Contested Boundaries
An ethnographic study of activist practices for the inclusion of excluded migrants in Sweden, Denmark and the UK. (2012-2015)
Sager, Maja. 2012-2015. Contested Boundaries. An ethnographic study of activist practices for the inclusion of excluded migrants in Sweden, Denmark and the UK.
Projektet finansieras av FAS Marie Curie International Postdoc Programme, COFAS och kommer genomföras på Lancaster University, Storbritannien (2012-2014) och på Centrum för genusvetenskap, Lunds universitet (2014-2015).
Abstract
The purpose of the study is to contribute to theoretical debates on citizenship, rights, migration and national/local belonging through a qualitative analysis of the role of civil society in relation to repressive and exclusionary migration regimes. The study will reflect upon the ways in which irregular migrants, with support from civil society, challenge the exclusion from social rights and create alternative forms of belonging, inclusion and welfare access. Based on ethnographic participatory data collection that explores practices of solidarity, support and political organisation by and for irregular migrants in Sweden, Denmark and the UK questions related to political and social rights, inclusion and belonging will be discussed.
Through renegotiating the boundaries of inclusion/exclusion drawn by migration policies, these networks and groups could be described as yet another node in the complex and contradictory web of European migration regime/s. The study aims to contextualise activist practices in the similarities and differences between the research sites. Similarities and differences are considered on a national level, in terms of welfare, migration and gender regimes, and on a local level, in terms of approaches to integration and processes of inclusion/exclusion. How are belonging and community directly or indirectly conceptualised through these practices?
Source of Funding
FORTE Marie Curie International Postdoc Programme, COFAS
Participating Colleagues
Maja Sager, (PL) Department of Gender Studies, Lund University.
Diana Mulinari, Department of Gender studies, Lund University and Imogen Tyler, Department of Sociology, Lancaster universities are connected to the project as scientific mentors.