In qualitative research, the research process is often filled with moments of discomfort. These discomforts can appear at any stage of the research: when choosing thesubject of research, during fieldwork, in the process of analysis and when presenting research findings to different audiences. In this edited volume, we take thesemoments of discomfort seriously and use them as sites of knowledge production forreflecting on the politics and ethics of the qualitative research process. By locatingour experiences in implementing nine different PhD projects carried out in different disciplines and research contexts in social sciences, we argue that these momentsof discomfort help us to gain important insights into the methodological, theoretical, ethical and political issues that are crucial for the fields we engage with. Drawingon feminist and other critical discussions (Mulinari and Sandell 1999, Gunaratnam2003, Back 2007, Gunaratnam and Hamilton 2017), we deal with questions such as:What does it mean to write about the lives of others? What are the ethical modesand conundrums of producing representations? In research projects that are locatedin the tradition of critical or engaged scholarship, how are ethics and politics of representation intertwined, and when are they distinct? How are politics of representation linked to the practice of solidarity in research? What are the im/possibilities ofhope and care in research?

This book offers insights on politics and ethics of representation that are relevant to researchers concerned with struggles for justice. It takes moments of discomfort in the qualitative research process as important sites of knowledge for exploring representational practices in critical research.

The Politics and Ethics of Representation in Qualitative Research draws on experiences from research processes in nine PhD projects. In some chapters, ethical and political dilemmas related to representational practices are analyzed as experienced in fieldwork. In others, the focus is on the production of representation at the stage of writing. The book deals with questions such as: What does it mean to write about the lives of others? How are ethics and politics of representation intertwined, and how are they distinct? How are politics of representation linked to a practice of solidarity in research? What are the im/possibilities of hope and care in research?

Drawing on grounded empirical research, the book offers input to students, PhDs, researchers, practitioners, activists and others dealing with methodological dilemmas from a critical perspective. Instead of ignoring discomforts, or describing them as solved, we stay with them, showing how such a reflective process provides new, ongoing insights.

Do asylum-seekers respond to policy changes in their destination country, and to what extent? We approach this question by using high-frequency data, and we focus on a sudden liberalization in Swedish policy toward Syrian asylum-seekers, which implied permanent instead of temporary residence. We show a clear and fast, yet temporary, increase in Syrian asylum applications in Sweden after the policy change. Also, the policy caused a shift - not limited to the short term - in the share of individuals arriving without family, and consequently in the share applying for family reunification. Our study adds quasi-experimental evidence to the literature on inter-country asylum flows and migration policy.

Motivation The Solidarity Economy movement emerged in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s as an alternative mode of production led by mutual principles, such as co-operative work, self-management, and consensual distribution of economic gains. Much has been developed on its potential to include groups marginalized by capitalism in new development schemes, but to date there has been no work regarding immigrants participation specifically. This research aims to fill this gap. Purpose The article investigates the importance of the partnership between institutions in the host country and immigrants to their insertion in the Solidarity Economy Fairs in Florianopolis. It questions to what extent it has furthered income generation, the formation of social identity, and the construction of community ties. Methods and approach The approach is anchored in intervention-research, proposing a socio-analytical intervention (Aguiar & Rocha, 2007). To pursue qualitative research, an online form was distributed to participants at the Immigrant Fair. The form comprised semi-structured interviews, with the possibility of giving free answers. Findings The data analysis reveals the nuances of the life trajectory of recent immigrants in Brazil: people, mostly of Latin American origin, over 30 years of age, seeking economic insertion in another country. For them, the Solidarity Economy has offered a possibility for social and economic insertion in Brazil. The opportunity for marginalized populations to engage with the Solidarity Economy offers an effective tool against systemic competition. The Fair operates as an alternative to the insertion into the capitalist market for outsider groups, enabling new ways to conduct economic life within the capitalist economy. Policy implications Our findings suggest that the Fair has provided immigrants both the means to obtain a weekly (although unstable) financial income and their social integration-it requires interaction with other immigrants, state agents, tourists, and the local community. The social isolation resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic has jeopardized both outcomes. In order to consolidate solidarity ventures and immigrants enterprises, there is an urgent need to implement a public policy regarding immigrants social and economic rights in Santa Catarina State.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has forced millions of Ukrainian citizens, especially women and children, to seek refuge in other countries, including Sweden. Given the large number of Ukrainian refugee children, it is of utmost importance that they have the possibility to continue their education abroad. In Sweden, Ukrainian refugees have access to education, a right provided by their status as asylum seekers under the Temporary Protection Directive. This thesis aims to explore the reception of Ukrainian refugee students into Swedish schools, by focusing on the communication and interactions between Swedish schools' personnel, classes' collectives, and Ukrainian refugee students and their families. The data used for this study were obtained through conducting five semi-structured interviews with two middle- and high-school teachers and three studiehandledare. The results show that, in general, Swedish schools, teachers, and studiehandledare make substantial efforts to facilitate the reception and integration of Ukrainian refugee pupils; at the same time, the classes' collectives were described as cordial and helpful. Despite the welcoming nature of Swedish schools and the safety that Sweden provides, the Ukrainian refugee pupils and their families struggle to find a sense of belonging, especially since the majority of Ukrainian refugees wish to return to Ukraine once the war is over. The belonging paradox experienced by Ukrainian refugees is, thus, characterised by their desire to express gratitude towards Sweden and, at the same time, being unable to get accustomed to the Swedish culture and education system while waiting to return home.

