Navigating Clandestinity : A qualitative study on rejected unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and solidarity work in Sweden and France

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Linköpings universitet Institutionen för kultur och samhälle (IKOS) Kandidatuppsats, 15 hp – Samhälls- och kulturanalys (SKA) ISRN: LiU-IKOS/SKA-G--20/11-SE

Navigating Clandestinity

– A qualitative study on rejected unaccompanied asylum-‐

seeking children and solidarity work in Sweden and France

Alexandra Ganstrand Beltrán

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Abstract

This thesis aims to study how unaccompanied asylum-seeking children navigate through the asylum systems of two European member states, Sweden and France. By using a qualitative approach, five interviews have been conducted in order to study the complex situation of three Afghan young adults, having experienced a rejection to their asylum application in Sweden and who now live in France, engaged together in solidarity work with two European civil society activists and their experiences across these questions. The method used, a narrative analysis, together with theories on citizenship, deportability, and civil society activism helps bring to light how the informants speak about their situation and perceptions of belonging and solidarity. With the European migration policies having become stricter in recent years, this study finds how asylum-seeking migrants have

resisted threats of deportability and border control. With civil society activism and solidarity work playing an important role in the migrants supporting themselves, their volunteered engagement can be viewed as crucial when it comes to stepping in with help where the state response has withdrawn, leaving them in a temporary phase and position of clandestinity.

Key words

Asylum seekers, unaccompanied refugee minors, solidarity work, civil society activism, migration, Sweden, France

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my informants for your participation in the study, and for letting me share your stories and experiences, your voices are invaluable.

I would also like to thank my supervisor Asher Goldstein. Without your support and your guidance this study wouldn’t have been possible.

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Introduction

The so-called refugee crisis in 2015 would have a big impact on European migration politics when nation states would restrict their legislations to deal with the increase in asylum applications. Sweden introduced the Law on Upper Secondary Studies1_{and set} specific limits in order to process the applications made by primarily Afghan

unaccompanied children and youth, many of whom would see their applications refused. This study explores what has happened to the young people who received a negative response to their asylum application. Widespread media reports state that after their rejection in Sweden, a large proportion of the unaccompanied refugee youth from

Afghanistan have found new hope in France, which for many, represents a last chance for the opportunity to stay in the EU. In the media, you can read about the phenomenon as rumors spread about how France tends to be more generous with residence permits for young Afghans. It has also been indicated in the media that a problem with the Eurodac system in France has led to that many go there with the hope that their registered

information will not appear in the database (Montesino & Jiménez Alvarez, 2019). Many of these irregular migrants now live on the street as clandestines2_{- as the undocumented}

migrants are called in French to name those who are actively hiding - secretly but fully visible in the tent camps of the French capital. Different organizations that actively work with the asylum seekers in Paris are financed through contributions from private

individuals and are usually run by volunteers. Here, the distribution of supplies and food as well as legal assistance and support are the most important relief actions, where among others, the Swedish Church in Paris has provided a great deal of support for the young migrants. Because of recent French legislation and its restrictions on the possibility for the Swedish Church to work with these questions legally, it had to cease its active support early in 2019 (Svenska Kyrkan, 2019).

This study will try to understand the complex situation in which the asylum seekers have now ended up – trapped between the migration policy systems of two countries who render the circumstances of illegality a fact – by interviewing Afghani nationals who have had their asylum application in Sweden rejected and who are now living in France, and speaking to civil society activists and members of organizations who actively work with these questions. While the solidarity workers hold the role as gatekeepers, they have let me engage contact with the asylum seekers, keen on sharing their stories. The value of the

1_{Gymnasielagen}

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asylum seekers own expressed personal experiences is motivating the choice of their participation, voices that are rarely left space to be heard. With this approach, this project engages an ‘insider’, expert and experiential perspective of how it is to go through the asylum processes in two European countries and experience rejection and uncertainty; and what it means, as an independent activist or as a volunteer organization, to engage in the questions of these asylum seekers while under pressure by the society, and how they experience the migrants’ experiences of life in clandestinity.

Aim and questions of research

The purpose of the study is to understand the clandestine nature of those who previously have applied for asylum in Sweden and who are now in France through interviews with people who have experienced this, and by speaking to activists and members of

organizations who work with them, in order to look more closely at activists' interpretations of the rejected asylum seekers perceived opportunities, and of the phenomenon that the trip to France has come to be. The research questions are:

• How do the asylum seekers talk about their experiences of clandestinity during the asylum processes?

• How do activists understand migrants' experiences of inclusion and exclusion regarding rights and access to social services and support?

• Which social and political factors motivates the activists and the asylum seekers to engage in solidarity work?

Legal background

This section will present a background of what the migration policies of Sweden and

France look like and what it means to carry out an asylum application in these countries in order to understand how the conditions of citizenship are controlled by European legal regimes. Adding a focus on Afghan migration to these countries will broaden the

understanding of the legal background in the case of my study and in my informants.

Sweden

In 2015, Sweden received 162 877 asylum applications, compared to 81 180 in 2014. In 2015 41,000 of these concerned people with Afghan citizenship, half of whom were registered as children. Near 81% of the asylum seekers lacked valid ID documents when they arrived, as the Swedish Migration Agency does consider the Afghan passport, tazkira, a reliable identity document only if having been verified by the Afghan embassy

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(Migrationsverket, 2020; Mårtensson & Brandel, 2016). In order to handle the large number of asylum applications the Swedish government introduced a new law by the end of 2015 which closed the borders and instituted ‘temporary’ ID checks concerning those without ID documents, with the consequence (and purpose) of reducing the possibility of seeking asylum in Sweden. During 2016, more amendments to the law were passed, excluding those who saw their asylum application dismissed from the right to aid and living assistance once rejected. The biggest change came with the temporary legislation and the restrictions on the right to claim asylum, where temporary residency permits of three years became the norm for asylum seekers rather than permanent ones. The law on upper secondary education was introduced in 2017, which would give those who had already been refused the opportunity to study at the upper secondary level until they reach the age of 18. The law was criticized when many of these young people would not be

covered by the law and a new law on upper secondary education replaced the old one in 2018 with changes permitting those who already had seen their asylum application getting rejected a new chance for a residence permit. The new law sets special requirements on the date of arrival in Sweden, more precisely as having had submitted the asylum application before the date of the 24th of November 2015, and on how long the asylum seekers have been waiting for the decision. A report from 2019 shows that 6400 applications were granted a residence permit with the support of the new law (Migrationsverket, 2020; Socialstyrelsen, 2019).

