UNACCOMPANIED MINORS (UN-)MADE IN SWEDEN

1

UNACCOMPANIED MINORS (UN-)MADE IN SWEDEN

UNGRIEVABLE LIVES AND ACCESS TO RIGHTS PRODUCED THROUGH POLICY

BAHARAN KAZEMI

2

Skriftserie för avhandlingar: 2021:2 Department of Social Work University of Gothenburg

© Baharan Kazemi Cover photo: Shutterstock

Printed by Stema Specialtryck AB, Borås, 2021 ISBN: 978-91-88267-20-7 (PRINT)

ISBN: 978-91-88267-21-4 (PDF) ISSN: 1401-5781

http://hdl.handle.net/2077/68257

3 All human beings are members of one frame,

Since all, at first, from the same essence came. When time afflicts a limb with pain The other limbs at rest cannot remain. If thou feel not for other’s misery A human being is no name for thee.

- Persian poet Sa’adi, in translation of Edward Eastwick

Skriftserie för avhandlingar: 2021:2 Department of Social Work University of Gothenburg

© Baharan Kazemi Cover photo: Shutterstock

Printed by Stema Specialtryck AB, Borås, 2021 ISBN: 978-91-88267-20-7 (PRINT)

ISBN: 978-91-88267-21-4 (PDF) ISSN: 1401-5781

http://hdl.handle.net/2077/68257

All human beings are members of one frame, Since all, at first, from the same essence came.

When time afflicts a limb with pain The other limbs at rest cannot remain.

If thou feel not for other’s misery A human being is no name for thee.

- Persian poet Sa’adi, in translation of Edward Eastwick

Acknowledgements

In thinking, speaking and writing, I often lose track of myself along the way. I often change direction and even enjoy not knowing where I’m heading. This has been my trademark, but in the work on this thesis, not always a helpful quality. So for a person who finds it challenging to go from A to B without squeezing the rest of the alphabet in between, where should I start this page of acknowledgements and how should I stop? I can come up with infinitely long lists of persons to whom I owe gratitude for support during this time.

To begin with, Hanna Wikström and Monica Nordenfors, my two very different but equally supportive and inspiring supervisors. I have had nightmares about your handwritten comments but, without them, I would have been so lost. Hanna, your analytic mind, and Monica, your child rights perspective, have inspired me and helped me find my path. Thank you for always reading with focus, cheering me up and for reminding me to make reasonable plans.

The Department of Social Work at the University of Gothenburg has been my “home department”, although commuting across the country has affected my ability to be present in person.

I have not participated in the daily departmental interactions the way I imagined I would when I accepted the position. Charlotte Melander and Lena Sawyer, a special thanks to the two of you for going out of your way to include me in different networks and meetings. My fellow PhD group in the department: I should go with the “none mentioned, none forgotten” approach, but that would lose the whole point of this text. So Christoffer, Johan, Johanna, Matti, Narola, Russell, Satsuki, Tua and Åsa, thank you for the company, the inspiration and the chats between classes. Hanna MacInes, thank you for the pep talks and lunch breaks and for helping me not to lose my close-to-practice approach to social work. Jenny Kronman, thanks for spontaneity and friendship and help in theorizing on anti- racism. And Sarah Philipson Isac, your comments on my last seminar were so helpful! I look forward to future projects with you guys!

In 2018 I conducted a number of interviews with persons who remain anonymous in this text.

I want to thank you all, not only for sharing your experiences, but also for all the acts of solidarity and your enduring struggle for rights through which you have shown that a different world is possible.

During different periods I have had the opportunity to share drafts of the text in seminars.

Thank you for reading and commenting on my work, Nina Tryggvarsson, Majsa Allelin, Tobias Davidsson and Maria Heimer. All of your comments have been very valuable. During the final period Lena Sawyer and Evelyn Khoo made an amazing effort with well-needed comments to give me that last push forward. I am so grateful! And Lyudmyla Khrenova, your support with all the administrative drama during the last weeks was very comforting. Thank you!

The Department of Remeso at Linköping University and the teachers and students on the course “Interrogating the Refugee Crisis” in 2016. Participating in this research environment inspired me and was essential to me in designing the structure of this thesis. The Department of Government at the University of Essex, Professors Jason Glynos and Yanis Stavrakakis and all the participants in

the summer course Applying Discourse Theory in August 2019. The impact of this experience is not only relevant to the thesis but to the way I see the world. Thank you for arranging this course. To the Department of Social Work at Södertörn University, thank you for welcoming me as a guest PhD student during the autumn of 2019. Special thanks to Lisa Kings, Magdalena Elmsjö and Hanna Bertilsdotter-Rosqvist for enabling my attendance, and to Sylwia Koziel and Jaakko Turunen for your thorough reading and valuable comments on my text seminar at the department. And to Daphne Arbouz, I really hope we’ll get to work together again someday!

I also wish to thank the community of nomad fellow PhD students in and around Stockholm, without whom I would have been in a social void during these years, not least with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Sofi Jansson-Keshavarz, we hardly knew each other when this all started but now I count you among my closest friends. Maria Bexelius, your genius mind brings so much light to the community of migration research and activism and to me as your friend. Pouran Djampour, thank you for your presence and for the amazing thesis you produced. What an inspiration! Katrina Gaber, from asylum activism to PhD studies, our paths have crossed. Extra thanks for your Instagram!

Outside academia, thank you Gabriela Azocár for bringing my attention to the situation with unaccompanied minors in compulsory care, which was what brought me to my PhD studies in the first place. Nina Engelbrektson, I don’t even know where to begin thanking you and your family for hosting me in your home time and again over these years. The same goes for Fanny Gyberg. Thank you both for your hospitality, for all the late-night conversations and for making my time in Gothenburg a combination of work and fun. Angelica Lundberg, you’ve listened to my agony, smiled and said “you can do this” over and over again and that has meant a lot. Katarina Kasto, thank you for remaining my friend even though we don’t find time to meet that often. Arash Mokhtari, Parinaz Goodarzian and Sheida Karlsson, you helped me write a children’s book to get over my paralyzing writer’s block. Such a crazy project in the middle of everything, but thank you for joining me in it! The FARR friends, Sanna Vestin, Ylva Sjölin, Frida Johansson Metso and Emelia Frenmark, I have literarily learned all I know about asylum rights from you. Thank you for keeping me grounded in the activist perspective. Gotlandsgänget – in my life that has been so much about moving around, you guys have been a source of stability. Last but not least, my family. Because this period has proven that it takes a village, both to raise children and to produce research. Zohreh and Mehdi, thank you for always being supportive, for helping us with the kids and with everything else. My late grandfather Taghi, how I missed you during these years, your brilliant mind and all those philosophers you used to talk about. Soraya, thank you for always taking care of me even though I should be taking care of you. And my “Swedish grandmother” Karin, thank you for all the stories about Sweden before the

“people’s home”. You have all inspiried me and made me curious about politics. The Parham’s, you’ve

always opened your home to us and provided well needed breaks away from Sweden as well as help

with the kids. Our life is bordered, but we resist! Nirvan and Aylin, I’m sorry I have been away so

much. Thank you for being my squad anyway. And Babak, we’re too cool for public announcements

but you know it, I know it, everybody knows it.