Mass incarceration, police brutality, and border controls are part and parcel of the everyday experiences of marginalized and racialized communities across the world. Recent scholarship in international relations, sociology, and geography has examined the prevalence of these coercive practices through the prism of "disciplinary," "penal," or "authoritarian" neoliberalism. In this collective discussion, we argue that although this literature has brought to the fore neoliberalisms reliance on state violence, it has yet to interrogate how these carceral measures are linked to previous forms of global racial ordering. To rectify this moment of "colonial unknowing," the collective discussion draws on decolonial approaches, Indigenous studies, and theories of racial capitalism. It demonstrates that "new" and "neoliberal" forms of domestic control must be situated within the global longue duree of racialized and colonial accumulation by dispossession. By mapping contemporary modes of policing, incarceration, migration control, and surveillance onto earlier forms of racial-colonial subjugation, we argue that countering the violence of neoliberalism requires more than nostalgic appeals for a return to Keynesianism. What is needed is abolition-not just of the carceral archipelago, but of the very system of racial capitalism that produces and depends on these global vectors of organized violence and abandonment.

There have been increasing efforts at the international level to make migrants and refugees’ participation and inclusion in policy more meaningful. Yet, little is known on their perspectives about these possibilities and the outcomes of these efforts. Drawing on the case of one refugee-led initiative, the Network for Refugee Voice (NRV), in attending the drafting process of the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), this paper describes the refugee-led advocacy approach to attaining meaningful participation and representation on high policy platforms, including the United Nations organizations. I examine NRV members’ experience of advocating for refugee inclusion against a background of recent international commitment to refugees’ meaningful participation. Based on interviews, my analysis identifies the achievements as self-evaluated by NRV members as well as the challenges they face while highlighting the obstacles and opportunities for a more inclusive international refugee policy.

Des millions de Syriens ont demandé l’asile à l’étranger, d’abord dans les pays voisins puis en Europe occidentale. Parmi eux, de très nombreux Kurdes ont été rendus apatrides par l’État syrien. Confrontés à des systèmes d’asile européens peu au fait des questions d’apatridie, ils se heurtent à des difficultés parfois insurmontables pour faire reconnaître leur statut d’apatride, puis pour obtenir la naturalisation. Ces obstacles et cette impossibilité d’accéder à des solutions durables peuvent entraîner exclusion sociale et non-intégration au sein de la société d’accueil.