While some aspects of social rights while living as undocumented in Sweden have

expanded, such as the right for the undocumented children to go to school or the right to medical care, it is, compared to other countries sometimes more difficult to live in Sweden clandestinely. Highly influenced by digitalization, access to Swedish society is dependent on formal recognition, with the near universal use of the social security number3_{as a mean} of identification is needed while in contact with authorities and different state and non-state organisms. Not having one, or having one marked ‘temporary’ means living under a constant threat while in contact with different institutions (Sigvardsdotter, 2016:144). One of the European migration policies, determined to control and regulate migration, is

motivated by the international Dublin Regulation which is implemented in the European Union, illustrating an informal system of deportation and a composed form of exclusion.

The Dublin Regulation has the function of deciding on which country that will have the responsibility to accept asylum applications. It is in the first country where an asylum seeker arrives and is registered biometrically that has legal responsibility to take charge of the application. This arrangement disproportionately serves Sweden, a country isolated by

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numerous other European borders, far away from the countries where migrants usually arrive to first, making it capable of sending asylum seekers back – and thus handing over the responsibility - to these first countries, usually in southern Europe. By storing the biometric information and thumbprints in a computer system called Eurodac, this has created a new form of illegality where border regulation and the limits of possible ways to travel within the EU has made it almost impossible to apply for an asylum in a legal way in the country of your own choosing (Jansson, 2016:106).

France

After arriving to France, migrants will obtain a récépissé, a temporary residence document, which is valid for the time during which their application is being treated by the Préfecture where their information is checked in the Eurodac system. If they are accepted to go on with an asylum claim, and don’t fall under a Dublin relocation procedure, their demand will go through the French asylum authority, the OFPRA4_{, during which time they will}

have the right for an allowance for asylum seekers. This allowance, the allocation pour

demandeur d’asile, is paid out on an allowance card while their claim is considered. In the

Paris region, due to long waiting time issues, the OFII – Office of Immigration and Integration – set up a new system where the migrants will have to register the first time through a telephone appointment before receiving a date for a physical appointment where they can hand in their application (AIDA, 2019:28).

If the application falls under the Dublin procedure, the asylum seekers receive an asylum claim certificate which allows them to remain on French territory during the procedure. Once registered, the French government is given three months to make a Dublin request to the first country, the responsible Member State, and if they accept the ‘transfer’ it usually has to be carried out within six months. In that case, the asylum seeker is contacted by letter with the decision of a “take back”, and can introduce an appeal within 15 days to challenge the decision of the transfer (AIDA, 2019:50).

France offers housing in accommodation centers to asylum seekers in different regions of the country, which may vary from the region where they first registered their application. If granted a place, the asylum seekers have to present themselves at the accommodation center within five days in order not to lose other reception conditions, i.e. living allowance. Statistics show that only 52% of registered asylum seekers in 2019 obtained

accommodation in France, which reveals the difficulties some migrants might find

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themselves in due to the lack of accommodation offered. Informal camps in Calais and Paris have received attention regarding their population densities, often including families and young children, and as of January 2020 over 60 operations by the French police have been conducted in order to dismantle the camps where undocumented migrants, asylum seekers and those introduced to a Dublin procedure have been living (AIDA, 2019:88-90).

Afghan migrants in France

While there is no official guideline considering specific nationalities in particular, recent statistics show that France has offered higher rates of protection when it comes to Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, with those claiming asylum holding an Afghan document receiving a positive decision in 83.1% of cases in 2017. The CNDA5_{, the French National Court of the}

Right of Asylum, has stated that the dangerous situation in Afghanistan is threatening and “may be triggered by a person’s mere presence” (AIDA, 2019:80). Furthermore, some French administrative courts have in some individual cases stopped transfers to certain European countries as the risk of refoulement, i.e. deporting the prospective asylum seeker to an unsafe state by the responsible EU Member State, was considered too high. This concerns Dublin transfer cases connected to the countries of Sweden, Norway and Finland among others because of their tendencies to deport the asylum seekers back to their

country of origin. In 2019 however, the rate of Afghans having received a positive decision had dropped to 62.5% according to Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union (AIDA, 2019:52). The estimation regarding the level of security in Afghanistan has not changed, however, the spread of stricter immigration laws within the EU during 2018 and 2019 might contribute to the statistics showing a declining support (Montesino & Jiménez Alvarez, 2019:100).

Methodology

I have chosen to include theoretical perspectives on citizenship, deportability, illegality as well as on social movements and civil society activism in order to study the situation in which the Afghan young men find themselves, having left Sweden for France. By speaking to volunteers and activists, who work with the asylum seekers, about their engagement and their experiences of the situation, as well as speaking to those who have experience of applying for asylum in these countries, I refer to these theories in order to be able to

analyze how they describe these themes. Employing a qualitative, ethnographic approach, I study the phenomenon of their clandestinity and resilience by making direct contact with those who might be interesting for the study. A qualitative interview renders it possible for

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the informants and the asylum seekers, who might otherwise be excluded from other forms of data collection due to their legal status, to tell their stories. An interview may lead to the collection of a broader material where the informants are allowed to share personal

experiences and opinions about the said phenomenon and their social position as I analyze their perspective in relation to the migration policies. The initial plan was to meet the informants in person for the interviews, but as the situation in Europe radically changed during the study and several countries in the EU decided on a full lock down in order to prevent the spreading of Covid-19, the method of gathering the material had to be adapted to the circumstances, which in a different manner brings other positive aspects into the data collection method that would otherwise have been different.