Acknowledgements

In thinking, speaking and writing, I often lose track of myself along the way. I often change direction and even enjoy not knowing where I’m heading. This has been my trademark, but in the work on this thesis, not always a helpful quality. So for a person who finds it challenging to go from A to B without squeezing the rest of the alphabet in between, where should I start this page of acknowledgements and how should I stop? I can come up with infinitely long lists of persons to whom I owe gratitude for support during this time.

To begin with, Hanna Wikström and Monica Nordenfors, my two very different but equally supportive and inspiring supervisors. I have had nightmares about your handwritten comments but, without them, I would have been so lost. Hanna, your analytic mind, and Monica, your child rights perspective, have inspired me and helped me find my path. Thank you for always reading with focus, cheering me up and for reminding me to make reasonable plans.

The Department of Social Work at the University of Gothenburg has been my “home department”, although commuting across the country has affected my ability to be present in person.

I have not participated in the daily departmental interactions the way I imagined I would when I accepted the position. Charlotte Melander and Lena Sawyer, a special thanks to the two of you for going out of your way to include me in different networks and meetings. My fellow PhD group in the department: I should go with the “none mentioned, none forgotten” approach, but that would lose the whole point of this text. So Christoffer, Johan, Johanna, Matti, Narola, Russell, Satsuki, Tua and Åsa, thank you for the company, the inspiration and the chats between classes. Hanna MacInes, thank you for the pep talks and lunch breaks and for helping me not to lose my close-to-practice approach to social work. Jenny Kronman, thanks for spontaneity and friendship and help in theorizing on anti- racism. And Sarah Philipson Isac, your comments on my last seminar were so helpful! I look forward to future projects with you guys!

In 2018 I conducted a number of interviews with persons who remain anonymous in this text.

I want to thank you all, not only for sharing your experiences, but also for all the acts of solidarity and your enduring struggle for rights through which you have shown that a different world is possible.

During different periods I have had the opportunity to share drafts of the text in seminars.

Thank you for reading and commenting on my work, Nina Tryggvarsson, Majsa Allelin, Tobias Davidsson and Maria Heimer. All of your comments have been very valuable. During the final period Lena Sawyer and Evelyn Khoo made an amazing effort with well-needed comments to give me that last push forward. I am so grateful! And Lyudmyla Khrenova, your support with all the administrative drama during the last weeks was very comforting. Thank you!

The Department of Remeso at Linköping University and the teachers and students on the course “Interrogating the Refugee Crisis” in 2016. Participating in this research environment inspired me and was essential to me in designing the structure of this thesis. The Department of Government at the University of Essex, Professors Jason Glynos and Yanis Stavrakakis and all the participants in

the summer course Applying Discourse Theory in August 2019. The impact of this experience is not only relevant to the thesis but to the way I see the world. Thank you for arranging this course. To the Department of Social Work at Södertörn University, thank you for welcoming me as a guest PhD student during the autumn of 2019. Special thanks to Lisa Kings, Magdalena Elmsjö and Hanna Bertilsdotter-Rosqvist for enabling my attendance, and to Sylwia Koziel and Jaakko Turunen for your thorough reading and valuable comments on my text seminar at the department. And to Daphne Arbouz, I really hope we’ll get to work together again someday!

I also wish to thank the community of nomad fellow PhD students in and around Stockholm, without whom I would have been in a social void during these years, not least with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Sofi Jansson-Keshavarz, we hardly knew each other when this all started but now I count you among my closest friends. Maria Bexelius, your genius mind brings so much light to the community of migration research and activism and to me as your friend. Pouran Djampour, thank you for your presence and for the amazing thesis you produced. What an inspiration! Katrina Gaber, from asylum activism to PhD studies, our paths have crossed. Extra thanks for your Instagram!

Outside academia, thank you Gabriela Azocár for bringing my attention to the situation with unaccompanied minors in compulsory care, which was what brought me to my PhD studies in the first place. Nina Engelbrektson, I don’t even know where to begin thanking you and your family for hosting me in your home time and again over these years. The same goes for Fanny Gyberg. Thank you both for your hospitality, for all the late-night conversations and for making my time in Gothenburg a combination of work and fun. Angelica Lundberg, you’ve listened to my agony, smiled and said “you can do this” over and over again and that has meant a lot. Katarina Kasto, thank you for remaining my friend even though we don’t find time to meet that often. Arash Mokhtari, Parinaz Goodarzian and Sheida Karlsson, you helped me write a children’s book to get over my paralyzing writer’s block. Such a crazy project in the middle of everything, but thank you for joining me in it! The FARR friends, Sanna Vestin, Ylva Sjölin, Frida Johansson Metso and Emelia Frenmark, I have literarily learned all I know about asylum rights from you. Thank you for keeping me grounded in the activist perspective. Gotlandsgänget – in my life that has been so much about moving around, you guys have been a source of stability. Last but not least, my family. Because this period has proven that it takes a village, both to raise children and to produce research. Zohreh and Mehdi, thank you for always being supportive, for helping us with the kids and with everything else. My late grandfather Taghi, how I missed you during these years, your brilliant mind and all those philosophers you used to talk about. Soraya, thank you for always taking care of me even though I should be taking care of you. And my “Swedish grandmother” Karin, thank you for all the stories about Sweden before the

“people’s home”. You have all inspiried me and made me curious about politics. The Parham’s, you’ve

always opened your home to us and provided well needed breaks away from Sweden as well as help

with the kids. Our life is bordered, but we resist! Nirvan and Aylin, I’m sorry I have been away so

much. Thank you for being my squad anyway. And Babak, we’re too cool for public announcements

but you know it, I know it, everybody knows it.

Abstract

On 24 November 2015, the Swedish prime minister announced a new, restrictive asylum policy with the explicit aim of placing Sweden at the EU minimum level in terms of refugee reception. A temporary Aliens Act minimized the right to asylum and family reunification. At the centre of the policy debate was the figure of the unaccompanied minor. In this thesis, the meanings associated with the concept of unaccompaniedness in Swedish legislation is explored in order to critically analyze the changes that took place during and after 2015.

