professor, Department of Training and Educational Sciences,
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Antwerp
Lore Van Praag Dr, Centre for Migration and Intercultural Studies, Faculty of
Social Sciences, University of Antwerp
European research demonstrates that a high number of Muslim pupils experience

ethnic(-religious) discrimination in a secondary school context. Furthermore, scientific
research also highlights the problematic beliefs and attitudes that teachers in West-
European countries hold toward Muslim pupils. Yet those studies about teachers’
beliefs are mostly characterized by a quantitative approach, which offer limited
insight into the concrete narratives, as well as its relationship with the local and the
broader institutional context. Also, the voices of Muslim teachers are scarcely
available in most educational research about cultural racism. In this paper we aim to
address both research gaps by applying a critical race theoretical lens on the
narratives of teachers, and reveal the (dominant) discourses about Muslim pupils in
relation to the broader educational context.
The data used in this study originates from an ethnographic study in three secondary
schools in one city setting. This paper is based on the analysis of data gathered from
semi-structured interviews with teachers (N=46) and from ethnographic observations.
The results reveal dominant discourses that predominantly conceptualizes different
aspects of ‘being Muslim’ as an obstacle, rather than an asset, in everyday
educational practices. All these aspects are explored in-depth, by drawing on the
critical race theory, which highlights the permanence of racism and mechanism of
whiteness (‘flemishness’) in the teachers’ narratives. Subsequently, three
‘counternarratives’ of Muslim teachers are juxtaposed with the dominant discourses
about Muslim pupils and reveal alternative stories. The results emphasize the need
for professionalization about aspects of ethnic diversity and racism in teachers
education, as well as for in-service teachers. It also offers support for the ongoing call
to include more Muslim teachers in educational settings.
195
“When they see you as a threat to your own child”:
How official and institutionally embedded discourse
PAPER 3:
on Muslims and Islam influence Muslim parenting,
their everyday security and integration efforts
Rahma Vetlesdatter Søvik, PhD-fellow at

Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences | rahma.sovik@inn.no
I use institutional ethnography as methodology in my PhD-study on how Muslim

mothers born/raised in Norway experience the Norwegian society as context for
motherhood and family-life. I explore their relocation-process from Norway, their
post-Norway realities, and further how these shape their motherhood and narratives
on “what they left”. A central background for the study is the government action plan
to combat negative social control, forced marriage and female genital mutilation,
published in 2017. For the Conference, I will discuss dilemmas related to the problem-
and minority group-oriented discourse, both explicitly and indirectly about Muslims
and Islam, that seem to underlie the preventive work. I look at the resource-booklets
on children’s situation in “strict” religious homes, and a government-ordered
research-report on the municipalities’ understanding of cases where Norwegian
children spend time abroad.
The report claims that over 400 children are abroad against their will, mainly due to a
fear of the Child Protection Service. I will do the interviews between February-May
2020, and based on earlier research, I can expect narratives that indicate a gap
between the parents’ intentions and understandings of their own situation, and how
politicians and professionals interpret and meet the actions of the parents. I discuss
how their relocation (a “hijra?” - a religiously motivated migration) from Norway may
be seen as a relevant and tempting option partly due to facing distrust and lack of
everyday (legal) security. Transnational relocation can potentially open up the world
for an adventure, a sense of security and equality, and new possibilities for both
children and parents.
196
INTEGRATION ATMigrants and
THE LOCAL Refugees
LEVEL:
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES
Pekka Kettunen, The Migration Institute of Finland | pekka.kettunen@utu.fi

Eli Auslender, The University of York. | eli.auslender@york.ac.uk
Local governments, such as municipal governments, are in many ways key actors in
the area of migrant integration. Although asylum policy and border control are in the
hands of state authorities, integration of both refugees and immigrants in general
depends largely on how services are being organized locally, even if national
governments may set down standards by which they expect migrant integration to be
carried out. Municipal governments across Europe have varying degrees of autonomy
depending on the governing structure of the state.
The Local Autonomy Index (2015) shows that Swiss and Nordic local governments
have higher degrees of autonomy when compared to the levels found in other
countries across Europe. Even if they are autonomous, local governments are
embedded in an institutional, multi-level context, which both enables and restricts
initiatives and activities. They could engage directly with NGO organisations to partner
in service delivery, or could find themselves at odds with NGOs. There are policy-
specific differences between the state and the city within, which may lead to conflict.
This could be seen in the varying levels of integration support within different German
cities versus what the federal government prescribes. What obligation is there for a
city to follow a superior government edict?
We welcome papers that deal with the role of local governments in integration policy.
We encourage papers which focus on comparative or case analysis of state-local
relationship, division of labour between the different levels of government,
evolvement of the role of the local governments, local government and civic society
relationships, and of other relevant topics. Where did a city go beyond what a state
government asked for? Where has a city been negligent in integration when a
neighbouring municipality has been forward-thinking? Can civil society pressure local
government into more or less action depending on how the local government
interacts with the state? All perspectives are welcome.

197
Identifying the challenges to immigrant integration:
PAPER 1: A study among immigrants living in Finland
Elvis Nshom, Department of Communication, California State University,

San Marcos, CA. USA | enshom@csusm.edu
Mukhammadyusuf Shaymardanov, School of Business and Economics,
University of Jyvaskyla, Finland | shaymam@student.jyu.fi
Sadaf Shomaila, Department of Language and Communication Studies,
University of Jyvaskyla, Finland | shomaila.sadaf1@gmail.com
Immigrants’ social and labor market integration in the European Union (EU) is still a
major political, societal and economic challenge. According to Statistics Finland
(2018), the number of immigrants living in Finland has risen from 0.8 % to 6.6 %
between the years 1990 to 2016. The aim of this study is to identify the challenges to
immigrant integration in sample of 240 immigrants from 44 countries living in Finland.
Understanding the challenges immigrants face in Finland has significant implications
to policy formulation. The data for this study has already been collected and the
content is currently being analysed. The data was collected through an online
anonymous open-ended questionnaire where participants where ask to write about
their integration challenges in Finland.
198
PAPER 2:
Immigrant integration and organizational landscape
Magdalena Kosová, MSc, PhD student in sociology, Åbo Akademi | mkosova@abo.fi
This paper constitutes a part of my doctoral thesis. The main topic of my research is
the process of integration into a society utilizing the established ethnolinguistic
minority and its organizations. More specifically, the focus of my research is the role
of the Finnish-Swedish third-sector organizations in the process of integrating
immigrants into Finland.
In this paper I would like to present the organizational landscape of immigrant

integration in Finland and organizations operate, how they are positioned by other
actors and how they position themselves. Particularly during and after the European
migration crisis in 2015/2016, the role of the third-sector organizations as valid
facilitators of many aspects of integration – acquisition of language skills, creating
social networks, testing and applying cultural skills, etc. - has been widely discussed
on local as well as national (Finnish) levels. However, the third sector remains outside
the main focus of the official integration realm and there have been few efforts of
institutionalizing or coordinating the third-sector organizations locally for the benefit
of the immigrants wishing to establish themselves in the local community (or, by
large, in the Finnish society).
This paper focuses on the dynamics of the field - on the processes and powers that
maintain the field’s coherency on the one hand and on the other hand hinder
newcomers – new models, organizations, etc. – from entering the field. While the aim
of the paper is not to create an alternative model of immigrant integration (locally), I
present several strategies of immigrant integration that would ensure closer
cooperation with the third-sector.
199
PAPER 3:
Immigrants and the Finnish local governments
Pekka Kettunen, The Migration Institute of Finland | pekka.kettunen@utu.fi
When looking at the role of local governments in the integration of immigrants, one
can start by analyzing the obligations. The existing law on integration from 2010
expresses rather vaguely: local governments have to see that their services are also
suitable for immigrants. More precisely, the emphasis in the law is on refugees.
According to the law, unemployed adults have to contact the local state employment
agency, where their skills are assessed, and in the most common case, this is
followed by an about one year long integration course, consisting of language studies
and working life introduction. Local governments provide social and health services
for the same persons.
However, immigration is a much wider issue, ranging from providing information, to

cultural life. One factor obviously affecting the role is the amount of immigrants. As
most of the Finnish local governments (n 310) are rather small, and most of the
immigrants live in the cities, not every local government feel necessary to prepare
itself to adjusting to immigrants. For larger local government, it is a question of
providing information in multiple languages, training the personnel, and supporting
local associations dealing with immigrants, to name a few. The paper asks if the
current system is too narrow, neglecting a large share of immigrants. Secondly, the
paper discuses some alternative ways of broadening the focus.
200
Success or Failure? Political Narratives on Immigration
PAPER 4: and Migrant Integration in Rural Norway
Guro Korsnes Kristensen, Dept. of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture,

NTNU | guro.kristensen@ntnu.no
Berit Gullikstad, Dept. of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, NTNU |
Berit.gullikstad@ntnu.no
Over the last decades immigration to Norway has increased, and today immigrants
are represented in all Norwegian municipalities – including the most remote and rural
parts of the country. In some small municipalities, labour migrants account for a
substantial part of the population, in others there are more refugees. Whereas labour
immigration is directly related to the labour market and the industry in a region and
not neccessarily part of a political strategy, the settlement of refugees is a political
decision where the local government can decide if, and how many refugees, to settle.
When the number of refugees coming to Norway decreased from 2017 - 2019, the
situation has turned to a “fight for the refugees”, where both rural and urban
municipalities are trying to convince the central government that they are the best
place to settle new refugees. At the same time, quite a few municipalities are
experiencing economic problems due to refugee settlement as quite a few of the
refugees have not become part of the labour force but instead relying on public
welfare systems when the economic incentives from the central government had
stopped.
The aim of this paper is to explore the ways in which the experiences with
immigration and migrant integration are narrated by local politicians in some selected
rural municipalities. What is presented as positive/negative immigration and
successful/failed migrant integration – from the perspective of the local community?
Is success and/or failure explained by specific local characteristics – and if so; what
are they? And which imaginaries of the local community and ‘the locals’ do these
narratives produce?
The paper is based on qualitative interviews with 14 mayors from selected rural
municipalities in Mid-Norway, and the main analytical tool has been narrative analysis.
201
Local Multi-Level Governance in RefugeeHousing:
PAPER 5: A Study of Leverkusen
Eli Auslender, The University of York | eli.auslender@york.ac.uk
This paper will explore the development of the Leverkusen Model, as well as its
impact on both the city and the refugees it serves by utilising key stakeholder
interviews, which includes one of the architects of the Leverkusen Model, workers in
the civil service, non-profits, and Syrian refugees living in Leverkusen, or those who
lived in Leverkusen but moved to neighbouring cities. The paper utilises an active
model of multi-level governance to discuss its practicability, and whether this model
can be replicated elsewhere. The core argument to be presented is that the fluidity of
the Leverkusen Model allows for more expedited refugee integration into society.
Started in 2002, the Leverkusen Model of refugee housing has not only saved the city
thousands of euros per year in costs associated with refugee housing, but has aided
in the cultivation of a very direct, fluid connection between government, civil society,
and the refugees themselves. Leverkusen, a small city of over 150,000 sitting
between Bonn and Cologne in the German state of North-Rhine Westphalia employs
a different and novel structure of housing for refugees: with direct consultations with
Caritas, the largest non-profit in Germany, as well as others, refugees who arrive in
Leverkusen are allowed to search for private, decentralised housing from the
moment they arrive, regardless of protection status granted by the German
government. This paper fills a gap in the existing literature by addressing the
adaptation of multi-level governance in local refugee housing and integration
management.
202
Natives’ Use of Urban Public Spaces
PAPER 6: following the Exposure to Refugees
Ezgi Irgil, PhD Student, Gothenburg University | ezgi.irgil@gu.se
This paper introduces a new concept called spatial strategies in delineating natives’
behaviours towards refugees further expanding the behavioural responses. I define
this concept as the actions natives adopt in their everyday life in relation to
newcomers’ use of various urban public spaces of a particular district following
sudden refugee influx. Natives that fall under this category has two elements:
continues to live in the area following the demographic change and experience
exposure to refugees, rather than entering into contact. Based on inter-ethnic threat
theory and the right to the city theory, I argue that natives adopt these strategies
depending on (a) natives’ perspectives on whether they can avoid exposure to Syrians
in urban public spaces, and (b) natives’ recognition of Syrians’ use of urban public
spaces. I conducted sixty semi-structured interviews with native residents in Bursa,
Turkey, to provide original and unique qualitative empirical material.
203
Precarious
THE ONLYInclusion:
WAY OUT Migrants andTHE
IS THROUGH: Refugees
DECOLONIAL
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
AND DECANONICAL TURN IN CONTEMPORARY ART
Sepideh Rahaa (Sadatizarrini), Art Department,

Aalto University | sepideh.sadatizarrini@aalto.fi, sepidehrahaa@gmail.com
Abdullah Qureshi, Art Department, Aalto University | abdullah.qureshi@aalto.fi
Noor Bhangu, Communication and Culture,
York University and Ryerson University | noorkbhangu@gmail.com
In the introduction of the book Nordic Colonialisms and Scandinavian Studies, Johan
Höglund and Linda Andersson Burnett argue, “while a number of European area studies
have long discussed colonial pasts and postcolonial presents, post-World War II historical
research on the Europen North has not until recently begun to consider the ways in which
this region contributed to, benefited from, and now inhabit colonial histories.”
Building upon this, and expanding the discourse on “invisible whiteness” within the structure
in the Nordic region, ‘The Only Way Out is Through’ inquiries into the role of contemporary
art in decolonizing knowledge beyond inherited canons of art and history. When working in
and with Western institutions, archives and art collections, what theoretical and practical
scaffolding can we, as artists, curators, writers and scholars of colour, use to build inclusive
and political futures for us all? Furthermore, how can we engage with artistic practices that
renegotiate our positionalities and reclaim our agency outside the binaries of
centre/periphery? Through the convening of multiple practitioners in the field, this workshop
aims to test the possibility of art making, curation, and social interventions to dislodge
inherited material and positionalities. The workshop will include three sessions focusing on
contemporary art, curation, and cultural work as arms through which to take up space and
strategize avenues for change. To conclude each session, the organizers will step in to
organize a collaborative tool kit, which the panelists and audience members will be invited to
contribute to and take away.
We invite artists, curators, cultural workers, educators, activists and scholars to contribute to
this call. Participants can engage in discussions on racialisation, epistemology, whiteness,
intersectional and decolonial feminism, queerness, institutional and non-institutional critique,
national narratives and transnational migration within artistic practice and research.
Presentations could take the form of poetry, prose, speech, performance, short video/film,
paper, or any other medium of communication.

SESSION THREE: Round Table 204
Rampa: Rump-up challenging views
PAPER 1: on colonial legacy through art
Nuno Coelho, DEI-FCTUC, CEIS20,

University of Coimbra | ncoelho@dei.uc.pt , nunocoelho@nunocoelho.net
In a 2018 report by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, it is

recommended that Portugal amend school textbooks, which should now refer to
Portugal's violence in its former colonies. In 2016, a report by the United Nations
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination criticised the persistence of
“Afrophobia" and "institutional racism" in the country. Portugal, the country that played
a central role in the Atlantic Slave Trade, still experiences a widespread “amnesia”
regarding its colonial legacy today. The so-called “Discoveries” are still being
celebrated and “Lusotropicalism”, a theory proposing that the Portuguese were better
colonisers than other European nations, is still the dominant narrative. Portuguese
people like to believe that, unlike other Europeans, they are immune to racism and
uniquely “colorblind”. In recent years, this view is being challenged by a series of
artists and curators whose work focus on the legacy of the Slave Trade, Colonialism,
and contemporary racism. This has also been possible due to the opening of
independent spaces that serves as platforms for social-political art practices.
Located at the heart of Porto, Rampa is an art space that opened in May 2019, run by
a non-profit association. According to its mission, Rampa is “committed to exhibit and
promote creators who are not favored by the dominant structures, and art tendencies
that are seldom showcased in institutional settings”. Following the program of its first
year of existance, this paper analyses Rampa’s curatorial statement, its activities
(exhibitions, film screenings, performances, and others), the adressed themes, while
further analysing the impact on its public, social media and the press. This paper
further reflects on how Rampa’s collaborative art strategies, by presenting discourses
from different geographies, are challenging hegemonic views.
205
From Romanticism to Social Cynicism:
PAPER 2: Pakistani Art as an overtone of its Colonial Past
Sadia Kamran, Institute for Art & Culture,

Raiwind Road, Lahore | sadiapashakamran@gmail.com
Pakistan, since the partition of the Indian Sub-continent has carried forward the
legacies of its colonial past. Several institutions; Law, Education, Administration to
name a few, still rely on the British policies, rules and regulations that were set up by
our colonial masters. These colonial imprints, adverse or favourable, are evident in
our art practices too. As the visual and symbolic aid enables the artists to convey the
most intense emotions in a powerful manner, Pakistani art becomes the true
expression of its socio-political and cultural history which to many, is tainted by the
adversities of being a colony for about a century.
In such a context, this study looks at the works of prominent Pakistani artist with an
aim to identify the colonial streaks in their works. From the romantic landscapes of
Allah Bux as a legacy of colonial art in India to the calligraphies of Sadequain as an
answer to post-colonial discrepancies, from A.R. Nagori’s revolt to the age old gift of
colonial feudalism to the petitions of Salima Hashmi in support of peace and from the
identity issues as the biggest and most common syndrome of decolonization
addressed by Nusra Latif to the political satire of Imran Qureshi and Saira Wasim,
contemporary Pakistani art appears to be the log book of a group of decolonizing
artists.
206
Unsettling Canadian futurity:
PAPER 3: Decoloniality in contemporary art
Mariana Muñoz Gomez, MA in Cultural Studies: Curatorial Practices,

University of Winnipeg mariana_munozgomez@hotmail.com
Considering art as a method to challenge hegemonic narratives and explore

alternatives, this paper examines contemporary artistic practice in order to ask: how
can art challenge coloniality? Specifically, this paper aims to investigate the potential
of art within anti- and decolonial movements in regards to the settler colonial context
of Canada. First, definitions of decolonization and settler colonialism are analyzed in
order to position the current discourse in Canada. This aids in addressing issues of
complacency within settler colonialism, in contemplating the role of art within anti-
and decolonial movements, and in considering the concept of decolonial aesthetics.
This paper identifies the power of art to be in its ability to awaken critical
consciousness through its speculative potential. Contemporary art practice becomes
understood as an imaginative tool to decenter settler colonial narratives and
epistemologies, and to (re)imagine, reclaim, and express decolonized histories,
presents, and futures. From the point of view as a settler of colour in Canada, the
author analyzes artworks by Scott Benesiinaabandan and Skawennati which critically
engage with the topic of colonial hegemony over national history and language.
207
Archive trauma in decoloniality:
PAPER 4: Biography, performance and neodocumentalism
Pedro Vidal Diaz, Student researcher in Phd program of Information Science (PPGCI),
School of communication and arts (ECA),
University of São Paulo (USP) | pedrovdiazz@yahoo.com.br
Relates the critique of archives in the decolonial debate for social appropriation
production of knowledge and identity narratives through contemporary art. It raises
the evidence of traumatic violence in the symbolic constitution of identities,
memories, visibilities and ways of life through the production of archives and
documents subjugated by the colonial system in the modernity. Lacan's
psychoanalytic approaches to trauma helps to support perspectives on ways of
reporting and constituting social conflict together with the development of archival
devices and contend. The decolonial approach is presented as evidence of conflicts
in the formation of the archive and knowledge, its power relations and its construction
of social history. The biographical and performance aspects presented, complements
the decolonial perspective in what is referred to as “neodocumentalism”, in the field
of Information Science. It raises the question of how experimenting archive art in
informal spaces of education can collaborate to a intern critic and turn that might
encourage on-going reflections upon canonical forms and structures of art historical
narrations to be disassembled further, opening up the necessary spaces for the
imagination of decolonial and decanonical futures.
208
Decentering the Canon in Contemporary Art
PAPER 5: Through the Lens of Critical Multicultural Education
Timothy Smith, Aalto University | tim.smith@aalto.fi
This presentation explores teaching through a lens of critical multicultural education

to decenter the hegemonic canon in contemporary art. Moving beyond the
problematic approaches of liberal multiculturalism, critical multicultural education
offers a pedagogical framework for actively analyzing identity, ideology, and power
relations through art pedagogy (Knight, 2006; Acuff, 2013). It lays the groundwork for
qualitatively shifting the Western art canon into transnational perspectives in the arts.
Gayed & Angus (2018) refer to this curricular positioning as “decentering,” in which art
history and art education works to undo the curricular oppression that excludes
narratives outside of the West or renders them to the margins. The intention of
turning to critical multicultural education to decentering curriculum from the outset is
to disrupt the hegemonic narratives of the historical and contemporary canon of art
by turning to the voices of artists who are engaged in anti-racist and anti-colonial
practices and discourses.
As an example of such curriculum development, this presentation will turn to one of

these voices by examining the art practice of French Guyana-based artist Tabita
Rezaire, whose video and virtual reality artworks tap into the politics of technology
and online practices, and serve as modes of resistance to the prevalence of Western
hegemonic narratives. Working to decenter curriculum through a lens of critical
multicultural education implores art educators to acknowledge and address deeper
critical contexts by confronting head-on the whiteness and Eurocentrism of the
contemporary art canon, thus laying the groundwork for opening transformative
counter-narratives of teaching and learning in contemporary art.
209
Destabilizing the ground you stand on:
PAPER 6: Challenging colonialism through lied performance
Marika Kivinen, PhD-candidate in General History, Åbo Akademi University,

Mezzo-soprano, Master of Arts and Culture | marika.kivinen@abo.fi
This paper is based on a concert performance in August 2020 called Waterways.

Together with three other musicians I performed in a concert, which focused on lieder
(even called art songs) and discussed some of the ways in which European
colonialism has influenced this repertoire. The songs I had chosen created fantasies
of places that from a European perspective have historically seemed remote and
have been framed as ”exotic”. The repertoire, which included German, French, Finnish,
Swedish and American songs from ca 1840—1930, was actively engaged in ”othering”
through race, sexuality and gender. Classical music has often been seen to exist
outside social, political and cultural realities, but in this concert I wanted to ask: What
are the histories behind these songs? Throughout the creative process I have asked:
How can I as a singer and researcher deal with colonialism, when it is somehow re-
enacted in performance?
I see the classical concert stage as highly stylized and burdened by tradition and a
gendered and racialised legacy. It’s a space, which is marked by an ”invisible” white
norm (Dyer 1997). Sara Ahmed writes that whiteness ”could be described as an
ongoing and unfinished history, which orientates bodies in specific directions,
affecting how they ’take up’ space” (Ahmed 2007, 150). She writes: ”[W]hiteness is an
effect of racialization, which in turn shapes what it is that bodies ’can do’”. I want to
destabilize whiteness in classical performance, but I sense, that a white body or a
white singer can access the concert space and not seem out of place. I want to
discuss the ways in which I have tried to work in a decolonizing way, and discuss how
to move forward. The presentation includes music.
210
The Decolonial and Decanonical
ROUND TABLE: Turn in Contemporary Art

Sepideh Rahaa (Sadatizarrini), Art Department,
Aalto University | sepideh.sadatizarrini@aalto.fi (sepidehrahaa@gmail.com)
Abdullah Qureshi, Art Department, Aalto University | abdullah.qureshi@aalto.fi
Noor Bhangu, Communication and Culture,
York University and Ryerson University | noorkbhangu@gmail.com
When working in and with Western institutions, archives and art collections, what
theoretical and practical scaffolding can we, as artists, curators, writers and scholars
of colour, use to build inclusive and political futures for us all? How can we engage
with artistic practices that renegotiate our positionalities and reclaim our agency
outside the binaries of centre/periphery? Reflecting on the inability of academic and
other artistic institutions to sustain and support the survival of racialized individuals,
Ashok Mathur has reminded that we should, “reconsider possibilities within our
current system, cognizant of intense resistances but also open to the potentials that
present themselves to those of us who are looking, not just for a seat at the table, but
a way to remake the table and all its settings.” In a gesture to remake the table, we
offer a roundtable where we, as organizers, present and speak across our artistic and
curatorial practices as a way to collectively think and reflect on critical and radical
strategies to inherited systems.
211
LET'S MAKE IT HOME:
WORKSHOP 29. WHAT CRITICAL STORYTELLING AND
VISUAL ARTS-BASED METHODOLOGIES OFFER
Fran Lloyd, Kingston School of Art,

Kingston University London, UK | F.Lloyd@kingston.ac.uk
Eleonora Narvselius, Center for Languages and Literature (SOL),
Lund University, Sweden | Eleonora.Narvselius@slav.lu.se
Marta Padovan-Özdemir, Depart. of Social Education, Research Programme on
Society and Diversity, VIA University College, Denmark | mapa@via.dk
Emanating from the recently awarded Nordforsk research project entitled ‘Making it Home:
An Aesthetic Methodological Contribution to the Study of Migrant Home-Making and
Politics of Integration (MaHoMe)’, the proposed workshop will present and discuss different
critical storytelling (Bell 2018; Delgado og Stefancic 2017) and visual art methodologies that
can contribute to the rewriting narratives of belonging, community and history from multi-
disciplinary perspectives.
The workshop will consist of two sessions of 3 to 4 presentations each. The first workshop
will present and discuss methodologies developed in the MaHoMe project that, working
with NGOs and migrants as co-researchers, include participatory aesthetic methods to
directly engage with migrant expressions and experiences of home and home-making in
the context of recent histories of migration and the politics and policies of integration in
Denmark, Sweden and the UK. By focusing on migrant contemporary cultural expressions
through visual imagery and soundscapes - in tandem with critical storytelling in analyses of
integration policy-making - the project seeks to make a societal impact. The presentations
will explore the methods and tools involved – from critical storytelling in policy analysis,
multi-sited ethnography, visual ethnography, and participatory aesthetic workshops using
the smart phone – and the proposed outcomes of a co-produced film and arts-based
methodology toolkit.
The second workshop is an open call for presentations, including film and performance,
that exemplify different ways of using storytelling and the visual arts and their
methodologies to rewrite migratory narratives of belonging, community and history within
the Nordic countries and transnationally. Participants may include scholars, NGOs,
community groups, museum curators and practitioners that specifically engage with
storytelling and arts-based methods to unsettle current national histories and narratives in
order to create new perspectives on migration and belonging.

212
PAPER 1:
Storying Home in Policy Addressing Migrants
Marta Padovan-Özdemir, Depart. of Social Education, Research Programme for

Society & Diversity, VIA University College | mapa@via.dk
Following the past ten years of public debate on immigration, belonging and
integration in Denmark, the notion of home seems to stand out as a pivotal point of
struggle in political, socio-material as well as cultural terms. Thus, this paper raises
the preliminary argument that the immigrant figure seems to challenge and provoke
a majoritarian sedentary understanding of home, which is bound politically, socio-
materially, and culturally to one place within nationally demarcated borders.
In order to interrogate this argument, the paper revisits the selected policy fields of
housing, integration and immigration control and their social documentary practices
of policymaking (Riles 2006), which in empirical terms include white papers,
government action plans, responses to hearing requests, legislation, and ministerial
orders. Such data material – including interviews with policymakers and
administrators – allow for an examination of semiotic struggles over home in
response to global migration.
In other words, the paper intends to identify the meaning-making process in policies
addressing the home-migration nexus as a social problem. It does so by addressing
semiosis as representation of the social world and oneself in a practice constitutive of
reality (Fairclough 2012). The semiotic focus is operationalized with the help of
narratology (Czarniawska 2010), by which this paper explores what the narrative turn
in policy analysis (Bansel 2015; Fischer 2003) may offer migration research that
bridges the arts and social sciences.
As such, this paper offers a methodological discussion and experimentation of how to

work with policy narratives as both research object, research method, and a mode of
conveying research results (Freeman 2017). In particular, the paper will exam the
analytical strategy of emplotment as a contiguity-based intervention that develops
the storying of home in response to migration by paying attention to connective
operations in disparate data sources.
213
Approaching Migrant Experience
PAPER 2:
of Home and Home-making through
the Affective Materialities of Artworks and Film
Fran Lloyd, Professor of Art History, Kingston School of Art,

Kingston University London | F.Lloyd@kingston.ac.uk
This paper considers how analysis of visual art works and film produced by UK based
migrant artists from 2010 to the present day can contribute to rewriting narratives of
migrant experience of home and everyday practices of home-making. The key
questions explored are how do self-identified migrant artists and filmmakers engage
with questions of home and home-making? What aesthetic strategies do they use to
embody the experience of the migrant? Do such works challenge or unsettle our
existing national understandings of the migrant, of home and home-making, and of
belonging? If so, how, and in what ways do they create new perspectives on
migration and belonging?
The presentation will draw upon Collette Daiute’s practices of dynamic narrative
inquiry (2014) and Mieke Bal’s framing of migratory culture (2011) to consider different
modes and methods of analysis that can be used to approach the above questions
with reference to a number of contemporary artworks and film works by UK artists
since 2010. The working premise is, as Karen Barad puts it, that neither the material or
the discursive can be understood as distinct entities but rather as existing in their
‘intra-actions’ where art works and films materiality make meaning and are future
orientated.
214
PAPER 3:
The Echo of Your Departures
Azadeh Fatehrad, Dr, Kingston University,

London, UK | a.fatehrad@kingston.ac.uk, azadeh.fatehrad@hotmail.co.uk
The concept of home has always had a dual meaning to some extent but this quality
has become particularly heightened given the conditions that we are currently
experiencing an extremely difficult and complex socio-political climate with, for
instance, Brexit in the UK, the mass protests in Lebanon and the mistreatment of dual
nationals by countries such as Iran, China and Russia. Home can be a joyful and
celebratory opportunity to be reunited with friends and family, and visit familiar
places which hold meaningful memories but, at the same time, given what is
happening in the world right now, home can also be absolutely terrifying.
‘The Echo of Your Departures’ reflecting on Azadeh Fatehrad’s current research

project, Double Agency: The Formation of Diasporas. In her presentation she refers to
her recent multi-media installation comprising of five-channel sound and two-
channel video which was inspired by a series of in-depth anthropological interviews
in the context of women in diasporas. Fatehrad, in collaboration with Matthew Ward,
has taken fragments of the interview transcriptions and combined them with
imaginary elements of self-reflection to create an ephemeral constellation (of sound
and video) through which she seeks to represent the notions of uncertainty and in-
betweeness in the diasporic experience.
In this context,‘The Echo of Your Departures', responds to a complex image and
imaginary dimension of home to articulate, capture or perhaps stage the above-
mentioned notion of double agency and the formation of diaspora in the current state
of emergency.
215
The scent of Abou Samra’s coffee: Reflections on
PAPER 4: two exhibitions about migration and refugees
Eleonora Narvselius, PhD Associate professor,

Center for Languages and Literature (SOL),
Lund University, Sweden | Eleonora.Narvselius@slav.lu.se
In Sweden, the number of asylum seekers rose sharply from under 60,000 applicants
in 2013 to record-breaking 163,000 by 2015. Almost one third of the asylum seekers in
2015 were Syrians. Since WWII, Sweden has been one of the leading countries in
Europe in receiving refugees, and integration of the newcomers and inclusion of their
cultural expressions within the national context have been intensely debated since
the 1990s. Regarding the heritage sphere, the so-called refugee crisis of 2015 did not
imply an introduction of absolutely new problematics. Nevertheless, production
focusing on experiences of migrants and refugees increased exponentially, and it
became possible to discern repeating patterns of presentation of the contemporary
migration as a factor contributing to cultural diversity. In the concluding part of this
article I will briefly discuss presentations of difference in the context of two very
recent temporary exhibitions that opened in Malmö and Stockholm around the same
time, in 2017 and the beginning of 2018. Arguably, in these exhibitions focusing on
recent migration and migrants one may trace reverberations of the recent media
debates on heritage as well as popular conventions of presentation of cultural
diversity and “home-making”.
216
PAPER 5:
Roles and Ethics in Art-based Participatory Research
Nadia Mansour, Depart. of Teacher Education,

Research Programme for Society & Diversity,
VIA University College, Denmark | nama@via.dk
In this paper, I offer a theoretical examination and discussion of methodological

issues involved in a an art-based participatory study of homemaking processes
mediated through the participants´ use of smartphones. In this study the smart phone
is understood as a site of migratory home-making. Colleagues propose an
understanding of arts-based research as enacted living inquiry, which they call
a/r/tography (Springgay, Irwin & Kind 2005). A/r/tography can be understood as an
intervention which merges art-making with research and learning. In this study,
exploring and creating homemaking involves researchers working with NGO staff and
self-identified migrants and migrant artists as co-producers and co-researchers in
planned artistic workshops.
Thus, this paper discusses co-researchers and researchers overlapping roles.

Working with others, not above or on others (Springgay, Irwin & Kind 2005) is pivotal
for the MaHoMe research project. Allowing disruptions and changes is crucial when
collaborating with participants as co-researchers. How do researchers design a study
in which they are part of? How do researchers and co-researchers engage and
embrace different roles in the MaHoMe research activities? In addition, this paper will
address the ethical considerations when entering a personal, and a rather intimate
space in co-researchers´ lives, and when using smartphones as a means of aesthetic
processes of homemaking.
The writer is part of the MaHoMe team.
217
PAPER 6:
To be(long) or not to be(long)
Amir Zainorin, Artist, Jambatan-collective,

Copenhagen, Denmark | amirszainorin@gmail.com, mapa@via.dk
In this presentation, I will show my art projects which explore the notion of belonging
and experience of the hybridity that exists in having multiple cultural heritage. It
questions about homeland, or what or where is home and the disassociation of
participation in different societies and yet near or far to both.
The presentation will start with a project called Jambatan, an art and cultural
association based in Copenhagen with members including artists, anthropologist and
curators in response to an urgent need of a community for art and of Southeast Asia.
The vision is to recognize the bridge of interconnectivity between people in local

communities, and in between the Nordic region, Europe and Southeast Asia by
conveying global transformations through the artists of diaspora.
With the grant received from Nordic Culture Funds we were able to make a research
trip to various cities across the Nordic countries and UK on Southeast Asia diaspora
artists in the Nordic Region. With project Jambatan we did an art festival inviting
artists to participate in seminar and performances. Furthermore, an online archive
www.stateless.mind was created which also serves as a platform for artists to show
their works.
The presentation also includes a project I did working together with Trampoline
House in Copenhagen - a self-governing institution which brings together refugees,
asylum seekers and other residents of Denmark.
In a project called ‘Dear Helle’, at the Immigrant Museum in Farum, I did workshops
with refugees. I asked them to write a postcard to Helle , who was then the Danish
Prime Minister, about their daily living conditions. I will also present a project that I did
at the Museum of Contemporary Art Roskilde where I worked with a Syrian refugee
who came to Denmark.
218
Spaces of potentiality:
PAPER 7: Young Afghan refugees in Denmark experimenting
with alternative futures in forum theatre
Julie Nynne Bune, PhD student, Department of Anthropology,

Aarhus University | jnb@cas.au.dk
Since refugees are constantly at the center of public discussion, performative

workshops can offer Afghan refugees a platform to experiment and challenge the
stereotypes they are faced with. In this paper I present how I work with participatory
theatre with young Afghans in Denmark and discuss how anthropologists in
collaboration with interlocutors can challenge homogenous representations of
refugees and venture beyond the boundaries of realism thus questioning the given.
The principal method used in these workshops is forum theater. Forum theater was
developed by the Brazilian theater practitioner and activist Augusto Boal (1979). As an
ethnographic method, forum theater aims to engage participants in sharing stories of
conflict and oppression through performance.
I argue that participatory theater enables boldness of ethnographic voice for

disenfranchised interlocutors. Within the potentiality of the theatre space afghan
refugees can challenge existing structures of power and act out glimpses of
alternative futures. By questioning dominant discourses pertaining to the Danish
majority as well as to the fragmented Afghan diaspora (Khosravi 2018) the participants
express and negotiate longings for change, inclusion and self-determination. When
the participants act out important moral values on stage, they not only manifest
themselves in new ways but try to show other afghans that change is possible.
Experimenting with different societal roles in the potentiality of the theatre space
illuminates how future-making is happening in a temporal friction shaped by ideas of
self-determination and obligations towards the family and the Danish welfare state.
219
Experiences and reflections of art-based methods
PAPER 8: in TELL me about it –stories building belonging
and democratic integration –project
Sari Tuuva-Hongisto, Juvenia -Youth research and development centre,

South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences | sari.tuuva-hongisto@xamk.fi
TELL me about it – stories building belonging and democratic integration- project

aims to enhance social participation of young people (aged 16-29) in the Baltic Sea
region and it is funded by Interreg Central Baltic. The approach of the project is to
prevent social exclusion of young immigrants in developing cultural and artistic
methods for building the inclusion of the societies. The project organizes workshops
for young immigrants as a part of their integration and language training. The
workshops are adjusted and customized locally by the group’s needs. The outcomes
and the experiences of the development of these methods are analysed, evaluated
and shared.
The project operates in Finland and in Sweden. The main activities are the workshops
organized to young immigrants with two different methods. The used methods are
cultural and artistic story-making and “Human rights and democracy” game,
developed by Uppsala Folkuniversitetet. These methods will be utilized in both
countries as well as evaluated and shared during the project.
It is expected, that as a result the participating young people will gain greater feelings
of belonging and cross-cultural understanding. They will learn self-expression skills,
which in turn will help in participating in society, education and working life. It
emphasizes the positive stories of belonging and engaging the society as well as
mutual understanding and building transcultural trust. The presentation concentrates
on the follow-up and reflections of the project and its activities.
220
‘A nice Spot’: Challenges and opportunities
PAPER 9: of multimodal art-based interventions in
children-centered migration research
Søren Sindberg Jensen, Postdoc. PhD Department for the Study of Culture,
The University of Southern Denmark | sindberg@sdu.dk
In research, which adopts a children-centered approach, it has proven beneficial to

employ art-based methodologies (Barker & Weller, 2003; Cappello, 2005; Quiroz,
Milam-Brooks, & Adams-Romena, 2013), in particular in research with migrant children
(White, 2012). However, as it is plausible that particular art-based methods do not
cater to the preferences of all children (White & Bushin, 2011), there is a need for
developing multi-modal art-based methodologies.
In the paper, I present and discuss the utility of ‘A nice spot’, a multi modal art-based
research intervention, which I have developed as part of the EU Horizon 2020
MiCREATE-project (www.micreate.eu). The intervention was intended to be a site for
researcher-participant familiarization and to form the basis for conducting narrative
interviews with migrant and local children. The aim was to offer to the participants the
opportunity to explore and reflect upon their notions of well-being and migration and
integration experiences.
The discussion is based on a critical scrutinization of field notes, interview data, and
participants’ art pieces from fieldwork among students in Danish primary schools.
References
Barker, J., & Weller, S. (2003). “Is it Fun?” Developing Children Centred Research Methods. International
Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 23(1/2), 33-58.
Cappello, M. (2005). Photo Interviews: Eliciting Data through Conversations with Children. Field
Methods, 17(2), 170-182.
221
ARTS-BASED AND PARTICIPATORY METHODS
WORKSHOP 30.
IN RESEARCH WITH REFUGEES
Marja Tiilikainen, Migration Institute of Finland | marja.tiilikainen@migrationinstitute.fi

Marte Knag Fylkesnes, NORCE, Norway | mafy@norceresearch.no
Catrin Evans, University of Bedfordshire, UK, | Catrin.Evans@beds.ac.uk
Fath E Mubeen, Migration Institute of Finland | fathe.mubeen@migrationinstitute.fi
The workshop starts from the premise that multi-method research collaborations
between refugee populations, academics and artists need more attention: they can
illuminate knowledge which some more traditional research approaches could leave
in the dark, and communicate knowledge in ways that can reach new audiences.
However, the ethical and practical challenges related to such collaboration (informed
consent, representation, epistemological complexities) also need attention.
We invite presentations on participatory or arts-based research approaches with
refugee populations. The list of themes may include, but is not restricted to,
1. Research as a bricolage: Imaginary, creative, quirky or otherwise non-linear ways of

doing research with refugee populations in the Nordic countries and beyond. What
might be the ways to collect empirical data without (only) relying on words and
interviews?
2. Participation and power: The various ways and levels in which research can be
participatory with people who are refugees. What are the benefits and risks of
participatory designs, and for whom? How do researchers address unequal power
positions in deep ways? How do they balance benefits and risks and generate new
and sustainable ways for co-researching?
3. Research as process and product: New ways of presenting research outcomes.
How do we balance privacy and anonymity with the need to make research
knowledge public? How do we respectfully present refugee groups for academic and
general audiences? How can we address epistemological dilemmas when
communicating research through art?
The organizers of the workshop are connected to a NordForsk project “Relational

Wellbeing in the Lives of Young Refugees”, which is a collaborative project between
researchers, artists, therapists and young refugees in Finland, Norway and the UK.