Collection method

For my study, I have chosen to conduct individual interviews that make up my collected material in the qualitative analysis. A semi-structured interview provides the opportunity to determine in advance the themes that one wishes to touch on during the conversation with the informant, while there is room to let the person develop their own answers and lead the discussion in the direction that feels natural (Hjerm et al., 2014:150). As online tools are becoming more common in the field of research and with internet offering new opportunities, the use of VoIP – Voice over Internet Protocol – seemed like a suitable substitute method given the pandemic circumstances. VoIP refers to the different voice communications over IP networks, often with audio and video, where Skype and FaceTime are popular services offering an online video call connection. To use video calls as a

method for qualitative research can in several ways benefit the study where classic interaction in person could not give the same opportunities. Internet can provide with many advantages where contact will not have to be affected by geographical boundaries, when distance otherwise might complicate qualitative studies with an aim for international presentation with their informants. Iacono, Symonds and Brown (2016) argue that

internet communication also might facilitate communication when it would have normally been complicated to find time for an appointment. If VoIP communication might

contribute to a feeling of losing intimacy and interaction on the one hand, it may on the other hand enrich the interview with new technological possibilities of sharing documents and files while conversing that might be interesting for the conversation and the research. While some argue that interviews conducted by phone call or on Skype may lead to losing intimacy the personal connection, a VoIP communication could minimize a possible unwillingness to reveal difficult emotional experiences as the feeling of speaking online might seem less direct while the informant is in a familiar environment (Iacono, Symonds & Brown, 2016).

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Analysis method

For a material that contains themes where the informants have been able to talk about personal experiences and opinions, a narrative analysis can be interesting when it comes to studying how you speak about yourself, since through language one can express an identity and convey how one looks at one's own place in the world (Johansson, 2005:86). The main difference between a story and a narrative is explained in that the story mainly focuses on what is being told, while the narrative reflects on the manner in which it is told. This means an interest in observing how peoples’ narratives may symbolize “bridges” to the reality one seeks to study, while reflecting on them as a social construct and a process of constructing reality (Robert & Shenhav, 2014:8).

When it comes to interpreting how the activists in my study talk about their strategies and working methods with the asylum seekers, it is interesting to study how the informants fill the story with meaning and how they reflect on their role in social structures. With the asylum-seekers, a narrative method for analyzing the material makes it possible for them to freely speak about their experiences and tell their story during the interview while having the possibility to choose how much they want to share and how they want to portray the situation themselves.

Ethical considerations

In my study, which touches on a sensitive topic regarding undocumented migrants who have been denied their asylum application, it is important to anonymize the informants and any people they may be talking about. Working as an activist on humanitarian issues relating to rejected asylum seekers, is not accepted at all times as it can involve providing assistance and support in ways that are not always considered legal. Thus, another

difficulty with the study can involve trouble finding enough informants who want to

participate in an interview with their story about their work and support. One obstacle can turn out to be the possibility to gain insight on the relevant topic, when in contact with responsible administrators and members of organizations who have the ability to accept, or not, observation and further contact with their engagement and association. As

gatekeepers - people in the position of controlling access to services - they have the power

to prevent and hinder further studies, for instance by claiming to protect their job and the people with whom they work (Sjöström, 2012:147). I met resistance when contacting the administrator of a Facebook-group engaging in solidarity work with asylum seekers in France, being blocked from the group after having initiated a conversation and sending a request of participation in the study. The reason was described by referring to me as not corresponding to the initial purpose of the group, and my research being compared to journalist’s aim for writing reports considered to be “social pornography”. Meeting this

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kind of resistance calls for being able to perceive the gatekeeper’s view on the subject, even if this means that they don’t necessarily approve of the value of knowledge provided from this kind of research (Sjöström, 2012:149). As the researcher, it was important for me to be transparent and clear with the purpose of my study so I provided the possibility to all participating informants to read all of the interview questions I had prepared beforehand, by way of informed consent, in order to present the opportunity to get an insight in what possible sensitive topics the interview would touch upon and with the possibility to withdraw before having participated.

This also provided transparency when seeking consent, as my study initially raised an ethical dilemma concerning whether or not it would be acceptable to conduct interviews with asylum seekers having experienced rejection to their application in Sweden during their time as minors. Motivating my choice of involving the three Afghan informants is the achieved depth these interviews have given to my study, as they were given the chance to share their own insights of the migration process and the dynamics of the clandestine position they have experienced. Further, the exclusion of their perspective tout court, in producing a study ‘about them without them’ would itself risk a denial of representation to informants, who in my study, were keen to share their experiences. With the interviews being conducted through VoIP - video or telephone calls - minimized the risk of possible reluctance to reveal particularly emotional experiences (such as traumas and sensitive memories) as this form of communication might seem less intimate when given the

opportunity to remain in a safe familiar environment, and the threshold of withdrawal and exit is lower than in person (Iacono, Symonds & Brown, 2016). This, and the fact that the informants were very eager to participate in the study and share their own lived

experiences of the transitional state of clandestinity, resulted in three one hour-long

conversations. The Afghan asylum seekers were all confident with speaking in Swedish and expressed no difficulties in communicating their own stories in the chosen language.

As recommended by the Swedish Research Council and the principles regarding data protection, the informants in the study have been anonymized so that there is no

possibility to find out their identity and personal information. Other requirements include awareness of the possibility of choosing the degree of participation during the interview or the right to cancel participation if desired, which was accomplished by sending out an information letter before the interview, declaring the purpose of the study as well as the interview guide. The interviews were recorded and then transcribed, a material that only I have access to, which will be deleted three months after publication. However, it is

recommended that this data is archived until the publication of the thesis in DiVA (Digitala Vetenskapliga Arkivet) in order to guarantee the possibility to verify the results (Swedish Research Council, 2017:40-42).

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Theoretical framework

In this section I will present theories that will be of importance in my study when analyzing the narratives of the asylum seekers and the solidarity workers. By including theories on human rights, clandestinity and deportability, it will be possible to study how the

informants speak about their experiences of migration and the feeling of uncertainty in their search for a legal status. In addition, theories on social movements and acts of

citizenship will support the understanding of solidarity work and civil society activism.

