Magnus Dahlstedt

The project explores research and debates on multiculturalism, social cohesion and liberal values in academic discourse, policy documents and the media. It scrutinises discourses voicing anxiety over "multiculturalism" in societies marked by the erosion of citizenship, urban revolts among disadvantaged migrant youth, an ongoing nationalist-populist alignment and exclusivist policies of migration and "integration".

Seasonal Migrant Workers in Sweden: Contingents of the new austeriat

In the current era of austerity free movement of labour has produced an ongoing but also contingent flow of migrant labour, an austeriat, moving from poorer crisis-hit regions of Europe to those countries such as Sweden where the crisis has been less severe. This project describes the working and living experiences of Bulgarian Roma berry pickers in Sweden. It argues that, in the context of a previously well-regulated labour market, an erosion of labour standards based on the exploitation of seasonal unskilled labour migrants from Bulgaria is occurring in the Swedish berry industry, in turn posing challenges for labour market actors and regulatory authorities. The examines what might be appropriate European and national trade union responses and those of civil society to the issues of labour precariousness which have emerged.

The project aims at enhancing empirical knowledge and theoretical understanding of this complex research question, focusing on the potential of alternative strategies for social inclusion of migrant youth in multi-ethnic urban settings. We set out to examine different expressions of cooperation for social inclusion in multi-ethnic urban settings. The project studies the question of urban unrest from different empirical perspectives, ranging from institutional representatives to actors in civil society and young people themselves. Empirically, the project will scrutinize how structural change and institutional responses related to welfare reductions affects social exclusion/inclusion of migrant youth in marginalized neighborhoods through case studies in two Swedish urban settings, Stockholm and Malmö. The project is interdisciplinary and is carried out with by the use of qualitative methods such as interviews (individually as well as in groups) and document analysis.

This project is part of a larger project analyzing the implications of school choice reforms, school choice and its long-term consequences for individuals' social mobility in Sweden in general, with a particular focus on three medium-sized Swedish cities; Örebro, Norrköping and Jönköping. The project as a whole examines the general political context and implementation of school choice reforms at the local level, the experience of school choice at the individual level and the long term consequences for young people's future educational and professional careers. This particular part of the project examines the implementation of the school choice reform at the local level, through interviews with politicians and officials, and analysis of policy documents at the national and local levels. Overall, the project offers new knowledge about whether school choice reform has led to increased freedom of choice, and the long-term effects of school choice reforms for individuals' social mobility.

The project deals with the relations between social movements, trade unions and disadvantaged groups of migrant workers on the labour market. These groups could also be denominated as the precariat. More specifically the focus is set on irregular immigrants, discriminated workers and seasonal guest workers. The primary target for the project is to explore the ways actors in the civil society manage to build supportive relations to these groups of workers and other organisations in the field. The project is guided by the overarching research question: What are the possibilities and constraints for civil society organisations to establish and maintain transversal relations with disadvantaged groups of migrant workers and their organisations? The task is thus, on the one hand, to investigate how trade unions take on these new challenges within their field and to explore: the new strategies developed by the trade unions; and their collaborations with new social movements organisations. On the other hand, the project centres on new social movements' collaborations with neighbouring actors, their articulations of the problems; and their strategies to provide solutions to the problems.

The project surveys, in international comparative perspective, changing welfare states and the transformation of their multiethnic societies through two complementary analytical lenses: on the one hand, the welfare state's capacity for accommodating migration and ethnic diversity through policies of border control and the allocation of rights of citizenship and, on the other hand, migration and ethnic diversity as a dynamic factor for change in the economic, political and cultural foundations of welfare states. It focuses on changing ethnic divisions of labour related to processes of social inclusion/exclusion and politics of European integration.

This research project aims to highlight the European Social Funds (ESF) task to increase the labour supply with "a particular focus on target groups with a foreign background". My aim is to examine how this mission is formulated, practiced and made comprehensible in various empirical material related to labour market projects co-funded by the ESF.
More specific, my aim is to analyze how ethnicities (and other social categories) are constructed and problematized in relation to ideas about individual employability. Furthermore, I am interested in examining how different techniques are described as suitable (or not suitable) to address target groups with a foreign background, in order to make the individual employable according to certain norms. How, and what ethnicities are made problematic in relation to norms are also questions of interest.
Foucaults notions of power/knowledge relations and governmentality are central to my theoretical understanding of these questions.