SESSION THREE: Papers 8-11 222
Relational wellbeing in the lives of young
PAPER 1: refugees in Finland, Norway and Scotland:
The why, what and how of a comparative design
Marte Knag Fylkesnes, NORCE, Norway

Marja Tiilikainen, Migration Institute of Finland | marja.tiilikainen@migrationinstitute.fi
Ravi Kohli
Research confirms that unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people face

obstacles and challenges in destination countries such as Finland, Norway, and the
UK. Over time, despite the difficulties, some are successful in being given permission
to stay and settle in these countries. As they settle, many public authorities fade from
their lives and social networks are built, with hopes for a good future. Ordinary life
gradually emerges once again, as they develop sustaining relationships with other
people, and add to the life of their new country.
In this presentation, we discuss our starting NordForsk-funded project focusing on

how young refugees draw and describe their networks and relationships. We explore
how Finnish, Norwegian and Scottish societies make room for them in their countries,
focusing on mutuality, hospitality and reciprocity. Overall, we gather stories about
building peace and prosperity for each other as an expression of relational wellbeing.
The stories are gathered on a regular basis, to see how young people and their social
networks flow and evolve over time.
The presentation maps our theoretical framework (relational wellbeing) and discusses
relevant previous research about former unaccompanied minors in Finland, Norway
and Scotland.
223
Arts-based methods in exploring relational wellbeing
PAPER 2: in the lives of refugee young people in Finland
Fath E Mubeen, Migration Institute of Finland | fathe.mobeen@gmail.com
In 2015, Finland received 3024 applications from unaccompanied asylum seekers.

Many of these young people have stayed, and they are now building new lives in our
society. As a historically quite homogenous country, Finland is built on values such as
equality as “sameness”, but these values can no longer apply. In this PhD project, I
want to see how art can be used to understand and distribute some positive stories of
diversifying Finland, and how young refugees build new, sustainable lives together
with Finnish people.
As part of a larger NordForsk-project focusing on young refugees relational wellbeing

in Finland, Norway and the UK, the contribution of this project is to investigate how art
can be used to understand and distribute knowledge about young refugees’ lives. In
this presentation, I will present a preliminary research plan, focusing on the methods
of this research. The justification of using art as a method is that it is a social product
which is created between the sensuous knowing and the playful creativity. In the lives
of young refugees, this may assist in making their experiences, memories,
associations, ideas and hopes visible. Arts provides a reflective space to produce new
knowledge and understanding as well as develop a wider more empathetic and
accurate consciousness facilitated by the collaborative process (O’Neil & Hubbard,
2007). I will show how the methodological choices of my research may foster a
reflective and safe space for dialogue, images and narratives that approach the world
in relation to the themes of relational wellbeing and belonging.
References
O'Neill, Maggie & Hubbard, Phil (2012). Asylum, Exclusion and the Social Role of Arts and Culture.
Moving Worlds: a journal of transcultural writing. 12 (2).
224
Closeness at a distance:
PAPER 3: Reflections on the impact of Covid-19 on arts-based
fieldwork with young refugees in Scotland

Catrin Evans, Dr, University of Bedfordshire | catrin.evans@beds.ac.uk
This is a reflective paper from the Drawing Together project. Never conceived to be
digital, like so many, our project continues to evolve in response to the impacts of
Covid-19. The restrictions imposed by the virus have affected every aspect of our
plans – from recruitment and relationship building, to methodological and ethical
planning, as well as how our local and international teams work together and support
one another.
This session will offer the story of our work so far – told from my perspective as the
Research Fellow in Glasgow. I will draw attention to some of our challenges and offer
reflections into how being relationally minded at a distance has influenced my
working relationship with our two Glasgow Youth Ambassadors, how it has directed
my engagement with participants, and how we have worked rigorously to distil a
planned 6 hour in-person workshop into a 3 hour engaged online encounter. I will
discuss how we have worked to retain the essence of the arts practice that is so
integral to the project’s vision and continued to position this project as something that
can – despite the distance between us all – enact relationality whilst exploring it.
Finally, with a commitment to reasserting that ‘emotions matter in the academy’

(Askins and Blazek, 2016) I will share some my own autoethnographic reflections to
reveal the tensions that emerge when holding the responsibility of drawing young
people together virtually, when your own tools for engagement, creativity and
research have all been learned through in-person, participatory contact.
225
Arts as process, product and setting:
PAPER 4: Reflections on the role of creativity and
visuality in research with/for young refugees

Lucy Hunt, University of Oxford | lucy.hunt@education.ox.ac.uk
This paper argues for greater engagement with creativity and the ‘visual’ in research
with/for linguistically and culturally diverse groups of young people, such as those
who have been forcibly displaced across borders. It is based on seven months of
ethnographic fieldwork in Thessaloniki, Greece, involving participant observation as a
volunteer teacher in various educational spaces for displaced youth aged 15-24 -
such as language classes, arts workshops and leadership courses. During this period,
focus group discussions were held with youth - involving creative methods for
visualising pathways to their futures, and the barriers and supports along it - and
interviews with educational ‘stakeholders’ such as teachers, parents and coordinators.
The paper addresses three ways in which the arts were built into - or unintentionally
became a part of - this project, and reflects on the associated challenges and
possibilities. Firstly, it describes how the research setting itself was characterised by
creativity, as many non-formal educational interventions use the arts for psychosocial
healing and non-verbal social interaction; and as such, arts-based methods may
constitute a ‘natural’ way to approach research with this population. Secondly, it
covers how the ‘visual’ was incorporated into the process - from pictorial consent
forms and creative methods to the researcher’s reflective sketches and photographs
- and the ethical and practical implications of this. Thirdly, it makes the case for
creating a visual product of research with/for refugees, to enable youth to relate and
share their lives in colour, rather than as another bureaucratic or academic text; as
well as to push researchers to engage an audience beyond academia in their stories,
while paying attention to their role in constructing generalised visual narrative.
226
“If we try we can fly”: A collaborative
PAPER 5: photography project with unaccompanied minors

Sari Pöyhönen, University of Jyväskylä | sari.h.poyhonen@jyu.fi
How can anyone make sense of the life trajectories and the everyday experiences of
unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in Finland, as they find their place under new
circumstances? How can researchers build relationships of mutual understanding
with both adolescents and their counsellors? How can researchers and counsellors
gain and maintain trust of these young people. How can we avoid intimidating? How
can artistic and participatory practice, in this case photography, facilitate collaboration
to go beyond language? With these questions in mind, we started collaborative
ethnography in a children’s home, known as ‘a group home for unaccompanied
minors’. The group home is part of a reception centre for asylum seekers, established
in 1991, and located in a rural municipality in a Swedish-dominant region of Finland.
The insights presented here derive from long-term partnerships in the reception
centre and the group home. I describe a photography project that was coproduced
by the reception centre and our linguistic ethnography, Jag Bor I Oravais [I live in
Oravais]. Ten unaccompanied minors and their counsellors participated in the project,
which took place from October 2015 until November 2016. I unpack our theoretical
and methodological choices to describe our deliberate aims of collaboration, building
relationships, gaining and maintaining trust. I also reflect on ethically responsible
practices and challenges in doing collaborative research with participants who are
going through vulnerable life situations.
227
Oppositional Looks:
PAPER 6: Critically Examining Photovoice as a Participatory
Method in Research on Forced Migrations

Jelena Jovicic, Sociology Department,
Stockholm University | jelena.jovicic@sociology.su.se
Following the developments of what came to be known as the “refugee crisis” in

Europe, one encountered numerous sensationalist images, many becoming viral
threads on the social media. Violence, pain, desperation and indignity were visualised
through countless images. Trying to move beyond portrayals of either threatening
intruders or vulnerable victims - how can we use research and art expression in order
to enable and facilitate space for counter representation?
In an attempt to explore such possibilities, we organised a collaborative photography

workshop in Belgrade. During a five-day workshop we gathered as a group of
international photographers, activists and people who fled and currently live in
Belgrade (among them artists and activists). We held group discussion on the topics
of representation, visual depictions of war and suffering, photography uses in social
media and ethical issues in image creation and publishing. We held an introduction
workshop to photography techniques, created a human-sized Camera Obscura and
took part in three photo walks while capturing surroundings of the city and discussing
the materials created in the group. We examined the topics of time and memories as
a way to recreate ideas around flight as a permanent state of being - as people with
no past or future narratives. This way people living and creating in exile had opened a
space for reclaiming everyday narratives outside of the label ‘refugee’. Participative
methodology encourages individuals to choose which stories they want to capture
and share.
Finally, photographs were jointly selected and exhibited in Ostavinska Galerija - an

independent gallery space in Belgrade city centre. Through this collaborative
experience we simultaneously examined the question of the dominant visual
representation of flight as well as limits of counter-representation as a strategy.
Importantly, this paper aims to provide a critical assessment of PhotoVoice as a
methodology in academic research.
228
Resistance in collaboration: Ethnographic exhibition as
PAPER 7: participatory method in the study of home-making among
Syrian refugee families in a rural Danish island community

Line Grüner, Department of Anthropology,
Aarhus University, Denmark | line.gruner@cas.au.dk
What does it take to create a home away from home and what does this mean for the
interaction between migrants and the host community? In this paper I discuss how
audio-visual media and exhibition can be used as participatory research methods to
provide insight into the nonverbal and material dimensions of feeling-at-home in a
place.
Since 2015, 63 Syrian refugees have been placed on the Danish island of Samsoe
after they have been granted refugee status. Being refugees their house-moving and
relocation have been characterised by a lack of choice, and the Syrian families have
been challenged to create new homes in alien houses filled with unfamiliar furniture
and items received through donation or purchased in local secondhand stores.
Throughout my fieldwork I worked with exhibition and audio-visual media as a way of
relating with the families and as a route to shared knowledge production about the
challenges to home-making and the development of personal identity, social
relationships and senses of belonging under the challenging circumstances of forced
migration. Where we often collaborated to a high degree, I also experienced
moments where collaboration became difficult. Drawing on examples from my
fieldwork, this paper discusses the role of resistance and non-collaborative moments
in collaborative ethnographic exhibition-making and how friction, hesitancy and
disagreements may carry important insights and critique.
229
PAPER 8:
“We the Afghan Kids": Stories of Physical Activity

Sepandarmaz Mashreghi, PhD Student, Institute of Sport Sciences (IDV),
Malmö University | sepandarmaz.mashreghi@mau.se
Objectives: The aim of this paper is to explore the experiences of physical activity of a
group of newly arrived Afghan youth in Sweden through the converging framework
of decoloniality, Participatory Action Research (PAR) and Art-Based Research (ABR),
so as to challenge the single (Adichie, 2009), yet dominant story of young asylum
seekers that portrays them as incompetent and passive.
Methods: PAR is an anti/decolonial epistemological challenge to the traditional social

research that moves the investigation to a participatory dialogical agenda that reflects
the context of people’s lives through transformative cycles of acting and reflecting
(Dimitriadis, 2010; lisahunter, Emerald, & Martin, 2013). ABR, based in the
coresearchers’ strengths and epistemology, operates in collaborative and
anti/decolonial ways to unsettle the process of traditional (Western) knowledge
production ‘about’ the marginalized ‘other’ (Blodgett et al., 2013). In this project, the
coresearchers produced posters with drawings or words to demonstrate their
engagement with physical activity and its effects in their lives. Using poetry, ABR
continues in the dissemination in order to resume the decolonial aims of the project.
Result and Discussion: The research team completed a thematic analysis on the field
notes which illustrated the coresearchers’ active and often long engagement with
physical activity for the purposes of joy, socializing, healing, contemplation and
overcoming obstacles.
Conclusion: The many insightful stories of the coresearchers portray their complex
and continuous engagement with physical activity that on occasions converge, and at
other times diverge from normative perspectives of the Swedish youth politics and
sport club structure.
230
PAPER 9:
Migrant women's stories of placemaking

Feride Kumbasar, Research Student, Media, Culture and Languages, University of
Roehampton, London | kumbasaf@roehampton.ac.uk, feridebaycan@hotmail.com
My research examines the economic, social and political contributions of Turkish and
Kurdish (T/K) refugee women in the London borough of Hackney, through an analysis
of their subjective experiences and the changing social and geo-political terrain of the
borough since 1980. I use participatory methods such as go-along interviews and
photo-elicitation to study T/K women’s everyday life practices in relation to: What
personal resources did these women bring from Turkey? What did the geographic
space of Hackney offer them? How were their subjectivities shaped through the
combination of culture, space and place? How did these women shape the
geographical space they went on to inhabit?
I walk/ride with my research participants individually and map their daily route in the
past, from home to work, to shops and to the places of importance in their daily lives’
routine. Go-along/walk-along is an innovative method of collecting data about the
role of place in ‘everyday life’.
This method enables women to remember and articulate their engagement with the
environment during the process of resettlement and inbuilding T/K diaspora by
placing their stories and events in their spatial context. It gives me better insight into
how women comprehend and engage with their physical environment and the role of
Hackney and its buildings, parks, and streets in shaping women’s ‘everyday life’
experience. I use the method to elicit women’s in-place experiences and emotions
related to their work, social and recreational places and how they would like to
capture and share their personal connection and their sense of belonging to each of
those places. The method allows me to access to women’s stories of exclusion,
home-building, and resistance in a spatial context and also to untangle how T/K
women created localized spaces where they reproduced their economic, ethnic and
political identities.
231
The everyday choreography of movement:
PAPER 10:
Dance Theory to understand Place Making
and Orientation Among Syrian Refugees in Berlin

Francesca Pegorer, PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology
University of British Columbia, Vancouver | f.pegorer@alumni.ubc.ca
I am doing fieldwork in Berlin among Syrian refugees. I look at how they make place
and make-home in the city, while dealing with othering processes - including
xenophobic violence - and the ambiguities of European 'multiculturalism' and
'integration'.
I integrate anthropology's conventional ethnography with body-centered

methodologies to deconstruct Eurocentric understandings of migration, forced
displacement and belonging. Such understandings tend to overlook affect, emotions
and the body as sources of knowledge, reflection and intentionality. In this
perspective, I use contemporary dance theory to frame everyday movement as a
‘philosophy of the body’ where affect is essential. Contemporary dance rejects the
idea of an average body, and strives to consider bodies not as abstract aesthetics, but
as specific nodes of movement and as concrete physical entities. What’s more, it
takes into account the action-reaction essence of movement: we never move alone
or in a vacuum, but always in response and resonance with other people’s (other
bodies’) moving. Some of the methodologies I use are built around walking. For non
privileged actors, everyday walking is a complex choreography that seeks to
minimize exposition to danger. The current COVID emergency reveals to privileged
urban actors how daily patterns and affects are deeply rooted in a social pact where
we trust the other person’s body to be ‘safe’ enough for proximity.
While dance-based methodologies, as a form of enactment, risk to fall within a

(neo)colonial tradition of reducing entire life-worlds to a static and flat representation,
contemporary dance theory does problematize the relationships between performer
and audience; individual and collective; script (rules) and improvisation, and especially
between the singularity of the final representation and the process behind it.
232
Challenging cultural and racialised otherisation
PAPER 11: via arts-based methods in social work research

Enni Mikkonen, Dr Soc Sci, Postdoctoral Researcher, Faculty of Art & Design
University of Lapland | enni.mikkonen@ulapland.fi
The majority of social workers in the Global North represents white population while
their clients of refugee and asylum seeker background are mostly people of ethnic
minorities. As the principles of antiracism, anti-discrimination and anti-oppression
guide social work paradigm (Dominelli 2010), it leads to the assumption of social work
practice being automatically critical to racialised boundaries. This assumption results
in maintaining silence and invisibility around white dominance in a professional setting
(Young 2011). In developing professional practices with refugee and asylum seeker
clients, social workers are often encouraged to embrace culturally sensitive working
methods (Jönsson 2013). However, those approaches are criticised to be simplifying
as they highlight the meaning of culture and tend to ignore intersecting and multiple
power structures and diverse social identities. These shortcomings can result in
deepening cultural and racialised otherisation of refugee and asulym seeker
communities in social work encounters.
This paper widens the professional scope from cultural sensitivity to critically
examine and deconstruct intersecting – such as racialised and feminised – power
structures via arts-based methods in social work research. Empirically, the study
builds on the participatory theatre project, ‘My Stage’, with women of immigrant
backgrounds in Northern Finland (2016–2018) (Mikkonen et al. 2020) and the
SEEYouth: Social Innovation through Participatory Art and Design with Youth at the
Margins – project (2020–2021). Through ethnographic and participatory research
methods, the study brings forth interdisciplinary approaches on how arts-based
methods in social work can bring forth creative avenues for professional self-
reflexivity and deconstruct racial and cultural otherisation and its impacts on dividing
people and societies.
233
WORKSHOP 31.
MIGRATION, GLOBALIZATION AND EDUCATION
Tuuli Kurki, Postdoctoral Researcher, CEREN, Swedish School of Social Science,

University of Helsinki | tuuli.kurki@helsinki.fi
Today, education is massively affected by migration and globalization. In this

workshop, we discuss the linkages between migration, globalization and education
and investigate their effects in the lives of migrants and their offspring. Different
educational settings, including higher education, integration training, language
training and in-service teacher training are discussed in the papers presented at the
workshop. In addition to examining access to and experiences of migrants from
education systems in different countries, the emergence of therapeutic initiatives in
education, including trauma-healing and psycho-emotional practices, are discussed
with examples from both the Global North and South.

234
Immigration, language(s), and community in Iceland:
PAPER 1:
The case of formal language courses
and multilingual grassroots initiatives

Lara Hoffmann, PhD candidate, Department of Social Science,
University of Aku-reyri, Iceland | laraw@unak.is
Iceland is often characterized as relatively homogenous, and the preservation of

linguistic con-tinuity remains a key aspect of Iceland’s cultural policies and national
identity. Immigration to Iceland has increased significantly in recent years and
language aspects of migration have be-come part of public debates in recent years.
Prior studies have indicated that many immigrants in Iceland many immigrants view
the difficulties they face when trying to become a part of the speaking community,
e.g. using Icelandic in their everyday lives, as “the largest hindrance to integration and
acceptance” (Skaptadóttir & Innes 2017, p. 25). In a recent largescale sur-vey (N=2,139)
among immigrants in Iceland, we found two surprising results: Immigrants in Iceland
are significantly dissatisfied with language courses, and the number of language
courses attended has no relevant effect on language proficiency.
This contribution firstly pro-vides an overview of Icelandic proficiency and attitudes

towards formal language education among immigrants in Iceland, based on a
binomial regression analysis. Then, this contribution discusses a number of
multilingual grassroot initiatives in Iceland and their role in society. By juxtaposing and
connecting these two distinct linguistic environments, we aim to reflect on various
aspect of the language attitudes and language acquisition among immigrants in
Iceland and show the complex relation of immigration, language, and community
building in Iceland today.
References
Skaptadóttir, U. D., & Innes, P. (2017). Immigrant Experiences of Learning Icelandic and Connecting with
the Speaking Community. Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 7(1), 20– 27. doi: 10.1515/njmr-2017-
0001
235
HackYourFuture: An investigation
PAPER 2: of transnational capital in the Danish national field
Teresa Imaya Bengtsson, Advanced Migration Studies,

Copenhagen University | xjg171@alumni.ku.dk
Owen Savage, Advanced Migration Studies,
Copenhagen University | pnh222@alumni.ku.dk
This paper analyzes the Copenhagen-based migrant coding school HackYourFuture

to investigate an alternative approach to integrating non- western migrants into the
Danish labor market. Using a Bourdieusian analysis in combination with the theoretical
concepts of gatekeeping and transnationalism, we will argue that HackYourFuture’s
approach to Danish labor market integration emphasizes transnational forms of
cultural capital, which are used to negotiate and access the Danish labor market. This
offers an alternative way to integrate without reproducing national categories of
Danishness.
236
Strategies Used by Sojourner Students:
PAPER 3: A Narrative Gaze

Min Kumar Tamang, Academic Director, Sudesha School | firstsource14@gmail.com
This proposed paper tries to explore the strategies of student migration who wants to
leave the country for their higher education abroad. More importantly, this research
will capture the social network of abroad going students. Similarly, it explains the
networking connections between their origin and destination countries of students
during the process of study abroad. Similarly, this paper argues that students are
significant migrants as they can bring and contribute the skills and knowledge to
develop their nation. I will adopt the narrative inquiry as the mythological approach to
pursue this research. We will employ the narrative inquiry approach through the in-
depth interviews with the participants through the field observation, storytelling, and
participants and so on in order to collect the information. We will use the interpretive
paradigm and the different philosophical consideration in order to understand how
the knowledge is produced for this research paper.
This research will also present the various reasons to leave the country such as to get
the quality education, for the prosperous life, stereotypical ideology, to provide the
financial support to their parents, to utilize their scholarship, to be self-dependent etc.
Similarly, this research paper brings the student migration issue which is becoming
the big problem to our country. In addition, this research will describe the challenges
and frustration of being students in the developing countries like Nepal. Thus, this
study is able to aware and provides the significant knowledge to that student who
wants to pursue their higher education in abroad.
Key words; student migration, abroad study, challenge, stereotypical etc.
237
Experiences and perceptions of First-Generation
PAPER 4: University students of Migrant Families in Finland

Golaleh Makrooni, PhD researcher, Tampere University | golaleh.makrooni@tuni.fi
Educational studies in today's world, especially on students with a migration

background, are essential. The cultural diversity of students at higher education
around the world is increasing; it is important that these students, with their diverse
experiences, are given a voice and space in the host society during their studies.
However, there is little research on the experiences of successful first-generation
university students of migrant families and their experiences and perceptions at
higher education.
The aim of this study is to give a voice to first generation university students of
migrant families in Finland and to discover their experiences and perceptions at
university. It also investigates how these students shape their educational journey at
higher education successfully. The study describes and finds factors that
demonstrate the abilities and skills of this target group, which on the one hand stand
for smooth social and academic integration and make them successful at their study,
but on the other hand identify the factors that pose a major challenge and make
integration difficult at Finnish universities.
In this study, the grounded theory method was used. For this qualitative study, 15
semi-structured open interviews were conducted to investigate the perceptions and
experiences of FGMFS regarding their education in Finland. The data were collected
in individual semi structured interviews. Through data analysis, three important
categories identified: Academic climate, performance and wellbeing. The connecting
element between all these categories is sense of belonging.
The results of this study can help universities in their policies and support systems as
part of their national development program to better support and promote this group
of students in their educational pathway.
238
Qualitative Research Approaches
PAPER 5: PCR's Works in Trauma Healing

Mulumeoderhwa M. Samuel, Coordinator,
PCR Foundation | pcrfound@gmail.com
The war was caused many chaos ad created the Ocean of needs, the victims was
mostly women and Children:
• The war in the country has forced many children to refuge. Some have been
involved in force army and militias troops
• The unlucky died, were injured or disabled. With women and our sister was
raped in front of their families, and some of them have Children father less
because of war
• The children have lost their childhood. They have been made perpetrator and
victims.
• Several mothers and sisters from villages where militias troops occupant,
they are living shameful life because of what happened to them.
The situation caused the issues activities of PCR foundation

• 4 PILLARS OF PCR
- Peace Educational ( Training, Trauma healing, Sociotherapy and Mediation)
- Basic Health
- Dinah
- Scholarship
Trauma Healing activities

• Training:
- Information on knowledge of trauma
- Groups of Sociotherapy
• Reconciliation:
- One by one healing process
- Mediation on healing trauma
- Follow-up programs
• Empowering:
- Communities on Leadership capacity
- Overcoming the Ocean of Needs
Some challenges
• Needs after trauma healing process.
• Cultures and Believes
• Religious rules • Reaching the maximum
Crisis Center for Trauma Healing
239
Colonial imaginaries and psy-expertise
PAPER 6: on migrant and refugee mental health in education

Tuuli Kurki, Postdoctoral Researcher, CEREN, Swedish School of Social Science,
University of Helsinki | tuuli.kurki@helsinki.fi
Education has become rather unproblematically a site for mental health management
with policies and educational implementation strategies that identify and support
students’ mental health. When it comes to migrant and refugee students, school-
based therapeutic and psychologically-oriented support is increasing both in the
Global North and South. Not surprisingly, teachers are said to be on the front-line in
identifying mental health issues and recommending treatment pathways for migrant
and refugee students.
Through an investigation of training provided for in-service teachers on migrant and

refugee students’ mental health, the paper critically examines the emergence of psy-
expertise in education in Finland. It asks 1) in what ways educational discourses are
underpinned by “colonial imaginaries” that shape the subjectivities of migrant and
refugee students and their mental health; 2) how colonial imaginaries, that are
profoundly racialised, are maintained in education; and 3) how silence on racism can
actually further racialize and pathologize the very students, education intends to
support.
The analysis shows that mental health support enacted in educational settings –
regardless of its good intentions – can actually maintain colonial imaginaries held
about people of colour and as such be problematic from the perspective of migrant
and refugee students’ mental health. The findings challenge also the silence around
racism and mental health since regardless of migrant and refugee students
experiencing racism and Islamophobia in school, the support provided for them
focuses on individual- and group-based pedagogical solutions, such as emotional
pedagogy and developing skills and competencies, such as resilience and self-
esteem.
240
DISPLACEMENT AND PLACEMAKING
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
IN ARCHITECTURE, URBAN AND
SOCIAL DESIGN STUDIOS
Morgan Ip, Oslo School of Architecture and Design | morgan.alexander.ip@aho.no

Tiina-Riitta Lappi, Migration Institute of Finland | tiina-riitta.lappi@migrationinstitute.fi
The aim of this workshop is to share pedagogical frameworks that can inform and
influence design studios (for students of architecture, urban design, social design,
landscape architecture, planning, user design, systems design, and so on).
Furthermore, the goal is to engender a greater sense of inclusion and social
sustainability in the interdisciplinary fields that look at the cities within which we live.
We invite researchers, educators and practitioners to share their case studies of

architecture, urbanism, and social design studios which are sited in neighbourhoods
or areas with high populations of minority groups such as immigrants or forcibly
displaced persons. In an effort to understand comparatively, international cases
beyond the Nordic countries are also welcome.
How do educators propose and run studios that engage the vulnerable and often
ignored voices of minority groups? How do students make a proper analysis of
spaces and places which consider these voices? What design interventions emerge,
and do they successfully address the issues faced by disadvantaged and overlooked
populations? If not, what can be learned and shared to improve the education of
design? Further, how can this move beyond research and education and into planning
and design practice?
This workshop is based on an EU-India Platform project entitled DWELL

(Displacement, Placemaking, and Wellbeing in the City) that investigates how forcibly
displaced people become part of cities in ways that sustainably contribute to
economic development, cultural advancement and wellbeing. The partners in this
collaboration are an interdisciplinary mix of architects, designers and social science
researchers from the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, the Migration Institute
of Finland, Ambedkar University Delhi’s School of Design, Brighton University’s School
of Architecture and Design, and Sussex University’s Institute of Development Studies.
241
PAPER 1:
What does ‘place’ mean in displacement contexts?

Håvard Breivik, Architect, PhD Research Fellow and Teacher,
Institute of Urbanism and Landscape,
The Oslo School of Architecture and Design | havard.breivik@aho.no
With examples from emergency operations and resettlement situations, I will discuss
how a built environment perspective on ‘place’ can be applied to displacement
contexts. ‘Urban displacement’ is considered a humanitarian and development
concern rather than a spatial, urban and contingency planning matter dealt with by
experts in the field. Because of this there are limitations to knowledge transfers
between the two fields, despite urban displacement being increasingly featured as a
topic, also in academia. Built environment experts with an interest in solving
displacement challenges, often struggle finding entry points for providing meaningful
contributions. In parallel, or perhaps because of this, humanitarian, development, and
migration management systems are not set up to absorb this knowledge. Place-
based approaches is a term that is starting to appear in policy documents of
intergovernmental actors involved in crisis response, such as the World Bank and the
United Nations. Thus, moving away from a common approach of mainly focusing on
the urgent needs of displaced populations and those, more recently, of their host
communities. While urban settings are inherently spatial, what does place-based
mean from a built environment perspective?
242
PAPER 2:
Placemaking through co-design processes

Divya Chopra, School of Design,
Ambedkar University, Delhi (AUD), India | divyachopra@aud.ac.in
As growing instances of migration resonate across the globe, urban centres are
undergoing multiple transformations resulting in visible disparities across social,
physical and environmental realms. Within this context, a significant percentage of
the Indian population is being forced to navigate between the rural and urban as it
interfaces with the multiplicity of emerging work/live practices creating
corresponding challenges of enormous consequences. Set within these multifarious
processes, project DWELL (Displacement, Placemaking and Wellbeing in the City)
engages with urban spaces of displacement and placemaking processes. As part of
this project, Social Design studio (at AUD) focused on exploring placemaking through
co-design processes while investigating issues, faced by migrant communities,
affecting settlement patterns, economic vulnerabilities, resource access, etc.
This paper proposes to deliberate upon the complex socio-spatial dialectic

embedded within the production of public spaces using the pedagogical framework
adopted by the social design studio. The studio facilitated study of urban spaces of
displacement and how communities organise themselves, as students tried to
explore issues related to access to basic services, commons, parity and cohesiveness
within the neighbourhood.
While highlighting the positive dimensions that help make these spaces vital asset of
everyday experiences as well as inner contestations within any such settlement, the
paper will discuss the process of co-design and co-management of these community
spaces with significant emphasis on community engagement methods. Using
proposed design strategies and interventions, it will discuss the possibility of
contextually responsive, community-oriented, critical spatial practices offering
valuable contribution towards inclusive spaces and new forms of civic engagement.
243
Layers of temporality and placemaking in peri-urban
PAPER 3:
landscapes: A reading of the mutual interaction
between asylum seekers and the local community

Marianne Skjulhaug, Architect, Associate Professor,
Oslo School of Architecture and Design,
Institute of Urbanism and Landscape | marianne.skjulhaug@aho.no
Temporary peri-urban living is the situation for many asylum seekers arriving in
Norway (Simonsen & Skjulhaug 2019). Asylum reception centers are a peri-urban
topic[1] that includes notions of home and neighborhood. This study explores the
temporary sense of place and belonging in peri-urban landscapes in the case of
Hobøl state asylum reception center, located in the Norwegian municipality of Indre
Østfold, a part of the Oslo territory. The key objective is to investigate, on the ground,
how asylum seekers engage temporarily in the local community. The concept of local
community entails equally social and physical aspects related to the home. The
article elucidates how everyday life around a peri-urban located asylum reception
center unfolds through interviews and field-observations. The article suggests that
the mutual interaction between asylum seekers and the peri-urban local community
is intertwined, complex, and part of a profound and vulnerable process of making
place (Massey 2005).
244
Urban Design Directions for Repair and Resilience
PAPER 4: to address Post Trauma Urbanism

Huma Parvez, School of Planning and Architecture,
New Delhi | ar.hparvez@gmail.com, thesis2020.jamia@gmail.com
Urbanism as a way of life, supports heterogeneity of population as one important

character; however, it also involves distant social relations and glaring differences
that affect almost everyone across the globe. According to Pew, India stands out
among the world’s most populous countries for having high government restrictions
and very high social hostilities on religion (2017). As religious violence is undergoing
revival; ‘People under Threat 2020’ India’s ranking has risen to 54 from 70 (in 2016) out
of 108 countries, with Muslims as one of the communities at risk (Minority Rights
Group, 2020). The issue of religious violence, socio-economic differences rooted in
conflicts, and cultural stratifications has led to formation of ghettos as well as
ghettoization of existing enclaves, making them further vulnerable to discriminatory
identification.
Considering the conditions of rising communal vulnerability, the intent of this

discussion is to deliberate on new urban possibilities to strengthen cross community
coherence and stability. Therefore, based on trajectories of marginalisation and
patterns of segregation (Susewind, 2017), Delhi manifests complex spatial and
identity-based dynamics; wherein, the characteristics of separation and segregation
such as peculiar morphological setting and structure, high density and poor
infrastructure are illustrated through the case of ghettoization of Jamia Nagar.
The urban design spatial framework demonstrates an inclusive, resilient and

sustainable model for urban transformation of such vulnerable urban areas. It further
explores the relevance of cohesive local-contextual as well as internal-external
characteristics through both curative and preventive design strategies. The outcome
aims to reflect on the value of how the people living in a social and physical
segregation in the city become part of the metropolis in ways that contribute to a
holistic development; and encouragement of plurality among people in order to step
out of trauma towards repair and resilience.
245
Cross-Disciplinary Exchange:
PAPER 5: Migration, Place-making and Design Studios

Anandini Dar, Dr, Assistant Professor, School of Education Studies,
Ambedkar University Delhi | anandini@aud.ac.in, anandinidar@gmail.com
How do architects and social scientists across global contexts understand and
engage with concepts of migration and place-making? How do these engagements
inform pedagogical approaches to design studios and their outcomes? And, finally,
what can we learn about differing approaches to place-making of migrant and
displaced groups from cross-disciplinary exchange?
This talk aims to address some of these questions by drawing on reflections from
researchers, teachers, and students, who are part of the on-going cross-disciplinary
and cross-country project on “Displacement, Placemaking, and Wellbeing in the City,”
funded by the EU-India Platform, with project partners from Norway, Finland, UK, and
India. Insights from the project inception workshop meetings, as well as reflections on
exchanges during and after the design studios conducted in Norway, India, and
Brighton, will be discussed and analysed to provide meanings about what cross-
disciplinary and cross-country exchanges can offer for new pathways for research on,
teaching about, and design interventions for migratory and displaced groups.
246
DEPORTATIONS and Refugees
AND RESISTANCE
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
IN THE NORDIC CONTEXT
Annika Lindberg, University of Bern, Switzerland | annika.lindberg@soz.unibe.ch

Päivi Pirkkalainen, University of Jyväskylä, Finland | paivi.pirkkalainen@jyu.fi
Similar to other Western countries, the Nordic states have turned to more restrictive
immigration and asylum policies in recent years. Detention and deportation of foreigners are
central tools in these political projects. On the other hand, detention and deportation are issues
that are actively resisted by detainees, deportees, refugees, migrants and citizens of deporting
countries. Deportation is a ‘technology of citizenship’ (Walters 2002, 282) and constitutive of
state- and nationhood (Khosravi 2019). Deportation and deportability serve a crucial role in
maintaining social hierarchies that are racialised, classed and gendered in nature. Deportation
can thus be a lens through which we can understand broader structures of inequality and social
exclusion, but also learn about how they can be challenged.
This workshop approaches deportation and resistance towards it through the lenses of
colonial/racial histories and current structural inequalities in the Nordic context. The workshop
aims to analyse how historically informed colonial/ racial structures and current racial
categorisations shape the deportation policies, practices and ways to resist deportations.
People have different opportunities and resources to organise resistance to deportations
depending not only on their legal status but also on socio-economic and social status. We
therefore aim to explore the role that people threatened by deportation, civil society and
scholars play in these endeavours.
We welcome both theoretical and empirical papers that critically assess deportation policies,
practices and forms of resistance from the viewpoints of colonial/racial histories and/ or
current structural inequalities. Contributions may speak to, but must not be limited to, the
following themes: The historical and political role of expulsions in state- and nation-building
projects in the Nordic context; Critical enquiries into the political and economic investments in
deportation on a local and global scale; Empirical accounts of deportation processes, focusing
on infrastructures, agents of enforcement and/or lived experiences of deportable persons;
Epistemic and methodological reflections on how deportation studies can better incorporate
critical decolonial epistemologies (Grosfoguel et al. 2015)
We welcome papers from a variety of disciplines applying different methods, such as

comparative, participatory and arts-based methods. We particularly welcome contributions of
activists of migrant and refugee background. Workshop organizers tentatively plan editing a
special issue in a selected journal based on selected workshop papers.

