Projects with keyword: Citizenship

This project is a comparative exploration of an ongoing process of change from a mono-dimensional, victim-related Kurdish diasporic identity to a more modulated, dynamic and active form of it among Kurds in the Marseille region in France and the Stockholm region in Sweden.
Moreover, the project focus on the relationship between diaspora and tourism where diasporan groups develop various transnational networks, institutions and organizations in order to carry out various forms of journeys not only between their new and old societies but also over many state borders.
Furthermore, the project advance diaspora as a specific context of knowledge which is non-compatible with methodological nationalism; a perspective which privileges the nation-state as a conceptual reference regarding how knowledge is organized and produced by social scientists.

The project traces the politics of European citizenship as it has unfolded since the beginning of the European integration project in the 1950s to the present day. The main focus, though, lies with the more contemporary developments, stretching from the mid-1980s, or the commencement of the EU's Single Market project, until the present. The overall purpose is to critically conceptualize and empirically analyze the historical development of EU citizenship as it has developed alongside the deepening cleavage between the power of EU institutions on the one hand and popular legitimacy among its citizenry on the other; charting its long-range movements vis-à-vis the broader transformations of the EU integration project. This results in an integrated analysis of EU citizenship, one that carefully scrutinizes the deeply interrelated processes of migration, socio-economic transformation and resurgence of ethno-nationalist sentiments at all levels of the EU polity.

Over the past decades, the literature on regionalism and regionalisation has grown considerably, and so has the literature on citizenship. But although globalisation, international migration, and processes of state rescaling, regionalism and regionalisation have vast implications for the formation of political, economic and social citizenship at regional levels, few explicit attempts have been made to bridge the literature on regionalism and regionalisation, with the literature on citizenship. Accordingly, the main aim of this project is to - empirically and theoretically elaborate on the concept of regional citizenship.

This project focuses at the role of branding in urban and regional governance. The project is based on the identification of a growing need for studies focusing on those patterns of inclusion and exclusion that have emerged in the aftermath of the restructuring of the welfare state. In particular, the project seeks to meet the need for studies in which new, geopolitical entities are confronted with questions of inclusion, exclusion and diversity. In short, the project aims to explore whether place branding is a sub-national strategy for growth and competitiveness only, or if it is a strategy for (a) urban and regional governance and (b) inclusion and diversity too.

The aim of this project is to grasp processes of globalization in education policies and in selected pedagogic texts in Norway, Sweden, Syria and Turkey through a focus on the education of the "right" kind of future citizen. People increasingly move across national borders for longer or shorter periods. The autonomy of nation states is thus challenged and questioned, but they still hedge in and concomitantly close off people in separate national spaces. These simultaneous often contradictory - processes are of great importance for how the right kind of future citizen is moulded in mandatory schooling. Research on transnationalism is a theoretical starting point for this project. Long- or short term migrants create and maintain social relations which cut across national borders, but also law and policies move and are established across such borders. Research on education and nation state building and the globalization of education are important for the project, in order to understand education polices and the governance of education. We will collect and analyze educational documents and curricula for selected subjects like history, civic and religious education, interview politicians with influence over education, as well as teachers and authors of textbooks, and scrutinize selected textbooks in the four national settings. The cases will be used for soft comparison where similarities and differences will be used throughout to generate new insights and deepen the analysis.

This study brings into focus the issue of reproduction and transformation ofcultural authority in the so-called post-Soviet context. It seeks to examine howintelligentsia may be presented and what empowering narratives it may articulate in a concrete locality, namely, in the post-1991 West Ukrainian city of L'viv. Theauthor argues that claims for cultural authority stemming from the socio-culturallocation of intelligentsia are decisive in discussions about Ukrainian nationalidentity and cultural development, which gained momentum after independence.Despite significant discursive transformations, after 1991 intelligentsia is stillpresented as the essence of the nation, as its typical and brightest representativeswho assume the right to speak for the whole nation and to extrapolate own valuesand choices to it.

Politics of Precarity: Migrant Conditions, Struggles and Experiences

Research on the relationship between immigrants’ entry categories and legal status after obtaining the residence permits and their socioeconomic integration, is fragmented and underdeveloped, both in Sweden and internationally.
The aim of this project is to fill this gap. We intend to examine how differences between immigrants’ entry categories and legal status affect immigrants’ short-term and long-term integration in the Swedish context. As far as integration indicators are concerned, the focus will be on labour market, education and housing outcomes, as well as on the family dynamics among immigrants. We intend to compare different legal categories as they are defined by the immigration board while entering the country (refugees, quote refugees, permits based on humanitarian grounds, family reunion, temporary protection, working permits etc.). Different immigrant groups as well as groups with the different legal status within the same immigrant groups, will also be compared. We will also study legal status differences emerging from the shift to the new Swedish restrictive immigration regime, which was introduced in 2016.

The project examines art, literature and film dealing with collective protests in 2011 and after. It will explore how aesthetic presentations advance our understanding of collective political action in ways that other modes of knowledge such as sociology, history and journalism are unable to do.

The material is a selection of literary and artistic works that present or perform the Tahrir revolution in Cairo 2011, the People's Assemblies in Athens 2011, and the Maidan Revolt in Kiev 2013-2014. The project focuses on the dialogical and multivocal modes of experience at the heart collective protest.