With a theory-method design drawing on post-structural policy analysis and discourse theory, seven government bills are analyzed together with interviews with welfare workers/activists and young persons affected by the policy changes. What the government bills have in common is the centrality of the concept of unaccompaniedness. The reforms are positioned at the intersection of social work and migration policy: custodianship for asylum-seeking unaccompanied minors, reception in municipalities under the Social Services Act, construction of alternative “Supported Housing” services aimed at this target group and other youth, age estimations in the asylum process and exception rules as a path to residence permits based on participation in upper secondary education.

The main results indicate that the way in which unaccompanied minors are described as different from children in general and thus in need of other support and other rights, has existed long before the restriction laws from 2015. The discursive formation with a specific position for unaccompanied minors has thus not undergone a total transformation. Rather, additional layering of meanings associated with the concept has been added. In the reforms from 2005-2006, unaccompanied minors are mainly regarded as grievable lives due to the vulnerability associated with their specific migration experience and being without guardians. Through various political logics, where economy and anti-immigrant sentiments have an impact, subjects are increasingly excluded from this position. They are attributed negative associations and disqualified from being both children and vulnerable. This demarcation defines who can be a "real" child and thus a grievable life with the right to protection and rights. The exception rules that were presented in 2017-2018, acknowledge the precarious position created through the restrictive reforms. A pathway to residence permit through participation in upper secondary education was provided. Thereby, the figure of the unaccompanied minor was also re-invented from a child refugee to an international student and potential labour migrant. In this thesis, it is argued that lives are constructed as grieavable and not through specific meanings given to the term vulnerability in relation to concepts of childhood, borders, racialization and the nation. Through these processes of meaning-making subject positions are shaped and access to rights defined. However, policy is produced in a political context and dependent on social practices.

Thus it is relevant to see the reforms in relation to social work practice, social movements and the populations affected, who through acts of citizenship and of solidarity challenge the dominant border regime.

Key words: unaccompanied minors, borders, migration policy, social work, WPR, asylum, acts of citizenship, jouissance, anti-racism, solidarity, ethics

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ... 4

Abstract ... 6

PART I EXPLORING THE INTERSECTION OF SOCIAL WORK AND MIGRATION POLICY 11 1. Introduction ... 12

1.1. Aim and research questions ... 16

1.2. Chapter conclusions ... 18

1.3 Outline and reading recommendations ... 19

2. Welfare and Migration in the Swedish Context ... 22

2.1. The Swedish model: the people’s home ... 22

2.2. Migration and integration policy in Sweden ... 25

2.3. The migratory turn in 2015 ... 32

2.4 Chapter conclusions ... 35

3. Literature overview ... 36

3.1. The concept of unaccompaniedness ... 36

3.2. Social work, bordering and access to rights ... 40

3.3. Anti-racist social movements and social work ... 46

3.4. Chapter Conclusions ... 53

PART II CHILD PROTECTION AND PROTECTING THE NATION ... 55

((tth hee m miiggrra attoorry y ttu urrn n)) ... 56

4. Theoretical design ... 58

4.1. Ideal childhoods and normalization of children ... 58

4.2. Borders, citizenship and rights ... 60

4.3. The WPR-logics approach ... 65

4.4. Chapter conclusions ... 74

5. Methodological design ... 75

5.1. Introduction to the Swedish policy process and my approach to policy analysis ... 75

5.2. The practicalities of analysis ... 80

5.3. Combining empirical materials ... 90

5.4. Ethical discussion ... 95

5.5. Chapter conclusions ... 104

5.6. The structure of the analysis ... 104

PART III CONSTRUCTING (UN-)GRIEVABLE LIVES THROUGH POLICY ... 107

((tth hee bba an na alliitty y ooff bboorrd deerriin ngg)) ... 108

Abstract

On 24 November 2015, the Swedish prime minister announced a new, restrictive asylum policy with the explicit aim of placing Sweden at the EU minimum level in terms of refugee reception. A temporary Aliens Act minimized the right to asylum and family reunification. At the centre of the policy debate was the figure of the unaccompanied minor. In this thesis, the meanings associated with the concept of unaccompaniedness in Swedish legislation is explored in order to critically analyze the changes that took place during and after 2015.

With a theory-method design drawing on post-structural policy analysis and discourse theory, seven government bills are analyzed together with interviews with welfare workers/activists and young persons affected by the policy changes. What the government bills have in common is the centrality of the concept of unaccompaniedness. The reforms are positioned at the intersection of social work and migration policy: custodianship for asylum-seeking unaccompanied minors, reception in municipalities under the Social Services Act, construction of alternative “Supported Housing” services aimed at this target group and other youth, age estimations in the asylum process and exception rules as a path to residence permits based on participation in upper secondary education.

The main results indicate that the way in which unaccompanied minors are described as different from children in general and thus in need of other support and other rights, has existed long before the restriction laws from 2015. The discursive formation with a specific position for unaccompanied minors has thus not undergone a total transformation. Rather, additional layering of meanings associated with the concept has been added. In the reforms from 2005-2006, unaccompanied minors are mainly regarded as grievable lives due to the vulnerability associated with their specific migration experience and being without guardians. Through various political logics, where economy and anti-immigrant sentiments have an impact, subjects are increasingly excluded from this position. They are attributed negative associations and disqualified from being both children and vulnerable. This demarcation defines who can be a "real" child and thus a grievable life with the right to protection and rights. The exception rules that were presented in 2017-2018, acknowledge the precarious position created through the restrictive reforms. A pathway to residence permit through participation in upper secondary education was provided. Thereby, the figure of the unaccompanied minor was also re-invented from a child refugee to an international student and potential labour migrant. In this thesis, it is argued that lives are constructed as grieavable and not through specific meanings given to the term vulnerability in relation to concepts of childhood, borders, racialization and the nation. Through these processes of meaning-making subject positions are shaped and access to rights defined. However, policy is produced in a political context and dependent on social practices.

Thus it is relevant to see the reforms in relation to social work practice, social movements and the populations affected, who through acts of citizenship and of solidarity challenge the dominant border regime.