The special issue contributes to the exploration of transversal solidarities counterpoised to anexhausted neoliberalism on the one hand and a xenophobic populism on the other. It trackscontours of a multifarious countermovement, traversing ‘race’, class and gender, driven byreimaginings of the common and the renewal of democracy. The emphasis is on the understandingof contending urban justice movements, welcoming communities and their liaisons in a multiscale(local, national, transnational) perspective. A collection of theoretically informed papers discussescases from urban contexts of Europe and the United States, all riveted by schisms of class, ‘race’/ethnicity and gender, occupied by the ‘migration’ issue and challenged by contending movementsfor social cum environmental sustainability. Exploring examples of social movements and formsof mobilisation in different contexts, the overarching aim is to retrieve options for transversalsolidarities transcending identities while focusing on commonalities.

Using quantitative and qualitative methods, this study investigates inequalities in occupational status and wages between native-born and foreign-born employees in elderly care institutions in Sweden. It finds that employees from Africa, Asia and Latin America - the "Global South" - are disadvantaged in both respects. Combinatory explanations of the inequalities are needed. The shorter work experience of foreign-born workers in the care sector plus the lesser value given to educational credentials obtained outside Sweden are among the factors related to human capital theory. Access to less-valuable resources in the workplace social networks of foreign-born employees is related to social capital theory. The processes that result in exclusion from powerful social networks, in turn, are found to be affected by discrimination in the workplace.

I Ungdomars fritidsaktiviteter studeras fritidsaktiviteter och dess betydelse för ungdomar. Vilka är engagerade i fritidsaktiviteter och vilka är det inte? Förstärker aktiviteterna skillnader mellan unga med olika klassbakgrund, etnicitet eller kön, eller kan de bidra till en positiv utveckling för unga från resurssvaga familjer? Forskningen om fritidsaktiviteter är ett växande fält inom pedagogik, psykologi, socialt arbete och sociologi. Boken vänder sig till studenter i dessa ämnen och till lärare, fritidspedagoger, studie- och yrkesvägledare samt övriga som arbetar med ungdomar och ungdomsfrågor - praktiskt och i forskning.

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.

This thesis project is an act of solidarity research with the Berlin based Latin American women’s organization Xochicuicatl. Along the idea that research should be based on the interests and needs of oppressed groups, the research design was developed in cooperation with the organization. The study centers on migration movements between Latin America and the Caribbean and Germany. Moreover, it investigates the dynamics of inner-outer interplay between the organization the beneficiaries and the overall migrant group. The main method isa qualitative content analysis of documents out of the organization’s archive. The organization’s response to transformations is thereby analyzed through action within invited (coping) and invented (resistance) spaces of citizenship. In this regard, the organization’s space is understoodas a subaltern counterpublic which enables a connection between coping and resistance.

Swedish school’s commission to promote equal treatment and counteract discrimination is extensive and entails active work on fundamental values in everyday activities. This article presents resultsfrom an action-oriented ethnographic study in which we, together with teachers and students at the language introduction-programme in upper secondary school, reviewed and developed methods of working with fundamental values in education. Using theories of intersectionality, critical multiculturalism, and critical pedagogy, we query the possibilities to fully include students of different backgrounds. Our analysis shows how the students were approached from a deficit model and that gender and sexuality were used as ethnic markers between Swedishness and non-Swedishness. Further, the potential in starting from students’ experiences and seeing the possibilities with an anti-racist, critical perspective on ethnicity is highlighted. Thus, we propose that teaching on fundamental values in language introduction needs to break with the idea of an imagined normative Swedishness and switch from a monocultural to an intercultural perspective in order to increase students’ opportunities for participation and inclusion.

Prefatory article that introduces the themes, topics and articles of this special issue on the images of protest.

Vad händer på våra arbetsplatser när vårt samhälle blir alltmer ojämlikt? I Ojämlika arbetsplatser lyfter 22 forskare från olika samhällsvetenskapliga discipliner fram klass- och genusbaserade orättvisor och hur olika maktordningar samverkar och förstärker varandra. Med sina skildringar av rasifierad ojämlikhet på olika arbetsplatser är boken den första i sitt slag i Sverige.

