This article explores four Swedish municipalities which have reacted differently to legislation aiming to regulate a 'fair and equal' distribution of refugees: from barefaced rejection to the advocacy of refugee settlement as an investment in future citizens. Interviews with people who work with settlement show that housing is made central in different municipal strategies and creates an unequal landscape of evictability for refugees depending on where they are placed. Temporary and conditional residence permits for refugees, which have been made standard in this time of temporary legality, are simultaneously dependent on settlement strategies in municipalities: housing and access to jobs determine whether you can stay or stay with your family. This deportability of refugees is what is at stake. Yet access to housing is continuously treated as a mundane 'service': both in the categorical denial of housing and in the evaluation of what can qualify refugees to deserve settlement.

Hela Malmös frukostprogram bryter normer i kampen mot fattigdom och målet är att skifta perspektiv: Från välgörenhet till politiskt inflytande. Vi bad Mikael Mery Karlsson och Vanna Nordling, forskare vid Malmö Universitet, skriva om hur civilsamhället skapar utrymme för människor att leva tillsammans.

Responding to asylum seekers’ relocation from Sweden to France, migrant solidarity groups have started to share resources and information relevant to the process of deciding about and going through with the journey, and, on arrival in Paris, providing advice on how to make it through sleeping rough and the asylum process in France. The relocation of Afghan asylum seekers to France, has gained a specific form of visibility and presence, in media and in migration rights networks, that we claim has placed the route on the Swedish landscape of migration and border debate. The purpose of this article is to develop the conceptual discussions of mobile commons through an analysis of the networks of and around ‘Swedish Afghans in Paris’. The article explores the ways in which national bordering scapes are both reinscribed, expanded and destabilized by migrant networks and claims. Further, we analyze the phenomenon of ‘Swedish Afghans in Paris’ with attention to the tensions and contradictions in regard to the politics of belonging and mobile commons. The phenomenon of Swedish Afghans in Paris forms a productive starting point for analyzing the conditions of commoning in the context of the Swedish bordering scape; of the ways in which belonging and nationality are claimed in complex and shifting ways; and of the ways in which these commons bridge different places transnationally. The article contributes to scholarly discussions on migrant struggles by developing a nuanced understanding of mobile commons as contestations and entanglements of bordering and claims to national belonging. Thus, we emphasize the ambivalent elements of mobile commoning.

W odpowiedzi na relokację ze Szwecji do Francji osób ubiegających się o azyl ze Szwecji, grupy solidarności z migrantami zaczęły dzielić się zasobami i informacjami istotnymi dla procesu odbyywania podróży, a po przyjeździe do Paryża udzielały porad, jak przetrwać noc na ulicy i proces azylowy we Francji. Relokacja afgańskich azylantów do Francji zyskała specyficzną formę widoczności i obecności w mediach i sieciach zajmujących się prawami migracyjnymi, co, jak twierdzimy, przyczyniło się do umieszczenia szwedzkiego krajobrazu w debacie nad migracją i granicami. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest rozwinięcie konceptualnych dyskusji na temat mobilnych dóbr wspólnych poprzez analizę sieci „szwedzkich Afgańczyków w Paryżu”. Artykuł bada sposoby, na jakie narodowe krajobrazy pograniczne są zarówno na nowo wpisywane, pozszerzane, jak i destabilizowane przez sieci i roszczenia migrantów. Następnie analizujemy zjawisko „szwedzkich Afgańczyków w Paryżu” zwracając uwagę na napięcia i sprzeczności w odniesieniu do polityki przynależności i mobilnych dóbr wspólnych. Fenomen szwedzkich Afgańczyków w Paryżu stanowi produktywny punkt wyjścia dla zbadania warunków uwspólniania w kontekście krajobrazu szwedzkiego pogranicza; sposobów, na jakie przynależność i narodowość poddawane są roszczeniom w złożony i zmieniający się sposób; oraz sposobów, w jakie te dobra wspólne łączą różne miejsca transnarodowo. Artykuł stanowi wkład w akademickie dyskusje na temat walk migranckich, rozwijając przy tym zniuansowane rozumienie mobilnych dóbr wspólnych jako form kontestacji i wzajemnego uwikłania grodzeń i roszczeń do przynależności narodowej. Dzięki temu podkreślamy ambiwalentne aspekty mobilnego uwspólniania.