Key words: unaccompanied minors, borders, migration policy, social work, WPR, asylum, acts of citizenship, jouissance, anti-racism, solidarity, ethics

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ... 4

Abstract ... 6

PART I EXPLORING THE INTERSECTION OF SOCIAL WORK AND MIGRATION POLICY 11 1. Introduction ... 12

1.1. Aim and research questions ... 16

1.2. Chapter conclusions ... 18

1.3 Outline and reading recommendations ... 19

2. Welfare and Migration in the Swedish Context ... 22

2.1. The Swedish model: the people’s home ... 22

2.2. Migration and integration policy in Sweden ... 25

2.3. The migratory turn in 2015 ... 32

2.4 Chapter conclusions ... 35

3. Literature overview ... 36

3.1. The concept of unaccompaniedness ... 36

3.2. Social work, bordering and access to rights ... 40

3.3. Anti-racist social movements and social work ... 46

3.4. Chapter Conclusions ... 53

PART II CHILD PROTECTION AND PROTECTING THE NATION ... 55

((tth hee m miiggrra attoorry y ttu urrn n)) ... 56

4. Theoretical design ... 58

4.1. Ideal childhoods and normalization of children ... 58

4.2. Borders, citizenship and rights ... 60

4.3. The WPR-logics approach ... 65

4.4. Chapter conclusions ... 74

5. Methodological design ... 75

5.1. Introduction to the Swedish policy process and my approach to policy analysis ... 75

5.2. The practicalities of analysis ... 80

5.3. Combining empirical materials ... 90

5.4. Ethical discussion ... 95

5.5. Chapter conclusions ... 104

5.6. The structure of the analysis ... 104

PART III CONSTRUCTING (UN-)GRIEVABLE LIVES THROUGH POLICY ... 107

((tth hee bba an na alliitty y ooff bboorrd deerriin ngg)) ... 108

6. Custodians for unaccompanied minors ... 110

6.1. The Custodian Bill and the political context ... 110

6.2. The problem representation ... 112

6.3. How this proposal became the solution ... 125

6.4. Discursive effects of the policy ... 128

7. Reception of unaccompanied minors in municipalities ... 134

7.1. The reception bills and the political context ... 134

7.2. The problem representation ... 137

7.3. How this proposal became the solution ... 149

7.4. Discursive effects of the policy ... 154

8. Supported housing as alternative to institutional care and foster families ... 159

8.1. The Supported Housing Bill and the political context ... 159

8.2. The problem representation ... 162

8.3. How this proposal became the solution ... 171

8.4. Discursive effects ... 177

9. Age estimations earlier in the asylum process ... 183

9.1. The Age Estimation Bill and the political context ... 184

9.2. The problem representation ... 187

9.3. Subjective reflections: Illegalized subjects and the compassion of strangers ... 196

9.4. How did this proposal become the solution?... 206

9.5. Discursive effects ... 211

10. The upper secondary education bills ... 217

10.1.The Upper Secondary Education bills and the political context ... 218

10.2. The problem representation ... 226

10.3. Subjective reflections: articulations of the new unaccompanied position ... 235

10.4. How did this proposal become the solution? ... 247

10.5. Discursive effects ... 255

PART IV RE-IMAGINING SOCIAL WORK ETHICS ... 261

((ccoom mp plliicciitty y iin n a accttss ooff bboorrd deerriin ngg)) ... 262

11. Social work as an arena for border enactment and resistance ... 263

11.1. Grievable subjects – access to rights ... 263

11.2. Political logics of borders, neo-liberalism and anti-immigrant sentiments ... 267

11.3. Acts of citizenship and of solidarity ... 271

E Ep piillooggu uee ... 276

Summary in Swedish ... 278

References... 279

Appendices ... 311

Appendix I: Timeline of central policy reforms ... 312

Appendix II: Interview guides ... 313

Appendix III. Information letter: ... 317

Appendix IV. Form of consent ... 319

Appendix V. Word count ... 320

Appendix IV: Statistics ... 323

6. Custodians for unaccompanied minors ... 110

6.1. The Custodian Bill and the political context ... 110

6.2. The problem representation ... 112

6.3. How this proposal became the solution ... 125

6.4. Discursive effects of the policy ... 128

7. Reception of unaccompanied minors in municipalities ... 134

7.1. The reception bills and the political context ... 134

7.2. The problem representation ... 137

7.3. How this proposal became the solution ... 149

7.4. Discursive effects of the policy ... 154

8. Supported housing as alternative to institutional care and foster families ... 159

8.1. The Supported Housing Bill and the political context ... 159

8.2. The problem representation ... 162

8.3. How this proposal became the solution ... 171

8.4. Discursive effects ... 177

9. Age estimations earlier in the asylum process ... 183

9.1. The Age Estimation Bill and the political context ... 184

9.2. The problem representation ... 187

9.3. Subjective reflections: Illegalized subjects and the compassion of strangers ... 196

9.4. How did this proposal become the solution?... 206

9.5. Discursive effects ... 211

10. The upper secondary education bills ... 217

10.1.The Upper Secondary Education bills and the political context ... 218

10.2. The problem representation ... 226

10.3. Subjective reflections: articulations of the new unaccompanied position ... 235

10.4. How did this proposal become the solution? ... 247

10.5. Discursive effects ... 255

PART IV RE-IMAGINING SOCIAL WORK ETHICS ... 261

( (ccoom mp plliicciitty y iin n a accttss ooff bboorrd deerriin ngg)) ... 262

11. Social work as an arena for border enactment and resistance ... 263

11.1. Grievable subjects – access to rights ... 263

11.2. Political logics of borders, neo-liberalism and anti-immigrant sentiments ... 267

11.3. Acts of citizenship and of solidarity ... 271

E Ep piillooggu uee ... 276

Summary in Swedish ... 278

References... 279

Appendices ... 311

Appendix I: Timeline of central policy reforms ... 312

Appendix II: Interview guides ... 313

Appendix III. Information letter: ... 317

Appendix IV. Form of consent ... 319

Appendix V. Word count ... 320

Appendix IV: Statistics ... 323

Prologue

In August 2018, I visited a reception centre for asylum seekers run by the Swedish Migration Agency.

There I met a number of young persons who had been registered as unaccompanied minors upon their arrival in Sweden, but, due to recent changes in legislation, were no longer in the care of social services.

For these individuals, it meant going from being provided with housing, adult support, food and financial aid, to various levels of minimized or no benefits. Those who were still in the asylum process had the right to stay in this centre for adults and they received financial aid to cover their expenses for food.