This article scrutinises the European Asylum Dactyloscopy Database (EURODAC) as a research object for social science. EURODAC serves as an important part of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) infrastructure by registering digitalised fingerprints of asylum seekers, which facilitates the allocation of responsibility following the Dublin Regulation. In this article, we explore the role of EURODAC from its implementation in 2003 until April 2021 through a scoping review that maps and analyses existing social science research in the field. In total, 254 scholarly publications-identified in Scopus, Academic Search Complete, and Web of Science-were reviewed. The article seeks to answer three research questions: What is the accumulated knowledge within social science research on EURODAC? What gaps and trends exist in this research? What are the possible implications of this knowledge, gaps, and trends for other areas of the CEAS such as asylum evaluations and reception of asylum seekers? Based on a qualitative thematic analysis, our review shows that research on EURODAC can be divided into three broad categories: research that focuses on the reconfiguration of borders; research that focuses on migration governance and resistance; and research that emphasises fundamental rights and discrimination. In our final discussion, we highlight the lack of ethnographic studies, of gender and intersectional perspectives, and of in-depth studies on national legal frameworks including asylum evaluations and reception practices across the EU. The article concludes that social science needs to address the socio-political underpinnings of EURODAC and acknowledges its centrality to all areas of the CEAS.

Europe’s migration and security challenges have prompted the European Union (EU) to develop and enhance multiple large-scale information technology systems (IT systems). Policy and legal developments in this area are evolving rapidly. The European Commission has proposed amending the legal bases for Eurodac and the Schengen Information System (SIS II), and is expected to propose amending the Visa Information System (VIS) in 2018. In addition, four new systems are planned: the Entry-Exit System (EES), the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS), the European Criminal Records Information System for Third-Country Nationals (ECRIS-TCN), and, most crucially, an IT system that seeks to ensure interoperability across existing and planned systems.

Such systems provide invaluable support to border management efforts, but also have wide-ranging fundamental rights implications. The persons affected – including both regular travellers and persons who may be in situations of vulnerability – typically do not fully understand the implications of the use of such systems.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on abundant racial and ethnic health disparities in many countries around the world. In Sweden, statistics on COVID-19 mortality and morbidity from both the first and the second wave of the pandemic show that foreign-born individuals have been disproportionately affected, compared to Swedish-born individuals. However, as demonstrated in this article, key stakeholders including politicians, public authorities, mainstream media, and medical researchers do not draw on the same explanatory framework when conceptualizing the health disparity. Probing the different discourses that were articulated through oral and written accounts during the first wave, the article identifies three different frameworks of how ethnic health disparities in relation to COVID-19 were understood in Sweden: the socioeconomic framework, the culturalist framework and the biological framework. We discuss the importance of our findings for health policy and argue for continued interrogation of epidemiological knowledge production from a critical vantage point in order to successfully combat health inequalities.

This study explores how researchers analytical choices affect the reliability of scientific findings. Most discussions of reliability problems in science focus on systematic biases. We broaden the lens to emphasize the idiosyncrasy of conscious and unconscious decisions that researchers make during data analysis. We coordinated 161 researchers in 73 research teams and observed their research decisions as they used the same data to independently test the same prominent social science hypothesis: that greater immigration reduces support for social policies among the public. In this typical case of social science research, research teams reported both widely diverging numerical findings and substantive conclusions despite identical start conditions. Researchers expertise, prior beliefs, and expectations barely predict the wide variation in research outcomes. More than 95% of the total variance in numerical results remains unexplained even after qualitative coding of all identifiable decisions in each teams workflow. This reveals a universe of uncertainty that remains hidden when considering a single study in isolation. The idiosyncratic nature of how researchers results and conclusions varied is a previously underappreciated explanation for why many scientific hypotheses remain contested. These results call for greater epistemic humility and clarity in reporting scientific findings.