Clandestinity

Irregular migrants, undocumented refugees or hidden asylum seekers - there are many terms that seek to explain the people who have been denied a residence permit but who continue to stay in the country after a negative decision on their asylum applications. These concepts can in some situations be regarded as non-neutral concepts as they lead to notions that something irregular is the opposite of the positive regular, when this is

expressed as the norm. The term undocumented migrant refers to a person who does not hold papers or ID documents in the country, but lacks the ability to describe the meaning of hiding in plain sight in public, which describes the situation in France, where the

migrants live in huge camps in central Paris. In my study, the informants have applied for asylum in Sweden and now in France and are thus referred to as asylum seekers. However, they have found themselves living in the situation of clandestinity during some periods of time. This is a term used by Maja Sager (2011:22) in her dissertation Everyday

Clandestinity - Experiences on the Margins of Citizenship and Migration Policies, with

the motivation that those included by the term are rarely hidden, but rather carry out an active action in their choices and strategies to avoid deportation, and thus the concept of

clandestinity can illuminate the situation experienced by those who have actively gone

underground. Since the concept of clandestinity is about a position in life and in society, rather than a permanent status, it can also be analyzed on the basis of factors that can influence it, such as race/ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, class and sexuality that contribute to a more in-depth analysis of the situation. This perceived status has been experienced in Sweden by the informants in my study - during and after the decision on their asylum application - and in France, when they have lived years of uncertainty and fear while waiting for an official decision from either of the two countries.

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Deportability

The German political philosopher Hanna Arendt speaks about statelessness and human rights in contrast to the historical events of the first half of the 1900s in The Origins of

Totalitarism (2016). To Arendt, the declaration of human rights is complex and

contradictory as it states that the rights are universal and inalienable; they are equal and cannot not be taken away as they belong to everyone. However, she shows that these rights are difficult to maintain in the example of the persecuted minorities and refugees around the first and second world war, when people were made stateless and the dilemma was rendered visible that the refugees were actively excluded from society. Arendt argues that the loss of human rights, to be completely rightless, signifies the deprivation of rights to action and opinion - rights connected to a political community. This precarious situation is dangerous as the refugees become simply human, and where the human rights should come to help Arendt means that this is instead the moment when the human rights cease to be available (Arendt, 2016:400). The foundation of human rights is often missing when most needed, demonstrated by the situation of my research informants’ experiences of gaps in protection during their asylum applications.

In the interaction between Sweden and France through the European migration policies, the Eurodac system stores data of the asylum applicants which render them deportable. This state, caused by immigration laws, is familiar to the asylum-seeking informants in my study who have, when arriving to France, made an active choice of risking of showing up in the system when applying for asylum, and thus falling under the Dublin Regulation. De Genova (2002:422) discusses the use of the term “illegal” and illegality as a juridical term that refers to a social relation to a state, often used to describe the status of undocumented migrants. He means that the immigration laws construct “illegality” as they in the same time have come to “entail an active process of inclusion through ‘illegalization’” (de Genova, 2002:439). The immigration laws have come to produce the conditions under which the undocumented migrants live, known as ‘deportability’, the vulnerable situation and constant feeling of being surveilled yet having to live in forced invisibility, through exclusion and repression as the imminent threat of being deported is constant. Thus, the aim of the laws seems to prevent people from claiming their universal rights.

Acts of citizenship

Isin and Wood (1999:5) describe in Citizenship & Identity how something that has always been discussed is what separates those who have or do not have the right to citizenship in the sense of rights and obligations, but that it is under the emergence of welfare when major class conflicts appeared in connection with citizenship. The discussion of citizenship is strongly linked to that of identity, where one can on the one hand observe groups with

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their assigned attributes, and on the other, socially constructed identities. According to Isin and Wood, discussing citizenship means exploring the diverse perceptions that refers to groups and identities, while taking into account perceptions of belonging, recognition, and solidarity (Isin & Wood, 1999:13). While studying the recognized experiences of the civil activists and the volunteer workers engaged in the questions regarding the asylum-seeking Afghani youth in France, it is interesting to look at how they perceive their own citizenship in relation to those who have been denied citizenship.

Living in fear of deportation for the non-status migrants is discussed by Isin (2008) when he introduces the term “acts of citizenship” where non-citizens can be claimants of rights as they commit acts as if they were citizens, and thus they become activist citizens. These

activist citizens stand in contrast to the passive active citizens who only acts on rights that

are given (Isin, 2008:39). By looking at the example of the movement of the sans-papiers in France, where undocumented migrants and refugees demanded their right to stay in the country, Isin develops the idea of these acts. The sans-papiers not only claimed their human rights, but enacted citizenship by taking possession of a ‘right to have rights’. These acts might sometimes break the law as the goal of the activist citizens is to question the law, as “by enacting themselves through acts they affect the law that misrecognizes them” (Isin, 2009:382). However, acts of citizenship doesn’t have to mean illegal actions

(Holgersson, 2016) but may rather, as seen in my study, refer to smaller actions where the informants perform strategies in search for stability and security.

Civil society activism

Acts of citizenship refers to becoming a political subject, which concerns both citizens and non-citizens, with acts of solidarity being performed alongside these. During what she calls “the long summer of migration”, referring to the so-called refugee crisis of 2015, Donatella Della Porta (2018) explains how acts of citizenship were included in the mobilization and engagement of various actors who would challenge citizenship regimes. With social movements studies comes the aspects on the different political opportunities and the networking resources the organizations confront, while having to give meaning to resistance by developing a discourse that may encourage emotional connection to the solidarity movement (Della Porta, 2018:5).

Civil society activism can be seen as activities that are not created by the state, but are formed as either NGOs, religious institutions or at grassroots levels of activism aiming to help and support immigrants, including asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. Due to the increase of stricter migration policies, civil society organizations have seen the demand for their help growing, and during the “refugee crisis” new forms of civic response

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developed, notably the new organizations of welcome initiatives that aimed to step in where the states failed in their service provision for refugees. These may provide support in the forms of legal guidance, housing services, education and by simply offering safe space and organizing activities where both migrants and citizens can communicate and connect (Kleres, 2018:211). Kleres (2018:233) has studied refugee mobilization in Sweden and Germany, and concludes that the emotional frame of the movements has been crucial in what has come to result in the merge of political action and humanitarian civic action, since they are based in an emotional discursive construction that generates compassion.

Examining how different organizations and solidarity associations are challenged in how they position themselves in relation to the state, might shed light on how they can work with the questions that concern immigration policies and migrant support. In a way, it may be easier for civil society organizations to position themselves politically, and focus on political mobilizations, rather than only offering services, depending on how they rely on financial support from the state where they might be forced to adapt their services

confronting the anti-immigration laws (Ambrosini & Van der Leun, 2015:108). Social movements may also be characterized by gender aspects, making it important to pay attention to how these may structure the political opportunity structures and the framing processes, something that the resource mobilization theory of social movements - a perspective that focuses on how their achievements depend on different assets such as knowledge, money and time amongst others – fails to do according to Laura Macdonald (2005:36). She argues that this perspective misses to take into consideration other aspects that could have an importance to social movements on a transnational level, for instance gender structures, and how these influences the views on movements that are more technical being considered male expert, while those connected to relations of emotional interest being considered female (2005:37). This aspect is interesting to consider in my study, where the volunteer organizations and the solidarity workers with whom I have engaged contact are in majority women.

