In this article, we are addressing the issue of European labor mobility and show that the concept of class is embedded in the EU social policy framework. If the EU provides common rules to protect mobile citizens’ social security rights when moving within Europe in order to promote social cohesion and equality, they resulted in new legal boundaries within Europe between the ones who are protected by law and the ones who are excluded. Thus, the legal framework led to a situation in which law does not apply anymore based on national sovereignty but based on enclaves attached to individuals. Citizens become somehow extraterritorial (embodied boundaries). The analysis of EU policy documents related to the coordination of social security systems and the investigation of the Swedish national regulations for the implementation of free mobility, enable us to show that European free mobility is not a space facilitating free movement for everyone and that citizens might be bordered out depending on their class belonging. We argue that the legal framework has led to a policy of illegalization: the EU social framework far from protecting European workers has favored market predation and the emergence of a new social class of citizens dispossessed of their social rights.

This dissertation explores the regimes of truth surrounding Muslims in Sweden. The main focus lies on the production of knowledge regarding Muslims in the context of the guided tours of a mosque in Stockholm. Special attention is given to how regimes of truth regarding Muslims inform the conversations during the visits, how they are debated in this particular arena and how that is dependent on positionality. It is a situation in which a Muslim, in the position of the guide, has an opportunity to present alternative storylines, or stories, about who Muslims are and what they do. The visitors for their part can assess, respond to and challenge those stories. In other words, the study explores who can speak with authority.

The study is based mainly on participant observations made during 14 guided tours from 2003-2006 and on interviews with guides and visitors regarding their experiences on the respective tours. Most of the visitor groups were making study visits as a part of educational training. Seven of these were in primary and secondary education and two of them at the college level. Four groups came from social clubs at a workplace or from interest groups, and one was organised by Stockholm City Museum. To frame and contextualise the tours I have furthermore used data from mass media, mainly press clippings, but also features from TV shows. Other categories have been archival data, leaflets and brochures handed out at the mosque, as well as fictional books and a mailing list for Muslims. These sources have helped me discern regimes of truth that are, and are not, articulated on the guided tours.

The central results concern the fact that the guides see the tours as a chance to alter other stories about Muslims and allow the visitors who tour the mosque to hear something that is not mediated or taught in school; however, they experience difficulties in terms of gaining credibility with regard to their presentation of alternative stories. Even when the guides talk about their private life, as is often the case, they are challenged and sometimes mistrusted. The guides, and hosts, use their private lives to explain their position in Sweden, but the visitors also expect them to expose their personal opinions regarding how they, as Muslims, would act in morally difficult scenarios; thus, the tours present a situation where the visitors seem more comfortable than the hosts. Another significant result is that both the guides and visitors expressed the importance of the tours becoming a respectful meeting place. Religiosity, religion and secularism seem in themselves to represent otherness. What is respectful in practice, however, is not very clear. There is an ongoing debate in Swedish society concerning whether it is respectful to shake hands with a Muslim in a working situation, as is customary in Sweden. Moreover, the showing of respect is given a gender dimension on the tours, since the main way to perform respect is for every woman to wear a robe when entering the mosque. Respect as a practice seems to be mired in social inequality.

It seems difficult to become a guest if you are simultaneously appropriated the position of a Swede, and difficult to pass as a host if you position yourself as a Muslim.

(Un)comfortable (un)knowing. On comfort zones in the guided tours of a mosque

This article, proceeding from the study I did for my thesis on the guided tours of the great mosque in Stockholm, discusses the situations that were characterized by a struggle for having the right knowledge and interpretative prerogative. The concept of comfort zone (Ahmed 2008), and how that is related to ideas of societal happiness, is central. It is a concept that opens up for analysis of how the exercise of power depends on the position of the speaker. During the tours there has been a rhetorical struggle to establish a comfort zone. The article explores the interlinking of knowledge and social positioning, and how positions decide the credibility of what is said.

