Introduction
The focus of this book is on how refugees to Sweden from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) (1992–1995), and more recently from Syria (2014–2018), make sense of their experiences that arise when taking part in programs and initiatives intended to foster refugee integration. These include the experiences that result from participation in formal programs, such as those focusing on language education, civic orientation, validation of education qualifications, and a broad range of labor market initiatives. But it also includes how refugees make sense of the less formal aspects of their journeys toward integration: the presence (or lack of) professional and personal networks, senses of inclusion or exclusion in Swedish society, and more general reflections on the overall process of refugee integration as carried out by the key institutions and organizations tasked with doing so.
While much of the most recent scholarship on refugee integration has examined the immediate impact of the arrival of large numbers of people to various European states in conjunction with the Syrian refugee crisis, little research exists that considers the similarities and differences between this most recent wave of refugee resettlement and previous large-scale experiences with the integration of refugees from conflict zones. Second, the bulk of the existing scholarship that addresses the effects of refugee integration considers the development and reform of relevant institutions and policies, as well as identifying concrete integration outcomes. Far less prominent in this research are the voices of refugees themselves. While not arguing that refugees’ perspectives on the integration process are the sole form of data to be considered, we emphasize that they are an especially overlooked source of data—particularly when it comes to gaining increased analytical leverage on how the institutions of integration such as employment offices, language schools, and companies and organizations providing internships and employment can be successful, or can replicate the mistakes of the past.
Recent public policy and public administration literature addressing refugee integration has chiefly explored the modes of governance that emerge in different national settings, with a particular emphasis on making use of official documents and elite interviews. Similarly for the organizational literature, there is only a small number of studies (e.g., Bergström and Omanović 2017; Malik and Manroop 2017) that focus explicitly on the organizational socialization of migrants and which make analytical use of migrant perspectives. This book is therefore unique by putting the primary focusing on the voices of refugees themselves, which allows for a more nuanced understanding of how the institutions of integration (including organizations and their practices of organizing) operate on a daily basis, are interconnected with one other, and the effects they have on the lives of those who take part in them.
In doing so, we also show how refugees in both these cases see themselves as having significant agency in achieving their integration goals, even when they confront institutions that are perceived as barriers and when they encounter street-level bureaucrats who are seen as being obstacles to rapid and meaningful integration. While refugees in both these cases have faced significant challenges, it is clear that many of them are ambitiously pursuing their societal and labor market integration by actively identifying opportunities—both inside and outside of formal programs—in order to become established members of their new host societies.
We achieve this by making use of over ninety interviews conducted with refugees to Sweden from BiH and Syria. These two cases of refugee arrival and integration represent two of the largest-scale refugee resettlement experiences faced by European countries in the past thirty years. Focusing on the voices of these refugees in the Swedish context is especially valuable, given that Sweden is widely perceived as having not only generous refugee reception policies, but also those that are exceptionally comprehensive in their societal scope. As such, this book makes a more general contribution to the integration literature by highlighting how the institutions of integration, produced by states with good intentions, are evaluated by those who must navigate their complexity, uncertainty, and limited resources. In addition, we contribute to the organizational literature by making more visible the mutual relationships between the refugee and migrant agency to become established and integrated, and the ongoing practices of organizing that both open and close doors for refugees. Moreover, these relationships cannot be understood without taking place within a broader societal context, especially the discourses related to migration and integration.
The structure of this book is as follows: the remainder of this chapter casts the spotlight on the processes of integration, detailing how the associated policies and programs are often problematized in the literature and calling attention to the omission of refugee voices from much previous research. The remainder of this chapter provides the reader with the necessary context—in terms of key Swedish policies targeting the admission and integration or refugees, as well as information regarding the scope of arrivals and migrant numbers—to make sense of the two case study chapters. Chapter 2 provides a detailed background introduction to each of our two cases, that of BiH refugees and that of Syrian refugees. The chapter emphasizes the key events that led to the large-scale arrivals, but puts the bulk of the emphasis on the policies, institutions, and organizational practices of relevance for bringing about refugee integration in all spheres. We also situate these against the backdrop of prevailing societal logics for the shifting contract between the Swedish state and the individual over time when it comes to expectation for employment assistance and the role of individual initiative. Chapter 3 details the methodological guidelines that inform this study. We use this chapter as an opportunity to position ourselves methodologically in the broadest sense of the term—by detailing our stance on issues of generalizability—and also more narrowly in terms of arguing for the utility of migrant voices in this context. The chapter also presents the concrete methodological guidelines that govern the data collection, coding, and subsequent analysis. Chapters 4 and 5 present unique data from our two cases—that of BiH refugees and that of Syrian refugees. Each chapter presents a chronologically (in the case of Chap. 4) or thematically (in the case of Chap. 5) structured presentation of refugee perceptions of the experiences of having taken part in both the formal and informal institutions and practices of refugee integration into Swedish society. Finally, Chap. 6 considers the implications of the reflections offered by refugees when considering their encounters with the institutions and organizations charged with enduring effective refugee integration into Swedish society. We address the relationship—both in terms of similarities and differences—between the two cases, and what the combined assessment from refugees has to suggest for both the current public administration/policy and organizational literature addressing refugee integration. Lastly, we consider the societal implications of our findings—and suggest how these migrant voices represent a unique and important contribution to the debate about refugee integration in Sweden and beyond.
Integration: What Does It Entail?
There is no uniformly agreed upon understanding of the term ‘integration’. Meanings vary from country to country, change over time, and depend on the interests, values, and perspectives of the actors involved. When simplified to its very essence, integration could be described as a process intended to enable the migrant to achieve an equal footing with the ‘native’ population in terms of functioning in society. In other words, the aim is to make the immigrant autonomous in everyday life, particularly through meaningful socioeconomic inclusion (Jacobs and Rea 2007). Dominant political discourses of...