This report is written by students in the Ethnic and Migration Studies Master’s Programme, part of the Research Institute in Migration, Ethnicity, and Society (REMESO) at Linköping University, based on the Norrköping campus. REMESO is an internationally renowned institute that pursues research in migration and ethnic relations. The Master’s Programme is highly sought after, with students coming from all over the world to attend. Their interest in how migration transforms the world and how it influences other social phenomena has fuelled their work in this publication.

In their first year of studies, students take the course Critical Cases in Ethnic and Migration Studies, led by Erik Berggren as course coordinator and Kenna Sim-Sarka. The course is designed for students to apply the theoretical knowledge and experiences gained throughout the first year’s courses to produce articles beyond an academic audience for the broader public. Each REMS report is based around a specific theme, with previous themes including migration and Covid-19, migration and Ukraine, and migration and democracy. The REMS report is one of the many ways in which we, as students, are trained to identify and analyse issues related to migration, integration, and diversity and to make research accessible to a wider audience.

This year’s overarching theme is Migration and Culture, sparked by recent developments in Sweden’s and Norrköping’s politics of decreasing and cutting funds for cultural activities. Arts and culture are both areas of expression for migrant communities and people on the move, as well as those fighting against racism, discrimination, and exclusion. The current debate on “Swedish culture” and on a “Swedish cultural canon” recalls monolithic understandings of culture as a natural and immutable construct, contributing to the polarisation of views rather than the multiplication of perspectives and conceptions of it.

Like culture, which can be visualised as a tapestry created from different threads, different contributions, woven together to form something complex, this report is also a collection of varied articles, united by a common theme. Some articles in this report look at the accessibility of culture in Sweden and its transmission through all kinds of mediums, such as TV programmes; others engage artists or “social artists” who care about issues like migration and the fight against racism and discrimination, and some focus on specific aspects of culture and arts, such as language, food, and music.

The first-year students of EMS, 2024.

This report is made by students at the International Master’s Programme in Ethnic and Migration Studies (EMS), Campus Norrköping, Linköping University (LiU). At the end of the first year of the Programme, students take the course “Critical Cases in Ethnic and Migration Studies” with Erik Berggren as Course Coor­dinator. In this course the students apply their knowl­edge and experiences in Ethnic and Migration studies to produce their own articles on a given theme. 

This year´s theme is “Migration and Democracy” sparked by recent moves towards more restrictive and punitive migration policies around the world, including Sweden. This development gives reasons to look into questions of democracy in connection to migration policy, at migrants (immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers) inclusion or exclusion from different realms of society, and, not least, if migrants, and immigrants, are seen as rights-bearing subjects or not. 

The articles engage with different aspects of migrant experiences, and democratic, social, and educational exclusions or inclusions. Many texts go beyond Sweden and Europe and look to South America. Some seek the voices of migrants themselves. Other articles deal with anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric, their structure and how they are rationalised. 

The International Master’s Programme in Ethnic and Migration Studies is a part of the Institute for Research in Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO), at the Department Culture and Society (IKOS) at LiU. Pro­gramme Director is Professor Claudia Tatzreiter. REME­SO is an international institute that pursues research and education. The REMS report is one of the ways in which we, as students, are trained to identify and analyse problems related to migration, integration, and diversity and to make research and education accessible to a wider audience.

The first-year students of EMS, 2023.  

This report is made by students at the International Master’s Programme in Ethnic and Migration Studies (EMS), Campus Norrköping, Linköping University (LiU). Every Spring we give the first-year students the task to apply their knowledge in migration and ethnic relations on a chosen topic. The report is produced during few weeks by the students themselves. This is the sixth issue of REMS – Reports from the Master of Arts program in Ethnic and Migration Studies.

This year we focus on the ongoing war in Ukraine and specifically its consequences for Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war, as well as on the Swedish and European reception of refugees. We cover far from all, but some important, aspects of the ongoing catastrophe this war entails for everybody involved. Despite a feeling of powerlessness and despair when war takes over and seem to block our capacity to think and act, it is even more important that intellectuals, researchers, and students, stick to the pens and insist on trying to understand, continue to analyse and investigate what is going on.