Social movements by undocumented migrants in France

Immigration in France is strongly connected to its long history of colonization, where migration has been controlled in different ways during the 19th_{and 20}th_{centuries. The} relation of external factors of control i.e border regime and immigration laws, and the internal ones such as integration and race relations both influence the relationship between the former colonial power and its colonized subjects (Thomas, 2013:7). The Maghrebi clandestine traveler represents a new kind of economic migration following the decolonization of the former French colonies in Northern Africa. During the period of the 2000s the phenomenon of the harraga emerged, which names the clandestine migration from Algeria and other parts of the Maghreb in northern Africa to the coasts of France,

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Italy and Spain across the Mediterranean Sea. The word stems from the Maghreb Arabic word harrag which in a literal sense means “those who burn”, referring to the clandestine migrants who burn their identity papers in hopes to avoid being sent back if discovered as they risk being caught and sent to detention centers in the destination country or to prison in the country of departure (Dumont, 2012:259). Typically classed as countries of

emigration, the Maghreb states as well as the other Mediterranean countries have become regions of emigration, transit and immigration simultaneously (Dumont, 2012:268). Legal ways of emigrating from Algeria has decreased during the 2000s, which mostly includes family reunification, work and student visas, and hinder others with unstable employment to apply for visas to the Schengen area. The harragas, often young men participating in the economic migration, describes how some of them have tried to reach the European coasts by boat several times, and express frustration towards the strict criteria of the visa applications. Most of them don’t have a precise destination, as the chance of employment is the most important factor. They rely on the help of other friends having migrated rather than family, and everyone contribute financially to the preparation of the dangerous journey (Souiah, 2013:100). This logic of migration is of interest in my study, when reflecting on integration and a sense of belonging - something which is present in the collected material with the informants.

More recent than the movements of the sans-papiers in the 1990s and the harragas in the mid 2010s in France are the gilets noirs, a movement that arose in tension with the yellow vest movement - les gilets jaunes – during the winter of 2018. By organizing mobilizations and occupation protests in Paris, in the Panthéon and the airport of Charles de Gaulle amongst others, they are questioning France’s motto of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity6 and suggesting it to rather represent ‘humiliation, exportation, deportation’. Standing up for the rights of the undocumented and the asylum seekers, they claim legal papers for everyone and question the whole system that produces those sans-papiers, speaking about a racist system connected with the history of colonization. Not only western Africans are engaged, but participants include Senegalese, Sudanese and Afghan migrants as well who have been rejected, or otherwise affected by the Dublin regulation and the European frontier system. “La peur a changé de camp” - “the fear has changed sides” - they state, as they encourage members to take action against the state and the exploitation by

enterprises in their increase of precarious employment contracts (Gilets Noirs, 2020; Vacarme 2019).

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Previous research

This section aims to discover previous discussions on the themes of clandestinity, resilience and deservingness in relation to migration and social work, which will be of importance in order to be able to analyze the narratives of the informants in my study concerning their experiences of asylum practices and solidarity work.

Clandestine citizenship

Sager’s study (2011) contributes to an increased understanding of clandestinity as a potential political collective identity, through the experiences of asylum seekers and what she calls "clandestine citizenship". Her informants' positions are shaped by the interaction between different levels of rights and between different forms of inclusion and exclusion. On the one hand, asylum seekers are exposed to external forms of exclusion, such as

border controls, laws and policies, such as the Dublin Regulation, and deportations. On the other hand, they are also exposed by internal forms of exclusion that take place within society such as segregation and discrimination, and through these the informants' positions as clandestines are shaped by the interaction between these different types of exclusion (Sager, 2011:236). Similar to my study, the visibility of an active citizenship through the asylum seekers’ participation in social and everyday life and in their critical articulation in relation to the state is of interest, however my study focuses on marginality among youth and unaccompanied children.

Resilience

Ottosson (2016) has studied the processes that children in asylum-seeking families in Sweden experience. She explains that the focus is rarely on the children who also experience the long course and the temporary everyday life that an asylum application means with its uncertain nature (Ottosson, 2016:12). She finds that the children in her study seek to influence their situation through subtle actions, and master the

circumstances they encounter in the situation as asylum seekers, while meeting different obstacles caused by Swedish migration policy. In my study, this becomes visible when understanding how the informants were treated when interacting with the Swedish Migration Agency during their years as minors, and how they adjust in relation to the different situations with the authorities in Sweden and in France.

In order to understand the relation between the asylum-seeking minors and the

authorities, both during their stay in Sweden and in France, it is important to look at the possible strategies that the migrants may express in order to adapt to the situation. Jahanmahan and Bunar (2018) explore how unaccompanied refugee children experience

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the relationship and interaction with social services and legal guardians during their asylum process. Furthermore, they look more closely at how good relationships with these two actors promote resilience - that is, the ability to adapt and cope with stress - in young people and in what ways this is affected by negative interactions (Jahanmahan & Bunar, 2018:49). In their study, when the boys' security is adversely affected such as in situations involving social service and legal guardians, an independent action is revealed where the boys' resistance is directed towards their guardians. When the children feel ignored and misunderstood, a resilience that is dominated by distrust and resistance augments, which leads to increased stress and anxiety in the boys. A resilience that would have a more positive vision of the future requires that social services and guardians form secure relationships with the unaccompanied children, where the focus is on affirming and supporting the children during their asylum process (Jahanmahan & Bunar, 2018:62).

Deservingness

While studying civil society activism and the asylum seekers striving for rights it is important to reflect on deservingness reckoning, in relation to moral perspectives of others. Approaching deservingness in observing the subject’s merit, either by looking at how one experiences their own deservingness, or by the relation to those who are

‘undeserving’, develops the awareness of deservingness as relational. Another view on deservingness might be the one of performativity, where it in this case might be interesting to see how migrants are trying to perform being deserving in order to gain access to rights. Thus, one can look at deservingness reckoning as social constructions of, in this case

migrants, as well as the individual’s performance and how this produces understandings of the deserving or the underserving ones (Willen, 2012; Huschke, 2014).

