Social work and welfare bordering: the case of homeless EU migrants in Norway

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to the emergent European-wide conversation questioning the nation-state as the given unit of analysis for social work theory and practice through exploring encounters between migrants with precarious citizenship statuses, specifically homeless EU migrants, and social workers in Norway. It contends that the Norwegian social work profession has yet to engage critically with the exclusionary potential inherent in its self-identification as a welfare state profession. Paying attention to how homeless EU migrants are increasingly demarcated as ‘illegal’ in Norwegian welfare legislation, I argue for the aptness of employing the analytical lens of ‘welfare bordering’ when analysing encounters between these migrants and social workers. Building on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, the analysis further suggests that even social workers not mandated with administering public social welfare provisions get entangled in welfare bordering, at times enacting the border themselves. While social workers actively attempt to contest the exclusionary mechanisms of the welfare state in individual cases, such attempts might not challenge the migrants’ general exclusion from public welfare services per se, leaving homeless EU migrants in Norway dependent on welfare structures based on empathy and charity rather than realisation of rights.

SAMANDRAG

Denne artikkelen bidreg til den veksande samtalen innan europeisk sosialt arbeid der ein stiller spørsmål ved nasjonalstaten som analyseeining for praksis og teori i sosialt arbeid, gjennom å utforska møte mellom migrantar med prekær velferdsrettsleg status, særleg heimlause EU migrantar, og sosialarbeidarar i Norge. Artikkelen oppmodar den norske sosialarbeidarprofesjonen om å forhalda seg kritisk til og diskutera det ekskluderande potensialet som ligg innebygd i at den identifiserer seg som ein velferdsstatsprofesjon. Eg argumenterer for å bruka ‘welfare bordering’, samanveving av migrasjonskontroll og velferdspolitikk, som analytisk blikk på møte mellom migrantane og sosialarbeidarar, og viser korleis heimlause EU migrantar i aukande grad vert gjort ‘ulovlege’ i norsk velferdslovgjeving. Basert på omfattande etnografisk feltarbeid, viser analysen vidare at sjølv sosialarbeidarar som ikkje forvaltar offentlege velferdsordningar vert vikla inn i denne forma for migrasjonskontroll, og at dei tidvis utøver den sjølve. Medan sosialarbeidarar aktivt protesterer mot ekskluderande mekanismar i velferdsstaten i enkeltsaker, ser det ikkje ut til at slike protestar utfordrar den generelle utestenginga av heimlause EU migrantar frå offentlege velferdstenester. Migrantane vert dermed overlatne til, og vert avhengige av, velferdsstrukturar som er baserte på velvilje og veldedigheit, heller enn realisering av rettar.

KEYWORDS:

• transnationalism in social work
• bordering
• EU migrants
• irregular migrants
• Norway

NØKKELORD:

• transnasjonalisme i sosialt arbeid
• migrasjonskontroll
• EU migrantar
• irregulære migrantar
• Norge

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to all the individuals and organisations that contributed to my research. Thank you to my supervisors, the guest editor, and the two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and guidance. A particular thank you to the three social worker-informants who took time to read the entire manuscript and provide valuable and insightful input.

Disclosure statement

The author reports no potential conflict of interest.

Notes on contributor

Turid Misje is a PhD candidate at Centre of Diaconia and Professional Practice at VID Specialized University, Oslo, Norway. She holds a bachelor's degree in Social Work and a master's degree in Social Anthropology. She has 15 years of experience within social work practice and has since 2014 been a lecturer at the Faculty of Social Studies at VID Specialized University.

Notes

1 All names and some details throughout have been altered or omitted to ensure anonymity. The study was approved by the Norwegian Centre for Research Data (NSD). Consent was obtained from all involved.

2 Whereas Norway is not a member of the European Union (EU), it is party to the EEA agreement. EU migrants can therefore stay legally in Norway for three months without registering with the authorities. While employing the term EU migrant, I acknowledge that the migrants in question are mobile EU citizens enacting their right to free movement (cf. Yildiz & De Genova, 2018).

3 I employ the term ‘migrants with precarious citizenship statuses’ (cf. Lafleur & Mescoli, 2018) when talking of this larger group of migrants, to avoid connotations of illegality.

4 This includes employees in the Agency for Urban Environment in Oslo, at the Health and Social Services Ombudsman in Oslo and at the County Governor of Oslo.

5 Notable exceptions are Näsholm, 2018; Scheistrøen, 2015; Viggen, 2018; Vollebæk, 2018.

6 This was free of charge.