Transit - Gate Keeping Unaccompanied Refugee Children : Examining frontline bureaucrats’ discretion and their perception of transit activities in the Swedish welfare system

This thesis investigates through semi-structured interviews the perceived discretionary practice of frontline bureaucrats who work with unaccompanied refugee children in Sweden. The frontline bureaucrat theory outlined by Lipsky (1980) has additionally been used in understanding the effects of transit on the clients of these so-called gatekeepers, which in this study consist of teachers, social welfare secretaries and executive officials of the Migration board. Theories concerning critical citizenship have further been incorporated in the analysis. The main conclusions are that the discretion and the perceptions on the clients of the respondents varies depending on the role they have in the reception system. Furthermore restrictive regulatory framework of some of the respondents makes visible that the line between following or disregarding the rules is not that clear. Additionally this study discusses the temporary characteristics of transit where the interviews have shown that the children are excluded from some parts of society, mainly through unequal access to education. This is explained by the non-citizenship of the children which according to Lister (2003) can be traced back to the dominant discourse of the “Other”

Borders crossing bodies : the stories of eight youth with experience of migrating

In public discourse on migration, people who migrate are often portrayed as deviating from the rest of the population. This is especially true for the group categorised as ‘unaccompanied’ children who are portrayed as homogeneous and not seldom with a common history. Such simplifications create a ‘single story’ that reduces people who migrate and their complex lives to stereotypes. This dissertation derives from a willingness to contest this single story through multiple stories by multiple storytellers. This is done by seeking to comprehend what borders do in the lives of eight youth with experience of migrating. The aim is thus to study what borders do and how the participants navigate, experience and challenge those borders at different stages of their lives. This study is based on ethnography among eight youth, who at some point have been categorised as ‘unaccompanied’ children in Sweden and other countries. The fieldwork was carried out during a period between 2013 and 2017 involving interviews and conversations with the participants. Borders are analysed from a multiperspectival standpoint, which means that borders are seen as practices of both material and symbolic divisions performed by different actors constituting control. Borders not only hinder or stop some while granting passage to others; they also construct people differently. Those who are repeatedly crossed by borders eventually become inhabitants of the borderlands. Influenced by feminist and postcolonial scholarship, this study calls for epistemic plurality by acknowledging different sources of knowledge which are placed in dialogue with the stories of the youth. Aspects of their lives before moving from their homes are considered equally important for their experience of borders as their lives in Europe. The central themes of the analysis are time, love, intimacy, hope and resistance. The multiple stories of the participants are contextualised in a broader narrative, where the individual acts and experiences are identified as closely interwoven with collective experiences. Furthermore, the multiplicity of borders is discussed in terms of where and how they are manifested and who they affect. In conclusion, the analysis contributes to deepening the understanding of migration, borders and agencies in the borderlands, and in so doing restores the complexities and humanities of the youth by challenging the single story

Borders crossing bodies : the stories of eight youth with experience of migrating

In public discourse on migration, people who migrate are often portrayed as deviating from the rest of the population. This is especially true for the group categorised as ‘unaccompanied’ children who are portrayed as homogeneous and not seldom with a common history. Such simplifications create a ‘single story’ that reduces people who migrate and their complex lives to stereotypes. This dissertation derives from a willingness to contest this single story through multiple stories by multiple storytellers. This is done by seeking to comprehend what borders do in the lives of eight youth with experience of migrating. The aim is thus to study what borders do and how the participants navigate, experience and challenge those borders at different stages of their lives. This study is based on ethnography among eight youth, who at some point have been categorised as ‘unaccompanied’ children in Sweden and other countries. The fieldwork was carried out during a period between 2013 and 2017 involving interviews and conversations with the participants. Borders are analysed from a multiperspectival standpoint, which means that borders are seen as practices of both material and symbolic divisions performed by different actors constituting control. Borders not only hinder or stop some while granting passage to others; they also construct people differently. Those who are repeatedly crossed by borders eventually become inhabitants of the borderlands. Influenced by feminist and postcolonial scholarship, this study calls for epistemic plurality by acknowledging different sources of knowledge which are placed in dialogue with the stories of the youth. Aspects of their lives before moving from their homes are considered equally important for their experience of borders as their lives in Europe. The central themes of the analysis are time, love, intimacy, hope and resistance. The multiple stories of the participants are contextualised in a broader narrative, where the individual acts and experiences are identified as closely interwoven with collective experiences. Furthermore, the multiplicity of borders is discussed in terms of where and how they are manifested and who they affect. In conclusion, the analysis contributes to deepening the understanding of migration, borders and agencies in the borderlands, and in so doing restores the complexities and humanities of the youth by challenging the single story

Studying the Gas War with the ideal of Rosa Luxemburg - An ideal type analysis on the case study of Bolivia

This thesis investigates the ideal type analysis drafted from Rosa Luxemburg’s ideas in the case of the Gas War events in Bolivia. The ideal type has been created from the ideas of mass strike, the works of reform and revolution. The aim of the ideal is to show how close the Bolivian case comes to the ideas of Rosa Luxemburg. In the year 2003 the Gas War broke out in Bolivia in what was first considered to be a question of the natural resources and its exploitation. Soon roads were blocked, hunger strikes were started and after a couple of days a general strike was declared. The president had to resign and shortly after the very first Indigenous president of the country was elected, Evo Morales. This thesis shows that the events in 2003 and its aftermath are a very complex composition. In some aspects they come close to the created ideal type but all-over the Bolivian context is too complex to analyze in mere conceptions such as revolution or mass strike. The ideas of Rosa Luxemburg should though not be rejected since they are a product of her own time and social context