Those who had their asylum claims rejected were granted neither housing nor aid. These were young persons who, through previous policy, up until recently would have been granted permanent residence permits based on humanitarian need and the situation they would face if sent back to their country of citizenship. Now, entangled in new policy on age assessments, restrictions in the Aliens Act and changes regarding benefits for asylum seekers, they found themselves in a situation with almost no rights. One in particular, who I have called Navid in this text, made a very strong impression on me. He had been denied a residence permit and access to benefits as an asylum seeker. He remained in the reception centre, although he had lost his right to do so, because he could not afford train tickets to go elsewhere and had nowhere to go. I asked how he went about his daily life with no financial aid, work permit or housing. He said:

Well, like I told you, I go to my friends to eat. Sometimes I take the leftovers from other people in the kitchen and cook with them. Sometimes I only eat one meal per day, because what should I do at the end of the month? I have to save some [food].

Navid’s account, as well as the situation of the other boys I met, made me angry, sad, filled with shame and even guilt. “How did this happen?” I wanted to ask – but there was nobody to take my questions. Navid had arrived in Sweden during what was referred to in the media and political discourse as “the refugee crisis” in 2015. The policy response to this “crisis” shaped not only what rights he could access as an asylum seeker, but ultimately, what life he could live as a human being.

Navid did not access benefits such as housing and financial aid, and he did not dare to go to school, out of fear of the police. He slept in his friends’ room and climbed out of the window when staff from the Migration Agency came to count the residents. He received food packages from the Red Cross but they did not last a whole month. He was living in Sweden, he had just turned 18 and he had almost no access to the system of welfare. When we finished the interview and I thanked him for his

participation, I said I wished I could change his situation, and that I hoped that in the long term, by writing this thesis, I would be able to somehow contribute to at least bringing attention to the precarious situation of (young) asylum seekers in Sweden. But during the car ride home, that felt very inadequate. I had a home to drive to and he had a story to share. This sense of injustice has come to

be a driver for me in my research. 

PART I

EXPLORING THE INTERSECTION OF SOCIAL WORK AND MIGRATION POLICY

Prologue

In August 2018, I visited a reception centre for asylum seekers run by the Swedish Migration Agency.

There I met a number of young persons who had been registered as unaccompanied minors upon their arrival in Sweden, but, due to recent changes in legislation, were no longer in the care of social services.

For these individuals, it meant going from being provided with housing, adult support, food and financial aid, to various levels of minimized or no benefits. Those who were still in the asylum process had the right to stay in this centre for adults and they received financial aid to cover their expenses for food.

Those who had their asylum claims rejected were granted neither housing nor aid. These were young persons who, through previous policy, up until recently would have been granted permanent residence permits based on humanitarian need and the situation they would face if sent back to their country of citizenship. Now, entangled in new policy on age assessments, restrictions in the Aliens Act and changes regarding benefits for asylum seekers, they found themselves in a situation with almost no rights. One in particular, who I have called Navid in this text, made a very strong impression on me. He had been denied a residence permit and access to benefits as an asylum seeker. He remained in the reception centre, although he had lost his right to do so, because he could not afford train tickets to go elsewhere and had nowhere to go. I asked how he went about his daily life with no financial aid, work permit or housing. He said:

Well, like I told you, I go to my friends to eat. Sometimes I take the leftovers from other people in the kitchen and cook with them. Sometimes I only eat one meal per day, because what should I do at the end of the month? I have to save some [food].

Navid’s account, as well as the situation of the other boys I met, made me angry, sad, filled with shame and even guilt. “How did this happen?” I wanted to ask – but there was nobody to take my questions. Navid had arrived in Sweden during what was referred to in the media and political discourse as “the refugee crisis” in 2015. The policy response to this “crisis” shaped not only what rights he could access as an asylum seeker, but ultimately, what life he could live as a human being.

Navid did not access benefits such as housing and financial aid, and he did not dare to go to school, out of fear of the police. He slept in his friends’ room and climbed out of the window when staff from the Migration Agency came to count the residents. He received food packages from the Red Cross but they did not last a whole month. He was living in Sweden, he had just turned 18 and he had almost no access to the system of welfare. When we finished the interview and I thanked him for his

participation, I said I wished I could change his situation, and that I hoped that in the long term, by writing this thesis, I would be able to somehow contribute to at least bringing attention to the precarious situation of (young) asylum seekers in Sweden. But during the car ride home, that felt very inadequate. I had a home to drive to and he had a story to share. This sense of injustice has come to

be a driver for me in my research. 

PART I

EXPLORING THE INTERSECTION OF SOCIAL WORK AND MIGRATION POLICY

1. Introduction

People have always migrated. And nations, for as long as such imagined communities have existed, have had different ways of dealing with this mobility of people. Until the beginning of the 20 ^th century, Swedish policy did not regulate migration with visa requirements and border controls – it was around the time of the Second World War that such measures were introduced to stop the refugee migration from the European continent (Åmark 2016).

In recent decades, political interventions to stop and control immigration have been increasingly explicit. In the European context, this has come to be referred to as the construction of Fortress Europe – a process that was intensified during the so-called refugee crisis (Hansen 2018, Fassin 2005 & 2011). Sweden has been involved in policy changes both on a unilateral level, with EU legislation and standards for visa requirements and on a national level through reforms regarding the asylum process, refugee reception, access to welfare and the possibility of family reunification. A central strategy has been to allocate border controls to international waters or to other countries, in order to avoid the non-refoulement principle. This means getting around the Geneva Convention where member states agree not to return asylum seekers to their country of origin if there is a risk of harm or persecution there (Kallergis 2020, Baker 2019, Human Rights Watch 2019 & 2018, Trevisanut 2018, Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees adopted by the UN in July 1951).

My area of interest is the intersection of Swedish child welfare policy and migration policy. I come from a background of social work; I worked for eight years as a child welfare caseworker before I embarked on the journey of writing this thesis in 2015. The same year, historic numbers of refugees were reported around the world by the UNHCR, and Sweden was no exception. While public opinion initially was compassionate and inclusive, it soon shifted towards increasing anti-immigrant sentiment and ideas that the welfare system was on the brink of a collapse (Lems et al 2020, Dahlgren 2016).

This shift in attitude is illustrated by how the Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfvén, in September 2015, during a public rally under the slogan of Refugees Welcome proclaimed that “My Europe does not build walls” (Löfvén 2015a). Only two months later, in November the same year, he expressed the need for a “respite” in order to save the municipalities from the perceived logistic burden of refugee reception (Löfvén 2015b). The need for a “respite” resulted in the introduction of supposedly temporary legislation with restrictions in the arena of asylum and the right to family reunification for refugee migrants (Lag 2016:752 om tillfälliga begränsningar av möjligheten att få uppehållstillstånd i Sverige). In the following, I will refer to this law as “the Temporary Aliens Act” and this period of time as “the migratory turn”. I write in this way in order to not further emphasize the idea of a “crisis”, but rather to focus on the policy responses. This is also a strategy in order to label the events without limiting their understanding to either a continuity of previous regime(s) or an abrupt shift in discourse(s), as the term “migratory turn” suggests either or both. A number of changes in policy on national and local were put in place during the years that followed (Lundberg 2017 a).