Acknowledging that there are regimes of truth surrounding Muslims in Sweden, the main focus lies on the production of knowledge regarding Muslims in the context of the guided tours of a mosque in Stockholm. Special attention is given to how regimes of truth regarding Muslims inform the conversations during the visits, how they are debated in this particular arena and how that is dependent on positionality. It is a situation in which a Muslim, in the position of the guide, has an opportunity to present alternative storylines, or stories, about who Muslims are and what they do.

During the visits there was a tendency for the guests to feel comfortable. In spite of being guests they managed the discomfort by recreating a comfort zone brought about by the alternative storylines. Seemingly objective and established knowledge on Muslims has had such an impact that it made the Muslim guides less trustworthy, even when they talk about personal experiences and their private lives, giving the guides a position of discomfort.

In this article, I investigate the relation between national belonging in Sweden and religious belonging to Islam in Sweden and how that is related to the recurrent talk of respect during the guided tours of a mosque in Stockholm that I have studied. It is precisely that discussion on respect, in relation to national belonging in Sweden, which will be in focus in this article. Why has it been important to show respect on the guided tours of a mosque? What in the tours brings such issues to the fore? What personal convictions can be set aside or negotiated in the exercising of respect?

As the number of refugees in the world is increasing and it is known that social inequality negatively impacts mental health, it is important to study integration policies, such as labour market measures. In this article, the strategic interventions of the Swedish Public Employment Service are analysed to determine how the agency’s management handled and implemented the legal changes in the new support document for its case workers. The focus is on the effects of the changes in the legal text that transferred the responsibility for establishment initiatives for newly arrived migrants to the agency and, as a result, changed the conditions for newly arrived refugees’ mental health in the new establishment programme. Eight people representing different management functions at the agency were interviewed. The results show that the intention in the new programme to view newly arrived refugees in the same way as all other unemployed people, rather than as a special category, has meant that less attention is paid to the refugees’ mental health, and the opportunities for the agency’s street-level bureaucrats to help clients have decreased. In the face of predicted growing numbers of people having to abandon their homes due to conflicts and climate changes, governmental strategies such as these needs to be revisited in order for societies worldwide to be better prepared for that challenge.

Newly arrived refugees and asylum seekers constitute a vulnerable population in terms of health and social conditions due to lived trauma and experiences of loss, as well as factors in the host country such as not speaking the language, not having employment and social exclusion. Studies have shown that many newly arrived refugees find it difficult to establish a sustainable position in the host country’s labour market due to a lack of connections, low levels of education and politi-cal, social and cultural barriers. The Swedish Public Employment Service runs an establishment programme aimed at helping newly arrived refugees to find employment quickly and manage their own livelihoods. In this study, we analyse the administrator support document used by Swedish Public Employment Service case workers in their work with the programme to explore whether and how it considers the participants’ mental health and conditions for social participation. The results show that despite newly arrived refugees being especially vulnerable in terms of mental health, little attention is paid to these aspects, the possible effects they may have on the programme, the participants’ integration into the labour market and Swedish society as a whole.

Social participation plays a key role in the integration of refugees and asylum seekers into their host societies, and is also closely tied to the mental health of those populations. The aim of this scoping review was to study how the concept of social participation is described in empirical research, and how it is associated with mental health outcomes.

METHODS: In total, 64 studies were identified through searches in PubMed, PsycInfo, and Sociological Abstracts. These studies describe various forms of social participation among refugees and asylum seekers, and 33 of them also addressed various forms of mental health outcomes.

RESULTS: The identified studies described forms and conditions of social participation-both in the host country and transnationally-that could be synthesized into three broad dimensions: (1) Regulatory frameworks, conditions and initiatives; (2) Established societal organizations and social structures; and (3) Community organized groups. Each of these consisted of several sub-domains. The identified dimensions of social participation were also associated with psychosocial well-being and decreased psychological distress.

CONCLUSIONS: There is a need for policies to enable and support the participation of refugees and asylum seekers in various dimensions of social structures in host societies. Social participation enhances resilience, re-establishes social lives, and acts as a protective factor against poor mental health outcomes.