This project examines the utilization of biometrics and EU information technology systems in migration management, in the areas of asylum (EURODAC); borders (SIS II) and visas (VIS). The project builds on field research that revealed that authorities place great trust in biometric data, yet paradoxically, it also showed that the systems suffers from numerous insecurities and a lack of transparency.
The proposed project extend this earlier research by further probing its biopolitical implications posing three key research questions: (1) How do biometric technologies and the concerned EU IT systems enact identities along the lines of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age and ability?; (2) What patterns emerge around how Swedish migration and police authorities meet insecurities?; (3) How do the systems affect the everyday life of migrants living in Sweden and their travels to and across Europe?
Qualitative observations and interviews are employed to examine how migration and police authorities use and interpret the technologies; and interviews with migrants aim to grasp how the technologies impact on their lives.

What constitutes and maintains the structures of indifference that enable ongoing extractive plunder by the Canadian polity? As a consequence of taking the erasure of plunder as a starting point, we are invited to examine how contested extractive processes unfold in space and time: their speculative ‘buzz’ phase, their toxifying phase, and their many traumatic after-lives. That such extractive processes always have an emplaced aspect in a ‘site’ where we can encounter them in research or classification goes without saying, but of particular importance to my research are its embodied aspects, which are transmissible across space and generations insofar as communities under extractive pressure are toxified and restructured into no-places of unrestrained profit-potential, marked by monopolistic or oligopolistic life-worlds of expulsion. Two questions arising from this attention to lived communal experiences of extraction and explored across the cases are: what do those displaced by extraction carry with them? How are transversal projects of resistance articulated?

The project focuses on the Sweden Democrats (SD) and the role of local and regional gendered place identities in contributing to the regional strength of ethnonationalism, but also to alternative democratic societal projects that mitigate ethnonationalism. It studies place identities both in regions where the SD is strong and weak, with the aim of understanding the role of place identities and the relationship to gender identities and diverse solidarities frames; posing the following research questions:

1. What role do local and regional gendered place identities play in facilitating and constraining ethnonationalist worldviews?

2. Which myths of origin can be discerned from local political, municipal and media documents, and how are they invoked and contested by both ethno-nationalist and alternative democratic solidarity projects?

3. What role does gender, class, ethnicity and age play in the construction and transformation of local and regional place identities?

4. What role does local media play in shaping regional and local identities, constructions of “we” and “them” and solidarity agendas in parliamentary politics?

CuRe gathers five research teams from Austria, Croatia, Germany, Serbia and Sweden. Its goal is to understand the recshift in everyday life towards polarization and radicalization, and the successes of right-wing movements and parties in Europe. We start from the premise that cultures of rejection emerge as the result of crises in Europe’s democracies, as well as due to changes in national institutions and civil society. Since rejection is a threat to all forms of social cohesion and peaceful coexistence, the project seeks to study the conditions that have led to the rejection of, among else, immigration, political elites, media and cultural values such as gender equality and sexual liberty.

Specifically, the research focuses on the way economic and technological changes impact employees in logistics and sales, and in which way employees ascribe any particular meaning to these changes.

The researchers assess the situation along the 2015 migration route across Sweden, Germany, Austria, Croatia and Serbia, thoroughly examining work places, digital and socio-spatial environments in interviews and ethnographic fieldwork.

Project web page: http://www.culturesofrejection.net/

This project examines the transition from statelessness to naturalization and citizenship in the case of Syrian Kurds who have historically been denied their identity. The project explores the extent to which the statelessness of Syrian Kurds triggered their migration and how it affected their legal status, resettlement and integration in their countries of asylum, mainly Sweden and Germany. The aim is to understand how identity is perceived, negotiated and expressed during the transition from stateless to national or citizen alongside experiences of migration and exile. The purpose of this study is not only to clarify the complex relationship between statelessness, migration and identity of Syrian Kurds, but also to shed light on this relationship in a broader historical, political and social context.

Housing plays a central role in the process of integrating refugees. A home offers stability, a place of resources in the city, which may serve as a platform for participating in society. Although the provision of adequate housing is vital for a transformation into sustainable and resilient communities in cities characterised by hope, such housing conditions have become less accessible in Sweden.

Refugees face a particularly difficult situation concerning housing as they are housed in less attractive residential areas, often in overcrowded and poorly maintained apartments. This situation has been further complicated by the restrictive turn in Swedish migration policy from 2016 and onwards. In sum, this policy turn consists of the introduction of temporary residence status, restrictions in family reunification, a refugee dispersal policy, and limitations in terms of choosing in which neighbourhood to reside.

Our interdisciplinary project aims to understand the impact of the restrictive policy turn on the contemporary housing situation for refugees. We do so by focusing on how the policy change influences actors that use, plan, develop, and organise housing for refugees.

The implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies lies at the core of the construction of peaceful and inclusive societies and cities. But how should migration policies be framed to best promote such development?

This project focuses on the links and impediments between different types of migration policies and refugee inclusion. The project focuses on Sweden, a country which often is associated with open and inclusive migration policies. However, in the aftermath of the so-called “European migration crisis” in 2015 and 2016, Sweden suddenly changed its policy approach. Over a day, migration policy in Sweden changed from an inclusionary to a restrictive approach more in line with the European standard.

This project uses the swift change of regulations in an innovative design to identify two groups of refugees that were granted residence in the same time but were affected and unaffected by the restrictive change. Focusing on these groups, a few novel and unique data sources are introduced and developed to assess the influence of the change on refugees’ inclusion and well-being.