Care Relations of Resettled Refugees : Case Study, Finland

Policies of Refugee Settlement and Integration in Europe: the Cases of Portugal and Finland

Abstract Though geographically distant from each other, Portugal and Finland present an interesting comparison concerning the policies and devices of asylum. Both provide an informed and critical appraisal of the current international response to the refugee issue, especially considering the European Union. The Finnish situation evidences a long-standing integrated resettlement frame, associated with the inclusive and pluralistic character of Nordic immigration policies, in spite of the growing threat of regression under the emergent xenophobic pressure. Unlike Portugal, where a finely-tuned response system is still lacking in spite of the existence of an assumed political will and commitme…

Turvapaikanhakijat ja tunnustaminen

Possibilities of trust and recognition between refugees and authorities : resettlement as a part of durable solutions of forced migration

Maahanmuuttotyön yksinkertainen lähtökohta : muistimmeko kysyä ennen kuin oletimme?

Sosiaalityöntekijöiden maailmassa kuohahti, kun sanomalehti Karjalainen julkaisi nimettömän ”Sosiaalityöntekijä X:n” kirjoituksen turvapaikanhakijoiden ja pakolaisten herättämistä tunteista sosiaalitoimessa ja kuntatyöntekijöiden keskuudessa laajemminkin. Sosiaalialan ammattiliitto Talentian ammattieettinen lautakunta tuomitsi kirjoituksen ammattietiikan vastaiseksi ja sosiaalityön ammattilaiset keskenään epäilivät, ettei kirjoitus olisi sosiaalityöntekijän kynästä laisinkaan siinä esiintyneiden ilmeisten asiavirheiden vuoksi. Sosiaalialan ammattilainen tuskin myöntäisikään olevansa rasistinen tai toistavansa työssään toiseutta tuottavia, toisin sanoen syrjiviä toimintatapoja. Asiantunteva …

Social Workers’ Reflections on Forced Migration and Cultural Diversity : Towards Anti-Oppressive Expertise in Child and Family Social Work

Social work in Finland, like in many other countries, has faced various challenges after the large scale of forced migration in 2015. Although working with migrants is not a new area in social work, the exceptionally large amount of asylum seekers in the Finnish society caused a need for improved social work expertise. Our article deals with Finnish social work practitioners’ reflections on multicultural, multilingual and transnational issues with a client group, which is in a vulnerable situation after forced or other forms of migration. The practitioners participating in our study have either attended a specializing education of child, youth and family social work or taken part in peer gr…

Small agency and precarious residency in Afghan refugee families

This chapter examines agency and ways of enduring suffering in Afghan families in a small Finnish town. Three stories, where the mothers and children have lived in Finland for some years already, but the fathers have arrived during the 2015 large-scale migration, are presented and analysed. Ethnographic methods are used in enquiring how family members endure suffering when they are faced with the threat of deportation of a family member. Our results show that fathers’ precarious residency has an impact on family members’ agency. First, the informants were enduring alone, and thus the social element, being able to share one’s struggles of enduring, was missing. Second, it was not only one ty…

Citizenship, populism and social work in the Finnish welfare state

This chapter ties together discussions of citizenship and social work practice in the context of growing populist and neoliberal political trends in Finland. These political trends are manifested in populist right-wing nationalist movements on the one hand, and in the neoliberal dismantling of the welfare state on the other. Both political trends – right-wing nationalist populism and neoliberalism – tend to separate people into two groups: those who are ‘deserving’ and those who are ‘undeserving’. Simultaneously, the dynamics of globalisation have radically changed nation states and their traditional concepts of citizenship and related social rights. There is thus a need to redefine the und…

Pakolaistaustaisten nuorten miesten tulevaisuuden suunnittelu sosiaalisen ja henkilökohtaisen identiteetin ristipaineessa

Aktiivisen kansalaisuuden mahdollisuudet kotouttamistyön ulkoisten ehtojen ja maahanmuuttajien tarpeiden ristipaineissa

Nykyisessä poliittisessa keskustelussa aktiivinen kansalaisuus ymmärretään usein kapeasti työkansalaisuutena. Artikkelissa analysoidaan, miten aktiivinen kansalaisuus rakentuu kotouttamistyön rakenteellisten ehtojen ja maahanmuuttajien tarpeiden huomioimisen ristiriidassa. Teoreettisesti nojaudutaan Amartya Senin toimintamahdollisuuksien teoriaan, joka painottaa erilaisten kyvykkyyksien sekä autonomisten toimintamahdollisuuksien merkitystä aktiivisessa kansalaisuudessa. Tuloksena havaitaan, että ammattilaisten näkemyksissä painottuu ristiriita järjestelmän tarpeille rakentuvan työkansalaisuuden ja kotoutujien autonomiaa tukevien toimintamahdollisuuksia vahvistavan työn välille.  Myös kotiäi…

Recognising forced migrants in transnational social work

PurposeNation states’ neoliberal policies do not regard asylum seekers and undocumented migrants as deserving of a good life. Social work in welfare states is highly connected to the policies of nation states. There is a need to address theories in social work that have a transnational focus at the local level. Axel Honneth’s recognition theory enables an approach to forced migration from the direction of personal relations and personhood itself. The core idea is that if people cannot gain recognition, this causes harm to their self-realisation. The purpose of this paper is discuss how the recognition theory overcomes a national focus in social work.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is …