Of interest in my study, Montesino and Jiménez Alvarez (2019) bring up the importance of a transnational perspective of social work concerning migrant children. Since their lives and biographies are marked by the transnational aspect, it should be considered when engaging with them, their context and previous experiences of other countries so that they in a better way can recognize their needs and how to be able to meet these. This is the view that could “exceed national boundaries” (Montesino & Jiménez Alvarez, 2019:103).

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Analysis

This chapter presents how the five informants speak about their experiences as asylum seeking minors and solidarity workers in Sweden and France. The five themes in their narratives detailed below, are: asylum process in Sweden, migrating again, performing solidarity, an unjust system and the feeling of belonging. These themes from the interviews have been selected and presented in a chronological sense, in order to better bring clarity and context to the narratives and the experiences shared by the informants. The themes were extracted through close engagement with the interview materials and the

circumstances of everyday resistance of the interview respondents. They seek to answer the research questions; How do the asylum seekers talk about their experiences of

clandestinity during the asylum processes? How do activists understand migrants' experiences of inclusion and exclusion regarding rights and access to social services and support? Which social and political factors motivates the activists and the asylum seekers to engage in solidarity work?

Presentation of informants

Five informants have participated in my study, here pseudonymously rendered. Three asylum seekers, who were minors during their asylum process in Sweden but are now a few years older than 18, have participated and shared their lived experiences of receiving a rejection to their asylum applications in Sweden and applying again in another country. Two of the young adults, Amir and Hamid, have now received a residence permit in France for 4 years, while the third one, Fazel, has recently won his case in the Dublin court and is waiting to be able to apply for asylum since his status now is now considered “normal” in France. Two middle-aged women engaged in solidarity work, Christine and Marie, have been interviewed to share how they provide support to the migrants through their

volunteer organization in Paris. They are familiar with the three young asylum seekers and have helped them during their asylum processes in France.

Asylum process in Sweden

The three then-minors arrived in Sweden in 2015, between the months of July and November the same year. Quickly after having been placed in family homes or in asylum housing they were allowed to commence the last year of elementary school with language introductions as proposed by the Swedish Migration Agency. They all finished elementary school and continued into high school, during which period they would receive their first rejections, despite all having arrived before the 24th_{of November in 2015, as the law on}

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upper secondary level studies requires. Two of the boys received their first rejections as early as 2017. Fazel describes:

I was in class and my lawyer called, I told the teacher that I had to answer this call and when I went out my lawyer said I got a rejection. You do not know how disappointed I have been with this decision, it has become the worst news of all my life. I'll never forget it.

This quote marks a turning point in Fazel’s narrative, up until where he previously expressed how he had found safety and hope in Sweden within the family he stayed with and with his studies, to where he now describes his remaining time in Sweden filled with uncertainty, anguish and deception. As for Amir and Hamid, they received their rejections and decided to appeal against the decision just as Fazel did, and after the issuance of decisions of deportation in each of their cases they all applied for a stay, an impediment of

enforcement attempting to hinder the deportation. Despite having arrived a week earlier

than the law on upper secondary level studies required in order to be eligible for its

exemption (the 24th_{of November 2015), Amir explains how the Swedish Migration Agency} decided to not accept the proof the Social Services had given to him when he arrived the first day to Malmö and had to be placed for the night in a temporary accommodation: “the Migration Board said this is not a prominent authority or I do not know what. They did not accept, so they rejected this as well”.

Hamid describes how he lost all of his appeals against his rejections and became

completely undocumented in 2017, and with this he also lost his accommodation and the education in the same time. For ten months, he lived under paperless conditions in Sweden in a family home while his lawyer told him not to give up until the new law on upper secondary education was updated to see if there would be a change to his case: “So I waited until that but then I did not belong to this law either, so I was forced to leave

Sweden in 2018”. Similarly, Fazel also became undocumented and he describes the constant feeling of anxiety the situation meant for him while having to look out for the police in central Stockholm and in the suburbs:

Back then at the central station and around there, there were policemen all the time and asked for ID documents, even in the suburbs the police stopped people and asked for identification. They would take people into detention if they don’t have a residence permit and if they don’t have ID. They check if you have documents, if you don’t they could choose to deport this guy to their country. I was really nervous when I went to school. I was very worried, stressed all the time when I was outdoors. I just went to school and home. I had nothing.

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Becoming undocumented creates fear of being caught by police and detained to be deported, a state of deportability as termed by de Genova (2002), it also renders new structures visible where the migrant is excluded from locations and everyday practices - places that might have been considered safe and that used to be accessible with a legal status. Clandestinity as a temporary position that the informants experienced during periods like these, when having had to live undocumented in Sweden before taking the decision to go to France, can be understood through their active choices and strategies in order to avoid confrontation with authorities, while looking closer at personal aspects that might have affected their attempts to bypass ID checks and identity controls. Fazel’s

narrative makes it possible to interpret that living as an undocumented Afghan teenager in Stockholm might be difficult because of the constant threat of being inspected, no matter the environment.

Acts of citizenship

The young men express positivity while looking back on their period as students in the Swedish school system, but equally express sadness and disappointment when they lost their rights to continue their education. Hamid explains how he went seven months in language introduction classes and had only just begun his studies on upper secondary level “then I got my first rejection and then I lost school. I haven't even been to school for a year”. As for Amir, he enjoyed his theater activity after school where he met most of his new friends explaining that “in school I was just an ordinary student, but it was mostly from my theater ensemble that I met quite a few friends”. Looking back at their time as students and members of extra-curricular organizations, their removal of these are

expressed through a sentiment of loss of their rights and feelings of alienation, a bare life (Agamben, 1998). While paperless minors still have the right to go to school in Sweden, the fear of being exposed and deported is present when trying to go on with everyday practices without having a legal status. Hannah Arendt (2016) described how undocumented

individuals’ lack of rights does not actually lie in their loss of life and freedom, but rather in the fact that they are excluded from society. With this, the lack of belonging to a political community means that we are reduced to being simply biological humans – bare life (Arendt, 2016:397). Learning Swedish can be viewed as an enactment of citizenship, as the boys went to school, met friends through activities and acted as though they imagined having a future in Sweden. While Isin (2009:279) mainly speaks about undocumented migrants enacting citizenship by causing a rupture - acting differently than expected in society - we see how the Afghan asylum seekers act through strategies of survival, rather than acting in order to express explicit resistance, as discussed by Holgersson (2016). To be able to find routine and a social connection within the school environment or at other

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activities with friends - everyday practices and acts of citizenship - meant a lot to the informants when expressing and reflecting on this time spent in Sweden.