I den här boken medverkar lärare och forskare som på olika sätt adresserar något eller flera av orden frihet, politik och systerskap. En rad vetenskapliga essäer ger bland annat läsaren inblick i alpackors skapande av systerlig gemenskap tillsammans med människor, systerskap som politiskt begrepp, frågor om forskares ansvar, akademiskt systerskap, skrivande som feministisk gemenskap, post-migranters erfarenheter och identitetsskapande samt mycket annat. Detta är en vänbok till Beatriz Lindqvist, professor i etnologi, och texterna har därför funnit inspiration i hennes person och forskargärning.

Beatriz Lindqvist har varit en drivande person i uppbyggnaden av etnologiämnet på Södertörns högskola. Hon har även haft ett stort engagemang i lärarutbildningen, såväl genom deltagande i råd och undervisning som genom hennes förskoleinriktade forskning.

Under de senaste decennierna har Sverige genomgått stora demografiska och politiska förändringar. Tillsammans har dessa inneburit att Sverige idag samtidigt är ett av Europas mest sekulariserade och mest mångreligiösa länder. Den snabba demografiska förändring Sverige har genomgått har ställt många inför nya, stora och i vissa fall skyndsamma kunskapsbehov samtidigt är forskningen om situationen delvis eftersatt. I denna rapport identifieras hur den nya situationen relaterar till det lagstadgade uppdrag som svenskt polisväsende, vård, skola och offentlig förvaltning har. Den forskning som gjorts inom dessa områden sammanfattas och de viktigaste forskningsbehoven identifieras.

Many newly arrived refugees suffer from mental health problems due to trauma. Research has shown that social participation after migration, such as taking part in social activities, networks and community work, is important for mental health and well-being. In Sweden, many civil society organisations, such as the Church of Sweden, take great responsibility for the establishment and integration of new arrivals. At the same time, the role of civil society organisations in the welfare society is not obvious, and the place of religious communities is sometimes challenged. Due to today’s growing secular and globalised society, the role of the Church of Sweden has changed. Its power has decreased, and the indications are that this will continue. There are also circumstances that point to the church having to adapt to the norms of secular society to have an impact. As the Church of Sweden fulfils an important function as a provider of welfare services, not least in work with newly arrived refugees, this article studies how the employees of the Church of Sweden feel about their conditions for this work and what guides it. It is based on a qualitative study of 19 interviews with employees in 4 different parishes.

Purpose – In general, newly resettled refugees have poorer physical and mental health than native-born Swedes. This indicates that the society must make special efforts to enable refugees to attain health that is on a par with the rest of the population. The challenges rest primarily with employees in the public sector. But what resources do professionals need to meet the refugees’ health needs? This paper is about the need to develop strategies for professionals working with diversity and health, with a focus on the establishment of newly resettled refugees in Sweden. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to identify the needs and obstacles in working with diversity and health for the newly resettled.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on focus group interviews with 40 professionals working in three large municipalities and one County Administrative Board, all of whom work with challenges related to migration and health on a daily basis.

Findings – The needs expressed by the interviewees are primarily about developing and improving communications. Three important areas of communication were expressed: how information can be transferred from sender to receiver, institutionalization and interactions at different levels.

Originality/value – This paper identifies important needs and obstacles when working with diversity and health in Sweden, with a focus on the establishment of newly resettled refugees. It is an important contribution because refugees in general have poorer physical and mental health than native-born Swedes and strategies to improve their health, therefore, need to be further developed

Frågor runt skola och förskola diskuteras i en rad olika sammanhang och av en mängd olika personer – i politiken, i tidningar, tv och radio, sociala medier, i forskningen, i vardagliga samtal mellan grannar i trappuppgången eller föräldrar som hämtar sina barn på fritids och, givetvis, av de som arbetar inom skolan. I och med att vi alla har personlig erfarenhet av skolan och väldigt många också av förskolan och av att ha sina barn i skola och förskola, tenderar frågor inom detta område att väcka engagemang och åsikter. Samtidigt är skolkontexten en komplex arena när det gäller relationer, interaktion, roller, föreställningar, normer och praktiker.