The term integration became a buzzword and is omnipresent in the current European discourses. Despite its broad definitions, there is a tendency in migration studies and the political narrative to focus exclusively on migrants and their descendants while upholding the vision of  a fixed “host society”, with an established national culture, in which migrants should integrate. The present study aims to reframe the concept of integration by adopting a postmigrant approach and by analyzing the contribution of art projects in this regard. To do so, the study draws on two current theoretical approaches to integration in the social sciences, Stuart Hall’s conceptualization of national culture, the postmigration concept and the societal impact of art as theoretical framework. First, the notion of integration has been positioned theoretically in current postmigrant debates. The content analysis demonstrates that the conceptualization of postmigrant integration takes distance from the notion of assimilation and looks beyond the topic of migration. Second, eight semi-structured interviews have been conducted with project team members and project participants of the art projects “Newcomers”, “Leben, Erzählen, Schreiben”, “Hela Bilden”, and the organization “Alter & Ego”. The thematic analysis of the interviews showed the necessity to address the “host population”, i.e. individuals without experience of forced migration, to overcome monolingualism and to concentrate on societal diversity which contributes to the theorization of postmigrant integration. The present thesis indicates the importance of the arts regarding their societal impact and agency to provide alternative narratives on migration and integration. It also stresses the necessity of integration policies and the European migration regime to take part in the reframing of current migration discourses by directly addressing the “host population” and acknowledging today’s context of plural societies in which everyone should integrate.

This study offers an in-depth examination of the motives and reflections impacting international students' choice to study in Sweden. Three central themes emerge, namely: motivations for choosing Sweden, cost-benefit evaluations, reflections on immigration prospects, and the impact of Sweden's immigration policy. Inspired by the push-pull theory, human capital theory, and sociological theories, these themes highlight the intricate dynamics that shape the students' decision-making process. This understanding is further enriched by qualitative interviews with a diverse pool of international students, adding layers of individual perspectives to the theoretical framework. The findings explore the noteworthy influence that the prospect of immigration and Swedish immigration policies have on students' destination preferences. Factors such as the educational quality, allure of the country, financial considerations, and post-study opportunities surface, with a strong emphasis on the pivotal role of immigration prospects in students' decision-making. The study notably reveals immigration prospects as a major pull factor for students, an aspect often underrepresented in the discourse on international student mobility. Additionally, despite potential drawbacks, students perceive the benefits of studying in Sweden, such as high-quality education and potential post-study work, as outweighing the costs. This research provides valuable insights for educational institutions and policymakers to better understand and cater to international students' needs and preferences, thereby bolstering Sweden's reputation as an appealing global destination for higher education.

This thesis aims at exploring the role of organizations in asylum seekers' access to volunteering in Wallonia, Belgium. In Belgium, volunteering has been allowed for asylum seekers since 2014. Studies made after 2014 in Wallonia have shown that volunteering can benefit asylum seekers. However, research on volunteering in other contexts has found that, while volunteering is often depicted as an inclusive practice, valuable for volunteers and society, inequalities restrict access to volunteering. Research on volunteering tended to focus on the individual characteristics and resources that make certain groups less likely to volunteer, but at the meso level, organizations also have a role in determining who can access volunteering.

Based on semi-structured interviews with members of organizations, the analysis examines the management of volunteering for asylum seekers in Wallonia to understand how the organizations' practices facilitate or restrict access to volunteering. Findings show that a network of sending and receiving organizations, reception centers and volunteering organizations, shapes access to volunteering for asylum seekers. This network aims at creating links between asylum seekers and other parts of the population through volunteering. Throughout the promotion of volunteering and the selection of volunteers and volunteering opportunities, organizations adopt strategies to enhance asylum seekers' participation in volunteering and to lift obstacles restricting access to volunteering. However, some organizational practices, including this selection, lead to the exclusion of asylum seekers from volunteering.

This thesis is a qualitative study focusing on the situation that has evolved in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) from the beginning of 2018, when migrants and refugees started entering the country in large numbers in the context of the so-called Balkan route. The approach adopted in the thesis is informed by critical studies emphasizing the asymmetries entailed in the emerging multilevel governance of migration. The European Union (EU), the BiH state, IOM, civil society, activists, and citizens, are inserted in a “situational map” presenting their inter-relations, and the potential of each to influence the situation of concern. This thesis analyses in details the role of the EU, which is implementing in BiH its security-informed approach to irregular migration through externalization and multilevelling strategies. Eight semi-structured interviews allow the investigation into the potential and challenges of a “governance from below”. The main argument of this thesis is that the EU, outsourcing its strategy to curb irregular migration to BiH, fails to address the humanitarian crisis that is developing there, besides mining the stability and democracy of the country.