Möten och bemötande. Om unga tjejers upplevelse av trygghet i Malmö

Experienced safety is difficult to measure, as it treats subjective feelings and these do not always coincide with crime rates. In addition, women, immigrants and poor people often report lower levels of experienced safety, which implies structural causes. Many quantitative studies have been carried out on the subject of safety, crime and fear but there is still a need for more knowledge of experiences of safety and fear. The aim of this study is to investigate how young women in Malmö, Sweden, experience safety, in relation to space/place, meetings with strangers and develop strategies to feel safe. Focusing on the everyday experiences of young women, I investigate how the intersections of social categories of sex, class, race, sexuality and age, structure the women’s feelings of safety in public spaces and how they act to feel safe in these spaces. Through focus group interviews, written stories and participant observation, I analyse the experiences of a sample of young women living in different parts of Malmö. An intersectional perspective is used as a framework and starting point for the analysis. Feminist and sociological theories – on bodies, places and the role of the stranger – are used to analyse the women’s experiences at a more concrete level. Feminist theories focusing on the body and the relationship between bodies and places imply that subjective experiences are influenced by intersecting structures. But these theories also emphasize that the individual has possibilities to act and change her/his position. Lastly, sociological theories about the stranger imply that meetings with others influence experiences of safety. In sum, the young women experience their homes and own neighbourhoods as the safest places. To “feel at home” is related to knowing people and places. The women are used to meet strangers and they know how to handle these meetings, but strangers acting in unpredictable ways make them feel uncomfortable and unsafe. Different bodies are also perceived as strangers in different places. The young women use various strategies to “fit in” to places in the city. The subjects’ strategies in their meetings with strangers are influenced by intersecting structures of sex, class, race, sexuality and age. To create a safer city is, therefore, complex, but policies to increase safety need to increase the possibilities for different bodies to use the city

Destabilising Citizenship Practices? : Social work and undocumented migrants in Sweden

Globalisation of the economy, as well as movement of people and increasing securitisation of borders, have challenged and to different degrees destabilised forms of national belonging and solidarity. Such developments produce new borders and boundaries, separate citizens from non-citizens and create hierarchies of “deservingness”. This dissertation contributes to the analysis of these developments by investigating the role of social work in relation to undocumented migrants in Sweden. The dissertation rests upon two case studies where social work is performed in support of undocumented migrants, a group most often excluded from the social services. The first case focuses on the guidelines on social assistance in Malmö municipality and the second case focuses on social workers working with unaccompanied minors in different parts of Sweden. The analysis rests on interviews, document analysis, news media material and previous experiences of the researcher. Critical citizenship theory is used to analyse if and how social work practice contributes to destabilisations as well as reinforcements of the present citizenship regime.The cases are analysed in terms of actions (within the present order) and acts (that go beyond or against the status quo). In the Malmö case, three forms of actions are identified: codification of the law, confirmation of existing practices and disregard of the issue of undocumented migrants in political debates. In the second case, three forms of acts are identified: acts of ”professionalism”, acts of ”compassion” and acts of ”activism”. The acts analysed are not described as straight forward forms of change, but rather as destabilisations. The presence of undocumented migrants at a local level in Malmö and in front of the social workers (face to face) in the case of unaccompanied minors sometimes could lead to that social workers experienced a responsibility, albeit conditioned, beyond what was formally expected of them. In the analysis it is also highlighted that the understanding of the support practices studied changes with context and time perspective

Dilemmas of representation in a study of social workers : analyzing non-evident forms of social transformation

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