https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1569-8582
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ABSTRACT
In Sweden, Denmark and Norway, activation policies are used to speed up refugee’s entry into the labour market. Previous research on activation policy documents has shown that refugees are ethnicised in the framing, development, and design of activation, but research on activation practices are lacking on how activation practices targeting refugees are organized and conducted, and why that is. This article analyses how and why refugees and ‘general unemployed’ are activated in different interventions within a municipal labour market programme, and which implications such division may have for the refugees being activated in said labour market programme. The article draws on interviews with a manager, social workers and participants within the same municipal labour market programme. The findings show that unemployed refugees were differentiated from ‘general unemployed’ by placing refugees in a specific intervention. The theoretical analysis, based on Charles Tilly’s theorizations on social categorizations and stories, shows how the differentiation maintained an inequality between the refugee participants and ‘general unemployed participants in how resources were provided, connected to the organization emulating and adapting to surrounding society. The inequal organization was legitimized through the stories the interviewees told regarding the labour market programme which in the article is concluded as a standard story of ethnicising activation. The ethnicising activation is analysed as an exploitation of the unemployed refugee participants, who in turn hoards the opportunity of participating in the labour market programme, in hope to find paths towards the labour market.
Acknowledgment
The author would like to thank the reviewers for their helpful comments. The author would also like to thank Rickard Ulmestig, Gabriella Scaramuzzino and Norma Montesino for their guidance.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Further referred to as ‘the programme’.
2. 1000 Swedish crowns correspond to approximately 91.7 Euros.