247
The non-passport as a means of il/legitimate mobility:
PAPER 1:
State violence, border regime and West African
mobility strategies in Germany

Aino Korvensyrjä, Sociology, PhD student,
University of Helsinki | aino.korvensyrja@helsinki.fi
Deportation, in its contemporary form of legal and physical removal of individuals

from the space of a nation-state (De Genova and Peutz 2010), requires that the state
of supposed origin or previous residence readmit the deportee – pushbacks and
other irregular yet common forms of return aside. A deportation order is often issued
without the concrete possibility of physically removing the person. This practice
contributes to the so-called deportation gap (Gibney 2008), in Germany closely linked
to the institution of Duldung (temporary administrative suspension of deportation).
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with rejected West African asylum seekers with
the Duldung status, this paper examines how they navigate the severe mobility
restrictions by the German and the EU border regime. Duldung means life under
acute deportability, structured by diverse forms of state violence (Gilmore 2007) or
legal violence (Menjívar and Abrego 2012). Yet not having a passport or hiding it
protects (temporarily) from actual removal and serves as a (temporary) means to stay
in Germany.
The paper examines the non-passport (Oulios 2013), as I call this extremely precarious
mobility strategy, as a relational or boundary object, co-constituted by the border
regime and by the West Africans’ strivings and tactics to access the il/legitimate
means of mobility (Mongia 2018; Torpey 2000). Focusing on the knowledge of
persons using the non-passport the paper asks what the practices of policing it – by
immigration authorities, police and in deportation hearings – reveal about the
passport as a “technology that nationalises bodies along racial lines” (Mongia 2018)
and about the appropriation of mobility in the EU border regime in a manner
reminiscent of colonial border regimes (Rigo 2007; Torpey 2000).
248
Three steps to deportability:
PAPER 2: Creating deportability in asylum process

Erna Bodström, The Centre for Research on Ethnic Relations and Nationalism (CEREN)
University of Helsinki, | erna.bodstrom@helsinki.fi
The current paper examines how deportability is created through the asylum process by
the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri). Even though deportations affect various non-
citizens, in Finland the public concern on deportations have largely focused on people
arrived as asylum seekers especially after year 2015. Indeed, the asylum process is a key
way of producing deportability.
Humanitarian migration controls, such as the asylum process, do not only facilitate entry
and protection but also maintain the framework under which entry or stay may be
denied, as argued by Mezzadra and Neilson (2013). Asylum process in particular
represents a form of policing at distance (Guild & Bigo 2003) wherein the border controls
are not enforced at the physical border of the state by border officials, but within the
space of the nation by administrators.
Asylum process deals largely with assessment of credibility. This can be divided into
three categories: internal, external and social credibility (Wikström & Johansson 2013).
Internal credibility refers to the internal plausibility of the applicant and their narration,
external credibility to how that corresponds with the external factors such as country
information of documentary evidence, and social credibility to how all that relates to the
societal position of the applicant (ibid.). The current paper analyses the way Migri
assesses the three categories of cedibility in negative asylum decision made in years
2016-17. Thus the data represent the time period in which the deportability created by
the asylum decisions started to awake concern in Finland.
I argue that the three categories of asylum assessment can be conceptualised as a

process of three steps, that must all be fulfilled successfully in order to be granted
asylum. Consequently misstep on any of them leads to deportability.
249
Policing “dangerous” populations through immigration law?
PAPER 3: Removals of foreign offenders in Finland
Jukka Könönen, Postdoctoral researcher,

The Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives (EuroStorie),
University of Helsinki | jukka.kononen@helsinki.fi
The current paper examines how deportability is created through the asylum process
by the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri). Even though deportations affect various
non-citizens, in Finland the public concern on deportations have largely focused on
people arrived as asylum seekers especially after year 2015. Indeed, the asylum
process is a key way of producing deportability.
Humanitarian migration controls, such as the asylum process, do not only facilitate
entry and protection but also maintain the framework under which entry or stay may
be denied, as argued by Mezzadra and Neilson (2013). Asylum process in particular
represents a form of policing at distance (Guild & Bigo 2003) wherein the border
controls are not enforced at the physical border of the state by border officials, but
within the space of the nation by administrators.
Asylum process deals largely with assessment of credibility. This can be divided into
three categories: internal, external and social credibility (Wikström & Johansson 2013).
Internal credibility refers to the internal plausibility of the applicant and their narration,
external credibility to how that corresponds with the external factors such as country
information of documentary evidence, and social credibility to how all that relates to
the societal position of the applicant (ibid.). The current paper analyses the way Migri
assesses the three categories of cedibility in negative asylum decision made in years
2016-17. Thus the data represent the time period in which the deportability created by
the asylum decisions started to awake concern in Finland.
I argue that the three categories of asylum assessment can be conceptualised as a

process of three steps, that must all be fulfilled successfully in order to be granted
asylum. Consequently misstep on any of them leads to deportability.
250
PAPER 4:
"Withnessing" deportability and slow violence
Päivi Pirkkalainen, Postdoctoral researcher,

University of Jyväskylä | paivi.m.pirkkalainen@jyu.fi
Karina Horsti, Senior lecturer, University of Jyväskylä | karina.horsti@jyu.fi
In 2015, Finland, like other European countries, received an unprecedented number of

asylum seekers. A year later, in the aftermath of what we prefer to call the “refugee
reception crisis”, the deportation of those who had received negative asylum
decisions began. According to a recent study, the Finnish Immigration Service
significantly tightened its policies after 2015 (Saarikkomäki et. al 2018). Increasingly
strict asylum criteria have resulted in deportations at a level never seen before.
Furthermore, protests against deportations have increased and become publicly
more salient.
In this article we theorize deportation as a form of slow violence (Nixon 2011) that also
hurts people nearby the main target. While the forced removal of a person can be
seen as one single act that might entail physical violence, deportability is a slow
process. It takes time and the agency dissolves: the violence “happens” rather than “is
done”, and therefore deportability does not look like violence. By analyzing thematic
interviews with people who have taken a stance against deportation and mediated
material of their acts of solidarity we seek to understand how citizens who are nearby
- “withness” deportability - begin to see and feel the invisible, slow violence done to
others and decide to act upon that. The article concludes that making visible the
violence that otherwise remains unrecognizable as violence is crucial in the present
day anti-deportation activism.
251
PAPER 5:
The troubling work-life at Swedish detention centers
Aina Backman, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Social Anthropology,

Norwegian University of Science and Technology | aina.backman@ntnu.no
With reference to fieldwork at detention centers in Sweden my presentation will

describe and reflect on some underlying principles of detention and preparation for
deportation. By exploring the conditionings of the practical undertakings at the
centers I discuss some peculiarities of the centers as place of work. I sketch out how
concerns about security, technology and bureaucracy constitute some of the
everyday work-life concerns that direct focus away from the distressing context of
deportation. In this way, the activities of the state institution are linked to
anthropological questions of security, technology, bureaucracy and work. By outlining
some relational dynamics between detention center staff, the organizational
requirements from the Migration Board and the local work-life conditions at the
centers, I also show how deportations are arranged for by an elaborated benevolence
that enables their execution and encumbers resistance. The aim is to explore these
tendencies in the field in order to raise questions about the deportation industry and
the everyday work-life dynamics that enable the return of migrants. While the mission
to make unwanted migrants return is only partially completed, the existence of
detention centers successfully corresponds to political demands for a regulated
immigration. Hence, we should look closer at the realization of detention centers in
the context of transnational migration by focusing on the principles that drives and
sustains them.
252
FORCED MIGRATIONMigrants and Refugees
AND NATIONAL MEMORY
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
POLITICS IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES
Johanna Leinonen, University of Oulu | johanna.leinonen@oulu.fi

Outi Kähäri, University of Oulu
Miika Tervonen, Migration Institute of Finland
Elina Turjanmaa, University of Oulu
The goal of this open workshop is to take the first steps towards understanding how
histories of forced migrations have shaped the Nordic countries in the 20th century.
Conventional narratives of the Nordic societies and their pasts have systematically
omitted histories of refugees, deportations, and other forms of forced migration.
While a majority of population displacements have taken place in the context of a
war, all Nordic states have also engaged in deportations of “undesirable” individuals
and groups. Hence, this workshop focuses not only on wartime forced migrations but
also on other, more “mundane” involuntary movements. It explores gaps and silences
in histories of forced migration and how memory politics influence what is memorized
(or forgotten) over time in regard to these movements.
We argue that the marginalization of histories of forced migrations – histories of

refugees, displaced people, and deportees – in the narratives of the Nordic past has
obscured a constitutive element in the formation and imagining of the Nordic
societies from 19th century to the present. In particular, this workshop seeks to
explore understudied histories of forced migration “from below”. We contend that it is
crucial to start the process of mapping out how voices of different groups of forced
migrants in the Nordic countries can be brought to a historical record through
collecting oral histories and uncovering less-known archival sources. We welcome
papers that fall within and cut across these themes.
253
Crossings of borders in times of crisis:
PAPER 1: Finland as a country for transit migration in 1938-1944
Annette Forsén, University of Helsinki | annette.forsen@helsinki.fi
Merikoivisto: A forgotten settlement conflict

PAPER 2:
between Karelian forced migrants and the
Finland-Swedish minority at the end of the 1940s

Mats Wickström, Åbo Akademi University | mats.wickstrom@abo.fi
Matias Kaihovirta, University of Helsinki | matias.kaihovirta@helsinki.fi
After World War II, Finland surrendered about 10% of its territory to the Soviet Union.
Over 420,000 persons were evacuated, or about 12% of Finland’s total population,
mostly Finnish-speaking Karelians. The resettlement of the forced migrants aimed at
providing the displaced families with new holdings. The Swedish-speaking areas of
Finland were, however, not obliged to share the burden of land redistribution to the
forced migrants in equal proportion to the Finnish-speaking areas. The Finland-
Swedish minority, or at least its political representatives, feared a shift in the
demography of the majority-Swedish municipalities which, according Finland-
Swedish minority nationalist doctrine, formed the territorial backbone of the so-called
Swedish nationality in Finland. The lesser land settlement burden of the Swedish-
speaking areas was a contested political issue in post-war Finland, as noted in Finnish
historiography. The most controversial case of conflicting interests between the
forced migrants and the Finland-Swedish minority, the plan to resettle the Karelians
from Koivisto (a municipality in the conceded area by the Gulf of Finland in Southern
Karelia) in the primarily Swedish-speaking municipality of Pernå in eastern Uusimaa
by creating a new municipality there, has, however, received scant attention. The
proposed new Finnish-speaking municipality was called Merikovisto (Koivisto-by-the-
sea). The plan was bitterly disputed both in Finland and in Sweden, where it e.g. was
condemned as aggressive Finnish ethno-nationalism. Merikoivisto was never
founded, but the case reveals a highly topical conflict in the history of forced
migration in the Nordic countries, which has largely been omitted in ‘national’
historiography as well as in historical narratives focused on the Swedish-speaking
population in Finland.
254
PAPER 3:
Silences: The Refugees Who Did Not Come
Kristina Stenman, Doctoral Programme in Law,

University of Helsinki | kristina.stenman@helsinki.fi
In my paper, I will examine situations during the 20th century in the Nordic countries
where the individual governments of Denmark, Finland, Norway or Sweden either
chose to act or withdraw concerning persons in need of international protection. The
question at hand is why the individual countries responded differently. My
perspective is that of comparative legal/political history. My research material is
literature, press material and legislation.
The legal framework for the international protection of refugees evolved from 1920 to
1969. The principle of non-refoulement evolved towards a peremptory norm of
international law. Beyond actual removal of persons in need of international
protection, there is a grey zone in the law and practices of States, concerning eg. visa
policies and resettlement. Here States allow themselves and other States political
leeway to act or not where humanitarian action is called for.
The Nordic countries moved towards closer cooperation in the 20th century, ia. by
forming the common visa-free area in 1954. However, there are differences in their
humanitarian and foreign policies, which have translated into varied positions – action
or silence – in individual situations involving international protection. Five pairs of
examples highlight these differences:
1. Emigres from the Russian Empire, in the aftermath of the Revolution,

1920-1922- Finland and Sweden
2. Jewish refugees from Germany, 1930-1939 – common Nordic silence?
3. Refugees from the Hungarian revolution, 1956-1957 – Sweden and Norway
4. Refugees fleeing the military coup in Chile, 1973 – Sweden and Denmark
5. Refugees from the wars in Yugoslavia, and ceding of nationality from Yugoslavia to
Bosnia-Herzegovina 1991-1993 – Norway and Finland
I argue that the responses have been driven more by internal policy considerations
rather than a Nordic consensus on the interpretation of international obligations
towards refugees.
255
PAPER 4:
Postmemories of Ingrian Pasts
Outi Kähäri, Senior researcher, Migration Institute of Finland | outi.kahari@oulu.fi
In this paper, I examine intergenerational memories as well as gaps and silences of

family separation by focusing on 2nd and 3rd generation persons whose families’
pasts include forced migration, persecution, and deportations. I study to what extent
memories of family separation, experiences persecution and forced migration have
been transmitted across generations, what becomes hidden over time, and how
these traumatic experiences may reflect on family structures, quality of relationships,
and emotional wellbeing of the 2nd and 3rd generation. Theoretically, I draw
inspiration from memory studies, specifically the concept of postmemory. I
conceptualize postmemory as a narrated family memory, recreated by the 2nd and
3rd generation in the intersection of collective and autobiographical memories. I
analyze transmissions of family memories in the context of Finnish national memory
politics affected also by a totalitarian state as well as other powerful actors and
ideologies. The qualitative data consist of biographical interviews among adult
persons living in Finland whose Ingrian family members experienced forced
migrations after the Russian Revolution, in the Stalin era, and World War II.
256
FORCED MIGRATION, FAMILY SEPARATION AND
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
EVERYDAY INSECURITY
Jaana Palander, Migration Institute of Finland | jaana.palander@migrationinstitute.fi

Abdirashid Ismail, Migration Institute of Finland | abdirashid.ismail@migrationinstitute.fi
Forced migration creates vulnerability and insecurity among people on the move, as
well as among immobile people such as family members in other countries.
Insecurities and vulnerabilities can also push people to migrate. The main aim of this
workshop is to explore different types of insecurities and vulnerabilities related to
forced migrants and their families in home countries, transit countries and refugee
camps. The workshop also aims to investigate resources, such as social networks and
institutional support, and tactics to cope with the challenges.
The relevant topics to this workshop include, but are not limited to, the following
broad questions: What are the insecurities that forced migrants and their families face
in the destination countries and transit countries? What are the insecurities related to
family separation and family reunification process? What kind of strategies and
resources there are to cope with insecurities and vulnerabilities?
We welcome theoretical, conceptual and empirical presentations from different

disciplinary and methodological backgrounds. We especially encourage to present
research with multi- or interdisciplinary approach to the theme.

257
Social Integration Issues of
PAPER 1: Syrian Refugee Single Mothers

Ayşe Perihan Kırkıç, Marmara University | aysepk@gmail.com
Fatmanur Delioğlu, Yıldız Technical University | fatmanurdelioglu7@gmail.com
Opening its borders to Syrian refugees in 2011, Turkey has been hosting the highest
number of Syrian refugees. Turkey signed the 1951 Geneva Convention and the 1967
Additional Protocol on the status of refugees. Yet, these two apply a geographical
limitation, only accepting those people escaping from conflicts in Europe as refugees
in Turkey. In Syrians' case, they are not considered refugees, and the government
applied a new form of protection for them. Therefore, Syrian refugees are treated
under the Temporary Protection Regulation. This status enables them to access their
fundamental rights, such as health and education (Şimşek, 2018). However, the lack of
adequate and versatile integration policies makes it difficult for Syrians to live in
humanitarian conditions. Some integration policies have been developed, but many
crucial factors are not considered when creating these policies. Gender is one of the
most critical factors that are neglected. Thus, women, and other groups who do not fit
the criteria of acceptable identity in society, cannot benefit from the policies that have
been developed.
One of the most disadvantaged groups affected by the inadequacy of these policies
is Syrian refugee single mothers. Therefore, this study will focus on Syrian refugee
single mothers' lives. This study will include eight Syrian refugee single mothers'
narratives, and the social integration process will be analyzed through their narratives.
Syrian refugee single mothers face different types of insecurities and vulnerabilities in
their daily lives. Mainly lack of social networks and social supports affect their
integration process negatively. Failure to produce social integration policies that take
gender into account affects Syrian refugee single mothers and harms social peace by
increasing racism in society. Therefore, it is essential to produce different types and
levels of social integration policies for various groups.
258
Implications of a Colonial Past and a Stateless Present:
PAPER 2: Education as a Key for Socialization

Nubin Ciziri, Department of Education, Uppsala University. | nubin.ciziri@edu.uu.se
The colonization and nation-state buildings after the First World War resulted in the
establishment of today’s borders in the Middle East. Consequently, the British and the
French were awarded, respectively, with the British Mandate of Mesopotamia and the
French Mandate of Syria. Following the decolonization period where the French
Mandate retreated from Syria in 1946, and as a result of post-mandate Arab
nationalism, a census in the north-eastern Hassaka governorate caused 20 percent of
Kurds being detained from their citizenship overnight. As a group who have lacked
the right to education in Syria due to their statelessness, this study highlights the
meeting of statelessness to education in a Western country through sociological
lenses. In that regard, this study looks into Kurdish families from Syria in Sweden to
analyze their approach and experiences to education for their children.
Methodologically, family interviews are conducted with the aim to understand their
statelessness in both countries in relation to their experiences with the right to have
an education in Sweden as opposed to lacking this right in Syria.
In line with the current state of the study, it can be claimed that education plays a key
role for parents in terms of their children’s socialization in Swedish society.
Furthermore, the preliminary findings show that the right to mother tongue education
in Sweden is used as a strategy for families to utilize their social resources in order to
connect with and reclaim their Kurdish identity. Both of these empirical results
highlight education’s place to overcome insecurities that forced migrant families face.
259
Refuge in Jesus Christ:
PAPER 3:
Sense of Security and Family Ties in the
Experiences of Converted Asylum Migrants in Finland

Iiris Nikanne, Alumni, Applicant for PhD studies,
University of Helsinki | iiris.nikanne@hotmail.com
This presentation focuses on the special vulnerabilities and insecurities faced by

those asylum migrants who have converted from Islam to Christianity, in the context
of post 2015 Finland.
The presentation is based on my master’s thesis which studies the experiences of the
aforementioned group. The methods include data from semi-structured interviews
with ten self-proclaimed converts and three pastors working with people of Muslim
backgrounds, analyzed by using qualitative content analysis.
The participants had left their home countries due to security threats, and for many
this was also significant in their conversion narratives. Most interviewees associated
the societal problems in their home countries to Islam, and on the other hand the
peace and security in Europe to Christianity, and for many this was an important
factor for losing faith in Islam. Conversion has in fact been theorised as a way to
distance oneself from a traumatic past.
During the time of the interviews, the majority was still waiting for the asylum
decision, which was a source of insecurity in their lives. Some participants also
reported harassment in the reception centers due to their apostasy. However, they
expressed finding a sense of security in their faith. On the other hand, religion had
also caused insecurity when struggling between different beliefs.
In addition to the general concerns over the security of their families, some also told
their family members had suffered honor violence following their conversion. Those
whose families knew about the conversion said ties had been cut with them. In other
words, the reunification was uncertain not only due to the migration process but also
their own communities. On the other hand, some felt they had found a new family in
the congregation, which helped them cope with the lost ties.
.
260
PAPER 4:
In Limbo: The Urban Refugees of Bangkok

Mary Rose Geraldine A Sarausad, Ph.D., (Demography), Asian Institute of Technology,
Bangkok, Thailand | maryrose.sarausad@gmail.com, maryrose@ait.ac.th
The plight of urban refugees in many cities in Thailand is still understudied primarily
because they are often beyond the reach of governmental and non-governmental
organizations entrusted to support them. Moreover, because of the nature of the
movement and the corresponding harsh penalties on unauthorized migration, urban
refugees have found ways of keeping their status and insecurity. In Thailand,
overstaying a visa or entering the country without proper documentation is
considered illegal. However, entering the country with a tourist visa is still considered
less difficult compared to other places; thus, it is used as a transit point for those
facing persecution or fleeing from conflicts in the hope of being resettled in another
country. News reports showed that there are about 8,000 urban refugees in Bangkok
from Pakistan, Vietnam and other parts of Africa.
This paper aims to highlight the various challenges faced by urban refugees in
Bangkok and the type of social support they receive in the light of the changing
migration policies in the country. Interviews with some urban refugees and NGOs
revealed that they face uncertain or insecure conditions. Although they share the
social and economic spaces with the locals and migrants, they have restricted
mobility and options. These are primarily caused by their 'illegal' status under the
Thai law which has led to the constant fear of being arrested. Although the
government has established ways to protect refugees and asylum seekers, the type
of assistance provided for urban refugees in the cities of Bangkok is rather vague.
261
Restrictive migration regimes, family separations
PAPER 5: & everyday securities of families left behind

Abdirashid A. Ismail,
Migration Institute of Finland | abdirashid.ismail@migrationinstitute.fi
This paper aims to examine the impact of family separations generated by the
tightened immigration policies on the experiences and organization of everyday
security among family members left behind in the sending country. It particularly
studies the effects of post-2015 migration policies in Europe on transnational families
in Somalia, as a country of origin. These policies, generate two types of prolonged
family separations and implications on the everyday security of the family members
left behind.
First, due to extremely tough external border management, forced migrants are not
only deprived of legal mobility rights but illegal but safer routes to Europe are also
blocked. Consequently, irregular migration through expensive and dangerous routes
becomes the only feasible way to Europe. Many of these migrants fall in the hands of
ruthless human trafficking networks who kidnap and exploit them, primarily for
ransom. Many of these immigrants are separated from their families in a long-time
period. Here I am interested in how these prolonged separations and the everyday
experiences of these migrants impact the ‘everyday security’ of their family members
left behind in Somalia.
Second, the restrictive internal management policies certainly have serious

implications on the everyday life of immigrants, particularly the rejected asylum
seekers, in the destination countries. One of the consequences of these policies is
that these immigrants are separated from their families in a substantial period. Again,
my interest here is how the long-time separations and the everyday experiences
affect the everyday security of their families in Somalia.
The chapter will primarily draw from 33 semi-structured in-depth individual interviews
conducted with family members of rejected asylum seekers in Europe in
Somalia/Somaliland between March 2019 and February 2020.
262
Navigating Affective (In)securities:
PAPER 6: Forced Migration and Transnational Family Relationships

Zeinab Karimi, Universtity of Helsinki | zeinab.karimi@helsinki.fi
Johanna Leinonen, University of Oulu | johanna.leinonen@oulu.fi
This presentation examines the affective everyday (in)securities of families who are
waiting outside of Finland to be reunited with their family members in Finland. The
data concerns families of forced migrants who have gained residency in Finland on
humanitarian grounds (compassionate grounds) or international protection (subsidiary
protection, asylum). Scholarship on transnational families suggests that maintaining
family ties across borders has emotional dimensions, which are manifested through
gendered care and different normative expectations. In addition, family separation is
intensively emotional. In this presentation, we use the concept of affect to investigate
everyday insecurity. We understand affect broadly as bodies’ capabilities to affect or
be affected by other bodies and connect this process to transnational flows of
emotion.
The data consist of interviews with 53 forced migrants from Iraq, Afghanistan,
Somalia, and Ethiopia who are currently living in Finland, but who have family
members waiting for family reunification outside of the EU. Our analysis is primarily
based on interviews with the “sponsoring” family members, but we also include six
interviewees describing their experiences with the waiting period after the
reunification process had been completed. Our results show that everyday
insecurities are related to affects in three ways: through judgement, affective
inequalities, and transnational flows of affect.
263
Recognition of insecurities faced by family members
PAPER 7: abroad in the law and practice of family reunification

Jaana Palander, M.Sc.A, Doctoral candidate, Tampere University,
Researcher, Migration Institute of Finland | jaana.palander@migrationinstitute.fi
Sociological research shows that insecurities faced by family members abroad affect
the wellbeing of immigrants in host countries, also in Finland. This is also one of the
reasons why immigrants, especially those receiving international protection, pursue
family reunification in a safer host country. In this presentation, I will show what kind
of human rights obligations there are towards family members abroad. For this I will
analyse the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case law on family reunification.
The method is thus legal-empirical since the aim is to show how legal principles are
realized in court cases, but at the same time legal-sociological since analysing court
cases show how real life insecurities and disquietudes are recognized in legal
reasoning.
This presentation shows that the ECtHR has not clearly established an obligation to
protect family members abroad, but there are principles developed in the case law
that could be interpreted as an obligation to take insecurities faced by family
members abroad into account. However, this is not properly realized in national case
law on family reunification. Analysis of the case law of Administrative Court (of
Helsinki) reveal that human security aspects of family members are largely missing,
although according to sociological research they do exist in everyday life of the
applicants. Therefore, I argue in this chapter that real life insecurities of family
members abroad are not properly recognised neither in human rights law, nor in
national administrative law. However, there are possibilities to do so in legal
reasoning.
264
THE DEBATED Migrants and
SECURITIES Refugees
OF MIGRATION:
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
THEORY AND PRACTICE
Mehrnoosh Farzamfar, University of Helsinki,

EuroStorie | mehrnoosh.farzamfar@helsinki.fi
Laura Sumari, University of Helsinki, EuroStorie | laura.sumari@helsinki.fi
Securitization has become one of the buzzwords in recent discussions on migration

management. Europe has been following the lead of Australia and the United States in its
response to migration by creating restrictive policies and public discourses, which construct
the migrant and migration as threats to security, local culture, and/or the economy. Bordering
practices and securitizing policies cause vulnerability, insecurity and even death to migrants.
They create conditions that make it difficult or impossible for migrants to cope with and to
build new lives for themselves and their families. Additionally, these policies and practices
contradict with basic human rights in various ways and question the EU’s commitment to its
fundamental principles and values.
The EU’s and member state’s ‘security measures’ towards migration resonate with Europe’s
‘heroic’ self-portrayal, which often overlooks historical and contemporary oppression, colonial
histories, and institutional racism. Nonetheless, critical and feminist outlooks to security call
for questioning the traditional and state-centred security paradigm, which is still largely
present in migration studies. These critical approaches examine the security of people in their
daily lives and the impacts of state-led security practices on lived realities. Simultaneously,
especially feminist approaches aim at bringing various inequalities, power dynamics as well
as colonial and neo-liberal practices under scrutiny.
This workshop invites various perspectives to challenge the nexus between migration and
security in theory and practice. We welcome papers on different methodological solutions,
theoretical frameworks, as well as research results with a focus on migration and security.
Particularly contributions related to the interplay between various ‘securities’ of migration are
much appreciated.
Our session welcomes topics ranging from, but not limited to:
- The use and development of the concept of security in migration research

- Implications of security-based approaches in migration management
- Critical analysis of migration policies in relation to security
- EU’s Foreign and Security Policy in practice regarding migration
- Critical and feminist approaches towards researching migration and security

265
The spread of Australia’s
PAPER 1: asylum seeker rhetoric and policy to Europe

Stephen Phillips, Institute for Human Rights,
Åbo Akademi University, Finland | stephen.phillips@abo.fi
Many elements of the shift in legal and political responses to the management of
those who have sought asylum in Europe since 2015 are comparable to changes in
Australia since 2001, when asylum seeker boat arrivals reached what were at the time
peak levels. In both the European and Australian contexts the language of human
rights and refugee law has largely been overtaken by references to ‘illegals’ and
‘queue jumpers’, by cries of ‘stop the boats’ and ‘close the borders’, and by the pursuit
of the policy priority of breaking the people smugglers’ business model in the context
of preserving the safety of life at sea. Very little government rhetoric is centred on the
right to seek asylum or on safety and protection, and legal and political responses
have become grounded in securitisation, deterrence, and exclusion, not in principles
of human rights and international law.
This paper examines the increasingly securitised approaches of Europe and Australia
in their differing legal and political contexts, looking in particular at how the common
deterrence framework prioritises border security and sidelines human rights and
international law. Europe has not yet implemented the full range of measures used by
the Australians, with some European actors still clinging to ideas of fairness, dignity,
and human rights. The Australian model stands out for its use of interception,
interdiction, offshore detention, and offshore processing, and has been in place for
the majority of the past twenty years despite repeated criticism on human rights
grounds. The trend towards further securitisation of asylum in Europe is clear, and
state practices are becoming increasingly restrictive. Significantly, unauthorised boat
arrivals to Australia have dropped dramatically under its strong deterrence model,
and there are many voices within Europe that advocate similar measures in the hope
of achieving similar outcomes.
266
Vulnerability and security constraints
PAPER 2: in the Global Compact of Migration (2018)

Haïfa Hubert, ESSEC Business School, Paris | haifa.hubert@essec.edu
Migration policies have occupied a prominent place in theoretical debates within the
main schools of thought. Nevertheless, the central element emphasized by each
approach is that migration is responsible either for stability, and to a certain extent, for
the development of populations, or on the contrary, for the precariousness of
societies and the instability of national, regional, global orders.
Faced with the amplitude of the migration crisis, international relations are addressing
the issue. They are trying to provide protections, at least to develop an appropriate
legal framework to deal with humanitarian crises and manage political, security and
economic consequences.
Although most international documents expressly recognize the obligation to protect

and ensure the rights of migrants and to meet the needs of the most vulnerable, they
do not define the migrant as defenseless or as a migrant in a situation of weakness.
The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, the subject of our
analysis, addresses the issue of vulnerability and provides some elements of
response.
In this context, our problematic is to understand how a document such as the Global
Compact for migration (Marrakech 2018) will provide answers to the question of
migration, taking into account both legitimate security imperatives, such as a state of
emergency, terrorism, organized crime… But also the need to protect migrants from
circumstances that increase their vulnerability?
267
The Interplay between Humanitarian and
PAPER 3:
Security Concerns in the Development
of Common European Asylum System

Hanna Tuominen, PhD, University lecturer, World Politics,
University of Helsinki | hanna.t.tuominen@helsinki.fi
Three frames for balancing human rights in immigration

PAPER 4: context: Analyzing security frame and securitization

Jaana Palander, M.Sc.A, Doctoral candidate, Tampere University,
Researcher, Migration Institute of Finland | jaana.palander@migrationinstitute.fi
Within critical security studies, there seems to be a wide agreement of securitization

affecting negatively on human rights. In this presentation, I will dwell into this
assumption more in detail in the context of immigration and from the point of view of
European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) standards. Based on the court’s case law, I
have constructed three frames that explain the context of rights limitation, but also
the structure of balancing the human rights interests with national interests. Those
three frames are mobility, control and security. Frames are analytical concepts that
help to understand differences in approach to balancing in different contexts. Certain
frame can affect the weight given to different factors in the balancing exercise, as
well as the margin of appreciation afforded to the state.
Further analysis of the case law within the security frame shows that the requirement
of fair balance test applies altogether. It is thus not true that human rights would not
apply in the case of an emergency or security threat. However, the limitation of rights
is easier, as the security studies literature suggests. Restricting the rights is easier
because the ECtHR affords a wide margin of appreciation to the state in defining the
necessity of the impugned measure. In addition, in a scale of balance, a security
interest is a heavy one by definition. However, the claim of securitization implies an
idea that the security concern would not be reasonable, and therefore the restrictive
measure would be illegitimate. In this presentation, I will show how there are means
in the ECtHR’s fair balance test to detect securitization and to prevent illegitimate
rights restrictions.
268
Ethnic discrimination and criminalisation of migration: An
PAPER 5: ambiguous legal reform of immigration policing in Finland

Markus Himanen, University of Helsinki | markus.himanen@helsinki.fi
The paper analyses a political process concerning a judicial reform of internal

immigration policing in Finland. Securitizing public policies intended to prevent
irregular immigration increase the use of security practices such as identity checks.
On the one hand, Finland and other European countries conceive immigration
policing as a central means in solving perceived “migration crisis”; on the other hand,
judicial non-discrimination norms are seen as a guarantee that policing is conducted
impartially.
The data used in this paper consists of semi-structured interviews (N=31) with the
representatives of the police and other security authorities. Also, official documents
and media coverage about the legal reform process of regulating control of foreign
nationals by the Finnish government from 2013 to 2015 are used. The research had
been made as a part of the research project “Stopped – Spaces, Meanings and
Practices of Ethnic Profiling” that examines the prevalence, the forms and practices of
ethnic profiling by the police in Finland.
The analysis reveals the difficulties that occur when international anti-discrimination
norms are applied in the context of a national immigration policing reform.
Securitizing and criminalising policies affect the conduct and rationalisations of the
security authorities through formal and informal channels. These developments give
rise to a concern that surveillance practices of police forces will increase ethnic
profiling and that the principle of non-discrimination is threatened.
269
Securing the future:
PAPER 6: Resilient cities in the context of migration
Randi Gressgård, Centre for Women's and Gender Research (SKOK),

University of Bergen | randi.gressgard@uib.no
Anders Rubing, Centre for Women's and Gender Research (SKOK),
University of Bergen | anders.rubing@uib.no
In what has been declared in political as well as academic debate to be an

increasingly complex and insecure world, there is a growing demand for long-term
resilience strategies that reach beyond the current state of affairs. The underlying
assumption is that the stakes of security politics are shifting as new configurations of
the future and life itself are emerging. To arrive at a more specific understanding of
how resilience-informed security assemblages shape global challenges, the paper
sets out to examine the semantic production of urban security problematics in the
context of migration. Empirically, it draws attention to transnational networks where
security challenges are shaped and circulated (in terms of policy mobility), focusing
especially on possible reconfigurations of gendered and racialized challenges
opened up by future-making practices in the present.
270
PAPER 7:
Malthusian Fears in Current Migration Debates
Soumaya Majdoub, PhD Researcher Interface Demography Research Group,

Vrije Universiteit | soumaya.majdoub@vub.be
The use of Malthusian arguments in migration policy has culminated in the past
decade. Malthus’s fundamentally pessimistic arguments about population and
resources have an enduring presence in contemporary politics. Recurrent images of
refugee streams and overloaded boats in the Mediterranean Sea reinforce the fear of
overpopulation and scarce resources, leading to negative feelings towards migration.
This fear is translated by certain political parties into a Malthusian argument: migration
must be constrained in the interest of maintaining the lifestyles of the affluent.
In this paper, we argue that analyzing the components of Malthusian thinking is

important for understanding the current debate on migration in which restrictive
policies are defended.
We identify and elucidate the key tenets of Malthusian thinking from a genealogical-
theoretical perspective using Agamben’s biopower as a thesis concerning the very
structure of power and how it binds itself to sovereign power. We also provide a
discursive history of Malthusianism as a paradigm for the recurrent problematization
of migration.
Based on our analyses, we challenge that current perspectives on migration are

profoundly biased by a Malthusian world view and that the roots of the negative
feelings towards migration can be traced back to the discussions between Malthus,
Godwin, de Condorcet and others about the perfectibility of mankind, progress and
the improvement of society.
Furthermore, we state that Malthusian discourse seems to operate bio-politically

regarding population growth, providing on top of these negative feelings also an
enduring argument for the prevention of social and economic change and obscuring
the real roots of environmental deterioration, poverty and inequality.
271
Racial Sedentarism and the
PAPER 8: EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa
Lawrence Huang, University of Oxford | larry.huang18@gmail.com
This paper is concerned with the racialised tropes used to justify the securitisation of
European migration and development policies concerning Africa. Theoretically, it
proposes the concept of racial sedentarism to describe migration and development
policies that securitise black Africans both as threats to white ways of life and as
threats to themselves. Racial sedentarism is built on logics from the critical race
tradition, namely the racing of space and time, white epistemic ignorance, securitising
blackness, and racial capitalism and racial neoliberalism. Empirically, this paper
applies these logics to the European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), a
high-profile €4.7 billion funding instrument which aims to achieve socio-economic
transformation in Africa. A discursive analysis of the EUTF archive, in particular the
Better Migration Management programme in the Horn of Africa, reveals the nuanced
role of racial sedentarism, through which black people are depicted as irrational
security threats in need of protection from themselves. This programme, which unlike
other EUTF actions does not explicitly aim to limit migration, masks its sedentarism
behind development and capacity-building initiatives aimed to ensure protection
from trafficking and respect for human rights. By identifying the tropes within the
EUTF archive of black people as irrational and threatening, this paper argues that a
theoretical framework developed from the black radical tradition allows for a sharper
critique of the dominant security rhetoric tying together migration and development
policies. Finally, this paper theorises local and regional efforts in Africa to resist the
securitisation of migration by maintaining mobility as anti-hegemonic and anti-racist
resistance to racial sedentarism.
272
Echoes of the European Union’s approach
PAPER 9: to human mobility in the South
Anitta Kynsilehto, Tampere University | anitta.kynsilehto@tuni.fi
People who are not endowed with necessary travel documents, labelled as
undocumented migrants, are marginalised subjects in the mainstream security
studies and migration policy-making. Indeed, by being labelled as threats, their very
access to subjectivity is problematic in these narratives. At the same time, activists
and researchers from more privileged social locations, who take critical stances to
these political discourses and bodies of scholarship, are engaged in struggles
accompanying people on the move. This includes looking for novel ways to challenge
the on-going practices and construct new narratives that seek to counter the
prevailing threat-oriented approach.
This paper draws on ethnographic research conducted with undocumented migrants

and solidarity advocates in Morocco spanning over a period of several years. It asks
whether, and if yes, how, the diverse and at times conflicting narratives developed
and put forth by people on the move are successful in challenging more publicly
consolidated narratives?
273
DISAPPEARING MIGRANTS,and Refugees
DISTURBED
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
INTIMACIES AND EMERGING POLITICS
Laura Huttunen, Tampere University | laura.huttunen@tuni.fi

Ville Laakkonen, Tampere University | ville.laakkonen@tuni.fi
Both colonial histories and the current tightening border regimes affect patterns of
global mobility; they also push some migrants to positions that are extremely
vulnerable. As an indication of such vulnerability, a growing number of people
disappear while on the move. Different disappearances are recognized differently by
public policies, state bureaucracies and media coverage. However, a number of
studies show that the disappearance of a family member causes a particular kind of
suffering for those left behind, affecting a whole range of intimate relations and, at the
same time, disappearances are also often problematic for the smooth running of state
bureaucracies. Disappearances also follow from particularly patterned migratory
routes: from South to North, from former colonies to the core of the global economic
system. Those who disappear from their families and communities turn up as
unidentified dead bodies in locations such as the Mediterranean shores and the US–
Mexico border areas in alarming numbers.
The situation has given rise to a whole range of actors addressing migrant deaths and
disappearances, with hugely varying aims and resources, and different ways of
conceptualizing the issue. While some have adopted ‘forced disappearance’ as the
key concept, others approach the issue with the notion of ‘missing person’. Who are
those who disappear? What is the significance of the histories of colonialism and
racialized hierarchies for understanding the phenomenon? How do the families and
communities of the disappeared live with the uncertainty of the fate of their loved
one? What kinds of policies and politics are emerging in response to this situation?
We invite papers that address particular empirical cases of migrant disappearances,
or papers that develop a theoretical understanding of disappearance as a particular
kind of social, political and cultural vulnerability.