In the wake of the increased number of people on the move who arrived in Sweden in 2015, more restrictive migration policies and welfare policies have been introduced and become increasingly intertwined. In this article, we examine the intersection between local housing policy and national migration policy. By looking at the implementation of a new law, the Settlement Act, which makes reception and accommodation of newly settled refugees mandatory for all municipalities in Sweden, we analyse municipal practices of mobility control, emphasising the waiting produced through the provision of temporary housing. Based on interviews, policy documents, reports and news media reporting, we analyse how two municipalities regulate conditions of stay through temporary access to housing and poor living conditions. Such practices involve processes of waiting and produce long periods of uncertainty, preventing migrants from being able to plan a future. This eventually affects the possibility for family reunification and permanent residency, which is conditioned by requirements such as stable housing and employment.

Väntan på bostad: kommunala mobilitetskontrollerande praktiker

Efter det ökade antalet människor på flykt som kom till Sverige under 2015, har restriktivare regler införts gällande migration och välfärd, två områden som även har blivit allt mer sammanlänkade. I denna artikel undersöker vi hur den lokala rättigheten till bostad och bosättning länkas samman med den nationella regleringen av migration. Genom att studera implementeringen av en ny lag, bosättningslagen, som gör mottagandet av nyanlända migranter obligatoriskt för alla kommuner, analyserar vi mobilitetskontrollerande praktiker, med fokus på den väntan som skapas genom tillfälliga bostadslösningar. Utifrån intervjuer, rapporter, policydokument och nyhetsrapportering analyserar vi hur två kommuner reglerar vistelsevillkoren i kommunen genom tillfällig tillgång till bostad och dåliga bostadsförhållanden. Sådana praktiker innebär processer av väntan och skapar långa perioder av osäkerhet, något som hindrar migranter från att kunna planera sin framtid. Detta påverkar i förlängningen även möjligheten till familjeåterförening och permanent uppehållstillstånd, något som är beroende av att den nyanlände finner en varaktig bostad och anställning. 

In this article, we bring attention to the local-level administration of social services as a site of bordering. Specifically, we focus on the provision of social assistance (i.e. a means-tested cash support program, ekonomiskt bistånd) for irregularised migrants. Based on a close comparative reading of the City of Malmö’s 2013 and 2017 guidelines on social assistance, we analyse how entitlements to social assistance have been redefined and restricted following the 2015 so-called refugee crisis and the subsequent overhaul of Swedish asylum policy. Prior to this ‘crisis’, in 2013, the City of Malmö became the first Swedish municipality to extend access to social assistance to irregularised migrants. In 2017, the guidelines were revised with the expressed aim to discourage irregularised migrants from remaining in the country. We see this as a shift from a needs-based approach to one that, instead, sees social policy as subordinate to the goals of immigration enforcement. Further, we conceptualize this as a shift towards a type of indirect internalized bordering measure that so far has received relatively little scholarly attention in the Nordic context, namely self deportation measures that aim to deter immigration and encourage ‘voluntary return’ by restricting access to public services and welfare benefits for (irregularised) migrants. Finally, we argue that the overall specialization, juridification and standardization of social service provision supports the shift in question, providing a convenient justification for restricting entitlements to irregularised migrants. 

The chapter focuses on ethics and politics of representation in a PhD project on Swedish social workers giving support to undocumented migrants. It discusses the balancing act of representing social workers as complex actors, neither ‘doing good’ nor only being repressive. In a Swedish context, social workers are often associated with neutrality and a supposedly ‘good’ welfare state. The analytical choices made when representing the individual social workers in the analysis, and especially the decision to present the research participants using their professional titles, might have added to the idea of the ‘neutral social worker’. However, this also facilitated reflection on institutional conditions and the limits set by ideas of ‘professionalism’. The ambivalent relation between social work and activist ideals of social transformation was also highlighted through the analytical framework, which focused on practices. The chapter identifies a tension between social transformation and everyday practice that often was difficult to communicate to some audiences. It is argued that the methodological dilemmas and the tensions in terms of representations and varying expectations from different audiences actually were fundamental for bringing the analysis forward.