GOTHENBURG STUDIES IN SOCIOLOGY – 2013:01 A Normal Life: Reception of Asylum Seekers in an Italian and a Swedish Region Åsa Wettergren GOTHENBURG STUDIES IN SOCIOLOGY – 2013:01 Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................................ 3 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 4 1.1 The field of migration research ...................................................................................................... 6 1.2 Purpose and aims ............................................................................................................................. 10 1.3 Some key concepts ........................................................................................................................... 11 1.4 The theoretical perspective of the sociology of emotions ................................................ 13 1.5 The outline of this report .............................................................................................................. 15 2. Method ......................................................................................................................................................... 16 2.1 Data collection ................................................................................................................................... 16 2.2 The observations .............................................................................................................................. 18 2.3 The interviews ................................................................................................................................... 20 2.3.1 Selection of interviewees ...................................................................................................... 20 2.3.2 Focus of the interviews .......................................................................................................... 25 2.3.3 Language and translation ..................................................................................................... 26 2.4 Description, analysis and interpretation ................................................................................. 27 2.5 Ethics – the humility of social research ................................................................................... 31 2.6 Generalization .................................................................................................................................... 33 3. Italy: Città .................................................................................................................................................... 36 3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 36 3.2 Getting there ....................................................................................................................................... 40 3.2.1 Meeting bureaucracy .............................................................................................................. 43 3.3 The asylum reception programme in Città – context and contrasts ............................ 44 3.3.1 Scarce resources for social work ....................................................................................... 47 3.3.2 The project industry ............................................................................................................... 48 3.4 The ideal and the possible – conflicting perspectives ........................................................ 50 3.5 Professionalism and emotional balance .................................................................................. 55 3.6 Staying sane and managing everyday life ............................................................................... 58 3.7 Autonomy and discipline ............................................................................................................... 61 3.8 ‘It’s not a gender issue …’ .............................................................................................................. 66 3.9 Summary and conclusions ............................................................................................................ 70 4. Sweden – Yby and Province ................................................................................................................. 74 4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 74 1 GOTHENBURG STUDIES IN SOCIOLOGY – 2013:01 4.2 Getting there ....................................................................................................................................... 80 4.2.1 Meeting bureaucracy .............................................................................................................. 83 4.3 Organizing accommodation during the application process: Yby and Lillbacken. 86 4.3.1 The housing situation ............................................................................................................. 91 4.3.2 The Lillbacken accommodation .......................................................................................... 94 4.3.3 Asylum reception as regional maintenance ................................................................... 97 4.3.4 Everyday racism in and around accommodations ...................................................... 99 4.4 The ideal and the resignation – introduction for ‘new arrivals’ in Stad ....................103 4.4.1 Preparing to get a job – the practical part of introduction ....................................106 4.4.2 Knowledge and determination – the theoretical part..............................................111 4.5 Autonomy, discipline, and integration – fostering the democratic subject .............114 4.5.1 ‘You must negotiate’ – gender equality as key to Swedishness ...........................118 4.6 Professionalism – working with ‘survival experts’ ...........................................................125 4.7 Security and hope, grief and frustration................................................................................131 4.8 Summary and conclusions ..........................................................................................................138 5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................143 5.1 Down and out in Città and Yby/Stad ......................................................................................143 5.2 The pattern of similarities ..........................................................................................................152 5.2.1 Low visibility and relative poverty .................................................................................152 5.2.2 Otherization .............................................................................................................................157 5.2.3 Reception of asylum seekers benefits the region ......................................................160 5.3 Final remarks ...................................................................................................................................161 References .....................................................................................................................................................163 2 GOTHENBURG STUDIES IN SOCIOLOGY – 2013:01 Acknowledgements The project presented in this book ran part-time from 2006 to 2010 and included data collected in Sweden and Italy. The entire project was financed by my temporary position as a research fellow (including part-time teaching) at Karlstad University from 2005 to 2009, but the fieldwork in Italy was made possible by a travelling grant from the Swedish Tercentenary Foundation. Thanks to this, and to the hospitality of the Department of Social and Political Studies of the European University Institute, I was able to spend a semester as a visiting fellow in Italy in the autumn of 2006. Without participants there is no study. I am humbly indebted to both the migrants and the frontliners who agreed to be interviewed and shadowed, to the employees of the Italian organization Arci, to the entire staff of the accommodation centre in the Italian region, and to the officers of the Swedish Migration Board, for patiently accepting my presence during the fieldwork. I also wish to thank Professor Donnatella della Porta, who helped with the initial contacts in Italy, without which there might have been no data from Italy. Likewise, without Peter Söderholm, who mediated contact with the Swedish Migration Board, obtaining access to this bureaucracy might have been a lot more complicated. Many people have offered invaluable support and assistance during the years that I have been working on this report and presenting parts of it at seminars and conferences. I especially wish to thank my colleagues at the Department of Social Studies at Karlstad University, and my colleagues in the research network RN 11 Sociology of Emotions, of the European Sociological Association. Since January 2010 I have been working in the Department of Sociology at the University of Gothenburg. Here my friends and colleagues Cathrin Wasshede and Cecilia