With the migratory turn, migration policy was at the centre of the public debate, with increased attention in Swedish media and an increased polarization of public opinion regarding migration

(Martinsson et al 2018, Strömbäck et al 2017). A dominant narrative was that there was not enough room for all asylum seekers, but also that it was not the responsibility of Sweden to provide shelter for “all” the refugee migrants that arrived to Europe. The situation was not described as a humanitarian crisis because people had to flee war, but because Europe had to deal with it. In this rhetoric, the figure of the unaccompanied minor came to embody the idea of a crisis and the concept of unaccompaniedness came to be associated with doubt and threat (Lems et al 2020). A narrative was repeated about adult migrants giving false accounts of their age in order to access welfare benefits and these migrant men posing a threat to order in Europe (Pruitt et al 2018).

Against this background, I view the period and the political reforms that were introduced in Sweden following 2015 as an example of a normative conflict, between universalist claims on human rights and nationalist claims on protecting the members of the state. My point of departure is that perhaps there was not less “room” for migrants in 2015 compared to one or ten years before, but that the meaning given to the presence of migrants may have changed, thus motivating new policy approaches. The fact that an event is labelled as a “crisis” does not necessarily mean more than that this event has been emphasized in political discourse with the purpose of signalling a distinct time of urgency and exceptionality (Ramsay 2019). As already mentioned, unaccompanied minors, as well as other refugee migrants, met restrictions and ambiguous policy programs after 2015. The temporality and uncertainty associated with the position of refugee migrants is not, however, unique to these groups, but rather a condition of austerity shared by increasing populations as a result of global capitalism (Ramsay 2019). Along the same lines I argue that the withdrawal of rights and access to welfare resources is not limited to unaccompanied minors. Within the framework of Swedish welfare since the 1990s, strategies to organize the welfare state through slogans of individualization, privatization and cost-effectiveness have motivated cuts and limitations in access to many welfare institutions for different populations, both migrant and non-migrant (Lennqvist Lindén 2010, Heffernan 2006). The concept of unaccompanied minors is positioned at the intersection of social policy and migration policy. This makes policy directed towards unaccompanied minors a relevant point of departure for policy analysis with a focus on access to rights and bordering practices.

Although children were supposed to be exempt from the Temporary Aliens Act, in practice it

came to have a severe impact on the lives of both children and adults. Lundberg et al (2020) show

that the opportunities for unaccompanied minors to establish themselves in Sweden were minimized

through the Temporary Aliens Act and other reforms that followed the “respite” (Lundberg et al

2020). Furthermore, responsibility for basic welfare services such as housing, food, care and support

for refugee migrants was transferred from welfare institutions of the state and municipalities to the

civil society (ibid). The number of children and young persons who were pushed out of different

support systems, in terms of housing, financial aid, access to health care and education reportedly

increased following the restrictions introduced during and after 2015 (Barnrättsbyrån 2018). The

standards for how and when children could be deported without accompanying adults were stretched

with new interpretations of what it means to have organized reception in the country of origin

(Lundberg & Jansson Keshavarz 2019). The principle of non-refoulment seemed not only to be disrupted

1. Introduction

People have always migrated. And nations, for as long as such imagined communities have existed, have had different ways of dealing with this mobility of people. Until the beginning of the 20 ^th century, Swedish policy did not regulate migration with visa requirements and border controls – it was around the time of the Second World War that such measures were introduced to stop the refugee migration from the European continent (Åmark 2016).

In recent decades, political interventions to stop and control immigration have been increasingly explicit. In the European context, this has come to be referred to as the construction of Fortress Europe – a process that was intensified during the so-called refugee crisis (Hansen 2018, Fassin 2005 & 2011). Sweden has been involved in policy changes both on a unilateral level, with EU legislation and standards for visa requirements and on a national level through reforms regarding the asylum process, refugee reception, access to welfare and the possibility of family reunification. A central strategy has been to allocate border controls to international waters or to other countries, in order to avoid the non-refoulement principle. This means getting around the Geneva Convention where member states agree not to return asylum seekers to their country of origin if there is a risk of harm or persecution there (Kallergis 2020, Baker 2019, Human Rights Watch 2019 & 2018, Trevisanut 2018, Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees adopted by the UN in July 1951).

My area of interest is the intersection of Swedish child welfare policy and migration policy. I come from a background of social work; I worked for eight years as a child welfare caseworker before I embarked on the journey of writing this thesis in 2015. The same year, historic numbers of refugees were reported around the world by the UNHCR, and Sweden was no exception. While public opinion initially was compassionate and inclusive, it soon shifted towards increasing anti-immigrant sentiment and ideas that the welfare system was on the brink of a collapse (Lems et al 2020, Dahlgren 2016).

This shift in attitude is illustrated by how the Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfvén, in September 2015, during a public rally under the slogan of Refugees Welcome proclaimed that “My Europe does not build walls” (Löfvén 2015a). Only two months later, in November the same year, he expressed the need for a “respite” in order to save the municipalities from the perceived logistic burden of refugee reception (Löfvén 2015b). The need for a “respite” resulted in the introduction of supposedly temporary legislation with restrictions in the arena of asylum and the right to family reunification for refugee migrants (Lag 2016:752 om tillfälliga begränsningar av möjligheten att få uppehållstillstånd i Sverige). In the following, I will refer to this law as “the Temporary Aliens Act” and this period of time as “the migratory turn”. I write in this way in order to not further emphasize the idea of a “crisis”, but rather to focus on the policy responses. This is also a strategy in order to label the events without limiting their understanding to either a continuity of previous regime(s) or an abrupt shift in discourse(s), as the term “migratory turn” suggests either or both. A number of changes in policy on national and local were put in place during the years that followed (Lundberg 2017 a).

With the migratory turn, migration policy was at the centre of the public debate, with increased attention in Swedish media and an increased polarization of public opinion regarding migration

(Martinsson et al 2018, Strömbäck et al 2017). A dominant narrative was that there was not enough room for all asylum seekers, but also that it was not the responsibility of Sweden to provide shelter for “all” the refugee migrants that arrived to Europe. The situation was not described as a humanitarian crisis because people had to flee war, but because Europe had to deal with it. In this rhetoric, the figure of the unaccompanied minor came to embody the idea of a crisis and the concept of unaccompaniedness came to be associated with doubt and threat (Lems et al 2020). A narrative was repeated about adult migrants giving false accounts of their age in order to access welfare benefits and these migrant men posing a threat to order in Europe (Pruitt et al 2018).