274
Disappearing en route:
PAPER 1: Excruciating liminalities and emergent politics
Laura Huttunen, Tampere University | laura.huttunen@tuni.fi
A growing number of (undocumented) migrants go missing from their families and

their communities while travelling. While there is a substantial body of academic
research on disappearances in conflict situations and under military governments,
much less attention has been paid to the specificities of disappearances in mobile
context. This paper discusses exactly these specificities by focusing on both the
experiences of families in sending countries and the emergent policies of addressing
the question. Families often live with prolonged uncertainty of the fate of their missing
loved ones, marked by practical problems, emotional stress, cultural and ritual
liminality as well as political insecurity. At the same time, the situation has given rise
to a whole range of actors and policies addressing the disappearances on the one
hand, and the treatment of the unidentified dead on the other. This paper maps the
variety of actors, ranging from small NGOs and family organizations to powerful
international organizations such as the Red Cross and the MSF, and to governments
and EU bodies. How do these various actors frame and understand the problem?
What are their policies and agendas? How do the policies meet the families’
expectations?
275
Digital objects of mourning:
PAPER 2: Managing uncertainty of migrant deaths
Karina Horsti, Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy,

University of Jyväskylä | karina.horsti@jyu.fi
Uncertainty about death can have severe consequences for the family and friends of
migrants who are made to disappear at Europe’s borders. The uncertainty can haunt
relatives for years and prevent them from living on – in legal, social and psychological
terms. Many of the families of those who have perished deal with ambiguous loss– a
condition of uncertainty in which a person is simultaneously ‘there’ and ‘not there’.
This paper examines how new media technologies have become crucial for diasporic
Eritrean families in managing the uncertainty of deaths. There are different degrees of
uncertainty – from complete unknowingness of disappearance to a situation where
either the body or the scientific identification of the body are missing. Based on my
ethnographic research on the 3 October 2013 Lampedusa disaster where at least 368
mainly Eritrean refugees drowned I argue that the creation and circulation of digital
objects of mourning - visual assemblages in which the material and digital intertwine
– are instrumental for managing complicated grief within diasporic communities.
I discuss two kinds of digital objects: individual memorial collages created and shared
online in a survivors’ Facebook group and photographs of coffins and graves of
scientifically un-identified bodies that are digitally shared in different ways among
diasporic families. In absence of scientific or formal evidence of death, the ability to
see and share photographs of coffins and graves that have been visibly mourned by
decorating them produce social evidence that can help families to deal with death in
situations of uncertain death. Finally, I underline that digital objects and mediated
practices of mourning are not separate from the material world – on the contrary they
are deeply entangled.
276
Social identification of the disappeared migrants
PAPER 3: in Western Mediterranean
Saila Kivilahti, Tampere University | saila.kivilahti@tuni.fi
The paper discusses the identification practices of the disappeared undocumented

migrants on the route from Western Africa to Spain. In the last six years over 23 000
migrants have been registered dead or disappeared in the Mediterranean and
Northern Africa region. However, the official record covers only the minimum
estimation of the actual amount of the cases, as most of the deaths and
disappearances remain unrecorded (Migration Data Portal 2020).
My preliminary empirical data suggests that the identification methods and objectives
differ in the countries of origin, transit and arrival, as well as within different actors
such as police, forensics, NGO´s and relatives of the disappeared migrants. In the
context of undocumented migration, the search and identification rely substantially
on the connections of the friends and relatives announcing or searching for the
missing persons. The unofficial identification of the persons enhances its importance,
when it is not possible to do the official identification for the lack of time, resources,
financing or for other reasons. With this background, the paper concentrates on the
social production of the identity of the disappeared persons in the situations of limited
possibilities for official identification. The analysis is based on the academic
discussions of personhood in relation to body, and the cultural representations,
categories and practices of personhood (e.g. Busby 1999, Retsikas 2010, Strathern &
Stewart 2011).
277
Shallow Graves: Migrant Death and
PAPER 4: Non-identification in the Greek Borderlands
Ville Laakkonen, Tampere University | ville.laakkonen@tuni.fi
Majority of migrants who die in the Mediterranean region, en route to Europe or within
the European Union borders, remain unidentified. Threat of police violence, detention,
or push backs force people to travel clandestinely and, in the case of drownings,
currents may have the body drift for weeks or months before being discovered.
Migrants often have no reliable identification documents, their postmortem state may
create considerable difficulties for the forensic examination, and DNA samples are
often difficult, if not impossible, to obtain from countries of previous residence or
transit. None of this is a mere accident or a failure in the system. This paper argues
that migrant death, and especially the non-identification of bodies, forms an
important facet of border enforcement and deterrence in the Mediterranean. I analyse
death in migratory context and problems of identification in two European Union
border zones, the island of Lesvos in the Aegean Sea and the Évros river area in
northeastern mainland Greece. Drawing on fieldwork in both locations, as well as
interviews with forensic experts in Greece, I show how death is weaponised as an
integral part of both the Greek and the European Union border regime.
278
Who has the right to know?
PAPER 5: Transnationally missing, family and the state(s)
Anna Matyska, IMMRC, KU Leuven Faculty of Social Sciences,

Tampere University | anna.matyska@tuni.fi
Every year, 20,000 Polish people go missing, short and long-term. Poland’s accession
to the European Union has intensified the transnational dimension of the
phenomenon as an increased number of persons go missing abroad. Some of them
go missing because of accidents or criminal assault, some because they fail to
manage on the foreign labour market or due to family conflicts and now always want
to be found. The families search for them, nevertheless. However, different states
have different legal perceptions and categorizations of the missing which also affect
the transnational search procedures. This paper addresses the tensions emerging
between official state policies and practices of the search for the missing, the
expectation and desires of the families who want to know the whereabouts of their
loved ones and the (often presumed) interest and desire of the missing themselves.
The paper asks what sort of transnational agency is materialized in the situation of the
unknown; how are the agencies of the families and the missing imagined and
materialized across borders and how do they articulate with the policies and
practices of different states, including Poland as the country of origin and Western
states as the countries of transition or destination. The paper is based on the ongoing
ethnographic research of the Polish people who go missing in the transnational
mobile context of the European Union.
279
Forced Disappearances
PAPER 6: and Political Activism in Kakuma, Kenya
Stefan Millar, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology | smillar@eth.mpg.de
In Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya, refugees that engage in their 'home' countries'
politics risk forced disappearance. These forced disappearances are utilised by
various trans/national state actors to silence political opposition, either by the Kenyan
state or on behalf of foreign governments, such as the South Sudanese. The use of
forced disappearances can be traced to the British colonial era in Kenya. The colonial
government developed such tactics as an attempt to control political groups, in
particular the Mau Mau (1952 -1960). Forced disappearances were one of many
military practices used during ‘low intensity operations’ (Kitson, 1971), and formed a
common military method utilised by the British state in other regions, such as the
Northern Ireland (1966 – 1998). Simultaneously, in post-colonial Kenya, such military
tactics were maintained during the Shift Wars (1963 – 1967), and to date continue to
be used by the Kenyan state. Based on twelve months of ethnographic research in
Kakuma and Kalobeyei, this paper examines the effect of disappearances on two
political groups and their actors, the SPLM-IO and a Somali organisation.
The analysis builds upon scholarship that engages with the historic and contemporary
consequences of state 'shadow' organisations (Nugent, 1999; Nordstrom, 2004) and
critically examines the elicit practices and emotions they produce (Aretxaga, 2003). I
discuss how forced disappearances of political actors’ shape understandings of the
state, while simultaneously changing the political actors' social lives and political
communities. These effects also have tangible consequences, forcing political
activists and agitators to operate in spaces not considered political by the camp
authorities, such as churches and Sufi lodges. Within these religious spaces, political
actors reconstruct understandings of the Kenyan state and their 'home' states of
South Sudan and Somalia.
280
YOUNG REFUGEES IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES
WORKSHOP 38.
Berit Berg, Professor, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department

of Social Work and Head of Research at NTNU Social Research | berit.berg@ntnu.no
This workshop will focus on young refugees in the Nordic countries. Keywords for the
workshop are asylum process, resettlement and integration processes, and how
bridging of past, present and future is vital for successful outcomes of these
processes. Unaccompanied minors are often described as both independent and
vulnerable. They have lost parts of their childhood because of war, prosecution and
flight. Many of them are in a risk group because of traumatic experiences - either in
their countries of origin, during flight or in exile. These factors also constitute risk
factors when it comes to potential for integration. At the same time children with a
refugee background are survivors. This duality between vulnerability and survival
constitutes an important area of discussion among academics, but also practitioners
and politicians.

281
Unaccompanied minors: Transition to adulthood
PAPER 1: after resettling in Norwegian municipalities
Berit Aasen, Norwegian Institute of Urban and Regional Research (NIBR),

OsloMet University | berit.aasen@oslomet.no, beritaasen@hotmail.com
Hilde Lidén, Institute for Social Research (ISF), Oslo
Marie Louise Seeberg, Norwegian Social Research (NOVA), OsloMet University
Norwegian municipalities have resettled almost 4000 unaccompanied minors since

2014. During the same time period ca. 8000 unaccompanied children and young
people arrived in Norway seeking asylum. There has been little research on their
transition to adulthood, and they seldom have had the opportunities to tell their
stories. This paper is based on findings from a research project funded by the
Norwegian Directorate for Integration and Diversity (IMDi), on the quality of municipal
services, in particular housings arrangements and access to education, to serve this
community; and how this has affected their transition to adulthood. This paper will in
particular analyse the process, and challenge of, transition from asylum reception
centre to municipal settlement, and the transition from municipal care to adulthood.
The impact of temporality and uncertainty dominate the life course of the young
people, and we find that all transitions and major changes in their lives create periods
of stress and hardship. The main housing arrangements have been all-day and night
staffed housing institutions, which are considered as providing best quality care for
those below 18 years. These housing institutions are now under threats as the finance
system has changed, and fewer unaccompanied minors arrive in Norway.
The methods used in the project included use of a survey to all municipalities that
have resettled unaccompanied minors during the period 2014-2019, interview with
municipal staff in four case municipalities, and interviews with 20-30 young people
that had arrived in Norway as unaccompanied minors. The paper will also present the
findings from the interview with the young people.
282
Family homes as a housing and care solution
PAPER 2: for unaccompanied minor refugees?
Berit Berg, Professor, Department of Social Work, Norwegian University of Science

and Technology, Head of Research at NTNU Social Research | berit.berg@ntnu.no
This presentation is based on findings from two research projects conducted on

behalf of the organization SOS Children’s Villages in Norway. The main aim for both
projects was to evaluate a family home model as a housing and care solution for
unaccompanied minor refugees. Unaccompanied minors are a heterogeneous group,
but often share the common need for close caregivers. The family home model is
about creating a home that meets the unaccompanied minors’ needs for stability,
predictability and a new family that can provide support and care. Each family home
typically consists of foster mother and/or foster father together with 2-5 children
(often siblings). The homes are supported by the child welfare services.
In this model, it has been possible to find a balance between the professional and the
family-oriented levels, and on one hand, the family homes have been a positive
experience for many of the unaccompanied minors. On the other hand, the
evaluations of the model show that there are limitations to the model, and that the
unaccompanied minors might end up in a vulnerable situation if certain preconditions
are not in place. Firstly, support, follow-up and supervision by the child welfare
system outside the family is necessary – both to secure the well-being of the children
and to prevent burned out foster parents. Secondly, a number of criteria should be
set for becoming a foster parent, for example knowledge both of the majority
language/society and the language of the foster children, and having established
social networks in the local community.
283
To be a part of a caring community: Recognition theory
PAPER 3: and love in the lives of unaccompanied children and youth
Iida Kauhanen, University of Oulu | iida.kauhanen@oulu.fi
This paper explores love in the lives of 13 young people who once arrived Finland as
unaccompanied asylum seeking children. The material for this research has been
produced with these young people during years 2018-2019 and consists of narrative
in-depth interviews, ethnographic hanging out and participatory analysis.
Love, in this paper, is discussed mainly from the perspective of recognition theory
conceptualised by Nancy Fraser (2000) and Axel Honneth (1995a, 1995b, 2012) but
explored further with views of Lanas and Zembylas (2015) and Chabot (2008) among
others. Love in recognition theory is recognising everyone as a unique, singular
persons with unique needs and a capability to feel. In an ideal situation, recognition
continues throughout life through the unconditional love of people close to oneself,
but the primary sources of love (parents and other family members) are often absent
from the lives of unaccompanied children and youth. The stories of these 13
participating youth show how societal structures and social norms shaping the lives
of unaccompanied youth create boundaries for loving relationships, sometimes
enabling, sometimes hindering recognition and the best interest of a child.
284
How law assess, address,
PAPER 4:
shape and produce vulnerabilities
for minors who are seen as victims of trafficking
Hilde Lidén, Institute for Social Research (ISF),

Oslo | hilde.liden@samfunnsforskning.no
‘Vulnerability’ of the protection seekers is increasingly becoming a key notion within

the emerging international protection system. For example requests The Global
Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration States to respond to the needs of
migrants in situations of vulnerability and address the respective challenges’ (para. 13).
It acknowledges that situations of vulnerability may arise at various stages of the
migration (i.e. in countries of origin, transit or destination) and it outlines a number of
measures whereby States affirm their moral commitment to respond to the needs of
vulnerable migrants by assisting them and protecting their human rights ‘in
accordance with [their obligations] under international law’. Unaccompanied minors
are seen as one main group of vulnerable protection seekers.
The paper will discuss how the ‘vulnerabilities’ of the unaccompanied minors are
understood and addressed in the law and regulations and by the relevant decision-
makers in their everyday practices, making Norway as case. More specifically the
paper will discuss how the law assess, address, shape and produce vulnerabilities for
minors who are seen as victims of trafficking. The analysis will be based on desk
research, interview with immigrant case workers, the child welfare services, and
analysis cases assessed by the County committee; social issues. The study is part of
the Horizion 2020 research project VULNER.
285
Trying to create meaning when life is on hold:
PAPER 5: How a selection of young unaccompanied minors
face the effect of current migration policies
Mari Bore Øverland, NTNU Social Research | mari.overland@samforsk.no

Berit Berg, Professor, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department
of Social Work and Head of Research at NTNU Social Research | berit.berg@ntnu.no
Kirsten Lauritsen, Senior Researcher, NTNU Social Research
‘This paper raises the question of the consequences of current politics of citizenship
for a group of children that came to Norway as unaccompanied minors. Many of them
received an answer to their permit to stay after reaching the age of 18 and in the eyes
of the law could be considered grownups. Save the Children is one of many
organizations that have expressed serious concern regarding this group of vulnerable
young children. Some of them receive a temporary permit to stay for one year at a
time. They are requested to obtain identity papers from their respective embassies,
which is not only more expensive than most of them can afford, but the embassies
are not always forthcoming in providing such information. They are not allowed to go
to school or receive a work permit until this process is over. In reaction to an
application refusal – or even in anticipation of such a response – a disturbing number
of children have disappeared from the asylum centers where they have lived. Some
are found living on the streets in Paris or Berlin, some are lucky enough to have
friends they can stay with, others are found in prostitution or other forms of human
trafficking.
This paper raises a concern that Europe does not know its responsibilities: We are
expelling a group of young people from equal participation and justice, people in
need, who experience exclusion from participation in education and work. On the one
hand Europe fears terrorism – on the other hand we contribute to young people’s
despair, anger, hate and social marginalization. Although there is no direct link
between these two sides – we ask how the history will judge current asylum practice
towards this particular group of young people.
286
“Well, in next week, he’ll be gone”:
Reflections on momentariness as an objective societal
PAPER 6:
condition, and how it can be an subjectively important
and limiting condition for refugee children in Denmark
Simone Stegeager, mag. arts. in Psychology, Part-time lecturer,

Institut for Pedagogy, Københavns Professionshøjskole | s_stegeager@yahoo.dk
This contribution suggests conceptualizing ‘momentariness’ as an objective societal

condition, with significant subjective importance for refugee and migrant children in
Denmark, linked to possibilities of belonging and care. Through concrete empirical
and situated examples, the contribution reflects on ways political and historical
conflicts and the current political shift towards return policies, make up unequal
structural conditions and significant limitations related to care and inclusion , for
refugee children and their families in their everyday lives in Denmark.
Working methodologically and analytically with children’s perspectives as the

starting point of the exploration of four Syrian refugee children’s conduct of everyday
life,‘momentariness’ emerged as an empirically central phenomenon, which seemed
highly significant for their possibilities of taking part and belonging in the care-
arrangement situated in the sociomaterial practices at the daycare. The phenomenon
herewith points to (restricted) participation and concrete possibilities to influence and
transform the social practices the children take part in.
Conceptually, ‘momentariness’ can be linked to a subject’s ability to expand individual

and joint conduct of lives. This point is made drawing on German-Danish critical
psychological conceptualizations of dialectic relations of societal structures and
individual subjects. It conceives of societal structural conditions as significant, in
sociomaterially different and varied ways, depending on the standpoint of the subject
in and across various action contexts. But how could this perspective be developed
further to help shed more light on the complex (and exclusive) relations between
state, situated care-arrangements and migrant or refugee child?
287
THE "OTHERS" AMONGand"US"
Refugees
:

WORKSHOP 1
IMMIGRANTS, INCLUSION AND THE LAW
Moritz Jesse, University of Leiden, Faculty of Law | m.jesse@law.leidenuniv.nl

Dora Kostakopoulou Warwick University
This workshop proposal invites papers which will explore the mechanisms of
‘othering’ and reveal strategies and philosophies leading to the ‘othering’ of
immigrants. The workshop will seek to expose the tools applied in the
implementation and application of legislation which separate, deliberately or not,
immigrants from the receiving society. In doing to, the workshop will deal with
questions such as who is the ‘other’, who are ‘we’, and what it means that ‘we’ express
‘otherness’ the way ‘we’ do in the context of the current political landscape, narratives
on who belongs in a nation state, and different philosophies on how to achieve
inclusion.
The workshop also seeks an analysis of the economic dimension of othering of

immigrants in the EU, including EU citizens and the hierarchies between groups of
immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees created and maintained by legal rules in
the EU and its Member States. It will also develop a set of ideas and principles on how
to minimize (the negative effects of unintended) ‘othering’ through immigration
policies. The analysis will cover policies to regulate immigration in the most pertinent
areas, such as border controls, economic and family migration, EU Citizenship, and,
naturally, the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.
The workshop seeks to map administrative practices, legislation, as well as its

implementation, leading to ‘othering’ at crucial moments of immigrants’ transition
from ‘newcomer’ to ‘member’ of the receiving society, through the acquisition of
permanent residence permits and/or naturalization. The workshop takes as a starting
point that ‘othering’ very seldom is the result of legislation and policies seeking to
deliberately exclude immigrants. To the contrary, ‘othering’ is very often the side-
effect of measures put in place to help immigrants to ‘integrate’, i.e. to become a
‘member’ of the receiving society.

288
Hierarchies of Rights in the EU:
PAPER 1: Mechanisms of Othering for Different Legal Subjects
Gizem Kolbasi-Muyan, Dr,

Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities | gkolbasi@yahoo.com
The EU law result in the hierarchical relation between people under different legal
categories: EU citizens who have enjoyed their free movement right, static EU
citizens, third country nationals (TCNs) and Turkish citizens. This paper aims to
highlight this hierarchical relationship between these four legal categories in the
context of Denmark and the Netherland. In order to reach this goal, in addition to the
already existing literature, the EU documents, judgments of the Court of Justice of the
European Union (CJEU), family reunification and integration policy and requirements
of the Netherlands and Denmark have been covered. The implementation of the EU
law and its influence on otherization in both countries is important to highlight
considering the judgments of the CJEU since 2014.
The Netherlands and Denmark are interesting countries to discuss the

implementation of EU law considering their immigrant integration perspective. They
both have culturally loaded perspective to the immigrant integration and reflect this
perspective in all policy spheres including family reunification. In both countries there
is a substantial difference in the implementation of family reunification legislations for
their own nationals under the competence of national jurisdiction and EU jurisdiction.
While in the Netherlands TCNs have some rights derived from EU Family
Reunification Directive, this is not the case for the ones in Denmark. Nevertheless, due
to the EU-Turkey association law, Turkish citizens residing in these countries benefit
from more extensive rights than TCNs closer to the EU citizen.
It has been concluded that in both countries family reunification is considered as an

issue related with immigration and immigrant integration which needs to be
controlled. This results in the reverse discrimination against the Dutch and Danish
citizens.
289
PAPER 2:
Legal othering and the UK’s hostile environment policy
Kathrin Hamenstädt Lecturer.

Law Brunel University. London UK | kathrin.hamenstaedt@brunel.ac.uk
Legal othering often constitutes a by-product and not the intended effect of policies
or (legislative) measures governing the entry, stay or termination of migrants’
residence in the ‘host’ state. Nonetheless, legal othering can also constitute the
primary or even sole purpose of measures that are specifically designed to have a
deterrent effect on “unwanted foreigners”. This contribution focuses on the latter type
of measures by analysing the UK’s (very) hostile environment policy. This policy
targets irregular migrants and covers core aspects of private and everyday life, for
instance marriage, housing, bank accounts, access to health care services and even
the driving of motor vehicles.
More specifically the contribution focuses on the outsourcing or privatisation of

migration control, which extends the reach of control measures far beyond the
enforcement capacities of state actors and enhances their effectiveness in terms of
coverage. The hostile environment policy has established and reinforced surveillance
procedures that permeate several aspect of societal life and entrench othering. It
obliges employers to check their prospective employee’s ‘right to work’ and prohibits
banks the opening of accounts for disqualified persons. Previously, (private) landlords
were obliged to assess their prospective tenants’ immigration status, criminalising the
letting of premises to irregular migrants, until 2019, when the ‘right to rent’ scheme
was held to be incompatible with the Human Rights Act.
These measures install mechanism of subordination in private relationships by

obliging one side to check the immigration status of the other side. By turning private
parties, such as banks, employers or landlords into de facto surveillance or
enforcement officers of the state, this policy has divisive effects on communities,
further marginalises the ‘unwanted’ and constitutes a clear manifestation of othering.
290
Vulnerability and refugees’
PAPER 3: integration into the labour market
Sonia Morano-Foadi, Dr, Oxford Brookes University | smorano-foadi@brookes.ac.uk

Clara Della Croce, Dr, Oxford Brookes University
Using the United Kingdom (UK) as a case study, this paper focuses on refugees’
multiple and overlapping forces of exclusion from labour market integration. The
article adopts a human rights perspective, based on the concept of ‘vulnerability’.
When seeking employment, refugees can be vulnerable due to a variety of
circumstances, obstacles and factors. This paper examines, in particular, areas where
refugees face discrimination and exclusion, possible exploitation and lack of respect
for human dignity when attempting to integrate into the labour market. Although
refugees generally show resilience and agency, their ‘vulnerability’, owing to their
immigration status, is often created or exacerbated by ‘others’, by means of law,
policy and practice. Hence, the underpinning question raised by this paper is whether
different forms of exclusion or discriminatory practices affecting refugees’ integration
into the job market are due to their immigration status and embedded vulnerability.
Traditionally, ‘immigration status is perceived as intertwined with, or indissociable
from, well established protected grounds such as nationality and race. This paper
questions the lack of protection on immigration status on its own right and asserts
that immigration status, although often entrenched and therefore indissociable from
protection under the nationality or race grounds, merits protection on its own
authority, without dependence on other protected grounds.
291
"Us" vs. "them": Bringing in politics through
PAPER 4: the backdoor of the European Court of Human Rights
Carola Lingaas, VID Specialized University, Oslo, Norway | carola.lingaas@vid.no
Human rights are under considerable pressure in many parts of the world, and
several European governments have used the current pandemic to restrict human
rights and erode the rule of law. Can the European Court of Human Rights push back
against these developments and uphold a high standard of human rights justice? In
cases concerning migrants, are exclusionary political sentiments brought in through
its backdoor?
This paper works with a hypothesis that the court positions itself with regards to
migrants from beyond Europe. Research indicates that the Court is increasingly
inclined to depart from its settled jurisprudence in order to adapt to attitudinal shifts
in its national audiences, including anti-immigrant, nationalistic and populistic trends.
While the court has traditionally maintained a strong institutional standing, it is
increasingly seeking the approval of the States Parties.
The law limits the Court's jurisdiction. However, the Court often discusses non-binding
policy documents in its judgments. Arguably, the case law of the Court will reflect the
value narrative of political documents by way of reference. Thus, their inherent values
will become part of the legal interpretation of human rights law. This paper will
present and discuss selected judgments that reveal such trends.
292
”Othering through legal displacement": A socio-legal
PAPER 5: analysis of access to social rights for irregular migrants

Ulrika Wernesjö, Linköping University | ulrika.wernesjö@liu.se
Maria Persdotter,
Starting from the assumption that the regulation and administration of social services
constitutes a crucial site of ‘bordering, ordering, and othering’ in welfare states (van
Houtum & van Naerssen, 2002), the paper provides an exploratory analysis of
changes in basic social rights (e.g. access to food and housing) over time in Sweden,
with a special focus on residency status.
We first present a legal cartographic mapping (de Sousa Santos 1987) of the Supreme
Administrative Court’s application of the Social Service Act since its adoption in 1982
until 2018. This mapping of “law in action” reveals how newly arrived residents, asylum
seekers and undocumented persons (the so called ‘others’) are separated from
formal protection and given only limited opportunities to access social rights. In a
second step, this mapping is related to social changes and underlying (or explicit)
views of the ‘others’ in three municipal settings. This is done through a qualitative
analysis of guidelines on the implementation of the Social Service Act between 1982
and 2018. In other words, we analyse the interpretation and enactment of law from
above (i.e. in the courts) as well as from below (i.e. in local guidelines and
administrative practices).
The paper contributes with knowledge about more or less unintended ‘othering-
processes’ through the interpretation of social rights and legal application of the
social rights legislation, in an increasingly diverse society (Vertovec 2007). Social law,
the analysis reveals, has continuously over the last four decades more or less
developed and incorporated techniques to exclude ’the others’ from basic welfare
rights. Once restrictions have been established in law or practice, it has been very
difficult to go back to more progressive regulations.
293
Children or migrants:
PAPER 6: Nation branding and migration control
Marie Louise Seeberg, NOVA-OsloMet | mlsee@oslomet.no

Devyani Prabhat, University of Bristol, Law School
Applying nation branding as a concept to the situation of asylum seeking children and
to children born to migrant parent/s in Norway and in the UK this paper develops a
comparative framework for understanding why child rights appear to be de-
prioritised in the current climate of ‘migration control’. Although Norway presents
itself as child rights oriented and the UK does not do so, genuine efforts to serve
young people are undermined in both countries. Young asylum seekers face hostility
in both countries while citizen children are forcibly expelled through their migrant
connections (usually a foreign parent).
This paper identifies a historically grounded differential approach towards child rights
and children in the two countries which appear to merge into a similar trajectory of
migration control in contemporary times. It explores similar tensions between the
discourses of national migration management on the one hand and children's welfare
and rights on the other in both countries. It finds that universal rights which should be
about the welfare of children become delimited and fragmented through frameworks
which are rooted in ideas of nationalism and foreignness. Despite a more robust
framework for child rights, Norway is on a similar pathway as the UK: a worrying
indictment of how nations fulfil their obligations towards children.
294
The "return turn" in Nordic asylum law:
PAPER 7: Temporal and spatial limitations on the refugee concept
Jessica Schultz, CMI and University of Bergen Faculty of Law | jessica.schultz@uib.no
The increasingly innovative measures taken by states to avoid obligations of refugee

protection can be divided into at least two categories. The first include those that
push the border outwards through safe third country regimes and extraterritorial
processing. The second category of measures reinforce these borders internally
through borders through post-hoc immigration controls. These include broadened
criteria for revocation of residence, extended use of ‘temporary’ protection, and
proactive assessments of whether conditions for the cessation of refugee status exist.
As one advocacy group has observed, the stability once associated with being
recognized as a refugee under the 1951 Refugee Convention or even becoming a
citizen is no longer self-evident. Asylum is now ‘on the clock’ (ECRE 2016). Through
the lens of temporality and legal geography,
I will discuss the nature of, and assumptions behind these restrictive efforts in Europe.
How are categories of time and space constructed by measures that amplify internal
border controls? How are traditional links between attachment and inclusion – from
asylum seeker, to refugee, to citizen, disrupted by these measures? And not least,
how can we understand these from a legal perspective? Do they represent an erosion
of refugee protection or part of an evolution necessary to retain legitimacy of the
international protection regime?
295
Gendered (post)colonial precarity:
PAPER 8: Subaltern women in multi-status Britain
Vidya Ramachandran, University of Oxford | vidya.ramachandran93@gmail.com
In 2012, the UK government announced its intention to introduce a ‘hostile

environment’ for migrants. Its mission was simple: precaritise migrants’ everyday lives,
and encourage their voluntary departure. However, despite its harsh front, this regime
is simply the latest in a series of increasingly severe approaches to immigration
control. In the latter half of the 20th century, residents of Britain’s former colonies,
were stripped of their British subject status, and their formerly unrestricted rights of
entry and stay in the UK. Meanwhile, decades of invasive virginity tests, sexual
examinations and mistreatment in immigration detention highlight that racialised and
illegalised women’s bodies have long been marked out for scrutiny – and brutality –
at the border. Today, migrant women in the UK – many of whom come from Britain’s
former colonies – carry the most disadvantageous immigration statuses, which
bestow few rights and entitlements. Many of the challenges they may face – from
gender-based violence, to destitution and poor health – can be traced to the
constraints of carrying a temporary or insecure immigration status in the hostile
environment.
Through case studies of migrant wives and women asylum seekers, this paper seeks
to explain subaltern women’s precaritisation in the UK as a process of protracted
dispossession. Building on the work of postcolonial and decolonial migration scholars,
I conceptualise Britain as a space of enhanced opportunity produced by European
colonialism, and immigration law and policy as a means of perpetuating a continuing
colonial ethic that deprive subaltern peoples of access to the spoils acquired through
their subjugation. This paper thus contributes a portrait of Britain as a society that
remains deeply marred by colonialism, and paves the way for responses to migration
that consider questions of accountability for historical and continuing injustices.
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MIGRATION, FAMILY AND LIFE COURSE
WORKSHOP 40.
Anna-Leena Riitaoja, University of Helsinki | anna-leena.riitaoja@helsinki.fi

Hanna Kara, Åbo Akademi University | hanna.kara@helsinki.fi
This workshop focuses on migration from the perspectives of family and life course.
Migration bares manifold influence on family and generational relationships and
duties, and may call into question the very idea and concept of what constitutes
‘family’. Indeed the concept of ‘migrant family’ is a highly politicized one, conditioning
the right to a family along the ordering lines of region, wealth and class.
Research on transnational family and care relationships has looked at diverse

solutions for responding to family and care needs when co-presence is not possible.
Migration does not occur outside or irrespective of a person’s life course, but it may
reinforce, stagnate, reverse, disrupt or qualitatively change different life stages, and
decisions on mobility are also influenced by a person’s life course stage or family
situation. Through this dimension, it is possible to consider for example the ways in
which migration interconnects with diverse processes of personal growth and ageing,
changing roles between generations and the gendered patterns of generational
responsibilities. This focus also presents a way to challenge the often-unquestioned
economic emphasis when considering the processes and consequences of migration
and migrant integration.
We welcome both theoretical and empirical presentations that are related but not
limited to the following topics: 1) how are migration processes or migrancy shaped by
family, ageing and different life phases, 2) how do different social, political, moral and
bureaucratic categories and boundaries frame the positionings of individual migrants
and their families within national (welfare) states 3) who has the right to family in the
context of migration and who are expected to show dependency or independency, 4)
what kinds of local, global and transnational processes influence these positionings?

297
Discourses of migration
PAPER 1: and transnational families in social work literature
Anna-Leena Riitaoja, Åbo Akademi University,

Finland | anna-leena.riitaoja@abo.fi, anna-leena.riitaoja@helsinki.fi
The main theme of this presentation is how migration and transnational families are
treated, both in deliberate thematic ways and in taken-for-granted assumptions, in
social work literature. The research questions indicate the depth: what is the role
and/or the place of migration in the literature? With what degree of understanding
does social work literature fathom migration and transnational families’ normative
everyday life situations? How are understandings of migration and transnational
families related to wider discursive socio-political content concerning a) nation state,
gender, family roles and life course, b) history of diversity and migration in Finland,
and, c) welfare services, universalism and equality issues? This stems from on-going
research project.
The social work literature under investigation includes selections of 1) material used in
master-level university education of social work as well as in bachelor’s degree
programs of social services in universities of applied sciences in Finland, 2) theses of
professional licentiate studies focusing on migration in the field of social work in
Finland, and 3) academic and other literature that inspired social workers interviewed
in MigraFam research project regarding migration and migrants. Analysis techniques
include inductive analysis of qualitative content in general and thematic discourse
analysis (including thematic comparative analysis) in particular.
The study is part of Academy of Finland research project Ordering the 'Migrant Family': Power
Asymmetry Work and Citizenization in Restructuring Welfare Professional Bureaucracies” (MigraFam).
298
Migrant families’ metaphorical
PAPER 2: positioning in media discussion 2015-2016
Riikka Era, Researcher, Social Sciences, Tampere University | riikka.era@tuni.fi

Katariina Mäkinen, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Social Sciences,
Tampere University | katariina.makinen@tuni.fi
Eetu Mäkelä, Professor (tenure track) in Human Sciences–Computing Interaction,
University of Helsinki | eetu.makela@helsinki.fi
Maciej Janicki, Postdoctoral researcher, Department of Digital Humanities,
University of Helsinki | maciej.janicki@helsinki.fi
Antti Kanner, Postdoctoral researcher, Department of Digital Humanities,
University of Helsinki | antti.kanner@helsinki.fi
Our study concerns media discussion around migrant families in 2015-2016. At that
time, there was wide discussion in Finland about restricting children’s universal right
to day care. That discussion circulated around ideas of children’s rights, the questions
of whether home or kindergarten serves as the best environment for the children and
their development, and the question of stay at home mothers and their return to the
labor market. 2015 was also a year that saw many asylum seekers come to Finland.
This affected the ways in which migrants were displayed in the media discussions.
Our aim is to analyze the metaphors used in the media discussion about migrant
families at that time. What kind of metaphorical structures are created in the media
when migrant families are discussed? How do the intersections of ethnicity, religion,
gender and residence status affect the used metaphors? What aspects are silenced
through the use of certain metaphors? Through an analysis of metaphors, we seek to
understand the kinds of world views and ideological structures that shape the media
discussion around migrant families.
This study is part of a larger project (FLOPO) investigating, by big data methods, the
flows of media power in journalistic texts spanning two decades (1998–2018). In our
study, we’ll combine computational methods in searching relevant articles and used
metaphors from the data and qualitative methods such as close reading. Our data set
will be collected from four significant Finnish news outlets: the Finnish news agency
STT, the largest national newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, the Finnish public service
broadcaster YLE and the daily tabloid Iltalehti.
www: http://flopo.rahtiapp.fi/
299
Aging, care and the Arab migrant family
PAPER 3: within the Danish welfare state
Abir Mohamad Ismail, PhD student, Department of Anthropology,

Aarhus University, Denmark | ami@cas.au.dk
Multifaceted caregraphies:
PAPER 4:
A life course approach for the study
of care and support in the context of intra-EU migration

This study examines situations where an aging person’s unexpected or gradual health
problems or social problems trigger a need for care and support in the context of
intra-EU migration. The study applies and develops the concept of caregraphy to
grasp, on the one hand, the particular complexity and potential vulnerability
implicated in aging migrants’ care needs, their social ties and the care and social
provisions available for them in this specific institutional context. On the other hand,
transnational caregraphies also come into play when working age EU migrants care
for and take care of their aging family members living in the country of origin. The
study looks at intra-EU caregraphies from this a dual perspective. Building on
interviews of aging EU migrants, as well as working-age EU migrants living at
geographical distance from their aging family members, it advances a life course
approach in understanding the multifaceted ways in which migration may fashion
individuals’ needs, desires and obligations to provide care and support within families.
300
PAPER 5:
Life Transitions and the Imagined Place of "Home"

Mary Rose Geraldine A Sarausad, Ph.D. (Demography), Asian Institute of Technology,
Bangkok, Thailand | maryrose.sarausad@gmail.com, maryrose@ait.ac.th
Migrants move for various reasons, and more often than not, much of the movements
were made possible because of the migrants’ primary intention to move, and the
efforts made subject to the individual’s circumstance or that of the family. Theories of
migration argued that the family, as an institution, also plays a significant role in the
process of migration. Members are expected to have a strong sense of solidarity and
obligations to other members of the family. Results from the survey and interviews of
migrants showed that family connections are maintained, particularly highest among
the young migrants, which can be explained by the emotional burden of leaving the
family and being in an unfamiliar environment. Reciprocal and continued support
between migrants and their families back home are also assured through the regular
financial assistance provided (i.e., remittances).
However, migrants are sometimes victimized particularly those who go through

irregular channels; therefore, susceptible to the varying risks and insecurities
associated with moving. Changes in Thailand’s migration regulations also have a
direct impact on migrants with some migrants finding ways to cope and circumvent
channels in order to achieve their goals in migration. This paper presents the different
life transitions of Filipino migrants as a result of moving to Thailand vis-à-vis their
employment status, regularity and life away from their families back home to
understand their actual experiences and gains in migration. This paper also reveals
that a number of the migrants experienced downward mobility, while at the same
time, they face a corresponding upward mobility—the paradox of mobility, referred to
by Spitzer as ‘transnational transitions’ (2008).
301
Becoming cosmopolitan? A processual perspective of
PAPER 6:
the migration aspirations of Chinese degree students
studying at Finnish universities upon graduation
Yi Yuan, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki | Yi.yuan@helsinki.fi
This article has two primary objectives: (1) to explore the particular motivation(s) of
Chinese degree students’ continuous interest in studying in Finland after the country
has begun to charge tuition fees to foreign students since 2017, and (2) to analyse,
with a processual perspective, Chinese students’ future migration aspirations by using
the concept of home. It examines the changes of these aspirations in time of difficulty,
discrimination encounters at host society, and their meaning-making of home.
Based on qualitative longitudinal interviews at a six-month interval with 30 Chinese

degree students studying at Finnish universities (yliopisto), this research illustrates
that Chinese students may reorient their original post-study migration aspirations on
lived experiences during their studies. It also depicts the multi-geographical
trajectories of such migration aspirations, going beyond the plain and orthodox binary
narration as “just to stay or return”. It concludes that Chinese students also want to
become cosmopolitans by moving onward to a third country or through a series of
countries for self-realization or sometimes they may also feel rootless – a vacuum
where they feel themselves belong to nowhere.
This article not only is useful to help Finnish higher education stakeholders to fine-
tune their marketing efforts to effectively attract fee-paying Chinese students, but
also has practical policy implications for the ongoing Finnish talents retention
programmes to retain Finland-educated graduates in the country. It also
academically paves the way for further studies on Chinese students’ post-study
migration aspirations with a life-course perspective.
302
PAPER 7:
The number and quality of mothers’ interethnic contacts
Reetta Riikonen, Tampere University | reetta.riikonen@tuni.fi

Tuija Seppälä, Tampere University | tuija.seppala@tuni.fi
Clifford Stevenson, Nottingham Trent University
Katja Repo, Tampere University
Eerika Finell, Tampere University | eerika.finell@tuni.fi
As the proportion of foreign population increases in Finland, there are also more
opportunities for interethnic contact. Interethnic contact can have many positive
effects on intergroup relations, such as decreasing levels of prejudice and intergroup
anxiety. However, the different social roles and daily routines of people mean that
they will be exposed to this increased contact in different ways. For this reason, it is
important to study the factors which support or prevent positive contact encounters
in everyday life to understand when and for whom contact will have positive benefits.
In this paper we present preliminary results from our project which aims to examine
quantitatively what kinds of interethnic contact mothers with small children have with
other mothers in their neighbourhoods and which factors support or inhibit these
encounters. We focus on mothers because this phase of life is associated with a
higher risk for decreased number of contacts and, at the same time, an increased
need for contact and social support. For immigrant mothers in particular, social
contacts may be even more important as contact can help them integrate into
society. Our data consist of a survey collected in Child Health Care Centres in Helsinki
which we analysed using multivariate methods. We will discuss how our results
contribute existing contact literature and how they can be used in improving mothers’
opportunities for interethnic contacts in their neighbourhoods.
303
Experiences of child-mediated intergroup contact of
PAPER 8:
young children’s mothers with immigrant background
in multi-ethnic neighborhoods
Paula Paajanen, Tampere University | paula.paajanen@tuni.fi

Tuija Seppälä, Tampere University | tuija.seppala@tuni.fi
Clifford Stevenson, Nottingham Trent University
Eerika Finell, Tampere University | eerika.finell@tuni.fi
A considerable body of research has shown the positive effects of intergroup contact.
Also, the ingroup members’ influence on contact occurrence and results are well-
demonstrated. However, the ingroup relationships in a family and the lived
experience of everyday contacts have rarely been explored qualitatively.
The present study aims to explore how being a mother shapes the intergroup contact
occurrence and experiences of mothers with immigrant background in two
multiethnic neighborhoods of Helsinki. The dataset of the present study consists of
two follow-up interviews of ten mothers with immigrant background living in these
neighborhoods. Using a thematic analysis, we identified four themes that related to
how motherhood shaped interviewees’ intergroup contact experiences: 1) being
conspicuous to the outgroup; 2) the need to feel connectedness in motherhood; 3)
the need for their child to be accepted; and 4) the anticipation of problems. Thus, for
mothers with immigrant background, being a mother affords unique opportunities for
contacts with outgroup members, but can also complicate these contacts. We
highlight the need for local family services to ensure more ‘ideal’ intergroup contact
situations for parents and their children.
304
Overcoming the burden of distance: managing emotions
PAPER 9: of translocal family life by Estonian men working in Finland
Laura Assmuth, University of Eastern Finland | laura.assmuth@uef.fi