Fazel describes how he proceeded to start working illegally in Sweden, an action that can be considered an act of citizenship (Isin, 2008) because of the illegal nature of the act which he decided to carry on as if he was still considered having a legal status:

When I finished my second year in high school it was very difficult for me to manage and to have food to eat and everything. I had some money that I had saved from before, and I was working undeclared in a tobacco shop in [redacted], I worked there for a while and got some more money and after a while I decided to go to Finland because it was not enough to go to France. It was the closest country I could go to.

While describing how he had to work in order to be able to pay for an alternative solution that his Swedish asylum application had pushed him to, he explains that being financially restricted was the motive for his illegalized work. Despite risking getting caught and taken into custody, he found that the possibility of being able to go to Finland for another

attempt of applying for asylum was worth the precarious situation he found himself in, motivating his choice by having found schools in Finland where he could be able to

continue studying Swedish in a bilingual high school. However, his fingerprints showed up in Eurodac and he was sent back to Sweden, according to the Dublin Regulation. This is the aim with the European border regimes, a collaborating relation of legal exclusion within the Schengen area (de Genova, 2002). Fazel explains how his lawyer in Finland didn’t seem to engage in his case enough and had to ask staff at the accommodation center where he was living for help when he realized that his asylum appeal wasn’t taken

seriously:

I had a lawyer and I even told him I didn't want to go back to Sweden, then he said that even if you appeal, they will send you back to Sweden. So, it was a bit strange for me because he was my lawyer, not the Migration Agency's lawyer, he should help me not them. He was a bit, in my opinion he was a bit racist, you know. He didn't help at all, I was very angry.

While Fazel’s narrative expresses the risks of further threats of deportability, we observe his active search for security. Acting as more than a passive subject, he himself explored different strategies and engaged in activities to deal with the structures of exclusion he met. When feeling having been treated unjust and offered no help, he reacted with anger,

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developing resistance and resilience while deciding to ask for help elsewhere in order for his demand being taken seriously, which reflects on the ability to adapt and cope with setbacks as studied by Jahanmahan and Bunar (2018) and Ottosson (2016). He recalls the feeling of having been treated unjust because of racism, exposing his perception of the excluding practices of the immigration authorities in relation to him being an Afghan unaccompanied youth. Following, a deeper observation of the asylum seekers’ experiences of having to migrate again, this time to France, will allow for broader understanding of their experiences of falling through the cracks of two European political systems.

Migrating again

The informants describe rumors and influence by other friends, having had positive experiences regarding their asylum application in France, as the biggest factors of leaving Sweden and giving the country a chance: “They said it is better, you do not risk much that the fingerprints are visible. I talked with friends who had already come to France and they told me a little and then I decided yes - France is the best option”, Hamid describes. Amir continues:

France apparently has a different assessment for Afghan asylum seekers compared to Sweden. It is quite the opposite here compared to Sweden. In Sweden, it is more "it’s enough" and France is "we’ll take them". They see the situation of Afghanistan as a serious situation and that we deserve to stay.

All three of them explain how they in advance prepared their journey to France, by seeking information on forums and in Facebook-groups on the internet where many others have explained what to do. “I wrote a note about journey, what I need and such. I was a bit Swedish in that way, I was prepared and I knew what to do” Amir explains. While expressing how he has embraced a perceived Swedish characteristic - to prepare in advance - we get to understand how he identifies himself in regard to his attachment to Sweden and his imagined understanding of personal features connected to imagined ‘Swedishness’.

While Amir avoided falling under the Dublin regulation when his fingerprints didn’t show up in the Eurodac database, Hamid’s on the other hand did. During the first two weeks when his registration was being handled, a period when you are still considered

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For two weeks, I lived under the bridge in a sleeping bag, I had everything with me. Then after two weeks I found accommodation. You have to walk around and ask for what you want. It will be ok. There are various organizations that help with accommodation. But there is much you need to know – information - and what to do and where to find it. Of course, it is difficult at first but it will be solved. It takes time. Here you have to try to find everything yourself. In Sweden, you had social support and other organizations that tried to help, but here the first step is to try yourself until you find a social secretary and all organizations.

While Hamid expresses possible confusion and insecurity during the initial period of applying for asylum in France, he remains optimistic and explains that with time all issues will be solved if you actively engage in finding solutions to the problems that represent the first weeks in the legal process to an asylum status. He explains the difference in reception services in Sweden and France, describing how Sweden provides social support, while having to work everything out on your own in France. Here, we observe a difference in the way the informants speak about their experiences of living in the tent camps, which makes it interesting to reflect on whether these reflections are visualizing true perceptions of a heterogeneous place, or if they speak about their experiences and tell their stories in a performative way, choosing on which aspect to put the attention. While the camps are highly associated with violence and disorder, Hamid focuses on expressing the possibilities of getting help and support by actively searching for it. In this, their opposing ways of retelling their experiences of the camps adds significance to their narratives, motivating the chosen method of analysis (Johansson, 2005). Fazel lived in one of the big camps for one and a half months in central Paris when he arrived in December 2019, before finding accommodation in a French family home. Explaining how he got very sick while living in a tent together with a friend, he was surprised when he discovered the precarious conditions of the camp:

I was just thinking about myself. Here under the tents it was very difficult because there were people who had been beaten, people who had been robbed, people who had been stabbed. It is the street, anything can happen, you can even be murdered here. It was full of drugs and drug addicts and everything all the time. It was the most difficult time of my life, I think, because I would never have thought I would be in such a place between dealers and addicts. So, it was kind of a shithole. It was a very difficult time, and as I said, I will never forget it all my life.