My research project lies in the framework of the restructuring of the states sovereignty in Europe and attempts to analyse the consequences of a set of reforms implemented in social and urban policies. The methods developed through the Local Development Agreements in Sweden as well as the so-called City Policy in France (Politique de la ville) promote new territorial approaches in deprived areas. This new category of public action includes a strategic management, which is most of the time based on public and private partnerships and a coordination of plans in various fields such as housing, education, safety, health and economic development.

In my opinion, the development methods implemented in deprived areas have to be questioned. In general terms, the co-existence of a policy that emphasises safety and one that aim at the involvement of the inhabitants leads to a paradoxical situation in the definition and management of urban development projects. How can one in fact articulate two political directions where one has its object to control and the other to involve a population?

The project focuses on the role of immigrant associations in combating discrimination. The project sets out from previous research indicating a need for a broader understanding of immigrant associations for the development of alternative strategies in education and the labor market, in order to advance the understanding of the conditions for partnerships between civil society, public and private sectors. The project examines partnership between public, private and voluntary actors through a qualitative study of Anti-Discrimination Agencies, (ADA) in Stockholm, run by immigrant associations. The efforts of the ADA to assist individuals who feel discriminated on the basis of gender, ethnic background etc., indicates the growing importance of ADA as actors in the field of social strategies for social inclusion. One of the preliminary findings indicates that activism among ADA as civil society organisations is based on delicate balancing between volunteer activism and adjustment to increasingly emphasized market exigency.

In Sweden, as in other countries, calls for partnership between state institutions, market and local communities, punctuate discussions of a number of areas of public policy. In recent years, political parties from left to right have stressed that public policy needs to view the exercise of power as one based on "bottom-up" rather than from top-down strategies. These calls for a bottom-up approach reflect a gradual shift that has increasingly put en emphasis on individual agency and freedom of choice vis-à-vis governmental control, endeavours to achieve equality and promote democratic participation, i.e. a shift towards the ideal of an active citizenship. The project engages with normative as well as substantial dimensions of the notion of active citizenship in Swedish politics at the turn of the Millennium, focusing on the relationships between democratic participation and social citizenship in the multi-ethnic society.

The collaborative project focused on changing strategies of trade unions and other civil society organisations in Turkey, South Africa and Sweden, facing irregular (or “undocumented”) migration and increasing precarity of labour connected with restructuring and informalisation of economies and labour markets in the context of emerging multilateral frameworks for the global governance of migration.

The network aims to create an intellectual forum for scientific discussion and criticism, and research initiatives on issues concerning trade unions, globalization and transnational solidarity.
By bringing together researchers from different disciplines and scattered between Universities, the network aims to develop theoretical understanding of the trade union movement's challenges in a social landscape in change, characterized by regionalization and internationalization of production regimes. Within the framework the nework pays particular attention to cases of union cooperation across national borders. The network brings together research on gender, ethnicity and class linked to transnational trade union solidarity. The empirical focus is on transnational trade union cooperation in near areas (the Nordic /Baltic region), regional (EU / Europe) and global (North-South). In addition to a common theoretical focus, the network is aims to coordinate and develop the research and form the basis for initiation of new research. Finally, the network aims to enable cooperation with other international network of researchers focusing on similar research.

In recent decades, tourism and travelling has increasingly come to be recognized as a highly complex field of research that raises questions that are both local and global, that involves questions about identity and self-understanding, as well as questions relating to human rights, development, global economy and international political relations. Still, there are yet few Swedish textbooks where contemporary tourism and travel is highlighted from a critical perspective, or where issues of global power relations are in focus. Therefore, the purpose of this project has been to produce text books in Swedish, in which international tourism and travel are confronted with new, critical, theoretical perspectives.

The project explores partnerships between schools, public institutions for adult education and immigrant associations concerning the impact of education and civic agency on social inclusion. The project relates to changes in the wider framework of school governance in Sweden in order to elucidate the interplay between structural and institutional change, civic agency and social change. Special attention is paid to cooperation between ethnic/immigrant associations, home and school and local educational institutions, and the consequences of the ways in which different kinds of partnerships are organized, in terms of democratic governance, and social inclusion/exclusion of ethnic minorities (as parents, organiserd in associations etc.).

The project illuminates, with Stockholm as a case study in a national and international perspective, how institutional changes and reforms of compulsory and upper-secondary schools affect the social inclusion/exclusion of young people with immigrant backgrounds; their careers and experiences of education and employment in segregated metropolitan environments. Special attention is paid to local cooperation involving the family, ethnic associations, and local educational institutions. The overall research question concerns the impact of education, work and civic agency on social inclusion and full citizenship in multi-ethnic society. Reforms in the system of education and changes on the labour market are related to local community development in order to elucidate the interplay between structural and institutional change, civic agency and individual social mobility.

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.