Keiu Telve, Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom, Tallinn
The paper asks how Estonian men working in Finland manage their translocal family
lives emotionally. A cross-border commuting/migrating life is a fragile masterpiece of
holding the balance between two countries. It needs careful handling from all
members of translocal families.
The paper is based on analyses of long recorded conversations with Estonian men of
different ages and occupations working in various parts of Finland while their family
members, spouse and children included, live in Estonia. The materials were collected
as part of three consecutive research projects 2012-2019. Most men with whom we
had 1-to-1 conversations were after a while eager to talk about how much they
longed for their family members, how difficult it had been for them to be away from
their close ones, and how they were managing the burden of distance in their family
lives. We have analysed particularly the intersections of age, the commuting rhythm
as well as family life course as factors that impact on the interlocutors’ emotions and
on their practices of ‘doing’ translocal familyhood.
First, we analyse the idea of “being absent from home” (eg Aure 2018), the main
source of difficult feelings - what does it mean for the men to have to miss recurrent
calendar events such as a child’s birthday party, the family’s Christmas holidays, or
Midsummer celebrations among one’s close friends? Secondly, we elaborate on how
men and their family members overcome such difficult emotions and how trust and
mutual support are created and sustained over the borders. We focus on how men
themselves describe their ways of maintaining intimate relations over distance. The
central concept is “togetherness”, denoting physical togetherness in the real life, but
also virtual togetherness by being co-present by proxy.
305
Changing caring relationships of CEE-born children
PAPER 10: in the course of family migration trajectories to Sweden
Charlotte Melander, Department of Social Work,

Gothenburg University | charlotte.melander@socwork.gu.se
Oksana Shmulyar Gréen, Gothenburg University
Ingrid Höjer, Department of Social Work,
Gothenburg university | ingrid.hojer@socwork.gu.se
This paper draws on preliminary results from the ongoing study Transnational
childhoods financed by FORTE 2018-21. In this study, we focus on experiences of
young people from Poland and Romania under 18, who moved to Sweden as a result
of their family’ mobility after the EU enlargement in 2004. The children and youths
have migrated to Sweden to join one or both parents, who initiated the family
migration trajectory by looking for job in Sweden.
The aim of this paper is to analyse how the caring relationships between the young
people and their close and extended family members change in the course of the
family migration trajectory and their own life courses. More specifically, we examine
how young people’s positions as care receivers and care providers transform during
their life course and by living a transnational family life. Theoretically, we
conceptualise their childhoods as being transnational and mobile (Freznota Flot
2018). This is due to their parents and their own migration, where young people are
attached to caring relationships in several geographical places. We analyse the
changing family dynamics related to care relationships between the migrant children
and the parents, siblings and other relatives, with whom children identify as
significant in the course of the family migration trajectory. Inspired by the
methodologies of studying children as active agents in migration (Haikkola 2011;
Pirskanen et al 2015; Sime&Fox 2015a,b), we combine various qualitative technics. We
use network maps and life lines, in order to map out young people´s caring
relationships that they value the most both retrospectively and at present.
306
PAPER 11:
Transnational Ageing: Turkey-born Women in Sweden
Merve Tuncer, PhD Candidate, Örebro University, Sweden | merve.tuncer@oru.se
Sweden has witnessed a flow of migration from Turkey after the labour agreement in
late 1960s and this migration continued in the next decades due to family
reunification laws. This study is about the women who have migrated to Sweden
during this period and who have decided to stay. The study combines the
perspectives of ethnicity/migration scholars and social gerontologists in the context
of older migrants to expand our gerontological imagination (Torres, 2019). It
addresses the question of “How do Turkey-born women make sense of their identity
after 50 years in Sweden?” by adopting a life course perspective.
The study seeks to contribute to the debate on transnational identities by looking into
different life trajectories which has shaped the old age experiences while focusing on
older migrant women from Turkey. It asks the question of when and how can we talk
about transnational identities. Transnationality has been brought to our attention to
emphasize the specific mobility patterns and cross-border activities of some
migrants. It has been interpreted in many different contexts such as being in between,
living in limbo (Ciobanu & Ludwig-Dehm, 2020) or belonging to multiple
localities/selves. In this study, it will be operationalized to describe the experiences of
ageing in between. In between is characterized as having a transnational identity or a
diasporic consciousness which can be due to (but not limited to) living dual lives,
having homes in two countries, speaking two languages or having a continuous
regular contact across national borders. Preliminary results from the empirical study
with Turkey-born migrant women will be presented during the workshop.
References
Ciobanu, R. O., & Ludwig-Dehm, S. M. (2020). Life in Limbo: Old-Age Transnationalism. The
Gerontologist, 60(2), 322-330
Torres, S. (2019). Ethnicity and old age: Expanding our imagination. Policy Press.
307
Precarious Inclusion:ADOPTION
DECENTERING Migrants MYTHOLOGIES:
and Refugees
WORKSHOP 1
COUNTER-NARRATIVES TO RETHINK ADOPTION
Atamhi Cawayu – Ghent University | atamhi.bex@ugent.be

Sophie Withaeckx, Maastricht University | s.withaeckx@maastrichtuniversity.nl
Adoption, usually involving the transfer from children of poor families and regions to
more affluent families often located in the West, has for a longtime been represented
as an intrinsically benevolent act, serving ‘the best interests of children’ (Cantwell,
2014). Since the turn of the century, dominant narratives surrounding adoption have
been denounced as ‘mythologies’ by critical perspectives exposing the classed,
racialized, gendered and globalized inequalities and the colonial legacies that actually
shape this practice (Patton-Imani, 2002).
In this workshop, we welcome perspectives from a variety of academic disciplines

(anthropology, history, literature, sociology, political science philosophy, …) or artistic
practices which centralize the viewpoints and narratives of those supposed to be the
main beneficiaries but actually sidelined and marginalized in shaping adoption:
adoptees themselves. Adoptee’s knowledge production (in academia, art, activism) has
been of great inspiration in shaping counter-narratives to rethink adoption and placing
adoption (mal)practices in a broader social, political, historical and colonial context
(Wekker, Åsberg, Van Der Tuin, & Frederiks, 2007). This leads to the following
questions: how do adoptees’ experiences challenge how adoption has been historically
constructed and institutionalized in particular contexts? How can perspectives from
critical race theory, queer, feminist and post-/decolonial theory contribute to
challenging hegemonic ideas surrounding adoption and to the reconceptualization of
forms of care for children and families in need? In turn, these discussions will also help
us to write about (the histories) of European societies from a less “parochial” position
(Bhambra, 2007), but instead one that considers how decolonization and the post-
colonial migrations it entailed actively impacted the former metropole as well. Such
critical rewriting is long overdue within the current debates on multiculturalism, racism
and diversity within European societies.
We invite (additional) abstracts on different European contexts from a variety of

academic disciplines, to stimulate a cross-comparative and interdisciplinary exchange.
We welcome contributions using arts-based methods (poetry, film, performance…) to
address the questions raised and centralize adoptees’ experiences.

308
Literary and Psychological Approaches
PAPER 1: to Narrating Adoption Experiences
Elisabeth Wesseling, Professor of Cultural Memory, Gender and Diversity,

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University,
The Netherlands | Lies.Wesseling@Maastrichtuniversity.nl
Taking Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption (ed. Jane Jeong Trenka, OW)
as my main frame of reference, this paper analyses an edited volume of adoptee
narratives from the Netherlands called Vertraagde Start: Geadopteerden aan het
woord (2007: A Belated Start in Life: Adoptee Voices, VS). In OW adoptees rightly
challenge the monopoly of 'experts' on their life experiences. Nevertheless, the hold
of psychological expertise on late modern culture is so strong that this discourse
echoes throughout adoptees' own life stories, even when told in their 'own' voice. As
Nicholas Rose has argued, psychology has a way of turning all problems into
individual problems, to be handled individually, which obscures the larger socio-
political and socio-historical contexts which make transracial adoption possible.
Literary experiments with narrative form might offer a way out of the dominance of
developmental psychology, as the contribution by Kim Buntsma to VS demonstrates.
This story by an adoptee from Indonesia boldly distributes the author’s experiences
over two different characters in her story called ‘Kees’ and ‘Kim’, with Kees figuring as
the object of scientific surveillance and inquiry, and ‘Kim’ as one of the researchers.
The story explores if and how ‘Kees’ and ‘Kim’ could ever come together. My paper
will use Buntma’s extraordinary story and the other contributions to VS as a case for
probing into the relative merits of psychological and literary approaches to adoption
stories.
309
유일한 이야기 The Only Story "A different adoption story"
PAPER 2:
Adoption narrated from a adoptees perspective:
Presentation and a short documentary
Uma Feed Tjelta, Artist, Director | umafeed@gmail.com
My name is Uma Feed Tjelta, I'm a norwegian artist and director. My latest short
documentary, 유일한 이야기 The Only Story, is about getting the adoptees narrative
out to challenge the common and usual "state and adoption agencies narrative" on
adoption. I´m a Norwegian based artist, and my adoption critic must be seen from a
Norwegian perspective. We have a rare voice in comparison to the rest of the nordic
countries, in the seens, that we live in a bubble, apart from our neighbors. Which can
be seen as a result of our wealth, from oil. We have a very limited public discussion,
ranging from themes on racism, discrimintation and social unjust welfare to
intercountry adoption. With makes the single citizen very exposed and alone in
matters that original should be of concern and interest of the general public. I would
say that our country’s wealth is still so overwhelming, this is reflected in "the average
citizen wage", leading to the misconception that being critical and political engaged,
is equal to threat of comfort. The empathy and concern for others is there for
diminished, in fear of having a lot to lose, which leads to a general lack in the publics
will and interests to fight for others let alone be part of a critical public discussion.
These factors must also be applied in discussion concerning intercountry adoption or

the lack of discussion when it comes to this matter. This matter is of solely concern
for the critical adoptee, not even the stat or the politician are concerned or have
much knowledge about the widespread international adoption critique or the
intercountry adoption debate, that is happening around the world. My adoption
documentary challenges the general Norwegian conception and narrative of
adoption. By bringing an unheard and unseen adoptees voice into this one sided stat
biased narrative I challenge peoples conception about intercountry adoption. It can
be viewed as a modern public education as well as giving a voice to the invisible.
310
“From Our Rotting Bodies, Politics Shall Grow”:
PAPER 3: Necropolitics, Social Death and Transnational Adoption

Atamhi Cawayu, Ph.D. Fellow, Research Foundation Flanders Centre
for Research on Culture and Gender, Ghent University, Belgium | Atamhi.Bex@UGent.be
Within public discourse as in adoption literature, death has often been ignored as a
central concept of the analysis to reconsider adoption practices and policies.
Nevertheless, (social) death plays a crucial role in the making and un-making of kin-
relations in a transnational adoption context. This paper aims to center ‘death’ as a
central concept of inquiry by dwelling on the work of Jodi Kim (2009). In her analysis of
transnational adoption, she argues that legal orphans are produced for adoption
purposes by the severance from their kinship ties, and thus being stripped from their
social personhood. This process of ‘social death’-making does not only affect
transnational adoptees, but also their first-mothers and kin members as they become
imagined invisible. Based on an anthropological study of transnational adoption
practices in Bolivia, including Bolivian adoptees’ and first-kin members’ testimonies, this
paper intends to examine how ‘death’, disguised in many forms, plays implicit or explicit
role in their lives. The paper further illuminates on the necropolitical policies that
structure transnational adoption practices in Bolivia, and reflects on the larger history of
colonialism, involuntary displacements, and civilizing missions.
311
Historicizing Adoption. The Transition from Nordic
PAPER 4: to Transnational Adoption in 20th Century Scandinavia

Kasper Eriksen, Phd-researcher, Department of History and Civilization,
European University Institute | kasper.eriksen@eui.eu
This paper places itself as part of a new wave of adoption research that approaches
transnational adoption as a societal, global and historical phenomenon. It seeks to
further develop the existing scholarship on transnational adoption by way of a
comparative historical study of transnational adoption in Denmark, Norway and
Sweden from circa 1960 onwards that focuses on the issues, migration, globalism and
racialization in the Nordic countries.
Alongside this, it is also a study into the connection between family and Nordic
welfare state history that has often been ignored. Families are understudied in the
field of welfare studies and often treated as passive beneficiaries; rarely seen as
active creators and shapers of welfare (co-constructed by families, associations and
states). Support for achieving and maintaining family life was, and continues to be, at
the heart of welfare state services. Transnational adoption is special because it is as a
form of family creation, a form of migration and a form social service co-administered
by both the public and private sphere.
This paper will explore the transition from domestic to transnational adoptions in
Scandinavia during the 1960’s and how this was connected to to both the Nordic
welfare stat and to the post-colonial, economic boom era and Cold War word of the
1960’s and 1970’s. It will detail how adoptive parents in Scandinavia organized
politically to lobby policymakers and facilitate adoptions from abroad, the lengths
they were willing to go and the arguments they employed. At the same time
promoting transnational adoption as a progressive, responsible and humanitarian
form of global parenthood; while simultaneously emphasizing the responsibility of the
welfare state to accommodate and alleviate their human right and need for children,
which had been denied them by nature but were promised by society.
312
The Mother Mountain Institute (2017-ongoing)
PAPER 5: by Sara Sejin Chang (Sara van der Heide)
Sara Sejin Chang (Sara van der Heide), Artist,

Mother Mountain Institute | mail@sarasejinchang.com
I will give an audiovisual presentation of my ongoing project: The Mother Mountain

Institute. The project includes: an orbiting universe; a testimony of a mother whose
child was stolen and trafficked by Dutch n.g.o.’s; drawings and a speaking spiritual
mountain. The story is based on an interview (January 2020) with a Bangladesh
mother. The first chapter (2017) of the project focused on the story of a South Korean
mother. The new chapter tells the story of a mother from Bangladesh (2020).
The interests of the (birth) mothers are overlooked within the matrix of stakeholders in
transnational and interracial adoptions. This project gives voice to these women who
are often found in precarious social and economic situations. Faced with pressure
from the state, missionary organizations, and criminal traffickers, patriarchal society
has denied them their natural right to motherhood.
Legacies of imperialism and colonialism can be read through the lens of transnational
adoptions from the Global South with the Global North. Geopolitics has shaped a
situation in which a child can be removed from its mother and home country to
support economic, military and political ends.
www.sarasejinchang.com
313
PAPER 6:
In search of humanity
Sophie Withaeckx, Maastricht University | s.withaeckx@maastrichtuniversity.nl
The question 'why adoptees search' is often central in adoption research. This paper
argues that this need to search has generally been understood from two
perspectives. From a biocentric point of view, the importance of biogenetic ties is
centralized and adoptees’ need to search for their families and ‘cultures’ of origin is
seen as central for their wellbeing. Another perspective rejects essentialist notions of
identity and encourages adoptees to ‘choose’ their own origin stories and families.
This second position may be informed by biocentric notions of the family, in attempts
to form adoptive families ‘as-if’ they were biological. But it may also be informed by
post-modern constructivist notions of identity, discarding adoptees’ need to search as
illusory and futile.
Based on Sylvia Wynter’s theory of Man, I argue that both these perspectives are
informed by the overarching ethnocentric framework which Wynter identified as
Man2 (homo oeconomicus), which sees the ‘normal’ human being as both
fundamentally shaped by laws of biological evolution, and as naturally evolved into a
choosing, self-determining creature. In both versions, adoptees appear as ‘not-fully-
human’, to be fitted in the framework of normative humanity either by repairing their
biogenetical ties or by restoring choice and agency to them.
Wynter’s view of the human as homo narrans offers an alternative framework,

encompassing simultaneously the importance of biology and the human need for
origin stories. This implies accepting all needs expressed by adoptees as
fundamentally human and recognizing their claims as claims for social justice. It also
means expanding our view on what it means to be human and recognizing other
‘genres of being human’, opening up to ways of being and caring not recognized in
current adoption practices. This may mean the end of adoption as we know it, but the
beginning of restoring full humanity to children in need of care.
314
TRANSNATIONAL and Refugees
MIGRATION, DIASPORA
WORKSHOP 1
COMMUNITIES AND THE SECOND GENERATION
Mari Toivanen, University of Helsinki | mari.toivanen@helsinki.fi

Gül Ince Beqo, Catholic University of Milan | Gul.InceBeqo@unicatt.it
Research has shown that the second-generation continues to foster transnational

ties, activities and attachments towards their parents’ homeland, although differently
from the first generation. The means and meanings attached to such transnational
engagements may vary considerably between second-generation members
belonging to different diaspora communities and depending on the (transn)national
context in which they are embedded. Similarly, studies have focused on second-
generation members’ understandings of citizenship, negotiations of belonging and
identity, and how those are shaped by their experiences of inclusion and exclusion
(for instance, racialisation) in their countries of birth. More recent scholarship has also
conceptualised the generational dynamics related to these empirical strands of
research.
This workshop welcomes empirical and theoretical papers that deal with the lived
experiences of second-generation members in different national contexts. Papers can
focus, among other themes, on empirical studies conducted on second generation’s
1) transnational connections, ties and mobilities, 2) negotiations of belonging, identity
construction and understanding of citizenship, 3) local attachments and civic/political
participation, and 4) experiences of inclusion and exclusion. We also welcome more
theoretically orientated discussions on the generational dynamics related to the
themes outlined above.

315
“Don’t let anybody tell you you’re not a Dane”
PAPER 1:
Experiences of affinity, otherness andcontested identity
of minority Danish parents of the second generation
Laura Gilliam, Lecturer, Phd. Afdelingen for Pædagogisk Antropologi DPU,

Aarhus Universitet | lagi@edu.au.dk
Research among minority Danish children of the second generation has shown that
these children most often do not identify as Danes, but with their parents’ country of
origin and pan-ethnic categories of ‘immigrants’ and ‘Muslims’. They often explain this
by referring to strong held images of Danes as white, Christian and native. This paper
looks at the same generation of children, when they have grown up and become
parents. Based on a project exploring these minority Danish parents’ family histories,
school experiences and parental strategies, it explores how many of them, contrary to
the children, identify as Danish. To them being Danish refers to experiences of affinity,
belonging and sharing what they portray as Danish values of freedom and child-
centered upbringing. This identification is related to substantial experiences of
otherness visiting their parents’ ‘homeland’ and to reflections about the upbringing of
their children. Yet, their Danish identity seems precarious and continuously fought for
and defended, as it is often met by ridicule and repudiating arguments about Danish
nationality contingent on blood, skin colour and religion.
The paper will illuminate the parents’ attempt to maintain a right to the Danish identity
for them and their children in negotiations with three communities that each have
their stance towards their identity and ‘cultural responsibility’ as parents; The
transnational community (You have become Danish) the diaspora community (You
pretend to be Danish) and the majority community (You should be Danish, You are not
Danish). The paper will show how these experiences of contested identity and
belonging have consequences for the way they bring up their children and help them
navigate in school and in relation to the Danish majority and the transnational and
diaspora community.
316
PAPER 2:
What is in a body?
Naya Magaliou Soulein, Masters Student,

Program of Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art (ViCCA),
Aalto University | panagiota.magaliousoulein@aalto.fi, nschulein@hotmail.com
What is in a Body? is an experimental presentation: a video screening and

simultaneous live reading about my personal experiences as a diasporic individual. In
the reading, I recount and analyse various experiences that I have had as a Greek
citizen born to foreign parents, both in Greece itself as well as in the Northern
European countries to which I have migrated. I discuss these experiences through the
lens of bodily awareness and autonomy, postulating that one’s ancestry,
intergenerational pain, political and financial context, as well as possible future
behaviours are stored somewhere inside the body. The video is a record of a
performative process involving a somatic and corporeal consumption of cake. Using
this as the starting point for my text, I write about why I would want to perform this act
of consumption in the first place.
As a result, this paper is about what is in my body. The body is presented as a cultural
object, a sum of experiences, but it is also hypothesized that the body may be a
location of intergenerational communication as well as a vehicle of intersectionality,
bilingualism, biculturalism and European politics. As a transcultural person, my
perspective and identity is difficult to decode, even for myself. In this paper, I have
tried to elucidate certain complicated and nuanced areas of a transcultural and
diasporic experience which is in many ways uncategorizable. I intend for my
experimental presentation to be a demonstration of the body as a constant within a
transitory lifestyle and family history. It is often difficult to discuss multicultural
perspectives, which can sometimes be opaque and muddled. It is however, a
perspective that holds validity within the greater discussion of migration and
intersectionality. This paper could be presented within the workshop of Transnational
Migration, Diaspora Communities and the Second Generation, or in a more general
context.
317
The trespass of ambiguous assimilation & the disciplining
PAPER 3:
work of humiliation: Black Muslim women in Sweden
and the affects of (non-)belonging
Jan-Therese Mendes, Centre for Gender Studies,

Stavanger University, Norway | jan.mendes@uis.no
Engaging with the narratives of eight Afro-Swedish Muslim women living in

Stockholm (2018) this paper examines the affective contingencies of white nation-
making. As the children of migrants, research participants’ convey the chameleon
nature of assimilation wherein the ambiguously integrated subject disrupts the logics
meant to define the unassimilable vs. the assimilable. Instead, women trespass on
these categorizations by fluctuating between the racial, religious, and emotive
investments of their family and that demanded by the white supremacist nation. Black
Muslim women’s experiences of anti-Black racism, Islamophobia and incomplete
Swedish belonging reveal how the forces of governmentality manage this upset
through “everyday” (Essed 1990) forms of rhetorical violence (Butler 1997). By
examining the effects of “prying” questions this paper argues that untoward queries
into the intimacies of women’s lives and life histories seek dominion through
humilation. Nonetheless, participants demonstrate how quotidian refusals can be
enacted amidst racism’s quotidian humiliations through disobedient, unanticipated
performances of self.
318
The construction of homeland without the country of
PAPER 4:
origin: Intradiasporic transnational ties
among the second generations
Gül Ince Beqo, Catholic University of Milan | Gul.InceBeqo@unicatt.it
This research examines the way the second generations living in Northern Italy with
parents coming from Turkey conceptualizes their sense of belonging and the types of
transnational ties that they maintain in relation to their parents’ experience. The
questions to deal are (1) the main differences in the understanding of homeland
among generations; (2) development of local attachments and intradiasporic
transnational ties.
The research results emphasize the fact that the studied group do not build the
knowledge and experience of the country of origin, in this case Turkey, through the
relationship created with it but through the intradiasporic transnational linkages
created with the peers living in Germany. Hence, they produce knowledge about their
country of origin without a direct link to it. It should be because they grow up in
families where the main desire is not to return to their country of origin, once they
have obtained what they wanted to achieve through the migration experience, but to
pursue the journey to Germany after the acquisition of long term residence permit.
In addition to the indirectly produced knowledge and experience on the country of

origin, this migration process left halfway causes a kind of identification of Germany
as quasi homeland among the second generations.
The data of this research is collected between 2017-2018 through semi-structured

interviews with second generation members and in some cases their parents living in
different cities of Northern Italy. This data is also reinforced with the qualitative
material collected between 2015-2017 for the doctoral research on migrant families
from Turkey in Italy.
319
Eritrea’s Chosen Trauma and the Legacy of the Martyrs:
PAPER 5:
The impact of postmemory on political identity formation
of second-generation diaspora Eritreans
Nicole Hirt, Research Fellow, GIGA German Insitute of Global and Area Studies,
Hamburg | nicole.hirt@giga-hamburg.de
Abdulkader Saleh Mohammed, Associate Researcher,
GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg | sahoita@yahoo.com
In the collective memory of Eritreans, the liberation struggle symbolizes the heroic
fight of their martyrs against Ethiopian oppression. However, after independence in
1991 the liberation front created an autocratic regime infamous for its human rights
violations, which is still adored by many second-generation diaspora Eritreans. Our
paper examines political identity formation in the diaspora and is based on a social
media analysis, long-term observation and fieldwork in Germany, Norway, Sweden
and the UK. We hypothesize that the mindset of second-generation diaspora
Eritreans is influenced by collective memories transmitted through generations and
by a government-constructed narrative of Eritrean nationalism.
We engage with literature exploring the political importance of collective trauma and
apply two theoretical notions, ‘postmemory’ and ‘chosen trauma’ to explain how the
government produced a culture of nationalism. This narrative and the trauma
experienced by their parents, including the survivor’s guilt of those who fled the
country created experiences of postmemory that influenced the second-generation’s
worldview. The Eritrean government has formed strong transnational organizations to
control the diaspora. We demonstrate how pro-government activists utilize US-born
artists with Eritrean roots who have recently discovered their Eritreanness to create
government support. These artists have reproduced the nation’s collective memory
of the armed struggle in their cultural performances. They travelled to Eritrea to
connect to their personal roots but were used by the government to create a
distorted view of the reality on the ground and to improve its own image. We
conclude that Eritrean pro-government political entrepreneurs have perfected
mechanisms to politically mobilize second-generation diaspora youth.
320
In Search of the Missing Narrative:
PAPER 6: Children of Polish Deportees in Great Britain
Julia Devlin, Dr, Center for Flight and Migration,

Catholic University Eichstaett-Ingolstadt | Julia.Devlin@ku.de
Migration challenges the traditional notion of communicative and cultural memory as

a supportive structure of identity. Migrants are faced with the challenge of trying to
retain their memories in order to stay connected to their cultures of origin, while at the
same time trying to fit into the society to which they have relocated. If the migration
was not voluntary, trauma can make it all the more difficult for the stories of an
individual's or a family's past to be passed on to the next generation.
My research rests at the nexus of historical migration studies and memory studies. It
seeks to reach an understanding of how family narrative, and thus, communicative
memory, has been affected in the context of the forced migration of Polish citizens
during World War II.
In 1940/41, more than 320,000 Polish citizens from Eastern Poland were deported by
the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) to the interior of the Soviet
Union. In 1941, after Nazi Germany attacked its former ally, they were released. Men fit
for military service joined the war effort in support of the Allies, while 34,000 civilians
were sent to refugee camps in Africa and India. After the war, these camps were
closed and most of the refugees emigrated to USA, Canada, Great Britain, and
Australia.
Drawing upon Aleida and Jan Assmannn's concepts of communicative and cultural
memory, I address how the development of self construction and identity of the
deportees' children, the second generation, was impeded by their parents' difficulties
to verbalize a traumatic past. To this end, I conducted in-depth interviews to gather
information narratives from children of deportation survivors, analysed archival
documents, published autobiographical records and reminiscences and information
exchanges of second-generation Poles in internet forums.
321
Teaching Heritage Languages to Children: Perspectives of
PAPER 7: Kenyan Immigrant Mothers in Finland and Their Efforts
Tabi Emilia Beyong, California State University,

San Marcos, CA, USA | beyong.emilia@yahoo.com
Elvis Nshom, California State University, San Marcos, CA, USA | enshom@csusm.edu
Maintenance of linguistic and cultural identity has become a crucial issue for most
immigrant groups. Most acknowledge upholding their heritage languages as a key
approach to maintaining cultures and identities. In Finland, heritage language
teaching is observed as a common practice through the encouragement of the
Finnish National Education Authorities. This allows migrant children to receive lessons
in their native languages, in order to uphold their heritage languages. Some Diaspora
communities in the country have taken advantage of this provision to maintain and
revive their heritage languages.
This research looks at multiculturalism and languages in the Diasporas, under the
heading of heritage language teaching specifically among Kenyan immigrants in
Finland. It explores the attitudes of Kenyan immigrant mothers towards Swahili, and
their methods in passing on this linguistic and cultural heritage to their children in
Finland. Twelve Kenyan immigrant mothers having children between the ages of two
to twenty were interviewed. Using qualitative research method, the transcribed data
were analyzed with the use of thematic analysis.
Results demonstrate that Swahili is viewed as a unifying language in Kenya. However,

passing on Swahili as a heritage language to children in Finland is not unanimously
agreed on. Many other definitive factors such as marriages to people of other
nationalities, the dominance of Finnish, the benefits attached to the Finnish language,
significantly influence this outcome.
322
Interconnections between
PAPER 8:
language spoken at home, education, wellbeing
and belonging among the second generation
Jenni Alisaari, University of Turku | jenali@utu.fi

Elina Kilpi-Jakonen, University of Turku | elina.kilpi-jakonen@utu.fi
At the heart of this research is the role of language in integration processes.

Language spoken at home by immigrants and their children has been used as both a
measure of integration as well as a predictor of integration. Nevertheless, the
relationship between language spoken at home and other dimensions of integration
remains poorly understood. There is major contestation in whether continuing to
speak the parents’ language of origin (L1/heritage language/ethnic language) is
beneficial or actually detrimental for other outcomes related to integration.
The aim of this research is thus to study the interconnections between language
spoken at home, educational attainment and aspirations, wellbeing and life-
satisfaction, and feelings of belonging and social contacts among 15 year-old children
of immigrants across OECD countries. The research also aims to analyse whether the
resources available from the family or the school context moderate these
relationships. In other words, is continuing to speak the L1 at home more beneficial (or
detrimental) in some contexts rather than in others.
The research is carried out using the most recent wave of the Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA 2018), which enables the measurement of
how both L1 and L2 (language of the destination country) are used in the family
context. Additionally, how these relationships are moderated by family and school
characteristics is analysed. The analyses thus take into account differences in
educational policies between countries as well as within-country, between-school
variation. This is done using multilevel models that are able to take into account the
clustering of students within schools and countries and where the interactions (i.e. the
role of moderating variables) can be properly tested.
323
Who are the second-generation members in Norway?
PAPER 9: How are they doing?: A statistical approach
Jinghui Lysen, Section for population statistics,

Statistics Norway | jinghui.lysen@ssb.no
This paper presents a statistical approach about Norwegian-born to immigrant

parents, the so-called second-generation, based on register data and surveys. This
paper aims to enhance a better understanding of Norwegian-born immigrant parents,
their ties and mobilities, belonging and their experiences of inclusion and exclusion in
the Norwegian context.
Norwegian-born to immigrants is a young and heterogenic group which stood for 3.4
per cent of the population in 2019. A demographical description of the group and their
educational, employment and income situation followed by a definition of this group
will be presented firstly. I will mainly study those with Pakistani, Moroccan and Turkish
background here. In general, findings in the register-based statistics are consistent
with findings in surveys, where the conclusion is that many Norwegian-born to
immigrant parents have performed a strong upward mobility, moving up the social
ladder compared to their parents (Kirkeberg et al. 2019).
Secondly, I will review their living conditions based on survey data. I would like to
discuss, among other things, their transitional ties and belonging, housing conditions,
family and social relations, religion, work and working environment, values and health.
Findings are from the last available survey which shows that living conditions of the
Norwegian-born to immigrant parents resemble those of the general population
more than those of immigrants from the same country background. Even so, various
aspects of the living conditions differ among those with background from Turkey,
Pakistan, Sri Lankan and Vietnam (Dalgard red. 2018).
References
Kirkeberg, M. I., Dzamarija, M. T., Bratholmen N. and Strøm F. (2019). Norwegian-born to immigrant
parents. Statistics Norway.
Dalgard, A.B. (red.) (2018). Living conditions among Norwegian-born to immigrant parents in Norway
2016. Statistics
324
PAPER 10:
Second-generation activism: Diasporic or something else?
Mari Toivanen, Postdoctoral researcher,

University of Helsinki | mari.toivanen@helsinki.fi
The second generation is known to engage in political and civic activism in their birth
societies and transnationally towards their parents’ homeland. However, such
engagements are often dealt with separately in research strands drawing either from
the integration literature or transnationalism scholarship. But can the second-
generation political and civic activism be merely interpreted either in the frame of
integration or transnational diaspora politics? This paper examines second-generation
Kurds’ activism, paying particular attention to its particularities in relation to their
peers and their parents’ generation. How do second-generation Kurds frame and
speak about their activism? What local, transnational and global dimensions are
visible in their narrations of activism? The analysis is based on qualitative material
(interviews, observation) collected with Kurdish second-generation members in
France (2015-2017).
The study shows that Kurdish second-generation activism takes amalgam forms and
can be simultaneously locally-bound, yet transnationally orientated: second-
generation Kurds’ political and civic activism is trans-local in the sense that it is
locally-based in their cities and countries of birth, but that it can simultaneously also
be directed towards their ancestral homeland. In fact, it is informed by diasporic
narratives and their transnational ties, as well as locally-based connections and
attachments – and tied to global discourses for social justice and human rights.
Therefore, I argue that to better understand second-generation activism, we need to
move beyond the “ethnic lens” and to examine how it (also) feeds from the broader
changes in political activism.
325
Lifestyle-Driven Return Migration: The Second-Generation
PAPER 11: Turkish-Germans' Narratives of 'Better Life' in Antalya
Nilay Kilinc, Dr, Gerda Henkel Fellow, Centre for Advanced Study,
Sofia | nlyklnc@gmail.com
The Turkish labour migration to Germany has evolved into at least four generations in
59 years, yet the number of Turkish first and second generation who ‘return’ to Turkey
has been rapidly increasing since the 1980s. This paper focuses on the ‘return’
migration of the second-generation Turkish-Germans to Antalya, a tourism hub in the
Mediterranean coast. Antalya has received the highest number of Turkish returnees
from Germany. In addition, due to Antalya’s popularity amongst the German tourists
and expats, Turkish-German returnees tend to settle there for the availability of
tourism-related businesses. However, Turkish-German return migration literature
hardly focuses on the returnees’ engagement in the tourism sector and how this
allows them to sustain their transnational lifestyles.
Based on the narrative analysis of 44 in-depth life-story interviews with returnees who
work in the tourism sector, the paper explores, a) the reasons of settlement in Antalya;
b) the returnees’ ‘translocal social fields’ – lifestyles and networks between and
beyond Turkey-Germany; c) the ways in which they utilise their “transcultural capital”
and human capital to get jobs in the tourism sector. The sample does not have
familial origins in Antalya, hence their settlement in this tourism niche cannot be
explained with the classic ‘returning to the roots’ argument. Moreover, the narrative
accounts show that the ‘returnees’ took a conscious decision to resettle in Antalya
after experiencing disappointment and disillusion upon their ‘return’ in their parents’
city/villages of origin and/or big cities like Istanbul. The premise of the paper is,
although economic factors and kinship ties play an important role in returnees’
migratory trajectories, individualistic lifestyle motivations such as having a work-life
balance, living in a lively and international atmosphere and, engaging in activities for
self-development and self-fulfillment are the main reasons behind their settlement in
Antalya.
326
EXPLORING NORDIC MIGRANT
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
ENTREPRENEURSHIP: INTERSECTIONAL
UNDERSTANDINGS OF PLACE AND CONTEXT
Natasha Webster, Stockholm University, Sweden | natasha.webster@humangeo.su.se

Yasemin Kontkanen, University of Eastern Finland, Finland | yasemin.kontkanen@uef.fi
Contemporary migration research examines economic activities of migrants through a

variety of lenses from migrants’ labour market participation to diasporic business
activities, from migrants’ resource endowments to usability of these resources, from
migrants’ transnational ties to their social, political, and economic embeddedness within
their localities. Conventional readings of migrant entrepreneurship explore
entrepreneurial engagement of migrants in relation to disadvantages in labour markets
and blocked opportunities in receiving societies (Volery 2007). These approaches
conceptualizing entrepreneurial activity of migrants as a viable path for employment and
for recognized social status find corresponding evidence within the receiving societies of
Nordic countries too (e.g. Kupferberg 2003; Wahlbeck 2008; Munkejord 2017).
Despite policy supports and incentives, in practice migrant businesses are often
challenged by discrimination and racism. These challenges appear or present in different
guises and degrees within the national and/or local contexts. Building on literature which
shows that markets, suppliers, banks, and business incubators lead to qualitatively
distinct encounters when the beneficiary is migrant (Jones et al. 1992; Yeasmin 2016),
encounters (Ahmed 2000) are often read within the politico-institutional and economic
structures. Moreover, little attention is paid to the relevance of socio-spatial structures
that constitute the norms of inclusion and exclusion within particular localities. These also
result in ignoring different spatialities and intersectional dimensions of migrant
entrepreneurial activity in the debates. As it is not possible to ignore the essentiality of
spatial form in the interactions of and with one another (Massey 1994), we perceive a
necessity for active incorporation of the question of place into the debates.
Thus, in this session we would like to explore the narrative(s) of place and
intersectionality within the dominant discourses of understanding migrant
entrepreneurship in the Nordic and international context. We welcome contributions
from variety of disciplines and interdisciplinary perspectives. We also welcome
methodological papers that explores migrant entrepreneurship experiences/ discourses
in new ways.