The once-in-a-century pandemic crisis has shed a different light on the value of migrants in modern society. Their contribution in Sweden and beyond is intrinsically interwoven with daily life - from seasonal laborers to workers in healthcare, transportation, catering and more. Migrants are not the excess of a society but rather have an indispensable role in it. Nevertheless, they are often depicted as welfare tourists, criminals, ‘others’ within our communities, in a nutshell financial burdens who take advantage of host countries. 

The last issue of this publication confronted the pandemic’s newly unfolding effects, posing the question of “How does one write about a storm when one is swept by the wind and an impending thunder overhead, and lighting?” After more than a year, one of the main things we can say is that when you are faced by a storm you stay put and wait for it to pass. In a world system which propels many of us towards increased dynamism and flexibility in life, the possibility to stand still relies on sound financial and social resources. Migratory experiences shaped by the lack of these resources are the epitome of the difficulty in remaining withdrawn until the crisis blows over.

This collection of articles guides the reader through the various, generally invisible experiences of being a migrant in the Swedish society and beyond. Caught in a web of discrimination, segregation, differential access to resources and possibilities. It explores how migrants’ experiences are shaped by material and legal aspects of the society. Money is not just an abstract word opening to the remote world of finance and its hazy rules, but a concrete force that shapes daily experiences of people.

This publication is indebted to the informants who shared their personal experiences and knowledge with authors. In addition, attained knowledge within the programme, and collaboration between students guided by the teachers are central to the quality of the articles.

Students at the Master´s Programme in Ethnic and Migration Studies, Linköping University, June 2021.

How does one write about a storm when one is swept by the wind and an impending thunder overhead, and lighting?

We’re writing whilst standing on moving tectonic plates; what we conclude today might be rendered obsolete by the discovery of a vaccine, or new outbreak on a so far, little-affected region. However, we can at least hope that writing from within the phenomenon of the Coronavirus pandemic we can construct a unique time capsule in what (we hope) will be a passing, though indelible, phase in history.

These reflections and observations of the present will be perhaps premature in gauging the situation or in making conclusions, but they will nevertheless be a record of a period that will be discussed and reconsidered for decades if not centuries to come. Therefore the texts that follow herein are a mixture of subjective reflections, popular scientific analyses and journalistic reports.

Ultimately, regarding the pandemic’s effects on the economy, migration policy, healthcare, social ties within and between societies, on the family and the quality of our friendships, our capacities for compassion and support, only time will tell.

A commonplace idea, and worry, in much political art is the emphasis on how not to victimize the object/subject in artistic strategies, and the importance of portraying people as subjects with agency. The way to do this is it is often suggestedm is to allow for identification. This article asks if this strong idea might be shaped by an ameliorating guilt about victims, which in turn is partially informed by an inability to free the gaze from a hegemonic view of people as agents. Instead, the article looks at some contemporary artists who open for an opposite recognition, the radical lack of power for large groups within the global migration system, without attempts at temporary symbolic solutions. It will be argued that the recognition of powerlessness is and has always been a ground for political as well as artistic representation, mobilisation and solidarity.

Migrationens och etnicitetens epok introducerar en rad begrepp som kan användas för att fördjupa förståelsen av en mängd fenomen och företeelser i samtiden, som på olika sätt kan länkas till frågor om migration och etnicitet. De begrepp som boken introducerar är etnicitet, migration, diaspora, medborgarskap, intersektionalitet, rasism, högerpopulism, social exkludering och informalisering.Bokens ämnesmässiga spännvidd gör den till viktig läsning för studenter och forskare inom en rad ämnen och utbildningar - såsom sociologi, statsvetenskap, socionom- och lärarutbildning.

Sverige har varit relativt skonat från de grövsta utfallen av högerpopulistisk mobilisering och politisk rasism. Vi behöver bara blicka mot Danmark, Holland, Italien, Österrike och Frankrike för att finna en mer öppet främlingsfientlig politisk diskussion.