Against this background, I view the period and the political reforms that were introduced in Sweden following 2015 as an example of a normative conflict, between universalist claims on human rights and nationalist claims on protecting the members of the state. My point of departure is that perhaps there was not less “room” for migrants in 2015 compared to one or ten years before, but that the meaning given to the presence of migrants may have changed, thus motivating new policy approaches. The fact that an event is labelled as a “crisis” does not necessarily mean more than that this event has been emphasized in political discourse with the purpose of signalling a distinct time of urgency and exceptionality (Ramsay 2019). As already mentioned, unaccompanied minors, as well as other refugee migrants, met restrictions and ambiguous policy programs after 2015. The temporality and uncertainty associated with the position of refugee migrants is not, however, unique to these groups, but rather a condition of austerity shared by increasing populations as a result of global capitalism (Ramsay 2019). Along the same lines I argue that the withdrawal of rights and access to welfare resources is not limited to unaccompanied minors. Within the framework of Swedish welfare since the 1990s, strategies to organize the welfare state through slogans of individualization, privatization and cost-effectiveness have motivated cuts and limitations in access to many welfare institutions for different populations, both migrant and non-migrant (Lennqvist Lindén 2010, Heffernan 2006). The concept of unaccompanied minors is positioned at the intersection of social policy and migration policy. This makes policy directed towards unaccompanied minors a relevant point of departure for policy analysis with a focus on access to rights and bordering practices.

Although children were supposed to be exempt from the Temporary Aliens Act, in practice it

came to have a severe impact on the lives of both children and adults. Lundberg et al (2020) show

that the opportunities for unaccompanied minors to establish themselves in Sweden were minimized

through the Temporary Aliens Act and other reforms that followed the “respite” (Lundberg et al

2020). Furthermore, responsibility for basic welfare services such as housing, food, care and support

for refugee migrants was transferred from welfare institutions of the state and municipalities to the

civil society (ibid). The number of children and young persons who were pushed out of different

support systems, in terms of housing, financial aid, access to health care and education reportedly

increased following the restrictions introduced during and after 2015 (Barnrättsbyrån 2018). The

standards for how and when children could be deported without accompanying adults were stretched

with new interpretations of what it means to have organized reception in the country of origin

(Lundberg & Jansson Keshavarz 2019). The principle of non-refoulment seemed not only to be disrupted

but also under attack, as the question seemed to be whether we should be entitled to rights only as citizens or as human beings (Arendt 2017). The question of access to rights as a fundamental principle for human rights, citizenship and social work ethics is at the core of this thesis.

Coming from a child welfare background and with experiences of No Border activism that goes back to the early 2000s, my first instinct in 2015 was to leave academia before I had started my PhD program. I thought I should make myself useful on a Greek island or at the Central Station in Stockholm where volunteers were working day and night to provide the basic humanitarian aid that the state had suddenly withdrawn (Franck 2018). Family reasons, political depression and other circumstances made me decide to stay. I had also already spent many years in activism and I felt disillusioned. To paraphrase Frantz Fanon, I was utterly exhausted with shouting (1968). It is indeed tiresome to demand justice and rights, it was so in the era of colonialism and it remains so today. Yet, it is a privilege to be able to choose whether to engage or not. I therefor dedicated my research to the rights claims that were articulated by young asylum seekers. It was difficult not to critically reflect on the subject matter when the media and public debate was increasingly focused on migration (Strömbäck et al 2017, Dahlgren 2016, Bolin et al 2016). I, on a personal level, as well as part of contemporary public debate in its broadest sense, need to understand how subjects can be re- constructed within public policy as it seems, on a whim – how it is that individuals can be included or excluded from the right to rights from one day to the next.

When I met Navid and other young persons who were positioned outside all welfare networks, it became clear to me that the universalist welfare approach, for which Sweden and its Scandinavian neighbours are famous, does not live up to its reputation. Former colleagues, from my time as a caseworker for unaccompanied minors, expressed frustration, anger and depression during the years following the Temporary Aliens Act. Some quit their jobs, saying that they could not defend what they were being asked to do. The main criticism within my network of social worker friends was that they could not conduct social work in line with their professional ethics in a setting that was aimed at deportations. This frustration, which can be seen as anecdotal information, later took the form of an organized critique in new social movements, where welfare professionals, activists and newly arrived asylum seekers made demands of policy makers. Social workers played a central role in these movements together with young asylum seekers. These actions, which came to expand the space for inclusion, will be analyzed as enactments of citizenship (Saward 2013, Isin 2002).

The intersection of social work and migration policy is thus interesting because it highlights ways in which borders are thought about and practised through the policy and practice of social work.

I see social work as an arena for inclusion and exclusion of subjects into communities, welfare systems and rights, and, as such, it touches on questions such as who belongs and through what conditions. It therefore becomes less sufficient to ask “how” and “why” the so-called “refugee crisis” was caused.

Such explanations have already been presented in terms of numbers, volumes and economic prospects (Ostrand 2015, Esaiasson et al 2016). In the same way, rather than collecting accounts of those who were subjected to these reforms, I see a need for research which critically analyzes the logic which

enables these changes in policy. Such an analysis stretches from an empirical level, grounded in policy close to social work practice, to an elevated abstract level, interacting with discussions in political philosophy regarding the right to rights. The concept of grievability is a theoretical point of departure (Butler 2009). The construction ungrievable lives refers to dehumanizing practices, ways of positioning certain subjects as less worthy of collective engagement. The pain and suffering of such subjects becomes invisible through specific discourses within which these subjects are produced. Analyzing discursive effects can mean focusing on the way access to rights is defined for such subject positions, how this is shaped by particular meanings articulated through discourse.

The way policy shapes lives means, among other things, the production of thousands of young persons in the position of Navid. While writing this thesis, I remember the grief I felt when we met, but also the shame of being a citizen, a taxpayer, a researcher in a country that treats young people the way he was treated. To me, it is not a case of deciding whether the Swedish policy and reforms after 2015 were right or not – they were obviously very harmful for many people. What is relevant is to understand how a (particular) political context enabled these reforms and to discuss the presence of ideology and ethics in the realm of social work. How lives are defined depends on the boundaries drawn around them but also on the ideological ambitions articulated in relation to the nation. Borders can be produced through acts on different levels in society, from policy to routines in a social services office (Yuval-Davis et al 2018, Balibar 2004). Inclusion in the system of welfare is also shaped through acts on different levels, citizenship enactment, assertion in informal contexts as well as extension of the formal institution of citizenship through legal procedures (Saward 2013, Isisn 2008). This defines the rights that Navid and young persons with similar experiences have and ultimately shapes both their lives and the social work practice organized for them.