327
Making a case for place and intersectionality in migrant
PAPER 1: entrepreneurial studies: An overview of the Nordic literature
Natasha Webster, Stockholm University, Sweden |natasha.webster@humangeo.su.se

Yasemin Kontkanen, University of Eastern Finland, Finland | yasemin.kontkanen@uef.fi
Recognizing the interplay between migrants’ resource endowments and societies’

adequate opportunities (Waldinger et al. 1990; Sanders & Nee 1996) has played a
significant role in directing attention to ‘context’ in the literature of migrant
entrepreneurship worldwide. In addition, recognition of the influence of politico-
institutional environment along with the socio-economic determinants (Kloosterman &
Rath 2001) has opened new perspectives in the debates. Still place has often been
read in relation and with reference to economies (capitals, funds, and loans), legalities
(laws, policies, and reforms) and variables of demand and supply when explaining
migrant entrepreneurial practice. These approaches often remain reductionist, as they
often overlook the socio-spatial aspect of migrant living and intersectionality of
migrant experience (Webster 2017).
Thus, the main question that we address is how the ‘place’ is articulated, presented
and interpreted within the Nordic scholarship on migrant entrepreneurship. To explore
this question, we follow a systematic literature review covering research from Nordic
countries between the years 2000 and 2019. Our initial findings show that ‘context’ has
always been a central question in the Nordic discussion of migrant entrepreneurship.
Still, incorporating ‘spatial’ into the discussion and the question of place have become
more prominent in the debates during the last decade. We call for greater
acknowledgment for the role of different spatialities and intersectional dimensions of
migrant experience that still often neglected in the debates.
328
Resilient agency:
PAPER 2:
Peruvian women in Southern California claiming the right
to space and to home through culinary entrepreneurship
Ann Cathrin Corrales-Øverlid, Department of Foreign Languages,

The University of Bergen | ann.overlid@uib.no
The growing recognition of Peruvian cuisine on a global scale forms the contextual
backdrop for the many Peruvian immigrants who open culinary businesses in the U.S.
While many of these business owners are legal permanent residents or even
American citizens, also undocumented Peruvian immigrants engage in expanding the
Peruvian Gastronomic Boom to U.S. markets. This research draws on life-history
interviews with Peruvian women entrepreneurs in the culinary sector in the Greater
Los Angeles area and in Bakersfield, as well as participant and non-participant
observation in the Peruvian communities in the area. I explore the intersection
between formality/informality and legal migration status, and examine how these
women practice place-making and negotiate gender, home and belonging through
culinary entrepreneurship.
I find that the Peruvian women draw on culinary discourses linked to the elevated
status of Peruvian cuisine in order to negotiate a position within ethnoracial, gendered
and classed hierarchies. Thus, they employ food as a material and symbolic resource
and create counter-narratives, distancing themselves from the negative framing of
Latina/o immigrants which is often conflated with being Mexican, and hence also
with stereotypes of Mexican immigrants as undocumented, poor and delinquent.
Independent of legal status and business formality, the women conquer a space in
culinary markets, claiming the right to space, and thus also the right to representation
and membership of the urban community. And even though undocumented
immigrants and informal entrepreneurs encounter a challenging context of reception
and opportunity structure, they also find home and develop belonging to the spaces
they inhabit and contribute to shape.
329
PAPER 3:
Becoming a young migrant entrepreneur in the UK context
Ching-Yu Chang, PhD student, Department of Politics,

University of York, England | cc502@york.ac.uk
Today’s highly-skilled international migration is seen as a global talent competition

and has attracted the interest of many researchers. Previous research on highly-
skilled mobility has provided general but rather limited discussion in terms of human
capital theory and economic perspectives, focusing on cross-border immigration as a
way to maximise personal income in higher-wage regions. How specific locations and
structural differences in destination countries shape different types of migrant
entrepreneurs have received less attention. However, recent studies have explored in
more detail the experiences of migrant professionals working and living in global
cities, including both transnational ties and local connections.
My research analyses the relationship between migrant entrepreneurs and the city
where they are working, examining individual preferences for specific places, deeper
social and structural embeddedness in local markets, and transfer of business ideas
across borders. Through interviewing female highly-skilled migrants from Taiwan, the
findings show how an international market environment, local economic structures
and resources shape and facilitate the process of becoming an entrepreneur in the
host country. As young migrant entrepreneurs originally came to the destination
country to pursue higher education instead of starting a business; and unlike
enterprise groups, they lack strong capital power and local social networks in the
immigration country and face additional challenges. It is suggested that social and
economic structures in different geographic locations are no less important than
personal capacities in the emergence of a migrant entrepreneur.
330
PAPER 4:
Black African entrepreneurs in Finland: Structural barriers
Ekaterina Vorobeva, PhD student, University of Bremen | vorobeva@uni-bremen.de
The simultaneous rise of age of migration and golden age of entrepreneurship

triggered a renewed interest in migrants’ business activities (Castles et al., 2013). At
national and supranational levels, entrepreneurship was discussed as a universal
solution for social and economic integration of migrants. Following the EU
Commission directives, Finland introduced initiatives smoothing migrants’ path to
self-employment. Startup Visa, multilingual enterprise counseling, extensive startup
funding are a few cases in point.
Nevertheless, migrant entrepreneurs continue experiencing multiple structural

barriers in Finnish business market, which became a focus of the present study. In
order to identify as many constraints as possible, a group of migrants with the lowest
self-employment rate was chosen for this research, namely, Sub-Saharan Africans.
Fornaro (2018) argues that only 4% of Sub-Saharan Africans are involved into
entrepreneurship in Finland. Furthermore, the topic of African entrepreneurship
remains overlooked in Finland, Nordic states and worldwide. Thus, 15 semi-structured
in-depth interviews have been conducted with black entrepreneurs from trade, IT,
catering and other sectors. The interviews were orchestrated around
entrepreneurship journeys of informants with a special focus on difficulties.
The findings support the disadvantage theory emphasizing an unfavorable position of

migrants in a market of a host country. As data suggests, race acts as a crucial factor
in business activities. Due to negative racialization, Africans are often refused in a role
of equal economic actors. Moreover, shortcomings of the local legal framework seem
to affect especially black entrepreneurs. Finally, opacity of Finnish legislation
demotivates and depowers African businesspersons. Thus, the opportunity structure
of Finland appears to remain in transition towards creation of an inclusive business
environment.
331
Migration, women and entrepreneurship:
PAPER 5: Beauty salons as places of intersection
Helin Kardelen KAVUŞ, Research Assistant, Department of Sociology,

İzmir University of Economics, PhD Student, Department of Sociology,
Middle East Technical University | kardelen.kavus@gmail.com
This study focuses on self-employed women in the beauty sector who have
migration background from Turkey, living in Cologne Germany. Ethnic
entrepreneurship is a quite common economic activity among immigrants from
Turkey and their descendants in many European countries. Migration from Turkey to
Europe including Germany started in the 1960s to meet the labor demand in those
countries. In time, the ways of migration, the motivation of migrants and their
demographic background get diverse. It also reflects on the entrepreneurial activity
of immigrants. However, this diversification especially gender is neglected in many
studies concerning ethnic entrepreneurship so that existing literature on ethnic
entrepreneurship heavily based on men’s experiences.
In addition to the role of ways and place of migration in entrepreneurship activities of

immigrants, this research aims to investigate the phenomenon from the gendered
perspective. How do being an immigrant and being a woman intersect and create an
ethnic niche market for immigrants in the host society is the main inquiry of this
research. Therefore, in addition to ethnic factors derived from migration background,
this study focuses on gender factors in women’s entrepreneurship. The fieldwork of
the study took place in Cologne, Germany in January and February 2017. The data
was drawn from semi-structured in-depth interviews with 11 self-employed women
with Turkish migration background. Results indicate that different ways of migration
experiences lead to different entrepreneurial paths. Structural barriers derived from
the immigrant position, gender roles and demands from the ethnic community -
especially from women- go hand in hand and shape women’s entrepreneurial career.
332
In search of research based tools
PAPER 6: to fight ageism and racism in the labour market
Tytti Steel, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher,

Department of Cultures, University of Helsinki | tytti.steel@helsinki.fi
In my paper I will present preliminary results from project EntreFox – 55+

Entrepreneurs and Working Life. The intersection of older age and being a foreign-
born entrepreneur is explored in the project through collaborative work, and
embedded and participatory ethnography.
Foreign-born entrepreneurs in Finland face many challenges from the language

barrier to the tight networks of entrepreneurs with Finnish backgrounds.
Entrepreneurs who have participated in the project are from many areas of business,
most often micro-entrepreneurs. Many of the joys and challenges they participants
experience they share with any other (older) entrepreneur in Finland. The views of
foreign-born entrepreneurs could help the policy-makers to enhance
entrepreneurship, sustainability and wellbeing of entrepreneurs in general.
EntreFox collaborates closely with the international project BSLF – Sustainable

Working Life organized by The Council of The Baltic Sea States. The aim of this
project is to find knowledge based practices in order to decrease ageism in the
labour market.
My presentation will combine research and practice-oriented views to

entrepreneurship of foreign-born people living in the Helsinki Metropolitan area.
333
Trans-local livelihoods and development of Senegalese
PAPER 7: migrants engaged in trade between Morocco and Senegal
Imane Bendra, PhD student, University of Antwerp,

Sociology department | s0177205@ad.ua.ac.be , imane.bendra@gmail.com
Over the last decade, migrants from West African countries have populated
Moroccan urban centres where they endeavour to find jobs in the informal service,
domestic service and transnational trade. This research focuses on Senegalese
migrants in Morocco and aims to analyse how they use transnational trade activities
to improve their livelihoods and shape local development. It is guided by the
hypothesis that Senegalese migrants join transnational trade and construct a space of
circulation in which they become peripatetic traders.
Through a trans-local mixed embeddedness approach, this research aims to analyse

the role of migration policies, local structure, networks and agency in shaping
migrants’ access to and maintenance of their trade activities. Second, it aims to
investigate the impact of these activities on migrants’ livelihoods, and how trading
migrants’ activities shape local development dynamics in Morocco and Senegal. This
research starts with one urban centre in Morocco as an entry points, Oujda, and aims
to follow migrants as they navigate through different localities to establish and
maintain their activities. It follows a multi-site mobile ethnographic approach in
Senegal and Morocco and relies on participant observation, life histories interviews
and social networks analysis to reveal migrants’ transnational livelihoods strategies in
different localities.
334
Entrepreneurial Journeys of refugeemigrants:
PAPER 8: A liminal story?
Christian de Kraker,
University of Groningen | c.c.de.kraker@rug.nl, cc.dekraker@alfa-college.nl
Alexander Grit
Sander Vroom
Through storytelling and co-research the voices of Syrian refugees regarding their
experiences as entrepreneurs in the city of Groningen will be explored. Local
government in close cooperation with educational institutions actively stimulate
refugees to become entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur in general generates and
produces ideas and opportunities, finds resources and brings these into action.
Actions for entrepreneurs with a refugee background becomes more complicit.
Experiences of refugee entrepreneurs show an often liminal position. The expected
theme is this liminal position, which can be seen as an in- between state; in- between
traditions, cultures, networks and dreams.
335
EUROPEANIZATION, and Refugees
DEMOCRAZY, OTHER:
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP 1
THE RACIALIZED CAZE ON
EASTERN EUROPEAN MIGRANTS
Raivo Vetik, University of Tallinn, Estonia | rvetik@tlu.ee

Garbi Schmidt, University of Roskilde, Denmark | garbi@ruc.dk
Recent literature on Europeanization and democracy in Eastern Europe describes

political culture of the states in the region in terms of ‘hollowness” as a consequence
of ethnonationalism (Greskowits 2015, Cianetti 2017). In this workshop we will,
amongst others, discuss the discourse of ‘hollowness’ and show its analogy with the
discourse of ‘underdevelopment’ of so-called non-western societies. Both these
discourses utilize the same positioning strategy, which confuses descriptive and
normative binary dichotomies in analyzing and comparing political and cultural
phenomena in different parts of Europe.
Central to the workshop are also discussions of whiteness and racism. The main
purpose is to discuss discourses of East to West migration and mobilities, both public
and political, how migrants from Eastern Europe are perceived and presented in
Western Europe. Migration from Eastern Europe to Western Europe is significant, not
least when it comes to labor migrants. These migrants are important in many
vocational sectors in Western Europe, yet, the migrants (and the countries they come
from) are looked upon as “not quite like us”. While the workshop will concentrate on
the racialized gaze on Eastern European migrants and the concept of hollowness, the
workshop will also broaden the theoretical and empirical implications hereof, by
comparatively scrutinizing similar trends in earlier types of migration.
336
Renegotiating Masculinities:
PAPER 1: How Polish Men Navigate Othering in Oslo
Kelly Fisher, MA Student, Centre for Gender Research,

University of Oslo | kjfisher@uio.no
Polish migrants have become the largest migrant community in Norway, and this
growth has resulted in the development of “Poles” increased marginalization within
Norway in the past 15 years (Godzimirski 2018). While Polish migrants have been
othered within Norway (Guðjónsdóttir & Loftsdóttir 2016), often the discourse about
migrants in Norway has focused on those with middle eastern and south Asian
backgrounds, and in particular men and their masculine practices (Walle 2007). The
topic of how these men and their masculinities from these regions have been
racialized has been well examined, (Jensen 2010), yet Polish men and masculinities
have not.
This paper will analyze the perceptions of Polish men and masculinities, and the
racialization of this population within the Norwegian context. It will aim to do this in
two different ways. First, a discussion of how media narratives of Polish immigration
have shifted since 2004 after Poland joined the EU. This analysis will help to show
how Polish migrants have over time become increasingly othered and seen as
separate from Norwegians. The second part will include an analysis of qualitative
interviews carried out by myself with Polish men in Oslo. The goal of these interviews
is to examine several questions that add to the knowledge of migrant masculinities,
and the racialization of Polish migrants in Norway. These interviews will explore how
Polish men construct their masculinity in two different areas: motivations for
migrating, and negotiation of life in Oslo and the labor market. These interviews hope
to explore and nuance the identities of Polish migrant men in Norway. This paper will
also show the impact of racialization on these Polish men and how they are
stigmatized and associated with the “hollowness” of their democracy.
337
Europeanization and democracy
PAPER 2: as positioning strategies in the inter-ethnic field
Raivo Vetik, Tallinn University | rvetik@tlu.ee
Recent literature on europeanization and democracy in Eastern Europe describes

political culture of the states in the region in terms of ‘hollowness‘, and claims that it is
mostly due to their ethnonationalism (Greskowits 2015, Cianetti 2017). This
presentation discusses metatheoretical presumptions of the discourse of ‘hollowness’
and shows that it is analogous to the discourse of ‘underdevelopment’ of non-
western societies in the modernization theory. Both these discourses utilize the same
Eurocentric positioning strategy, which confuses descriptive and normative binary
dichotomies in analyzing and comparing political and cultural phenomena in different
parts of Europe.
The presentation shows that what is called ‘ethnonationalism’ in the ‘hollowness’

discourse represents a standard subject position in inter-ethnic field, which can be
found in most Eastern Europe as well Western European states. Thus, instead of
static West versus East type of categorizations, a Bourdeausian relational approach is
proposed in the presentation to construct and analyze the inter-ethnic phenomena in
Europe. In this context, the struggle over the meaning of europeanization or
democracy either in academia or in other social fields should be seen not in terms of
finding a ‘true’ representation of an objective phenomena but in terms of social
positioning (Vetik 2019).
338
Perspectives on the ghetto:
PAPER 3: Eastern European Migrants in Denmark 1900-1910
Garbi Schmidt, University of Roskilde, Denmark | garbi@ruc.dk
The ambition of this paper is to historicize concurrent discussions of Eastern

European Migrants in Western European countries and cities. The migration from east
to west is not new. One example that this paper will highlight is the migration of
Russian and Polish Jews to Denmark in the early 20th century. Some of these
migrants settled in the inner city of Copenhagen, in an area soon to be describes at
the Copenhagen ghetto. Based on newspaper articles from the period, as well as
legislation targeting groups of Eastern European seasonal workers, this paper
discusses early racialized perspectives on these groups of migrants. How have they
historically been looked upon and eventually been subjected to both public and
political debate and legislation? This description, the paper argues, is also important
for our understanding of concurrent migration from East to Western Europe.
339
NORDIC EUROPE'S EASTERN OTHERS?
CEE/RUSSIAN MIGRATION
WORKSHOP 45.
AND THE NORDIC STATES
Kathy Burrell, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool,

UK | kburrell@liverpool.ac.uk
Ann Runfors, School of History and Contemporary Studies,
Södertörn University, Sweden | ann.runfors@sh.se
While recent debates about migration and the Nordic states have centred on the ‘refugee
crisis’, there has also been growing interest in movements from formerly socialist states in East
and Central Europe and Russia. Polish migrants, for example, are now one of the largest
minority populations across the region.
There are however more nuanced discussions still to be had about CEE/Russian migrants in
the Nordic states. The particular socialist/post-socialist context of this migration maps onto
postcolonial discourses of orientalism and the perpetuation of tropes about the east being
backward and other (Chari & Verdery, 2009; Buchowski, 2006). While the significance of
whiteness in the Nordic context has been closely analysed (Loftsdóttir & Jensen, 2016; Garner,
2014; Hubinette & Lundström, 2014), more research needs to consider the extent to which
people from this CEE/Russian background, while ‘whiter’ than other migrant groups, are fully
accepted as white (Van Riemsdijk, 2010; Loftsdóttir, 2017; Lönns, 2018). There is also more to
explore about how this ‘not quite white enough’ whiteness is passed on through subsequent
generations. If the Irish ‘became white’ in the US over time (Ignaviev, 2012), very little research
has studied whether the same has been happening in the Nordic states for descendants of
CEE/Russian migrants.
Although there are legacies which link the various CEE/Russian migrations in terms of
perceptions, experiences and racialisation, this is also a highly heterogenous population, with
people moving at different times, in different circumstances. There are also particular regional
links which further complicate these issues, from Cold War era perceptions among Estonians of
Sweden as ’the west’ (Rausing, 2002), to anxieties surrounding the Russian border in the north.
All of these, however, shed light on the particular tensions which entrench former socialist
states as the Nordic region’s eastern other. This session invites papers which explore these
phenomena, focusing especially on the particular experiences of moving from a socialist/post-
socialist state into a Nordic one, or coming of age in a Nordic state raised by parents from a
socialist/post-socialist one. Themes could include: Differential experiences of whiteness,
Differential experiences and situations of being governed – visa regimes, EU Freedom of
Movement, border issues and Specific socialist/post-socialist legacies relevant in post-
migration lives.

SESSION TWO: Papers 4-5 340
"Soviets should learn from them how to control citizens":
PAPER 1: Trust, the state, and postsocialist experiences in Sweden
Kathy Burrell, Reader in Human Geography,

University of Liverpool | kburrell@liverpool.ac.uk
This quote, ‘Soviets should learn from them how to control citizens’, is taken from an
interview held with a Polish national, three years ago, living and working in Sweden.
The wider project from which this interview is drawn did not ask directly about trust in
the state, nor did it ask about reflections on Soviet forms of governance – its focus
was on welfare, migration and living lives across borders. However, what this
testimony revealed is a fascinating dynamic which is arguably important in shaping
postsocialist experiences in Nordic states, especially around notions of trust and
governance. Moving from an apparently ‘low trust’ postsocialist context (Sztompka,
1999; Svašek, 2006) to a ‘high trust’ one raises important questions about what is
expected from the state and people’s relationships with it (see Frölig et al., 2019).
What this interview suggested especially, is that growing up in a ‘low trust’

environment brings a certain critical eye to the workings of a ‘high trust’ one, where
the government, for example, can keep extensive data on citizens with very little
citizen discomfort (Paulsson, 2016). It also raised interesting perceived parallels
between Soviet era socialism and the paternalism of the Nordic states (Andersson &
Hilson, 2009), crystallised around contemporary discussions of moving to a cash free
society. This paper will explore these issues through a closer reflection on this
research material, and by inviting further discussion within the session. Key questions
will be posed for session debate: To what extent does a postsocialist background
frame the relationship with the state in the new country? And where are the tensions,
and similarities, between the socialist/postsocialist experience and the Nordic
model?
341
The identification as eastern, Jewish and white:
An attempt to describe racialization experienced by
PAPER 2: immigrants that came to Sweden from Poland due to the
antisemitic campaign 1968-1972
Martin Englund, Södertörn University | martin.englund@sh.se
In 1968 a large scale antisemitic campaign was launched in Poland by the ruling
Communist party which created the last major emigration of the formerly so
numerous Polish Jewry. Almost 3000 of these emigrants came to Sweden and
Constitutes since then a minority group with a distinct community, intertwined but in
many aspects separate from other Polish or Jewish communities. The aim of this
paper is to describe the racialization this group experienced, both in Poland and in
Sweden. The empirical material consists of a range of autobiographies, articles, radio
programs and documentaries built on the experiences of this specific group of
migrants. In Poland their Polish patriotism was questioned in line with old antisemitic
conceptions of Jewish conspiracy. Yet in Sweden they were faced with another form
of racialization, namely as easterners in the Cold War era. Still these immigrants were
in general passing as white.
In Sweden research about antisemitism and racism has to a large extent been part of
two separate theoretical fields. Karin Kvist Geverts and Lars M Andersson has
described antisemitism as the blind spot of antiracism. They suggest that the divide
can be overbridged by empirical and comparative studies with an interest of different
perspectives from other fields (Kvist Geverts & Andersson 2017). In order to describe
the complex process of racialization these Polish-Jewish immigrants experienced,
my proposed paper argues that both research fields are needed. By combining the
use of critical whiteness theory and research on antisemitism with the aspect of
easternness in a Nordic context, and hence bridging this divide, the proposed paper
makes visible an example of Jewishness, easternness and whiteness mirrored in an
empirical case study.
342
Descendants of polish migrants
PAPER 3:
negotiating Swedish whiteness, transgenerational
traumas and populist right-wing discourse
Ann Runfors, Associate Professor, School of History and Contemporary Studies,

Södertörn University, Stockholm | ann.runfors@sh.se
This paper takes interest in the so far almost non-researched category descendants
of Polish migrants in Sweden. With theoretical inspiration drawn from critical
whiteness studies (Ahmed 2007, Garner 2017, Loftsdóttir & Jensen 2012; Lundström &
Teitelbaum 2017) as well as from post memory studies (Hirsh 2008), it analyses in-
depth interviews with women and men raised in Stockholm by one or two Polish
parents with focus on their experiences of racialization. Most expressed being read as
white and often narrated experiences of going visibly invisible and passing as
Swedish in public anonymous space. Nevertheless, the narrations also mirrored an
existential vulnerability. This was displayed when the descendants seemed to
constantly navigate sort of radar that could make them visible and seemed to
frequently take decisions on whether to hide their polish affiliation or not (Runfors
2020). These contrasting interview themes are explored in this paper and analysed in
relation to trans-generational transmitted traumatic experience of political changes in
Poland, in relation to the main streaming of extreme right-wing political discourse in
Sweden and in relation to norms of Swedish whiteness.
343
PAPER 4:
The North of Europe as the "West" and its Eastern Others
Daria Krivonos, University of Helsinki | daria.krivonos@helsinki.fi,

Paweł Lewicki, Europa-Universität Viadrina | lewicki@europa-uni.de
Drawing on ethnographic research among young post-Soviet migrants in Helsinki in

2014-2017, the presentation analyses their migratory movements as an effort towards
social distinction vis-à-vis what they see as the “non-modern” space of post-
socialism. Where and whether would young post-Soviet people moving to Finland fit
in the discussion on postcoloniality in Europe, for whom the ‘North’ turned out to be
their ‘West’? While young post-Soviet subjects orientalize their home countries and
the east of Europe through the metaphors of stuckedness, they also bring a belief
that they are no less than any other white people and are entitled to be in Europe
unlike post-colonial non-white Others. They learn about their racialized positions as
“not-fully-white” through de-skilling, unemployment, and everyday racism. These
experiences of racialization, however, do not hinder them from further reproducing
racist structures that target non-white Others.
It is only recently that the question of race has started to be explored in the study of
post-socialist Europe, and we argue that research on east-west migrations should
frame these mobilities in postcolonial and critical race scholarship as well as
relational, entangled emergence of the categories of "Europeanness" and its internal
“Others". Looking at the formation of whiteness across the East/West divide helps to
depart from unidirectional narratives of how groups become white and bring to the
fore ongoing struggles over the boundaries of whiteness and Europeanness. Such
perspective highlights the racialization of phenotypically white “Eastern European”
bodies as not-fully-white and the investments of Nordic/Western countries in
guarding the boundaries of European whiteness. It also connects “eastern” claims to
“Europeanness” and whiteness to postcolonial and (post)imperial legacies.
344
PAPER 5:
Passing as ‘the others’ within Danish anti-trafficking
Marlene Spanger, PhD Associate Professor, Dept. of Politics & Society,

Aalborg University | spanger@dps.aau.dk
Deriving from the policy field of prostitution Danish anti-trafficking has been a fast
growing policy field since 2002 and up until today 2020. Besides, identifying victims
within the sex industry, the Danish state has since 2007 been attentive to the formal
labour market aiming to identify male and female labour migrants from Central
Europe working in the construction, the agricultural and the service industries. From
the 2016 the Danish state engaged the trade union, as one of the strategies of the
states for identifying human trafficking victims within the formal labour market.
Zooming in on new constructions of racialised (including whitenss) victim
representations, this paper examine how CEE male labour migrants passes as ‘the
others’ within the Danish system that identifies victims of human trafficking. In order to
analyze the processes of othering. Based on the intersecting hierarchies of gender,
race (inclusive whiteness) and nationality: which and how do labour migrants passes
as victim of human trafficking? The paper will be based on interviews with CEE labour
migrants and the Danish authorities carried out in the period of 2016-2019.
345
Precarious HISTORICAL
Inclusion: Migrants
AND NEW and Refugees
FORMS

WORKSHOP 1
OF "NORTH-NORTH" MIGRATION
Tuire Liimatainen, Department of Cultures/Centre for Nordic Studies CENS, University of

Helsinki | tuire.liimatainen@helsinki.fi
Tiina Sotkasiira, Department of Social Sciences,
University of Eastern Finland | tiina.sotkasiira@uef.fi
Miika Tervonen, Migration Institute of Finland | miika.tervonen@utu.fi
Public and political debate, as well as the research on international migration, have largely
focused on migration from the so-called Global South to the North. This has overlooked the
fact that migration and mobility are also an integral part of the life experiences of a
significant part of the population in the industrialized Global North. In the context of Nordic
and EU cooperation, the Nordic citizens enjoy privileged rights of free movement and social
security. Naturalization policies additionally differentiate between Nordic and non-Nordic
citizens by e.g. providing Nordic citizens easier access to obtain citizenship in other Nordic
countries. Meanwhile, the public use of the term immigrant is highly racialized and class-
based, reserved for migrants traveling from South to North, while those moving within the
Global North tend to be perceived as privileged expats, lifestyle migrants or mobile
professionals. However, the diversification of the Nordic societies challenges these notions.
The workshop calls for a more nuanced understanding of North-North migration, one that
recognizes whiteness as a constantly shifting boundary of power and privilege, and takes
into account also the colonial and racialized pasts that continue to operate within the
national self-understandings and internal hierarchies in the Nordic region.
The workshop addresses historical and new forms of ‘North-North’ migration, processes of
integration and inequality, and the dynamics of emerging transnational labour markets in
Europe and the Nordic region. The workshop seeks to diversify public perceptions and
scholarly notions of North-North migration, including migration between Nordic countries as
well as between Nordic countries and other countries of the Global North. Additionally, the
workshop invites discussion on challenges of the North-South -division in understanding
contemporary migrations in the Nordic countries.
The workshop welcomes papers that look into particular Nordic migrant groups and
contributions that discuss under-explored issues in North-North migration, as well as papers
focusing on complexities of whiteness and privilege in relation to North-North mobility and
migration. Furthermore, papers can explore the socio-political and economic contexts and
developments, such as Brexit in the UK, that have influenced the identification and social
positioning of Nordic migrants. Empirical, theoretical as well as methodological
contributions are welcome.
346
The politics of embedding and the right to remain in
PAPER 1:
post-Brexit Britain: The experiences of Finns in Britain
Tiina Sotkasiira, Department of Social Sciences,

University of Eastern Finland | tiina.sotkasiira@uef.fi
This paper is based on the article, which I wrote together with Dr Anna Gawlewicz and
which is accepted for publication in the journal Ethnicities. The article examines the
European Union (EU) membership referendum in the United Kingdom in 2016, which
triggered a process of introspection among non-British EU citizens with respect to
their right to remain in the UK, including their right to entry, permanent residence, and
access to work and social welfare. Drawing on interview data collected from 42 EU
nationals, namely Finnish and Polish migrants living in Scotland, we have explored
how EU migrants’ decision-making and strategies for extending their stay in the UK, or
returning to their country of origin, are shaped by and, in turn, shape, their belonging
and ties to their current place of residence and across state borders.
In the article, we draw on the concept of embedding, which is used in migration

studies to explain migration trajectories and decision-making. Furthermore, we argue
that more attention needs to be paid to the socio-political context within which
migrants negotiate their embedding. To this end, we suggest the term ‘politics of
embedding’ to highlight the ways in which the embedding of non-British EU citizens
has been politicized and hierarchically structured in the UK after the Brexit
referendum. By illustrating how the context of Brexit has changed how people
evaluate their social and other attachments, and how their embedding is
differentiated into ‘ties that bind’ and ‘ties that count’, we contribute to the emerging
work on migration and Brexit, and specifically to the debate on the politicization of
migration. This paper proposed for the NMR conference & ETMU conference will
focus on the experiences of Finnish interviewees to discuss the outlined topic
347
Expatriates or immigrants? The experiences and views of
PAPER 2:
skilled professionals’ children in Finland
Mari Korpela, Academy Research Fellow, Tampere University | mari.korpela@tuni.fi
Finland, among many other countries, wants to attract skilled professionals from
abroad. Very often, these expatriates stay in the country temporarily and they are
accompanied by their children and spouses. This paper focuses on 9-11-year-old
expatriate children’s views and experiences in Finland. I argue that although the
families often see themselves as highly skilled and privileged expatriates sojourning
in the country temporarily, the Finnish state and society tend to see them as
“permanent immigrants” who needs to be domesticated. This becomes visible, for
example, in schools (including international schools) where the children follow Finnish
curriculums, including extensive language studies in Finnish and a constant exposure
to Finnish culture, habits etc. Being a temporary expatriate is a non-existing category
in the Finnish education system for children. The paper is based on an extensive
ethnographic study among expatriate children in an international school in a Finnish
town. With empirical examples, I elaborate on the contradictions of being a temporary
expatriate, yet, being defined as a permanent immigrant. I also discuss how these
contradictions become visible in the children’s everyday lives and how they navigate
the situation.
348
Intra-North Queer Migrations
PAPER 3:
and a Privileged Longing for Belonging
Linda Sólveigar- og Guðmundsdóttir,

Universityof Iceland, European Network of Queer Anthropology | lig14@hi.is
“I don’t feel like an immigrant”:

PAPER 4:
Contemporary young Finnish migrants in Sweden

Blanka Henriksson, Docent Nordic Folkloristics,
Åbo Akademi University, Finland | blhenrik@abo.fi
Sweden has been a target for Finnish migration throughout the ages, and during the
2010s, an increasing amount of Swedish‐speaking young adults has left Finland to live
in Sweden. This paper is based on fieldwork interviews made with emerging adults
from Finland living in Sweden. These immigrants find themselves in a situation where
they as native Swedish‐speakers imagine an easy adaptation to the Swedish society,
but in their narratives, a different story takes place.
By using a theoretical framework of passing, the life stories of the young migrants
show how diverging conceptions of migration and what it means to be an (im)migrant
are at work in different situations.
The young adults find themselves privileged, compared to other migrants, and often
mention that they don’t feel like (im)migrants. They are passing as Swedes, both by
being Swedish-speaking, and by feeling culturally at home in the Swedish society.
Different situations might enhance their status as migrants though – the Swedish they
speak is not perceived as the right variant by the natives, and bureaucracy in different
forms often force the role of immigrants on them.
349
In/visible Finnishness:
PAPER 5:
Representations of race and whiteness
in Sweden-Finnish social media campaigns and activism
Tuire Liimatainen, Department of Cultures/Centre for Nordic Studies CENS,

University of Helsinki | tuire.liimatainen@helsinki.fi
This paper discusses representations of race and whiteness through an analysis of

contemporary Sweden-Finnish social media campaigns and online activism. For
Sweden-Finns, the twenty-first century has been a period characterized by rapid
social, political, cultural as well as technological changes. Today, Finns in Sweden
have various categories of identification available for them as they are simultaneously
postwar labor migrants and their descendants, and a historically rooted national
minority, recognized in 2000. Additionally, many contemporary Finns in Sweden have
background in more recent migration being defined, for instance, as mobile
professionals or privileged expats. The recognition of Sweden-Finns as a national
minority has constructed Finnishness and Finnish language increasingly as part of a
new narrative of historically multicultural Sweden while strong transnational ties to
Finland on personal, cultural and political levels continue to remain.
Seeing whiteness as a constantly shifting boundary of power and privilege and

applying the analytical lens of translocational positionality, the presentation draws
attention especially to locations and how the notion of Finnishness in Sweden is
context, meaning and time related including inevitable shifts and contradictions. The
analysis of social media material distinguishes three discourses of embodied
boundaries of Finnishness in Sweden: invisible Finnishness, contested Finnishness,
and re-racialized Finnishness. These highly contradictory discourses highlight the
diversity, complexity and contextuality of Finnish experiences in Sweden. The results
also implicate that the status of Sweden-Finns as a national minority produces “re-
racialized” self-representations of Finnishness by the attention drawn to historical
race categories and power relations.
350
ASYLUM AND REFUGEE PROTECTION
WORKSHOP 47.
Synnøve Bendixsen, Associate professor, Department of Social Anthropology,

University of Bergen, Norway I synnove.Bendixsen@uib.no
This workshop discusses legal and administrative processes in the field of asylum
and refugee protection, and how the right to asylum is interpreted and implemented
both legally and administratively in different nation-states. It explores how we can
understand ongoing migration governance in the case of asylum rights and its
application (i.e. credibility assessments), how it is played out in various administrative
fields, and its implication for enforcing asylum rights. During the workshop we will
discuss various actors, including nation-state bureaucracy and non-state actors in the
field of refugee protection. The role of religion, both in the application and
assessment process and in the phase of refugee’s settlement, will also be addressed.

351
Public health sector organizational capacity in refugee
PAPER 1:
crisis: The case of Rohingya Influx in Bangladesh
Mohammad Kamrul Hasan, PhD Candidate, Global Development Institute, SEED,

The University of Manchester | mohammad.hasan-3@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk
Farhad Hossain, Dr, Reader, Global Development Institute, SEED,
The University of Manchester | farhad.hossain@manchester.ac.uk
Political crisis such as the refugee crisis threatens states and public sector
organizations significantly. The number of refugees has been on the rise which has
reached 70.8 million by 2019. This situation has been further aggravated by the
Rohingya crisis in Myanmar. Rohingyas have been forced to move to Bangladesh
since the 1970s but a massive influx took place during 1990-1991. Since then around
330148 has been living at various camps in Cox's Bazar district. The situation has
further worsened after an outbreak of extreme violence in the Rakhine State of
Myanmar on 25 August 2017. This triggered large movement of refugees into
Bangladesh. The massive influx has occurred rapidly into an area where the pre-influx
situation was already delicate with substantial lack of sufficient water and sanitation,
food insecurity, and generally inadequate facilities for health, education, etc. Basic
services available prior to the influx became over-strained due to massive demands
on the health systems and services. This new influx of Rohingya refugees has put
massive pressure on all health service-providing organizations and increased the
public health risk. In 2018 the number of total arrivals of refugees became more than
one million which is one-third of the total population of Cox's Bazar district. Since
August 2017 the health facilities in Cox’s Bazar and the surrounding areas have
reported a 150–200% increase in patients, overwhelming the current capacity and
resources.
Against this backdrop, this study aims to identify the impacts of the refugee crisis on
public sector organizational capacity with particular reference to the public health
sector in Bangladesh. Given its nature, this will be a qualitative research based on
semi structured interview and Focus Group Discussion (FGD).
352
Migrants’ Movements and Border Management along the
PAPER 2:
Balkan route: Containment, Caging and Contestations
Synnøve Bendixsen, Associate professor, Department of Social Anthropology,

University of Bergen, Norway I synnove.Bendixsen@uib.no
The EU and Schengen borders are increasingly controlled through externalization

policies, new technologies, and containment. Controlling migration through
containment is not only about protracted strandedness and immobility. Containment
is also about governing migration by disruption and keeping migrants on the move, in
short to regain control over their autonomous movements (Tazzioli and Garelli 2018).
Based on ethnographic fieldwork along the so-called Balkan route, in this paper I will
discuss how can anthropologists study the effects of the policy of humanitarian
containment by the EU and Schengen member states on the movements of migrants.
How is the Balkan territory shaped as a transit or waiting zone by the ongoing bio-
political policies of forced immobility? How are the migrant’s journey, their speed,
strategies and imaginaries constituted through a humanitarian architecture which has
the aim to keep refugees outside the EU?
353
PAPER 3: Sweden’s Refugee "Others"
Sumbul Parveen, Jawaharlal Nehru University,

New Delhi, India |sumbulparveen2013@gmail.com
Since the end of the Second World War, there have been several refugee crises. The
most recent was in 2015 when according to the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR), there were 21.3 million refugees and 3.2 million asylum
seekers worldwide. Out of these global asylum applicants, more than 2 million had
applied in 38 European countries in 2015.
This paper looks at Sweden, which according to Migrationsverket, received a total of

162,877 applications for asylum per capita which was the highest per capita number
that was registered in Europe in 2015. The paper firstly argues that being an important
asylum destination and an inclusive modern welfare state, Sweden has aimed to
bring the refugee ‘others’ at par with the natives and recognizing the cultural
particularities of refugees to make the Swedish society inclusive.
As response to such heavy influx of refugees in 2015, Sweden introduced stringent

measures to “create respite for Swedish refugee reception”. This paper argues that
Sweden’s introduction of strict asylum legislations following the refugee crisis of 2015
has resulted in ‘differentiated’ treatment of those refugees who came to Sweden after
the crisis as compared to refugees who came before it and also the resettled
refugees. This has led to the ‘othering’ of refugees who have entered Sweden after
the crisis. Post the refugee crisis of 2015, Sweden’s attention on the ‘other’ has drifted
from formulating such policies that help integrate refugees to regulating their entry
and stay in Sweden. The argument is built after study of Sweden’s asylum regime.
The paper also focuses on how the refugee crisis of 2015 unfolded in Sweden and
analyzes the discourse of Sweden’s various political parties and civil society
organizations regarding the crisis. It also examines whether Sweden’s new asylum
policy depicts a foundational change in its approach towards asylum or is a
temporary aberration.
354
PAPER 4: Territorial asylum as the future of international protection
Radim Hueber, PhD student, Researcher,

Charles University, Prague | radimhueber@gmail.com
Asylum and refugee status are similar in many respects, but they need to be
differentiated because of different circumstances of origin, different sources, the
discretion of States in their use and the duration of protection provided. However, this
distinction does not occur consistently, as reflected in the blending of the two
institutions in European law.
Far more states have acceded to the Geneva Convention than have embedded
asylum into their constitutions. However, territorial asylum began to be discussed
more in connection with the Edward Snowden case. Moreover, the right to asylum
was enshrined in only 11% of national constitutions in 1950. By 2017, this figure had
risen to 35%.
Another interesting case of asylum use is the developments in Ecuador concerning
Presidential Decree No 1182, where a coalition of lawyers and NGOs successfully
argued against it with the use of the constitutionally guaranteed right to asylum
incorporated into the Constitution.
On the other hand, European countries such as France, Germany and Italy, despite
the establishment of the right to asylum at the constitutional level, have decided to
consider applications for international protection exclusively through the optics of the
Geneva Convention.
In my research, I focus on the differences between the institutions of asylum and

refugee status. Legal doctrine mentions that asylum is used to provide refuge to
individual politically persecuted persons, while the purpose of refugee status is to
solve mass influxes of refugees. However, in the preparatory works for the
Convention on Territorial Asylum, we can find explicit reference to mass influx. That
means that the participating states have considered the possible influx of refugees,
whose protection they would address with asylum. Is there any difference between
asylum and refugee status today? And will asylum still be relevant in the future, or
will it become obsolete?
355
Credibility assessment of religious conversion
PAPER 5:
in the Finnish asylum process
Ilona Silvola, PhD Student in Systematic Theology,

Åbo Akademi University | isilvola@abo.fi
During recent years, there has been a growing phenomenon of asylum seekers
converting to Christianity. As persecution based on religion is one of the grounds of
refugee status, the Finnish Migration office (Migri) is bound to examine whether the
religious conversion poses a threat to the asylum seeker in their country of origin. But
how can it be verified that an asylum seeker, in fact, has converted? To determine the
genuineness of conversion, Migri assesses its credibility. In the media, Migri has been
criticized for having unachievable criteria for a credible conversion.
In my proposed presentation, I analyze the grounds on which the Finnish Immigration

Service (Migri) assesses the credibility of religious conversion of asylum seekers. I
argue that the credibility assessment of religious conversion is based on an implicit,
but normative conception of religion. This conception is influenced by the Western,
protestant, and secular view on religion. However, this view on religion does not
necessarily overlap with the asylum seeker’s understanding of religion which makes
the credibility assessment potentially unreliable. Thus, the credibility assessment
becomes a mechanism of exclusion, as these asylum seekers are not granted
international protection.
The research method is a content analysis of 50 asylum decisions made by Migri

between 2017 and 2019, and qualitative interviews with different parties relevant to
the research question. In my presentation, I will provide some initial outcomes of the
analysis.
356
PAPER 6:
Constructing Religion in the Finnish Asylum Process
Helmi Halonen, MA, PhD researcher, University of Helsinki | helmi.halonen@helsinki.fi
I am a PhD researcher studying how asylum claims of persecution for reasons of

religion are assessed in Finland. I hold an MA degree in Study of Religions from the
Master’s Degree Programme in Intercultural Encounters at the University of Helsinki. I
have also worked for three years as a counsellor for asylum seekers for the City of
Helsinki, providing me with in-depth knowledge of the asylum process as well as the
lived realities of asylum seekers in Finland.
My PhD work approaches the asylum process from a theoretical framework of

Discursive Study of Religion and Critical Discourse Analysis. From this perspective,
”religion” is not a fixed, objectively existing category, but a product of the socio-
political context in which it was created. Uncritically using a post-Enlightenment
Western European concept as a universal human category risks repeating colonial
hierarchies of knowledge where the European is seen as the universal. This is
particularly problematic when assessments of an asylum seeker’s religiosity or
religious persecution are then used to determine their need for international
protection. Not only are decision-makers applying their own understandings and
categorisations to a context very different from their own and doing so from a position
of power; they are doing so in a context where misunderstandings can be fatal.
In my research, I analyse prominent definitions and framings of religion in asylum

interview minutes and asylum decisions. I then study the relationship between these
discourses on religion and relevant background information such as claimants’
gender, nationality, and religious affiliation, and whether the way religion is discussed
correlates with the outcome of the asylum case. The results are interpreted within
their wider societal context of forced migration, unequal power relations and the
heritage of colonialism, and polarising public discourse on asylum in the global North.
357
Asylum seekers integration process in reception centre
PAPER 7:
prior to receiving decision about residence permit:
Social, psychological, cultural and economic factors

Sohana Islam, Doctoral researcher,
Department of Humanities and Social Science, University of Turku | sohisl@utu.fi
This qualitative study looks at the integration process of asylum seekers to Finnish
society before receiving a permit to reside in Finland. The study is focused on the
period before obtaining a residence permit. In this research, this period is referred to
as the pre-integration period, which means the period before official integration takes
place. Based on statistics from the past four years, the average time before receiving
a residence permit is about two years. During this time, most asylum seekers stay in
reception centers with limited activities. There are social, cultural, psychological and
economic factors involved in integration. The first research question is how asylum
seekers understand their integration in Finnish society, although their future is
uncertain during the pre-integration period. The second research question is what
kind of social, cultural, economic, and psychological resources for integration are
available to asylum seekers during the pre-integration period. The third research
question is how do different stakeholders (integration officials, social workers, and
reception center managers) who interact with asylum seekers understand their pre-
integration process.
The primary research material comprises interviews with 15 asylum seekers,

interviews with stakeholders, ethnographic observations, and existing literature. The
asylum seekers are selected based on their language capacity to express themselves
as clearly as possible. The asylum seekers are interviewed inside and outside the
reception centers if they move to a private residence. The stakeholders include
integration officials, social workers, and reception center managers. There are four
interviews during the research timeline with each asylum seeker. The study also
contains ethnographic observation by the researcher. The results of the study provide
a new viewpoint to social science as it is expected to bring out unexplored
perspectives of the integration of an asylum seeker.
358
THE MUTABILITY OF COLONIALITY: MEDIA
48.in Contemporary
WORKSHOP 1 Welfare
REPRESENTATIONS, States PRACTICES,
MIGRATION
INDIGENOUS AND DIASPORIC EXPERIENCES
Tobias Pötsch, Swedish School of Social Science (SSKH), CEREN, Centre for Research
on Ethnic Relations and Nationalism I tobias.potzsch@helsinki.fi
Minna Seikkula, University of Helsinki | minna.seikkula@helsinki.fi
Coloniality in its multifarious material and immaterial practices is reflected in the

interplay and interconnectedness of global power hierarchies and the quotidian
experiences of everyday life. This workshop explores its pervasive impact by
examining white social framing in media representations, local practices of
indigenous resistance and agency, as well as its global influence on migration and
integration regimes and politics of environmental justice. The wide-ranging
contributions of its international panel illuminate a complex and conflicted picture of
coloniality which despite its different guises, locations and practices engenders a
similitude in discourses and outcomes.