Despite not being categorized as illegal when arriving to France, Fazel struggles with understanding the paradox of the asylum system that has been set out to help people in his situation, when he instead found himself in a vulnerable position due to the lack of

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reception conditions that France has offered to asylum seekers in Paris. He explains how buses arrived at least three times during the six weeks he lived in the camp, every time only being able to bring 500 people to accommodation centers out of the thousands that were there, and after each time the camp would be full quickly again. The dangerous and frightening atmosphere of the camp, as perceived by Fazel, stand in contrast to how Amir speaks about his experiences of the camp while being homeless. While Fazel describes his period in the camp as challenging and difficult, Amir expresses a different view when he describes his two weeks in the tent camp in August of 2019 as a memorable experience:

So, I had booked a hostel for a week, when I arrived I paid. But I realized that the money ran out immediately so I went to the tent camp, got some friends there, it was really nice. So, I lived in a tent for two weeks, I think. But it was a great experience for me. It wasn't like thinking "no it's not so good". Yes, but from another side I think it was very exciting at the same time as I got to know some people that I had not known before.

In the quote, we see how Amir choses to express identity in his way of describing his experiences of living in the tent camp as a positive episode. This reaction might be seen as a different expression of resilience, meeting the occurred happening as an active survivor rather than passive victim when reflecting upon a possibly traumatic experience. As Jahanmahan and Bunar (2018:62) explains in their study about resilience with

unaccompanied refugee minors, feelings of vulnerability and exposedness can lead to an enhanced will to instead express independence or act in resistance to the society, making it a possible reflection when it comes to Amir’s narrative. In the following section focus will be placed on understanding how the asylum seekers and the volunteer workers engage in solidarity acts, and how they understand this engagement.

Performing solidarity

When Fazel became sick while living in the tent camp during the cold winter months, a member of the family in which he had stayed during his time in Sweden, had tried to reach him without success and managed to contact the organization where solidarity workers Christine and Marie volunteer. In this way, Fazel was able to get help and Christine accompanied him to the doctors. Marie explains how their solidarity association support asylum seekers in many ways; translating their asylum rejections to French in order to be able to give them to the French migration office, organizing access to French language courses, offering legal support through contact with lawyers and providing support during emergencies such as with health care as seen in Fazel’s case. Marie explains the need for

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their presence where the French migration services fail with their task of taking care of the asylum seekers:

After all, we have to be there, especially during the first few months, because during the first few months they receive no allowance. It takes about 2.5-3 months before they get money on their card, and then they only get 400 € and you can't live in Paris without money. It may be that they have put money away themselves, it may be that they get help from Sweden. And if they have a doctor's visit that they can't pay for then our association can be there, but if you go to the emergency for example it is free. But we have to be there from the beginning because otherwise there is not much help, and they don’t know French and maybe not so good English so it can be difficult to go through the state-sponsored associations. In the French organizations, there is often long waiting time, and they help a lot of others, so it is good that we exist.

Christine’s and Marie’s volunteer work with their solidarity association includes only a few members, primarily middle-aged European women. While their engagement in asylum rights is not their primary occupation, both of them explain how they have reduced their working hours in their main employment in order to have time to help the asylum seekers. Reaching out to the civil society and rendering the circumstances of the asylum seekers visible is important to their volunteer association, as they are dependent on private donations. As described by Ambrosini and Van der Leun (2015), depending on the structure of the organization and whether they are dependent on state funding or not, it may affect their possibilities to position themselves politically. With Christine and Marie, and their organization’s aim to work for a “more humane asylum system”, as they

themselves described it, it becomes possible to observe their approach of mobilizing civil society activism in how they encourage others to engage in these questions by primarily an online activity and their way of spreading awareness of their solidarity work on social media. As illustrated by Kleres (2018), the emotional frame of their association’s

engagement is crucial for the possibility to bring members together for civic action when drawing attention to their services while advocating for asylum rights. In addition, while possessing the role as gatekeepers, owning the power to control access to the subject and their work, they have let me study the situation of asylum seekers in France, by sharing their experiences and letting me engage contact with the asylum seekers. While having met resistance from a different solidarity worker, motivating her disapproval by referring to my study as unethical, comparing it to another attempt of sharing “social pornography”

reports, it is important to reflect on their influence and power of controlling the possible insights on the topic (Sjöström, 2012).

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Christine became committed to these questions, when her children where younger and had classmates that were at risk of being deported, and together with other parents they

decided to help: “I have thought for a long time that I would be suited to work with these questions”. While saying this she expresses a way of constructing her engagement through her narrative, mentioning that she is the right person to work with this. She claims being motivated to engage, when she sees the result of their help and legal guidance leading to a positive reply to an asylum seeker’s application:

It is a commitment that gives a lot. It's not only hard, it's often nice and fun, and we've basically only had to deal with nice, helpful, caring guys. Almost only, with very few exceptions. And that makes you happy to help if you can as well. That what you do gives something, that you have made a difference.

Christine says that it is motivating to work with nice and caring asylum seekers, not having had to deal with others who wouldn’t be ascribed these qualities. The aspect of

deservingness comes with identifying moral perceptions of others, where the performance of the migrants may in some cases matter when it comes to ‘meriting help’ (Willen 2012). While Christine and Marie help migrants that are both undocumented or asylum seekers, it could be of importance to observe whether other social movements exclude support in relation to legal status in order to avoid conflict with the state, for instance as seen in the case of the Swedish Church (2019). Viewed from the other angle, it is interesting to reflect upon how the migrants perform deservingness, in order to gain access to the support and help of the solidarity organizations (Huschke, 2014). This however, is difficult to observe in my study because of its limited insight in how the relation and social exchange between the migrants and the activists might have looked like and been performed. On the other hand, the performance of solidarity was a recurrent theme in the interviews with Amir, Hamid and Fazel.

All of the Afghan informants strive to help others who find themselves in similar situations to what they have experienced, referring to helping other rejected asylum seekers to make a decision to go to France and apply for asylum there. Amir is the admin of a Facebook group where young migrants discuss issues and possibilities in the search for a legal status. He helps others who have questions about the asylum procedure in France:

I show them the way, I give them tips and information. Some of those who called me were still in Sweden. I understand them, in Sweden it is not so easy to live right now. But those in Paris, I show them, I pass them on to Christine to translate their rejection. Then I show the free restaurants, I send addresses to

Navigating Clandestinity : A qualitative study on rejected unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and solidarity work in Sweden and France