In the case of Navid, policy and the recent reforms shaped his access to a number of benefits – not only to a residence permit. This makes it relevant to think around the discursive effects of policy, what policy does to the persons affected by it. Limited scholarly work has been published in a Swedish context where social work is infused with theoretical inspiration from the fields of migration studies as well as critical race studies and/or anti-racist approaches, in order to analyze how migration policy affects the conditions for social work. I argue that it is of relevance, both to academia and to the contemporary professional and political debate, to further explore the relationship between migration policy and social work. Such analysis can be a way to bring light to consequences of bordering policies that refer to or affect child welfare services. Beyond the practicalities of welfare distribution, the fears and fantasies caught up in the concept of unaccompaniedness expose how it is possible to become a subject whose life is worth grieving, how this position is conditioned and limited by access to rights.

On the other hand, processes of inclusion and exclusion show what subjects can be excluded from

the right to have such rights. What is really at the core of this thesis is thus a question of humanity

and what lives are constructed as (un-)grievable through migration and welfare policy.

but also under attack, as the question seemed to be whether we should be entitled to rights only as citizens or as human beings (Arendt 2017). The question of access to rights as a fundamental principle for human rights, citizenship and social work ethics is at the core of this thesis.

Coming from a child welfare background and with experiences of No Border activism that goes back to the early 2000s, my first instinct in 2015 was to leave academia before I had started my PhD program. I thought I should make myself useful on a Greek island or at the Central Station in Stockholm where volunteers were working day and night to provide the basic humanitarian aid that the state had suddenly withdrawn (Franck 2018). Family reasons, political depression and other circumstances made me decide to stay. I had also already spent many years in activism and I felt disillusioned. To paraphrase Frantz Fanon, I was utterly exhausted with shouting (1968). It is indeed tiresome to demand justice and rights, it was so in the era of colonialism and it remains so today. Yet, it is a privilege to be able to choose whether to engage or not. I therefor dedicated my research to the rights claims that were articulated by young asylum seekers. It was difficult not to critically reflect on the subject matter when the media and public debate was increasingly focused on migration (Strömbäck et al 2017, Dahlgren 2016, Bolin et al 2016). I, on a personal level, as well as part of contemporary public debate in its broadest sense, need to understand how subjects can be re- constructed within public policy as it seems, on a whim – how it is that individuals can be included or excluded from the right to rights from one day to the next.

When I met Navid and other young persons who were positioned outside all welfare networks, it became clear to me that the universalist welfare approach, for which Sweden and its Scandinavian neighbours are famous, does not live up to its reputation. Former colleagues, from my time as a caseworker for unaccompanied minors, expressed frustration, anger and depression during the years following the Temporary Aliens Act. Some quit their jobs, saying that they could not defend what they were being asked to do. The main criticism within my network of social worker friends was that they could not conduct social work in line with their professional ethics in a setting that was aimed at deportations. This frustration, which can be seen as anecdotal information, later took the form of an organized critique in new social movements, where welfare professionals, activists and newly arrived asylum seekers made demands of policy makers. Social workers played a central role in these movements together with young asylum seekers. These actions, which came to expand the space for inclusion, will be analyzed as enactments of citizenship (Saward 2013, Isin 2002).

The intersection of social work and migration policy is thus interesting because it highlights ways in which borders are thought about and practised through the policy and practice of social work.

I see social work as an arena for inclusion and exclusion of subjects into communities, welfare systems and rights, and, as such, it touches on questions such as who belongs and through what conditions. It therefore becomes less sufficient to ask “how” and “why” the so-called “refugee crisis” was caused.

Such explanations have already been presented in terms of numbers, volumes and economic prospects (Ostrand 2015, Esaiasson et al 2016). In the same way, rather than collecting accounts of those who were subjected to these reforms, I see a need for research which critically analyzes the logic which

enables these changes in policy. Such an analysis stretches from an empirical level, grounded in policy close to social work practice, to an elevated abstract level, interacting with discussions in political philosophy regarding the right to rights. The concept of grievability is a theoretical point of departure (Butler 2009). The construction ungrievable lives refers to dehumanizing practices, ways of positioning certain subjects as less worthy of collective engagement. The pain and suffering of such subjects becomes invisible through specific discourses within which these subjects are produced. Analyzing discursive effects can mean focusing on the way access to rights is defined for such subject positions, how this is shaped by particular meanings articulated through discourse.

The way policy shapes lives means, among other things, the production of thousands of young persons in the position of Navid. While writing this thesis, I remember the grief I felt when we met, but also the shame of being a citizen, a taxpayer, a researcher in a country that treats young people the way he was treated. To me, it is not a case of deciding whether the Swedish policy and reforms after 2015 were right or not – they were obviously very harmful for many people. What is relevant is to understand how a (particular) political context enabled these reforms and to discuss the presence of ideology and ethics in the realm of social work. How lives are defined depends on the boundaries drawn around them but also on the ideological ambitions articulated in relation to the nation. Borders can be produced through acts on different levels in society, from policy to routines in a social services office (Yuval-Davis et al 2018, Balibar 2004). Inclusion in the system of welfare is also shaped through acts on different levels, citizenship enactment, assertion in informal contexts as well as extension of the formal institution of citizenship through legal procedures (Saward 2013, Isisn 2008). This defines the rights that Navid and young persons with similar experiences have and ultimately shapes both their lives and the social work practice organized for them.

In the case of Navid, policy and the recent reforms shaped his access to a number of benefits – not only to a residence permit. This makes it relevant to think around the discursive effects of policy, what policy does to the persons affected by it. Limited scholarly work has been published in a Swedish context where social work is infused with theoretical inspiration from the fields of migration studies as well as critical race studies and/or anti-racist approaches, in order to analyze how migration policy affects the conditions for social work. I argue that it is of relevance, both to academia and to the contemporary professional and political debate, to further explore the relationship between migration policy and social work. Such analysis can be a way to bring light to consequences of bordering policies that refer to or affect child welfare services. Beyond the practicalities of welfare distribution, the fears and fantasies caught up in the concept of unaccompaniedness expose how it is possible to become a subject whose life is worth grieving, how this position is conditioned and limited by access to rights.

On the other hand, processes of inclusion and exclusion show what subjects can be excluded from

the right to have such rights. What is really at the core of this thesis is thus a question of humanity

and what lives are constructed as (un-)grievable through migration and welfare policy.