359
Infantinationalism: A new terminology for the use
PAPER 1: white children as aides in racist representations

Tess Sophie Skadegård Thorsen, PhD Candidate,
Aalborg University | Tess_sst@hotmail.com
The 2002 Danish children’s film Bertram & Co features the lead character, 6-year
Bertram in blackface, and in costume as a young ‘Arab sheikh’. Mirroring the
playfulness of 1958 family film Far til Fire, in which the two youngest children perform
a racist song and act in full blackface (and body) and caricatured costumes, Bertram
& Co similarly ‘handles’ race through the innocent eyes of a child.
This article seeks to examine the instances in which white children are utilized as
vessels for everyday racism and discrimination, through performative innocence in
racist tropes. Whether in discussions of ‘retro-racist’ colonial candies (Danbolt, 2017),
racist language in children’s books or racist caricature in theme-parks (Rødje &
Skadegård Thorsen, 2018), Danish debates have increasingly utilized the (presumed)
innocent landscape of white youth as a battleground for negotiations of racism and
discrimination. What are the affective implications of negotiating race, racialization
and racism through the presumed (and performed) perspectives of a child, and what
are the potential effects on Danish youth (white or not)? Building off the theorizations
of femonationalism and homonationalism (Farris 2017, Puar 2007), this article
proposes a derivative term ‘infantinationalism’ to address the uses of children, white
children in particular, as vessels and tools for perpetuating racism, discrimination and
white nationalist ideology.
360
Speaking for them:
PAPER 2: When activism becomes contradictory

Asia Della Rosa, MA student in Ethnic and Migration,
Linköping University | asia.dellarosa@yahoo.it, aside662@student.liu.se
In an effort to manage the large flow of migrants arrived by the Mediterranean Sea,
different legislative alternatives have been adopted in Italy over the last years,
including the establishment of permanent centres - full-fledged large detention
places where migrants wait for their residence permit.
The work proposed here stems to the need to question the role of a group of activists
who supported - in November 2017 - a protest, led by some migrants, which took
place in a big detention centre next to Venice. The aim is to highlight the criticisms
found in the support activity towards the migrants: the positioning of the activists,
during the course of the whole experience, was in fact continuously questioned,
properly because certain power’s dynamics have presented themselves in different
forms and structures, influencing from time to time the attitudes of all the
subjectivities involved.
In particular, the work proposed here aims at analysing these stances, taking into
account three dynamics: firstly, the power’s relation established between activists
and migrants, based on the practical solidarity which, however, has been ambivalent
in certain situations - with the risk of re-proposing victimising dynamics and colonialist
attitudes. Secondly, the unequal power’s relation between the supporters and the
formal institutions, a game of force made up of unheeded demands, plea bargains
and blackmails, which have had an impact primarily on migrants; thirdly, the relation
between the activists and the journalists, taking into account the consequently
narrations, influenced by denouncements of the former but narrated by the latter, and
which often have been described in racist terms, aiding the migrant’s stigmatisation.
In support of the research there are references to literature and theory on the subject,
and it is planned the screening of a short documentary and a TV report.
361
"Integration", racialization and whiteness in Finland:
PAPER 3: An ethnodrama

Ioana Tistea, Tampere University, Finland | ioana.tistea@tuni.fi
Through a performance of an ethnographic drama, this presentation explores the

themes of migrant ‘integration’, racialization, and whiteness in Finland. The script is
based on diary notes taken during the presenter’s migrant integration training and her
job practice in a reception center for asylum seekers, and interviews with teachers
working in those institutions. The presenter performs the ethnodrama through
reader’s theater and attempts multivocal interpretations of the script. The ethnodrama
explores if and how whiteness may be a ‘civilizing’, self/colonizing category to which
Eastern European migrants in Finland may aspire by distancing themselves from
migrants and Europeans racialized as non-white, and thus from ‘integration’
discourses of ‘backwardness’ and ‘unemployability’. It further explores if and how
Eastern European migrants may reproduce whiteness when unreflexively equating
their nationalizing discriminatory readings with racializing ones. The ethnodrama has
the potential to hopefully stir complicities and provoke reflections in the audience.
The presentation contributes to a growing body of auto/ethnographic research
exploring Eastern European experiences with whiteness in the Nordic space.
362
Breaking free from the Danish gaze:
PAPER 4: A transnational practice among Somali mothers in Egypt

Ayan Yasin Abdi, Master of Arts, AarhusUniversity | ayan@ruc.dk
Somali diaspora is categorized on the lower level of the Danish social hierarchy and
subjected to intense scrutiny and racialization. Especially Somali women has for
decades loomed large in the “negative narratives” characterizing them as a burden for
the Danish society (Holm Fadel et al. 1999).
Previous research has been on the many aspects of migration, but on such theme as
why migrants leave their country of citizenship after many years of residency hasn’t
been studied as much. My question therefore is, how the racialized gaze on Somali
women are perceived and leads to migration as a transnational strategy? How does
the Somali diaspora in Denmark seek for alternative horizons among Egyptians
beyond the Danish welfare state? Is migration to Egypt a way to escape the
limitations that many Somali women experience as economically, racialized and
marginalized citizens in the West?
Based on the discussion of discourses of West to East migration and mobilities, I draw
on research literature on transnational migration and cultural psychology. The study is
based on a qualitative ethnographic research strategy including a total of 3 months
participant observation in Cairo, which followed a previous 9 months stay I had with
Somali women in Cairo, as well as several semi-structured interviews in Cairo as well
as Denmark. Throughout the qualitative ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, I ask
about their transnational engagement between Denmark and Egypt and about their
civic role in those respective countries.
I argue that Somali women deliberately and consciously choose to migrate from
Denmark to Egypt as a transnational practice for the following four reasons: cultural-,
religious-, social-, and economic. Egypt creates an opportunity to establish a middle-
class life and escape the economic constrains, racialization and discrimination they
face in Denmark.
363
Administrative border struggles,
PAPER 5: solidarity and intersectional power relations

Minna Seikkula, University of Helsinki | minna.seikkula@helsinki.fi
While contemporary European debates and practices in regard of migration are often
connected to hostility and violence (for a good reason), there are also attempts to
challenge hostitility as well as violent governance of migration. After the “European
border crisis” in 2015, supportive attitudes towards asylum seekers became more
common and there was an increase in solidarity initiatives in also the civil society in
Finland. After the notion of crisis has faded in the mainstream public debate, some of
these initiatives have since developed into solidarity action and/or aiding people who
after seeking asylum were left without a status and try to find a way to legalize their
stay in Finland.
The presentation explores action that supports migrants in administrative border

struggles, ie. in attempts to navigate the residence permit system that can be
regarded as an extension of the colonial world-order reflecting border regime. More
specifically, the focus of the presentation is on intersectional axes of power that
mediate the relations between people taking prominent role in solidarity work and
the actual subjects of border struggles, migrants. How the racialized positionalities of
people involved in (solidarity to) border struggles shape the struggles? What kind of
intersectional agencies the resident permit system requires from migrants and their
supports? In other words, the presentation explores the ways in which border
struggles might, on one hand, end up maintaining the colonial difference, but on the
other hand also the ways in which they challenge the logic of borders.
364
Re-Righting my name:
PAPER 6: A struggle of reclaiming name as indigenous peoples

Chung-Chih Hong (Ayah Demaladas), Religious Studies,
McGill University | chungchih.hong@mail.mcgill.ca
I-An Gao (Wasiq Silan), University of Helsinki | an.gao@helsinki.fi
Peter J. Mataira, Hawaii Pacific University
Indigenous youth today, who reclaimed their traditional names, are facing
accusations and discriminations for disobeying the colonial/racial histories.
Reclaiming one’s Indigenous name is a matter of personal choice as well as a public
expression of identity. Reclaiming Indigenous name gives one a greater sense of
belonging, self-confidence, and cultural conscientization. For the generation of young
Indigenous people, this is a new and novel normative representation of who they
strive to ‘want to’ be in a complex global context. Yet, while many have reclaimed
their names, there are legitimate struggles, barriers, and practical implications to
overcome.
This paper asks the question under what circumstances and to what extent does
reclaiming our Indigenous identities (names) matter as a factor in the process of
indigenizing and decolonizing the institutions in which we work. What does
indigeneity mean when we encounter state bureaucracies and their surveillance
policies - one only need look at one’s identity card or tax records? Who decides
what’s in a name and whether one is Indigenous enough? Where do those who have
no claim to an indigenous name fit into the struggle? Based on the authors’ own
critical experience, we share our understandings of what it means to re-conceptualize
who we are in a post-colonial recognition-based society: That while there are
demands for authenticity and rights to self-determine, we acknowledge, Western
institutions have not provided the necessary tools to facilitate social, political and
economic change, nor the appropriate interventions to deal with the trauma, suffering
and injustices experienced by Indigenous people.
365
“From the margin to the centre”: The audacity
PAPER 7:
of Liberian residuals to enact sociocultural and
economic agency in Oru, Southwestern Nigeria

Durodola Tosin Samuel, Master’s student, Diaspora and Transnational Studies.
University of Ibadan, Nigeria | oluwatosinduro@gmail.com
The Liberian Civil War of 1990 resulted in a huge number of refugees moving to
different parts of West Africa. The Oru Refugee Camp in Ogun State, Nigeria, was one
of many camps created in the region by the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR), to offer temporal accommodation for Liberian refugees until
normalcy returned to their country of origin. After the war ended in 2003, UNHCR
failed to decongest the camps in West Africa despite introducing three durable
solutions to protracted refugee situations. The closure of Oru refugee camp by the
Nigerian government, following UNHCR’s termination of the refugee status for
Liberian exiles, forced them to seek abode elsewhere in the host community, where
they are exposed to vagaries of the new, self-made settlement without international
protection or inclusion in national development planning. Even though termination of
refugee status exposes residuals to vulnerability, not much of the extant literature
explores their after-life outside camps. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper
unravels how Liberian residuals outside the closed camp have transformed the
former uninhabitable space into a cultural colony and an economic hub, even as their
daily mobilities, livelihoods, and thrusts continue to influence contiguous
communities and towns. The research findings show that the perceived
powerlessness and disadvantage of Liberian residuals are unreal especially when
they deploy their cultural agency, economic resourcefulness, diaspora network, and
trans-local support ‘to be’ or ‘to have’ significant access to the power, space, and
resources previously enjoyed exclusively by their Oru host.
366
A Conceptual Inquiry on Human Migration & Mobility
PAPER 8: under the Impact of “Colonizer-Induced Climate Crisis”

Barış Can Sever, Middle East Technical University |
bariscanseverrr@gmail.com, baris.sever@metu.edu.tr
This study aims to undertake a decolonial endeavour to evaluate climate-related

human migration and mobility through the context of coloniality. In other words, it is
to be comprehended as a decolonial approach to contemplate on the understanding
of coloniality and its implications through the examination of current migratory roots
and results specifically related to the impact of recent climate crisis. In line with this
purpose, the researcher problematizes coloniality from a decolonial perspective and
the impacts of the colonial era as the backdrop of climate crisis and its implications.
Accordingly, climate-related migration and mobility is conceived as one of the
implications in this phenomenon. In order to understand and analyze the relationship
among migration, climate crisis, colonial era and coloniality, the study has preliminary
questions as follow: a) how did colonial era and coloniality play a major role in causing
and sustaining the climate crisis? b) how do the coloniality correlates with the
evolution and consequences of the climate crisis? c) how can we analyze climate-
related migration and mobility through the context of coloniality and decoloniality?
Based on the discussion of possible answers of these questions, the researcher

proposes that involuntary human migration and mobility under the impact of the
climate crisis is representing the people who are marginalized, subjugated, and
subordinated by the results of colonial era and the effects of coloniality, and now
moving both inside and outside of nation-state boundaries and try to reach new safe
places. As a novelty of the study and probable fresh contribution to existing literature,
the concept of “colonizer-induced climate crisis” is introduced in this study. This novel
approach is likely to inspire new research questions at the nexus of climate crisis,
migration, and coloniality, and may encourage interested researchers who position
themselves with a set of decolonial perspectives.
367
INTEGRATION Migrants CONTESTATIONS,
PROCESSES: and Refugees
WORKSHOP 1
NEGOTIATIONS AND EXPERIENCES
Saara Pellander, Migration Institute of Finland | saara.pellander@migrationinstitute.fi
Integration is a contested concept. This workshop looks at the process that tends to
be referred to as integration from a variety of perspectives. Integration is intertwined
with immigration status, which has also been referred to as integration at the border.
At the same time, common notions of integration tend to focus solely on the groups
that integration programs seek to target, with no or too little focus on the society to
which certain groups are expected to integrate. Discourses about integration can take
a different form when the process that is described by it is conceptualized as (critical)
social inclusion. Integration can also mean different things when looked at through a
life-course perspective.
Furthermore, in the Nordic countries, it is vital to consider how neoliberal welfare

nationalism influences the ways in which bureaucrats and social workers interact with
migrants and refugees, which greatly influences the daily practices and ethical
dilemmas faced in these interactions. On the other hand, these interactions do not
only take place within the framework of neoliberal welfare states, but carry a
relational dimension in the daily encounters that can be conceived of as relational
labor. The workshop explores these and other questions related to integration
policies, their implementations, evaluations and blind spots in the Nordic countries.

368
On the importance of playing house:
PAPER 1:
Belonging-work and the making of relational
citizens in Finnish immigrant integration policies
Linda Haapajärvi, Centre Maurice Halbwachs, Paris | linda.haapajarvi@ehess.fr
Although local level social participation has recently emerged as a magic recipe to
immigrant in Western Europe, the dynamics of citizenship participatory policies
produce remain largely unknown. Based on an ethnographic study set in Helsinki, this
article analyses front-line social workers’ efforts to establish interpersonal ties
between immigrant women and their native neighbours as a means of immigrant
integration. It forges the notion of belonging-work to denote such relational labour
and identifies three techniques of weaving a denser social fabric locally: constructing
collective identities, cultivating common practices and orchestrating feelings of
togetherness.
The analysis of situated practices of belonging-work makes two key contributions to

literature on citizenship and integration. Firstly, it conceptualizes the relational
dimension of citizenship that analyses focused on individual-level citizenization have
turned a blind eye to. Secondly, it resituates the domestic mode of national belonging
that the ordinary practice of integration produces in the framework of more complex
political exigencies and aspirations in welfare actors than the thesis on the
culturalization of citizenship suggests. The article analyses relational citizenship as a
pragmatic accommodation to the dilemma of universalism in European welfare states
coming to terms with their internal diversity.
369
Active and Passive Integration in Two Norwegian Cities,
PAPER 2: Mapping Syrian Refugees’ Access to Socio-Spatiality

Anisa Abeytia, East Los Angeles College | anisa@alumni.stanford.edu
Mass global migration presents challenges to numerous stakeholders. After resettlement

the greatest challenge for receiving countries and refugees is the social integration of
newly arrived individuals, but it offers the opportunity for the expansion of integration
theory by identifying weaknesses in integration policy to produce a model that moves
beyond the supranational and national levels to an emphasis on local, social inclusion.
The localized implementation of national integration policy via digital and community
based social networks in Norway is expanding the potential of integration policy to a
model that produces inclusive societies by granting access to socio-spatiality outside of
refugee and immigrant populations. These networks established by locals, Syrian
refugees, Non-Profit Organizations, Norwegian social institutions and governmental
agencies, are essential components in Syrian refugees’ acquisition of vocational, linguistic
and educational opportunities, which form the rungs to upward mobility. It is a practice
rooted in the Norwegian tradition of dugnad that places emphasis on civic engagement
through community service that is translating into community building across social
sectors. This emerging Norwegian social inclusion model can serve as an example for
other European countries and opens a new discussion on the integration process.
Active and Passive Integration in Two Norwegian Cities, Mapping Syrian Refugees’ Access
to Socio-Spatiality Mass global migration presents challenges to numerous stakeholders.
After resettlement the greatest challenge for receiving countries and refugees is the
social integration of newly arrived individuals, but it offers the opportunity for the
expansion of integration theory by identifying weaknesses in integration policy to produce
a model that moves beyond the supranational and national levels to an emphasis on
local, social inclusion. The localized implementation of national integration policy via
digital and community based social networks in Norway is expanding the potential of
integration policy to a model that produces inclusive societies by granting access to
socio-spatiality outside of refugee and immigrant populations. These networks
established by locals, Syrian refugees, Non-Profit Organizations, Norwegian social
institutions and governmental agencies, are essential components in Syrian refugees’
acquisition of vocational, linguistic and educational opportunities, which form the rungs to
upward mobility. It is a practice rooted in the Norwegian tradition of dugnad that places
emphasis on civic engagement through community service that is translating into
community building across social sectors. This emerging Norwegian social inclusion
model can serve as an example for other European countries and opens a new discussion
on the integration process.
370
PAPER 3:
Measuring refugee integration through usage of indicators
Henrik Emilsson, Malmö Institute for Studies of

Migration, Diversity and Welfare | henrik.emilsson@mau.se
Nadeen Khoury, Malmö University
Tawanda Maviga, Malmö University
Sayaka Osanami Törngren, Malmö Institute for Studies of
Migration, Diversity and Welfare
NIEM – the National Integration Evaluation Mechanism, aims to assess how

comprehensively EU member states respond to the needs and opportunities of the
beneficiaries of international in their new country of residence. NIEM is an ongoing
six-year EU project involving thirteen member states (Czechia, France, Greece,
Hungary, Itay, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and
Sweden). It aims to establish a mechanism for a regular, comprehensive evaluation of
the integration, specifically of beneficiaries of international protection. Beneficiaries of
international protection often face similar integration opportunities and obstacles as
other migrants, and at the same time face different set of difficulties due to their
situation regarding protection needs and experiences of flight. Despite the wealth of
public discourses on the usefulness of integration indicators for policy evaluation,
there is still scarce use of accurate and comparable indicators specifically on refugee
integration in the EU (UNHCR 2013).
We will present 173 indicators NIEM work with, in order to evaluate integration
policies across the EU member states, and identify the gap between policy
placement and implementation focusing especially on two of the countries involved
in the project Sweden and the Netherlands.
371
The Challenge of Neoliberal Welfare Nationalism
PAPER 4:
for Social Work with Migrants and Refugees
with Precarious Status in the Nordic Countries
Jessica Jönsson, Örebro University | jessica-hanna.jonsson@oru.se

Camilla Nordberg, Åbo Akademi | camilla.nordberg@abo.fi
The Nordic countries have undergone neoliberalisation of their welfare states, which
have resulted in ideological, political, and electoral support for ‘welfare nationalism’
with ethical implications for social workers. The social work practices are moving
towards individualised, isolated, depoliticised and formalised task performance, with
minimum concern about the structural and institutional dimensions of inequalities and
the exclusion of precarious groups in society. This political landscape is changing the
functions and mandates of social workers. Within new organisational conditions, the
work is increasingly being ordered and structured by neoliberal policymakers far
removed from the day-to-day encounters that social workers have with service users.
The new way of standardisation of social work, which often is legitimated as making
social work more effective, empties social work practice from its human qualities.
Referring to own research on social work with migrants and refugees with precarious
status in Finland and Sweden, this paper examines the consequences of the
neoliberal transformations of social policy for immigration and integration policies in
the Nordic context. We illustrate such changes by focusing on the role of neoliberal
changes and hostile Nordic immigration policies in Nordic welfare states in shaping
the experience of being a social worker, doing so specifically in relation to growing
ethical dilemmas in respect of social workers’ daily work and professional identities.
We argue that the nation-based challenges to Nordic welfare states require finding
solutions to the tensions between global statements of ethical principles of social
work, international laws and conventions, and the nationalised daily welfare practices
with migrants and refugees with precarious status in the Nordic countries.
372
What we talk about when we talk about integration:
PAPER 5:
Reflections on the research about labour market
integration of newly arrived refugees in Norway

Norma Wong, Postdoctorate researcher, Centre for Intercultural
Communication, VID Specialized University | norma.wong@vid.no
Zubia Willmann Robleda, PhD research fellow, Centre for Intercultural
Communication, VID Specialized University | zubiawillmann.robleda@vid.no
This paper presents the authors' reflection about the ends and means of integration
from an on-going project about labour market integration of newly arrived refugees in
Norway. It elaborates on four aspects which are currently under-researched, and
argues for multi-disciplinary, bottom-up approach to reclaim the concept of
integration as opposed to assimilation.
1) Social capital and inclusive communities. Much of current discourse on refugee

integration policy in the Norwegian welfare state focuses on the single economic
dimension of building human capital for higher employment rate. However, research
in migration studies increasingly point to the role of social capital, civil society and the
local communities in a more holistic integration process.
2) Quality of jobs offered to immigrants. Statistics have show the tendency of

immigrants to be under-employed or overqualified for their jobs. The policy goal of
employment in Norway is therefore inadequate in showing if immigrants are thriving
and engaged meaningfully in society. Instead, more investigation is needed about
workplaces that value the diversity, resources, and networks brought by immigrants.
3) Political participation. Studies have pointed out the consistently lower rate of voting
amongst immigrants compared to native Norwegians. However, current Norwegian
literature do not offer much insight on this phenomenon, and its implications on the
process of integration of immigrants as part of the democracy.
4) Immigrant entrepreneurship. Studies in entrepreneurship have pointed out factors

behind the higher likelihood of immigrants to start their businesses, a phenomenon
documented world-wide and not least in Norway. Beyond the traditional shops
serving ethnic communities, high-skilled immigrants are entering innovative markets
and often with a strong social dimension. More evidence and cases are needed in the
context of Norway to reflect a more comprehensive picture about immigrants’
contribution.
373
Older Re-Migrants Experiences
PAPER 6: of Integration and Exclusion: A Qualitative Study

Gunilla Kulla, Faculty of Nursing and Health Sciences,
Nord University, Bodo, Norway | gunilla.kulla@nord.no
Lily Appoh, Faculty of Nursing and Health Sciences,
Nord University, Namsos, Norway | lily.appoh@nord.no
Sirkka-Liisa Ekman, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
Anneli Sarvimäki, The Age Institute, Helsinki, Finland | anneli.sarvimaki@ikainstituutti.fi
Historically Sweden has a long tradition of labor immigration. In the years 1945-1999
over half a million Finns moved to Sweden. The Finns and their descendants still
make up Sweden’s largest group with origins in another country although about 300
000 of the half million Finns that moved to Sweden returned to Finland. Since the
Finns are such a large group both as immigrants in Sweden and re-migrants in
Finland, they offer an interesting arena for studying integration and exclusion. The aim
of this study was to describe and explore how older re-migrants’ experiences of
integration and exclusion while living in another country as well as reasons for re-
migrating.
Qualitative content analysis was employed to analyze data from 28 life-course

interviews, with 18 women and 10 men. The interviewees described child- and
youthhood, when and why they moved to Sweden, how life in Sweden was, and why
they moved back. Results showed integration is due to good working and social
conditions, benefits of linguistic proficiency in both countries languages and better
life in Sweden. Due to communication problems, cultural differences, lack of close
relations, longing for Finland, exclusion was experienced. Reasons to re-migrate were
return to family, childhood home, back to origin or a wish to be buried in country of
birth. However, circumstances interfering with experienced integration vs. exclusion
influenced on if the older migrants stayed or returned to country of origin.
Lessons learned from the older Finnish re-migrants is that integration and exclusion
are complex phenomenon as such, at least from a life-course perspective
considered.
374
Examining Finnish health- and social care
PAPER 7:
professionals' challenges serving migrant
families with a disabled child

Annika Lillrank, University of Helsinki | annika.lillrank@helsinki.fi
Eveliina Heino, University of Helsinki | eveliina.heino@helsinki.fi
This article examines public health- and social service professionals' challenges in
working with migrant families' with a disabled child in Finland, relying on data from in-
depth interviews with 18 professionals, such as social workers and special teachers.
We are interested in professional experiences for two reasons. First, research on
professionals working with migrant families with a disabled child is sparse. Secondly,
since migrant families in combination with disabilities are particularly vulnerable, they
easily challenge involved professionals' skills and working practices.
Applying the frame analysis guide this research. According to Erving Goffman (1974)
frame analysis is about the individual organization of experience. It aims to structure a
complex reality of simultaneously appearing different episodes. Here, we aim to
explore how professionals experience and apply several frames, to identify and
organize their interactions with migrant families with a disabled child.
We have identified the following emergent frames, closely linked together: A

communication frame, emphasizes the demands and difficulties to communicate
without a shared language, regardless of an interpreter. A cultural frame that expose
a multitude of cultural belief systems, and/ or the sensitivity around the stigma
associated with a child's disability and its treatments. From this follows a bureaucratic
frame, making visible complex demands to provide knowledge of rights to service,
the needed practical assistance to apply for it, as well as encourage families to utilize
services. Finally, this leads to a frame of a sense of professional shortcomings, due to
high caseloads in relation to identified needs.
This is a research in progress, yet without any preliminary results.
375
Intersecting experiences of ethnicity, class and
PAPER 8:
gender in the stories of migrant parents with
disabled child living in Finland

Eveliina Heino, University of Helsinki | eveliina.heino@helsinki.fi
Hanna Kara, Åbo Akademi University
Annika Lillrank, Svenska social- och kommunalhögskolan | annika.lillrank@helsinki.fi
This paper studies the experiences of migrant parents living in Finland with a disabled
child. The focus is on the workings of the intersecting categories around ethnic origin,
social class and gender in the everyday lives of the parents. We are interested in the
experiences of migrant parents for two reasons. Firstly, research on disability in the
migration context remains lacking. Secondly, whilst research with an intersectional
approach in gender, disability and migration studies exist, the combined dynamics of
these three social categories have received less attention. The data of the study
consist of interviews with 20 parents who have moved to Finland from six different
countries. We rely on theory-guided content analysis as an analytical tool.
Results of this study show that being a parent of a disabled child and a migrant may
result into simultaneously vulnerable and privileged positions depending on the
ethnicity, class and gender of the parents. Firstly, parenthood of a disabled child was
affected by family structure, and parents who had a spouse who participated in the
everyday care of the child, described their spouse as the most valuable support in
their everyday lives, while single parents felt burdened. Most single parents were
women. Social class was mostly visible in the education and economic situations of
the parents.
Migrant background was visible while interacting with social and health services. Most
parents experienced problems in obtaining services, largely resulting from the lack of
a shared language and an unfamiliarity with the service system. Parents were also
subjected to social categorization and stereotyping from public social and health
services professionals based on their gender and ethnic origin, and the combination
of these, and this prevented them from getting the treatment and support they
needed.
376
“I came here to make my family situation better”:
PAPER 9: Migrant families with disabled children in Iceland

Guðbjörg Ottósdóttir, Assistant professor,
Faculty of Social Work, University of Iceland | gudbjoro@hi.is
Historically migration studies and disability studies have shown little interest in
disabled migrants. Inspired by Bourdieu’s concepts of capital and field the paper
explores the social position of migrant families with disabled children in Iceland and
their experiences of settlement, employment, family care and services, drawing on
findings from a qualitative study on the everyday life experiences of twelve families.
Applying Bourdieu’s analytical framework, families’ experiences are explored in
relation to how their social position may be determined by the social, cultural and
economic capital they have lost and remade in the migration process.
These findings show that the families face various barriers in their daily lives, in
juggling and balancing work and family care because of limited possibilities to build
cultural, social and economic capital in Iceland. The findings highlight the strategies
parents use in their efforts to build social and economic capital. The study depicts the
importance of considering diverse situations of migrant families with disabled
children, including their, knowledge of Icelandic, positions in employment and
services and access to informal support, which affect their abilities to generate and
make capital.
377
LABOUR, PRECARITY AND SOCIAL WELFARE
1
WORKSHOP 51. in Contemporary Welfare States
Magdalena Kmak, Åbo Akademi University | magdalena.kmak@abo.fi
The aim of this workshop is to discuss contemporary and emerging issues relating to
migrant integration, labour and social welfare through the lens of precarity. The
workshop discusses both labour migration within the European Union and integration
of refugees, focusing primarily on the Nordic perspectives. It discusses the issues of
construction of identity through migrant labour, public management of welfare as
well as increasing precarity, emerging both from the existing regulations and from the
encounters with the welfare administration.
Whereas the Session no. 1 focuses on questions of labour, welfare and precarity more
generally, the Session no. 2 is devoted to the topic of Easter and Centrel European
Migration to the Nordics and UK.

378
PAPER 1:
CEE migrants to rural Sweden

Ildikó Asztalos Morell,
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, (SLU) | ildiko.asztalos.morell@slu.se
Depopulation and low growth rate are important issues for remote and small to
middles size rural municipalities, which at the same time experience labour shortages
in welfare professions and the green sector. CEE migrants became a labour source to
satisfy these needs crucial for the survival of rural areas. Made possible by free
mobility within EU and EUs demographic decline, low income CEE countries became
the labour force reserve for the high-income countries, a migration that implied
intersectionally varied degrees of precariarisation of the work and life-conditions of
migrants. The work condition vary largely between low status informal to formal, from
circular mobility to permanent resettlement. Meanwhile migration changes the
precondition for maintaining sustainable transnational intergenerational care relations
(TICR), since migration implies care drain. Precariarisation depends even on migrant
workers’ precarious position in relation to social rights that are based on nation states
and lack coordination between countries. This creates problem, especially, since
elderly care I primarily a family responsibility in CEE countries, even if childcare is to
large degree defamiliarized (Aidukaite). This paper is to provide an overview on the
state of research on migration from CEE to rural Sweden.
379
Unemployed Polish migrants and the encounter with
PAPER 2: the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration
Katrine Mayora Synnes, PhD Research Fellow, Department of Sociology and Social
Work, University of Agder, Norway | katrine.m.synnes@uia.no
As part of a PhD project about unemployed Polish migrants and the encounter with
the Norwegian Labour and Welfare administration (NAV), I have recently submitted
an article which I have called “I haven’t started to exist here yet” – Unemployed Polish
migrants’ experiences of barriers in the encounter with NAV (original title is in
Norwegian). The article offers new information about the mechanisms that threaten to
exclude EU citizens from the Norwegian welfare system.
The article is primarily based on qualitative interviews with 18 unemployed Polish

migrants. Only a few of them receive or have previously received public welfare
benefits in Norway, and several had never applied for such. I argue that unemployed
Polish migrants face several barriers that could prevent them from having rights they
may possess to Norwegian public welfare benefits evaluated and realized. Some of
these barriers are connected to the Polish migrants’ poor knowledge of the
Norwegian welfare system and of Norwegian language, their low digital competence
and minimal trust that the caseworker would treat their cases fairly. However, I argue
that these barriers should not only be analyzed as consequences of this groups’ lack
of knowledge and trust, but as created by structural features of the Norwegian labour
and welfare administration (NAV). The findings indicate that the migrants experience
NAV as a complex and impersonal organization, one in which it is difficult for them to
become client. Organizational changes, driven by the desire for a more efficient
public welfare administration, have caused increased digitalization and less direct
interaction between NAV employees and (potential) clients. These are amongst the
organizational features which cause the unemployed Polish migrants to experience
the encounter as difficult, and often humiliating. The barriers, which in many cases
prevent them from applying for welfare benefits, contribute to perpetuating their
vulnerable positions and their situation withing the segment of the labour market
which is characterized by poor and often illegal working conditions.
The last decade several NGOs in Norway have reported that the number of Polish
citizens living in vulnerable situations in Norway, without income and often without
available housing, is increasing. I argue that this is partly a consequence of a policy
which favor restrictive practices in relation to this group. There seem to be a lack of
political will to change this situation for this group, and I argue that this might partly
be so that this group will continue to represent a flexible and cheap labour force.
380
Turning citizens into immigrants:
PAPER 3:
state practices of welfare "cancellations"
among EU nationals living in Glasgow, UK
Taulant Guma, Edinburgh Napier University,UK | t.guma@napier.ac.uk
This paper examines the everyday experiences of welfare provision among EU

migrants living in Glasgow, demonstrating how the process of restricting the rights of
EU citizens has occurred well before Brexit. It is based on 12 months of ethnographic
research conducted in 2012 with Czech and Slovak nationals who came to the UK
after 2004. Introducing the migrants’ notion of zkancelovali, the paper highlights a
heightened sense of insecurity in their everyday lives, which arises from the
increasingly common experiences of rejections of their benefit applications and
payment delays. Various state practices are discussed which raise questions about
the limits of EU citizenship and show how the latter is affected not only through
policies and discourses but also in everyday encounters with state officials, where
boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ are being redrawn. Drawing on
sociological/anthropological perspectives on state, it is argued that the migrants’
experiences of welfare provision can be considered as constitutive of statecraft and
nation-building processes, processes which turn (EU) citizens into immigrants.
381
Labor migration, EU enlargement
PAPER 4:
and European identity disputed: A case comparison of
Swedish, Finnish and Danish parliamentary debates
Emilia Lakka, Department of History and Ethnology,

University of Jyväskylä | emilia.l.lakka@jyu.fi
This paper compares and contrasts how themes related to European identity and the
ideal of a united EU were discussed in the Finnish, Swedish and Danish parliaments as
well as amongst the three countries’ representatives in the European Parliament in
the final six months leading up to the union’s 2004 eastern enlargement. When the
national parliaments decided on the fate of transitional rules on the free movement of
people to be adopted for a fixed term of up to seven years after the enlargement in
May 2004, stereotypes about the Estonian construction worker (in Finland) and the
Polish father of three (in Sweden) became commonly used symbols of otherness,
employed mostly by those in favor of setting up such restrictions to combat issues
stemming from differences in living standards between the ten candidate countries
and those that were already in the union. In the presentation, I explore how notions of
otherness, the idea of a shared European identity and national Cold War
memories/histories contributed to the very different decisions concerning the
adoption of transitional rules made concurrently in the plenaries of the Finnish
Eduskunta, the Danish Folketing and the Swedish Riksdag. In the end, Sweden
became one of the only old EU member states not to adopt such regulations, while
Finland and Denmark opted for stances that could be considered some of the
strictest.
382
The Enabling State and Unemployed Third-country
PAPER 5:
Nationals: Eligibility criteria in Targeting Social Benefits
to enable Transition to Work
Esien Eddy Bruno, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Public and Social Policy,
Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic | eddy@hiba.at
This paper analyses the implication of eligibility criteria in the realm of targeting social
assistance benefits under enabling state to enable third-country immigrant’s
transition to work in Austria, Finland and Czech Republic. Existing research pointed an
enabling state market-based model of targeting benefits that emphasizes
government concentrate public expenditure to the poor on the basis of income test,
but income test often lead to withdrawal of benefit as income rises. Although
targeting mode reduce leakages, there is still little studies comparing CEE, Western
European and Nordic countries explaining the implication of eligibility criteria for
social assistance benefits in the realm of targeting benefit under enabling state to
understand third-country immigrants’ transition to work in Austria, Finland, and Czech
Republic. Based on a qualitative cross-national case-oriented research approach,
documents and scholarly text are collected and analyze with document and content
analysis techniques.T
he findings indicate age, behavioural requirement and functional impairment

regulative tools, is a major perceived influence in countries’ last-resort safety nets
governance with lack of transparency that may impair social assistance benefits
allocation when looking at issues such as young third-country immigrants’ transition
to work in targeting benefit setting. The study demonstrates certain means-tested
pro-poor administrative device similarities, but dissimilarities from the comparative
entities institutional mode of operation. The outcome points a new public
management governance to narrow the scope of eligibility.This is relevance to
convergence towards a new institutional framework for social welfare governed by
the enabling state that does not only reinforce selectivity, but tactfully raise eligibility
threshold that may impair minority groups’ participation, penalize belongings,
manifest precarious inclusion, and jeopardize the economy in global competition.
383
The ‘others’ amongst ‘us’:
PAPER 6:
Refugees’ integration into the labour market
Sonia Morano- Foadi, Dr, Reader, Associate Professor,

School of Law, Oxford Brookes University | smorano-foadi@brookes.ac.uk
Clara Della Croce, Dr, Senior Lecturer, School of Oriental and African Studies
(SOAS), Knowledge Exchange Fellow, Oxford Brookes University
The article examines areas where refugees face discrimination and exclusion,
possible exploitation and lack of respect for human dignity, when attempting to
integrate into the labour market. Although refugees generally show resilience and
agency, their ‘vulnerability’, owing to their immigration status, is generally created by
‘others’, by means of law, policy and practice. Hence, the underpinning quest of the
article is whether discrimination because of, or on grounds of, immigration status is
perceived as indissociable from one of the protected grounds. In other words,
whether the treatment they receive based on their immigration status amounts to
discrimination. The work is empirical and longitudinal as some interviewees have
been contacted again during the recent COVID 19 pandemic. The work aims to
explore the interplay between welfare and immigration policies, questioning the
extent to which precarious legal status increasingly shape refugees' access to the
labor market.
384
Precarious migrant workers:
PAPER 7: Temporality, place and digital space
Marlene Spanger, PhD Associate Professor Dept. of Politics & Society,

Aalborg University | spanger@dps.aau.dk
Researching labour migration the paper argues that an approach that distinguishes
between the formal and the informal labour market cannot always capture complex
precarious work. Inspired by Bridget Andersons’ (2010, 2013) concept of precarious
work, the paper instead suggests a focus on how the nexus of temporality and
spatiality produces particular forms of precarious work in a Danish setting. Based on
two empirical examples of respectively ECC migrants and asylum seekers working
undocumented within the cleaning and the service industry in Denmark, the paper
exams how intersections of the digital space, place and time produces different forms
of labour exploitation in the Danish labour market.
385
MIGRATION PATH AND IDENTITIES
1
WORKSHOP 52.in Contemporary Welfare States
Marja Tiilikainen, Migration Institute of Finland| marja.tiilikainen@migrationinstitute.fi
This workshop will explore life course trajectories and negotiations over identities in
different migratory contexts. Encounters between migrants and receiving countries in
the North reveal contradictions and challenges, but also agency and resilience.
Background factors such as age, generation, gender, socio-economic status, class
and social networks have an impact on integration processes, but at the same time,
often invisible oppressive structures and position as racialized minorities frame the
everyday lives and opportunities. In addition to case studies from the Nordic
countries, an example from South-South migration will be presented.
386
Trajectories of adaptation over the life course:
PAPER 1: A multidimensional analysis for the children of immigrants

Ben Wilson, Department of Sociology,
Stockholm University | ben.wilson@sociology.su.se
Eleonora Mussino, Department of Sociology, Stockholm University
Caroline Uggla, Department of Sociology, Stockholm University
Studies of the descendants of immigrants offer a unique opportunity to gain insights

about theories of immigrant adaptation. It is increasingly recognised that adaptation
can only be assessed by taking a long-run perspective, beyond the study of adult
immigrants. Moreover, adult immigrant behaviour after arrival that looks like
adaptation may actually be due to selection and reverse causality. For these reasons,
it is advantageous to study immigrants who migrate as children (G1.5) and the native-
born children of immigrants (G2), which can also enable researchers to understand
the link between exposure to destination – based on age at arrival or generational
status – and adult outcomes. Prior research suggests that age at arrival is a key
determinant of adaptation, but it has either focused on single outcomes or outcomes
at one stage in life.
By contrast, we seek to establish the link between migration background – age at

arrival and generation – and life course trajectories across multiple domains of life,
including education, work, and family formation. We use latent class analysis,
generalised linear models and family fixed effects to analyse administrative data for
the whole population of Sweden, giving a study population of more than 80,000
members of G1.5 and G2. Our results suggest that the descendants of immigrants
follow broadly one of four different trajectories: ‘high SES’, ‘stable medium SES’,
‘upwardly mobile’ and ‘low SES’. Moreover, increased exposure to Swedish society is
associated with increased likelihood of following a higher socio-economic (SES)
trajectory, even after controlling for family fixed effects. We discuss the implications
of these results, including the most promising directions for future research on the life
course.
387
Empowering mothering in immigration: Russian women
PAPER 2: overcome agentic constraints in Finland and Norway

Marina Hakkarainen, European University at
St. Petersburg, Dept. of Anthropology
Email: marina.hakkarainen@gmail.com
This paper is about Russian women, who immigrated from Russia to Finland or
Norway. The women belonged to the middle class in Russia: they had professional
careers and relevant social competence. With immigration, they lost their previous
achievements. In the host countries, they didn’t speak local languages; they didn’t
understand how to socialise with the locals; their education was not enough for
building a career. Their activity was restricted to domestic works that had no value for
them: Russian women still are bearers of the Soviet ‘working woman-and-mother’
gender order model. As a result, women felt deprived during their first years of living
abroad.
The new social surroundings supported Russian women in their uneasy experiencing
helplessness and uncertainty. Mainly it was hard when they faced health problems of
their children. Children’s illnesses (unexpected, unknown, dangerous) and unfortunate
visits to hospitals and doctors created desperate situations that they had to
overcome. The encounters with the health care institutions contested their mothering
competence: women were said being unreasonably anxious or ignorant of the best
practices in medical treatment because “the medicine is backward in your country.”
However, they approved their mothering competence in solving the health problems
of their children, notwithstanding the obstacles. It was like a test they had to stand.
Immigrant women with small children are usually regarded as vulnerable. Mothering
takes a lot of time and physical and emotional efforts from women and deprives them
of integration into a new society. However, mothering also empowers. The trajectory
from experiencing helplessness towards strength through overcoming difficulties
plays a crucial role in Russian women’s construction of agentic power in immigration.
388
PAPER 3:
Transnational Negotiating of Female Genital Cutting

Ragnhild Elise B. Johansen,
Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies | r.e.johansen@nkvts.no
In countries of origin, female genital cutting (FGC) is described as a social convention

compelling people to comply, irrespective of personal attitude. However,
international norms condemning the practice has increasingly penetrated FGC
practicing communities, especially those in diaspora. According to traditional norms in
Somalia and Sudan, FGC is perceived as a way to construct, protect and prove
virginity, and as fundamental for gender identity, marriageability and motherhood.
International norms, in contrast, define FGC as a violation of human rights, particularly
women’s sexual and reproductive rights. FGC is thus associated with contradictory
packages of meaning that women from FGC practicing communities have to
maneuver when deciding about FGC. This is particularly acute in countries of
migration where international norms prevail.
This paper explores how Somali and Sudanese migrants in Norway reflected on FGC-
decision making in a transnational context, through data from in-depth interviews with
23 women of Somali and Sudanese origin. The analysis is further enlightened by
insight derived from a validation seminar and participant observations in various
settings.
We found a systematic variation in the ways in which women related to traditional

and international meanings in their reflections and decisions on FGC. Women
positioned themselves along a continuum between adherence to traditional and
adherence to international norms. Some refuted all types of FGC and its underlying
meaning, some were ambivalent, others refuted the practice but not the meaning,
and others again supported some forms of FGC. Their positioning was intertwined
with social networks and socio-economic resources. Personal experiences and
perceived personality traits also co-varied with positioning along this continuum. We
suggest that women who understood themselves as rebels, can be understood as
drivers of change.
389
Rigorously upholding the model minority myth:
PAPER 4: Respectability politics and the Nordic Indian diaspora

Arvind Ramachandran, Feminist Anti-Racist Night School,
Helsinki | arvindrchn@gmail.com
The 2010’s have seen an explosive growth in the number of Indians living outside
India, from students yearning for an international education to programmers coding
for European clients. This expanding diaspora has been welcomed by an otherwise
increasingly racist and xenophobic Nordic region, with Indians’ successful integration
used as a strategy to shut down accusations of widespread racism. Residents of
Indian origin are pigeonholed and encouraged to live up to stereotypes of the silent,
hardworking and grateful newcomer, in exchange for privileges often unavailable to
other immigrant groups from the Global South. However, on scratching beneath the
surface of what seems like a win-win situation, it becomes clear that blanket
assumptions about an immensely diverse population not only serve to make invisible
growing Nordic racism and xenophobia, thereby making them more difficult to
confront, but also end up being counterproductive to the welfare of the minority
members themselves.
390
Migration and Its Policy Dedication in Ethiopia:
PAPER 5: A Study of Hadiya People Migration of Ethiopia

Solomon Tagesse, Lecturer, Hawassa University, Ethiopia | etote2016@gmail.com
This study has been conducted on “Migration and Policy Dedication in Ethiopia: A
study of Migration of Hadiya People”, which was aimed at scrutinizing the process and
reason of Hadiya people migration from Ethiopia to the Republic of South Africa.
Basically, qualitative research approach has been employed to address the justified
problem and to achieve the objectives which stated accordingly. The purposive and
snowball sampling techniques were employed to identify the study sites and
respondents for the study. Field observations, interviews, focus group discussions
and recording of data were used as instruments to collect data. It has been observed
that there are two stages of migration process, i.e. the preconditions and the
facilitation stages. The study identified that lack of jobs and peer pressure, lack of
interest to learn and work, scarcity and low wages were push factors; whereas job
opportunity and better income; existence of families, relatives and friends pull factors.
Communication, transportation, existence of brokers, etc. were also found to be
intermediary factors. Based on the findings, recommendations and policy suggestions
have been made in specific areas of the study.
391
ASYLUM AND REFUGEE PROTECTION
1
WORKSHOP 53. in Contemporary Welfare States
Antti Kivijärvi, university researcher, University of Helsinki

antti.kivijarvi@helsinki.fi
Refugees and asylum seekers continue to constitute a problematic social category in

the nation-states dominated era. After people enter the European soil as asylum
seekers, a strong need to regulate their movement and rights tend to emerge.
Consequently, in this workshop, state governance of asylum seekers is discussed.
The workshop discussions will uncover concrete elements reducing the autonomy of
asylum seekers in the Nordic region. In more empirical level, the workshop include
analyses on state level policies and their (un)intended consequences. Moreover,
studies exploring the professional practices and material conditions in the context of
reception centres are discussed as well.
392
Undocumented refugees and the right to work,
PAPER 1:
how civic actions have raised a human right issue
in Norway 2015-2020

Berit Aasen, Norwegian Institute of Urban and Regional Research (NIBR),
Oslo, Met University | berit.aasen@oslomet.no
Prior to 2011 asylum seekers, who had their claim to asylum rejected, had been able
to get work permits and be self-supporting. In 2011, no new laws were introduced but
the state strengthened the implementation of existing laws, so that overnight these
refugees were no longer granted the right to work. Having lost their livelihood by
action of the state, some of them moved back to reception centres, others relied on
friends and family for income, and a temporary place to sleep.
Gradually this state of affairs has been given attention by civic action and civil society.
The first step was the Health Centre for Undocumented Refugees, established in
2010 by Red Cross and City Mission of Oslo. Later a member of a Norwegian Church
in Stavanger, established a manpower company hiring undocumented refugees, as a
way both to improve their lives, but also to test the paragraph 17 in the Norwegian
Constitution, the right of every person living in the Kingdom of Norway to earn a living
and sustain him/herself. In addition, other civic action has addressed the plight of
undocumented refugees and their right to work. This paper trace the history of the
civic action taken to address the welfare and right to work for undocumented
refugees over the period 2010-2020, and their motivation and arguments, and
response from the state to these actions.
PAPER 2:
Termination of reception services as biopolitical governance
Iiris Annala, Helsingin vastaanottokeskus | iiris.annala@gmail.com , iiris.annala@hel.fi
393
The importance of “Nærmiljø"/local community
PAPER 3:
in official decision-making processes
for Norwegian peri-urban asylum reception centers

Marianne Skjulhaug, Associate professor, Institute of Urbanism and Landscape Oslo,
School of Architecture and Design |marianne.skjulhaug@aho.no
This paper examines how Norwegian national and local authorities conceptualize the
wellbeing of asylum seekers in the current practice of locating asylum reception
centers in the peri-urban landscape of the Oslo region. The term local community (in
Scandinavian; “nærmiljø”), is directly and indirectly used in official documents related
to approval of asylum reception centers, yet asylum reception centers are located in
the peri-urban zones where ‘nærmiljø’ is much less evident. These are places where
social interaction and access to services and facilities may be difficult, being far from
urban centres, and outside cities and towns. This peri-urban localization practice
confirms a universal pattern of `othering´ where refugees are settled on the outside,
on the outer edges, in the periphery and the peri-urban (e.g. Saunders 2012, Mierswa
et al. 2016, Agier 2016, Simonsen, Skjulhaug 2019). The ongoing practice of locating
asylum reception centers in the peri-urban is thus the starting point for asking how
location is linked to the stated and recommended official ambition to achieve good
interaction with the adjacent local community ( Drangsland et al. 2010 ).
Drawing on peri-urban- and local community/” nærmiljø” theory, the article critically
examines how location practices and the concept of local community are interrelated
in decision – making processes. Based on document studies, semi-structured
interviews with actors involved and field observations, the study documents a gap
between the apparent intentions behind official regulations and recommendations
and the ongoing peri-urban location practice. This paper explores this gap to
elucidate the importance and nature of place and place-relations among, and the
interaction and interrelations between, asylum reception residents and local
communities in the peri-urban landscape.
394
Layers of confinement: Asylum seekers’ experiences
PAPER 4: of isolation in the Finnish reception system

Antti Kivijärvi, University Researcher, University of Helsinki | antti.kivijarvi@helsinki.fi
Martta Myllylä, Doctoral Student, University of Helsinki | martta.myllyla@helsinki.fi
Mervi Pantti, Associate Professor, University of Helsinki | mervi.pantti@helsinki.fi
The current political rhetoric on ‘pre-integration’ stands in stark contrast to the

strategy of the Finnish reception system to segregate asylum seekers from the
surrounding society. The confining nature of the reception system is born out of the
Finnish governmental structure in which the responsibility for the integration and
reception are administratively separated: the central government is responsible for
the reception of asylum seekers, whereas employment offices and municipalities
carry the responsibility for integration for those with a residence permit. This paper
examines the consequences of this dual system from a micro-level perspective by
looking at asylum seekers’ everyday experiences in reception centres.
The study is based on semi-structured and individual interviews with asylum seekers
in different locations across Finland. We identified five layers of confinement in
asylum seekers’ accounts on their everyday lives: Spatial, service based,
communicative, interactional and psychological. Together, these overlapping layers
of confinement impede asylum seekers’ inclusion to local communities, and hamper
their autonomy. Consequently, to meet the political rhetoric on promoting the ‘pre-
integration’ of asylum seekers and to undermine the confining elements in the
reception system, an analytical, micro-level and subjective knowledge production is
needed.
395
SOCIETAL Migrants and
PERSPECTIVES ON Refugees
RACISM

WORKSHOP 1
FEAR AND MANIPULATION
Peter Holley (Doctoral Student at the Faculty of Social Sciences,

University of Helsinki & Managing Editor of the Nordic Journal of Migration Research
[NJMR]) | peter.holley@helsinki.fi, NJMR.Managing.Editor@outlook.com
Elli Heikkilä, Migration Institute of Finland | elli.heikkila@migrationinstitute.fi
Recently, we have seen a rise in xenophobia and racism across the globe with
impacts on migrant populations and indigenous minorities alike. This workshop
session addresses the impact of such attitudes in desperate locales from Finland and
central east European countries (i.e., Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic) to South
Africa and Chile. The papers presented in this session seek to address specific
instances of racism/xenophobia and migrants’/minority group members’ responses
to them.
396
Living on the fringes of life and death: Somali migrants,
PAPER 1:
risky entrepreneurship and xenophobia
in Cape Town, South Africa
Pineteh E. Angu, University of Pretoria, South Africa | pineteh.angu@up.ac.za
Recent narratives about xenophobia in South Africa focus on the porousness of South
African border and a subtle invasion of South African territory by illegal aliens from
other African countries. As transnational migrants continue to challenge forms of
citizenship, belonging and statecraft in South Africa, political populism now
constructs this imaginary territorial invasion by Africans as a potential threat to South
Africa’s national security and sovereignty. In so doing, it endangers the lives of African
migrants including those with judiciary rights to reside in South Africa. This article uses
qualitative data collected from 30 Somali migrants to examine how Somalis’ co-
existence with South Africans and their business tactics in Cape Town intersect to
influence xenophobic violence. It explores the relationship between risky
entrepreneurship and xenophobia and the threats that this relationship poses on
Somali lives. The article argues that as South Africans continue to deploy different
strategies such as violent attacks, burning and looting of shops and killings to force
Somalis out of townships; Somalis will devise new ways to resist the attacks and to
continue doing business in these townships. In finding ways to resist and circumvent
xenophobic attacks, Somalis are expected to always live on the fringes of life and
death.
397
A comparative analysis of changes in anti-immigrant
PAPER 2: and anti-Muslim attitudes in Europe: 1990-2017
David Andreas Bell, Department of Social Work,

The Norwegian University of Science and Education | david.a.bell@ntnu.no
Muslims and immigrants have both been subjected to negative attitudes over the
past several decades in Europe. Using data from the European Values Study, this
study analyses the changes in these attitudes in the period 1990 to 2017. We find that
negative attitudes have been increasing on average in Europe as a whole, with anti-
Muslim attitudes being more prevalent than anti-immigrant attitudes. However, when
split into a Western European set and an Eastern European set, from 2008, there is a
divergence between the two halves. Our findings reveal that negative attitudes
towards Muslims and immigrants have decreased in Western Europe, whereas they
have increased significantly in Eastern Europe. Further analyses find that there are
large discrepancies between anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant attitudes in different
countries. These discrepancies are discussed in detail and related to several relevant
factors, such as the differences in size of the Muslim and immigrant populations,
variations in the refugee influx and other possible factors and developments.
398
Nationalizing victims and mourning – averting
PAPER 3:
transnational ties? Instrumentalizations of the memory
of Finnish concentration camps in Russian Karelia
Olga Davydova-Minguet, Assistant Professor,

Karelian Institute, University of Eastern Finland | olga.davydova-minguet@uef.fi
Since 2019, Russian authorities have largely announced about new findings in FSB,
former KGB archives. These materials date back to time of Finnish occupation of
Petrozavodsk, the capital of Soviet Karelia in 1941-1944, and tell about atrocities of
Finnish occupants towards Russians who were imprisoned in the concentration
camps. Already before that, in 2017, the huge monument devoted to the victims of
concentration camps was opened on the graveyard with their mass graves, and these
events of war have been extensively presented in media and different museums. This
“reinvention” of the memory of war-time concentration camps is in line with
contemporary Russian official memory politics, which are used i.a. to “nationalize”
victims and avert transnational ties of Russian citizens.
The theme of war-time concentration camps remains sensitive in Finland, and every
time when it has been raised by the Russian side, it received controversial reactions.
These reactions have varied from mistrust and disbelief to the statements of the need
for a more open conversation about the racist policies of the occupation authorities.
My paper examines the developments in the memory of Finnish concentration camps
in Karelia. During the post-war times this memory was rendered peripheral. During
perestroika, it served a basis for the formation of the civil society. After the dissolution
of the USSR, it continued to act as a ground for challenging the neoliberal changes in
the society. With the strengthening of neo-Soviet memory and identity politics in
Russia, the memory of Finnish concentration camps became central in producing
contemporary juxtaposition of Russia and “the West”.
But how the transnational or European memory is fitting these developments? Is

Finland becoming involved in the post-Soviet memory wars? What are the
implications of this process for the immigration country Finland, where i.a.
descendants of prisoners of Finnish concentration camps live today?
399
Finnish-Immigrant Mutual Attitudes
PAPER 4:
Elvis Nshom, Department of Communication,

California State University, San Marcos, CA. USA | enshom@csusm.edu
Mukhammadyusuf Shaymardanov, School of Business and Economics,
University of Jyvaskyla, Finland | shaymam@student.jyu.fi
Sadaf Shomaila, Department of Language and Communication Studies,
University of Jyvaskyla, Finland | shomaila.sadaf1@gmail.com
According to Statistics Finland (2018), the number of immigrants living in Finland has
risen from 0.8 % to 6.6 % between the years 1990 to 2016. Research on host members’
attitudes towards immigrants has flourished extensively within the past decades.
However, one major setback of previous research on this subject is that, it has
focused overwhelmingly on host members’ attitudes towards immigrants, while
ignoring and neglecting immigrants’ attitudes towards members of the host society.
This study sets out to explore not just Finns’ attitudes towards immigrants, but also
immigrants’ attitudes towards Finns. We believe that in order to effectively
understand and improve intergroup attitudes and relations between groups, we must
adopt a mutual approach. In addition to understanding Finnish-immigrant mutual
attitudes, this study also explores immigrants’ perception of Finn’s attitudes towards
them and the extent to which it differs from Finns’ actual attitudes towards
immigrants. Such studies are rare to come by. The data for this study has been
collected and is currently being analysed. The data was collected among Finns and
immigrants between the ages of 21 to 80 through an online anonymous questionnaire.
400
Problematising the use of political montage as a
propagandistic tool to criminalise the Mapuche people:
PAPER 5:
A study case based on José Ricardo Morales’
play Los culpables (1964)
Juan Alfredo del Valle Rojas,

PhD Candidate, Graduate School for the Humanities
University of Groningen, the Netherlands | j.a.del.valle.rojas@rug.nl
This work provides a discussion on the state using political montage against the
Mapuche people in Chile with the topics developed in José Ricardo Morales’ play Los
culpables (1964). To demonstrate this, I will utilise a case study approach which
focuses on the problematisation of Los culpables with the historical Chilean-Mapuche
conflict in Chile. In line with this, I will trace the following objectives: (1) Problematise
the topics of the criminalisation of the state using political montage as a manipulation
tool against the Mapuche people in José Ricardo Morales’ play Los culpables (1964).
From a historical analogy, the parallel between Los culpables and the Chilean-
Mapuche conflict addresses two primary connections. First, Los culpables
demonstrates how the authoritarian regime led by militaries use the political montage
to falsely accuse the social movements of planning terrorist acts in the same way as
the civic-military dictatorship in Chile (1973-1989) created an Anti-terrorism Law,
which led to several false accusations of the Mapuche movements of terrorism and
legitimising state violence. Second, Morales’ play represents the abuse of authority
when impulsing a trial to sentence an innocent person of planning terrorist attacks
unfairly. It connects with the Chilean case of the state carrying out police brutality,
human rights abuse, and the application of an anti-terrorism law to falsely accuse
Mapuche leaders of executing terrorist acts that the criminal code should
contemplate.
Key Words: José Ricardo Morales; Los culpables; Chilean-Mapuche conflict;

Mapuche; political montage.
401
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS (A-Z)
Aasen, Berit WS 38 WS 53 Breivik, Håvard WS 32

Abdelhady Dalia WS 3 Brummer, Emma Carey WS 5
Abeytia, Anisa WS 50 Budginaite Mackine Irma WS 7
Achenbach Alina, 23 Bune, Julie Nynne WS 29
Ader, Leslie WS 55 Buntu, Baba Amani O. WS 11
Agudelo, Felipe WS 23 Burrell, Kathy 1, WS 45
Ahrong, Pernille WS 5 Bäckman, Linda WS 22
Ali, Ali WS 17 Cawayu, Atamhi WS 41
Alin, Ella WS 10 Chajed, Avanti WS 10
Alisaari, Jenni WS 42 Chang, Ching-Yu WS 43
Amrov, Sarbien WS 55 Chang (van der Heide), Sara Sejin WS 41
Andreassen, Rikke WS 4 Chopra, Divya WS 32
Angu, Pineteh WS 54 Ciziri, Nubin WS 35
Annala, Iiris WS 53 Coelho, Nuno WS 27
Anulo, Solomon Tagesse WS 52 Corrales-Øverlid, Ann WS 43
Asp Frederiksen, Lene WS 13 Dahl, Ulrika 4
Assmuth, Laura WS 40 Dar, Anandini WS 32
Asztalos Morell, Ildikó WS 51 Davydova-MInguet, Olga WS 49
Auslender, Eli WS 51 De Kraker, Christian WS 43
Backman, Aina WS 33 de Lima, Philomena WS 19
Balogun, Bolaji WS 13 del Valle Rojas, Juan WS 54
Bauvois, Gwenaëlle WS 23 Delioğlu, Fatmanur WS 35
Bell, David WS 54 Devlin, Julia WS 42
Bell, Justyna WS 24 Diaz, Pedro WS 27
Bendixsen, Synnøve WS 47 Duc, Marine WS 8
Bendra, Imane WS 43 Duong-Pedica, Anaïs WS 9, WS 14
Bengtsson, Teresa WS 31 Durodola, Tosin WS 48
Berg, Berit WS 38 Dyrlid, Linda Marie WS 1, WS 24
Bering Kristensen, Steffen WS 5 Edalati, Zahra WS 12
Betemps Bozzano, Caroline WS 22 Eldar, Doron WS 18
Beyong, Tabi Emilia WS 42 Elsrud, Torun WS 17, WS 22
Bhangu, Noor WS 27 Emilsson, Henrik WS 50
Björkman, Nina WS 25 Englund, Martin WS 45
Blasko, Ioanna WS 24 Engman, Charlotte WS 18
Bodström, Erna WS 33 Ennser-Kananen, Johanna WS 7
Era, Riikka WS 40
402
Eriksen, Kasper WS 41 Hermes, Karin Louise WS 14

Esien, Eddy Bruno WS 51 Himanen, Markus WS 36
Etzel, Morgan WS 24 Hirt, Nicole WS 42
Evans, Catrin WS 30 Hoffmann, Lara WS 31
Farzamfar, Mehrnoosh WS 36 Holley, Peter WS 54
Fatehrad, Azadeh WS 29 Homanen, Riikka WS 8
Fischer, Carolin WS 1 Hong, Chung Chih WS 48
Fish, Cheryl J. WS 29 Hordijk, Ruben WS 5
Fisher, Kelly WS 44 Horsti, Karina WS 37
Forsén, Annette WS 34 Huang, Lawrence WS 36
Frilund, Rebecca WS 19 Huber Saarikko, Sasha WS 11, WS 12
Führer, Laura Maria WS 8 Hubert, Haïfa WS 36
Fylkesnes, Marte Knag WS 30 Hueber, Radim WS 47
Gao, I-An WS 48 Hunt, Lucy WS 30
Gilliam, Laura WS 42 Huttunen, Laura WS 37
Gren, Nina WS 3 Huuva, Kaisa WS 15
Gressgård, Randi WS 36 Hyyryläinen, Pirja Poster 4
Groglopo, Adrián WS 17 Hämäläinen, Soile Päivikki WS 17
Grüner, Line WS 30 Ince Beqo, Gül WS 42
Grønseth, Anne Sigfrid WS 1 Ingridsdotter, Jenny WS 13
Gullikstad, Berit WS 24, WS 26 Ip, Morgan WS 32
Guma, Taulant WS 51 Irgil, Ezgi WS 26
Gustavsson, Anne WS 13 Islam, Sohana WS 47
Haapajärvi, Linda WS 50 Ismail, Abdirashid WS 35
Haapalainen, Riikka WS 18 Ismail, Abir Mohamad WS 40
Haga, Rannveig WS 17 Jacobsen, Christine M. WS 19
Haikkola, Lotta WS 1 Jacobsen, Gro Hellesdatter WS 5
Hakkarainen Marina WS 52 Jensen, Iben WS 5
Halonen, Helmi WS 47 Jensen, Søren WS29
Hamenstaedt, Kathrin WS 39 Jesse, Moritz WS 39
Hansen, Nanna Kirstine Leets WS 17 Johansen, Ragnhild Elise Brinhcmann WS 52
Hasan, Mohammad WS 47 Jovicic, Jelena WS 30
Heikkilä, Elli WS 49, WS 54 Junka-Aikio, Laura WS 17
Heino, Eveliina WS 50 Jönsson, Jessica H. WS 50
Heiskala, Katri Poster 2 Jørgensen, Rikke WS 1
Henriksson, Blanka WS 46 Kaihovirta, Matias WS 34
403
Kamran, Sadia WS 27 Kunitsõn, Nikolai WS 22

Kara, Hanna WS 40 Kurki, Tuuli WS 31
Karimi, Zeinab WS 25 Kusena, Bernard WS 19
Karlsen, Mary-Anne WS 1 Kvalvaag, Alyssa Marie WS 26
Karlsson Blom, Lisa WS 6, WS 7, WS 8 Kvidal-Rovik, Trine WS 15
Kauhanen, Iida WS 38 Kynsilehto, Anitta WS 36
Kavuş, Helin Kardelen WS 43 Kähäri, Outi WS 34
Kaytaz, Esra WS 1 Könönen, Jukka WS 33
Keisu, Britt-Inger WS 15 Laakkonen, Ville WS 37
Keskinen, Suvi WS 6, WS 17 Lakka, Emilia WS 51
Kettunen, Pekka WS 26 Lan, Shanshan WS 7
Khalimzoda, Ilkhom WS 6, WS 26, WS 54 Lapina, Linda WS 7
Khawaja, Iram WS 17, WS 20 Lappi, Tiina-Riitta WS 32
Khoury, Nadeen WS 50 Leinonen, Johanna WS 34
Kilinc, Nilay WS 42 Lewicki, Pawel WS 45
Kırkıç, Ayşe Perihan WS 35 Li, J. Hui WS 5
Kivijärvi, Antti WS 53 Liden, Hilde WS 38
Kivilahti, Saila WS 37 Liimatainen, Tuire WS 46
Kivinen, Marika WS 27 Lillrank, Annika WS 50
Kmak, Magdalena WS 19, WS 51 Lindberg, Annika WS 3, WS 33
Kohli, Ravi WS 30 Lingaas, Carola WS 15, WS 39
Koivunen, Leila WS 18 Lippens, Michiel WS 25
Kolbaşı-Muyan, Gizem WS 39 Lloyd, Fran WS 29
Kontkanen, Yasemin WS 43 Lunau, Marie WS 17
Kontulainen, Helin WS 8 Lundberg, Anna WS 1, WS 22, WS 39
Korhonen, Liisa-Maija WS 13 Lysen, Jinghui WS 42
Korpela, Mari WS 46 Magaliou, Naya WS 42
Korvensyrjä, Aino WS 33 Majdoub, Soumaya WS 36
Kosová, Magdalena WS 26 Makrooni, Golaleh WS 31
Krifors, Karin WS 6 Mansour, Nadia WS 29
Kristensen, Guro Korsnes WS 24, WS 26 Marucco, Camilla WS 22
Krivonos, Daria WS 7, WS 45 Marzano, Alessia WS 15
Kulla, Gunilla WS 50 Mashreghi, Sepandarmaz WS 30
Kumar, Pankaj (Min Kumar) WS 31 Matyska, Anna WS 37
Kumar, Mithilesh WS 9 Maury, Olivia WS 19
Kumbasar, Feride WS 30 Maviga, Tawanda WS 50
404
Meier, Isabel WS 21
Pellander, Saara WS 50
Melander, Charlotte WS 40
Penner, Angelina WS 24
Menard, Rusten WS 9
Phillips, Stephen WS 36
Mendes, Jan-Therese WS 42
Pirkkalainen, Päivi WS 33
Merikoski, Paula WS 10 WS 19
Ponce, Aaron WS 8
Merivirta, Raita WS 13
Poromaa Isling, Pär WS 15
Mikkonen, Enni WS 30
Povrzanovic Frykman, Maja WS 24
Millar, Stefan WS 37
Prattes, Riikka WS 10
Misje, Turid WS 1
Pyrhönen, Niko WS 23
Mkwesha, Faith WS 11 WS 12
Pötzsch, Tobias WS 48
Morano-Foadi, Sonia WS 39 WS 51
Pöyhönen, Sari WS 30
Mubeen, Fath E WS 30
Qureshi, Abdullah WS 27
Muderhwa, Samuel WS 31
Rahaa, Sepideh WS 27
Mulinari, Diana WS 6
Ramachandran, Arvind WS 52
Muñoz Gomez, Mariana WS 27
Ramachandran, Vidya WS 39
Myllylä, Martta WS 53
Rasmussen, Lene Kofoed WS 5
Mäkinen, Katariina WS 40
Rastas, Anna WS 18
Narkowicz, Kasia WS 9
Riikonen, Reetta WS 40
Narvselius, Eleonoora WS 29
Riitaoja, Anna-Leena WS 40
Neergaard, Anders WS 6
Rimpiläinen, Emma WS 19
Niinimäki-Silva, Tuire WS 24
Rinderle, Hanna WS 16
Nikanne, Iiris WS 35
Rubing, Anders WS 36
Nordberg, Camilla WS 50
Runfors, Ann WS 45
Nortio, Emma WS 50
Ruotsalainen, Nelli WS 10
Nshom, Elvis WS 6, WS 24, WS 42, WS 54
Rytter, Mikkel WS 1
Näre, Lena WS 19
Ryynänen, Sanna WS 8
Ó Cuinneagáin, Eóin WS 11, WS 12, WS 14
Röhm, Mona WS 19
Oktem, Baris WS 13
Sadaf, Shomaila WS 6, WS 26, WS 54
Ottosdottir, Gudbjorg WS 50
Sætermo, Turid WS 1, WS 24
Paajanen, Paula WS 40
Salleh-Hoddin, Amiirah WS 14
Padovan-Özdemir, Marta WS 4, WS 29
Saramo, Samira WS 14, WS 16
Palander, Jaana WS 35
Sarausad, Mary Rose Geraldine WS 35, WS 40
Panighel, Marta WS 9
Saresma, Tuija WS 23
Parveen, Sumbul WS 47
Savage, Owen WS 31
Parvez, Huma WS 32
Schepelern Johansen, Birgitte WS 20
Pegorer, Francesca WS 30
405
Schierup, Carl-Ulrik WS 1 Sumari, Laura WS 36

Schindel, Katrin WS 7 Sundbäck, Liselott WS 24
Schmidt, Garbi WS 44 Svendsen, Stine H. Bang WS 15
Schmidt, Sabrina WS 9 Synnes, Katrine Mayora WS 51
Schultz, Jessica WS 39 Sältenberg, Hansalbin WS 6
Scott, Katrine WS 5 Söderqvist Forkby, Åsa WS 17
Seeberg, Marie Louise WS 38, WS 39 Söderström, Inka WS 19
Seikkula, Minna WS 48 Søvik, Rahma Vetlesdatter WS 25
Seppälä, Tuija WS 40 Tervonen, Miika WS 13, WS 34, WS 46
Sever, Barış Can WS 48 Tica, Sabina WS 8
Shapiro, Ditte WS 1 Tiilikainen, Marja WS 30, WS 52
Shaymardanov, Mukhammadyusuf WS 6, 26, 54 Tistea, Ioana WS 48
Shindo, Reiko WS 7, WS 19 Tjelta Feed, Uma WS 41
Shmulyar Green, Oksana WS 40 Tobin, Sarah WS 24
Silvola, Ilona WS 47 Toivanen, Mari WS 42
Sim, Kenna WS 14 Tuhkanen, Liisa WS 23
Simola, Anna WS 1, WS 40 Tuncer, Merve WS 40
Singla, Rashmi WS 20 Tuominen, Hanna WS 36
Sippola, Markku WS 23 Turjanmaa, Elina WS 34
Skadegård Thorsen, Tess S. WS 8, WS 17, WS 48 Turunen, Johanna WS 16, WS 17
Skjulhaug, Marianne WS 32, WS 53 Tuuva-Hongisto, Sari WS 29
Smedegaard Nielsen, Asta WS 5 van der Marel, Floris WS 22
Smith, Timothy WS 27 van Reekum, Rogier WS 19
Sólveigar- og Guðmundsdóttir, Linda WS 46 van Riemsdijk, Micheline WS 24
Sommier, Mélodine WS 16 Vanhanen, Sari WS 24
Sotkasiira, Tiina WS 1, WS 46 Warren, Saskia WS 18
Spanger, Marlene WS 45, WS 51 Webster, Natasha WS 43
Sparre, Sara Lei WS 9 Wendler, Jana WS 18
Sportel, Iris WS 4 Venäläinen, Satu WS 9
Starkutė, Ugnė Barbora WS 15 Wernesjö, Ulrika WS 39
Steel, Tytti WS 43 Vertelyte, Mante WS 5
Stegeager, Simone WS 38 Werther, Steffen WS 8
Stein, Barbara WS 24 Wesseling, Elisabeth WS 41
Stenman, Kristina WS 34 Vetik, Raivo WS 44
Stubberud, Elisabeth WS 15 Vicentic, Jelena WS 11, WS 12
406
Wickström, Mats WS 34
Villaman, Natalia WS 22
Wilson, Ben WS 52
Vishnivetz, Berta WS 20
Withaeckx, Sophie WS 41
Wojtynska, Anna WS 7
Wong, Norma ws 50
Vorobeva, Ekaterina WS 43
Wyss, Anna WS 1
Yasin, Ayan WS 48
Yuan, Yi WS 40
Zainorin, Amir WS 29
Zamorano Llena, Carmen WS 19, WS 25
Zolkos, Magdalena WS 13
Ålund, Aleksandra WS 1
Øland, Trine WS 4
Østergaard Poulsen, Stinne WS 1
Øverland, Mari WS 38
Øyen, Gyrid WS 15
407

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20TH NORDIC MIGRATION RESEARCH

CONFERENCE & 17TH ETMU CONFERENCE

NATIONAL NARRATIVES &

ONLINE / UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI

11-14 JANUARY 2021

© TILAT / SPACES, NORA SAYYAD

Art & Artists 12-16

© TILAT / SPACES, NORA SAYYAD

The theme of the conference is Colonial/Racial Histories, National Narratives

The Nordic countries have long been perceived themselves as outsiders to

Despite having a long history of organising the conference series by both

We are looking forward to seeing you soon!

On behalf of the conference organizers:

Senior Researcher Marja Tiilikainen (Migration Institute of Finland; Chair

Director Saara Pellander (Migration Institute of Finland; Chair 2020 of the

Professor Suvi Keskinen (CEREN, University of Helsinki)

Monday 11 Janu ary 2021 (CET+1)

09:00-17:00 Technical support and information available

10:00-10:30 Opening of the conference

Senior Researcher Marja Tiilikainen

Director Saara Pellander

Professor Suvi Keskinen

Artist and Researcher Sepideh Rahaa

Vi ce-Rector Paula Eerola (Uni versity of Helsinki)

Mayor of Helsinki Jan Vapaavuori

10:30-12:00 Keynote by Professor Anders Neergaard

12:30-14:00 Parallel workshops I

14:15-15:15 Key note by Visual Artist Marja Helander

15:15-16:30 Panel discussion: Arts as a way of

Chair: Artist and researcher Sepideh Rahaa

Visual Artist Marja Helander

09:00-17:00 Technical support and information available

10:00-11:30 Parallel workshops II

11:45-13:15 Parallel workshops III

14:00-16:00 ETMU Award

Keynote by Professor Gloria Wekker

Wednesday 13 Janu ary 2021 (CET+1)

09: 00-17: 00 Technical support and information available

10:00-10: 45 NMR General Assembly

10:45-11: 30 Presenting Helsinki University Press (HUP),

Editor-in-Chief, Associate Professor

11:45-13:15 Parallel workshops IV

14:00-16:00 Poetry by Kemê

Keynote by Professor Eduardo Bonilla-Silva

09:00-16:00 Technical support and information available

10:00-11:30 Parallel workshops V

11:30-12:00 Closing of the conference

Artist Nora Sayyad

Announcement of the next

12:00-13:00 Farewell lunch and matchmaking

14:00-16:00 PhD workshop arranged by

Technical Support Room

Technical Support Room is a separate Zoom-room open

On the Notice Board you can leave information about yourself,

Due to the online format, the conference requires a lot of sitting

Professor Emerita Gloria Wekker

White Innocence: race and cherished

The New Paths

Artist Sepideh Rahaa