Browsing by Subject "Migration"

This master’s thesis aims to provide a broader and deeper knowledge within the areas of migration and integration. The study tasks are how the diaspora community is involved in the overall migration and integration process in a host state and what role social networks play in different phases of migration. There are four essential conceptual features of the migration phenomenon are identified in the study: migration, integration, diaspora community, and social networks. These concepts are analysed focusing on the factors of migration, integration process, how diaspora community and social networks work. The analysis is done using a comprehensive case study on the Bangladeshi diaspora community in Finland. The study material is collected through semi-structured interviews with 10 Bangladeshi student migrants living in Finland. As a potential migrant group as well as an underexamined study group, student migrants are chosen the study participants. A thematic analysis of the data is carried out to unveil the underlying meanings of how student migrants narrate their experiences as an immigrant. The themes identified are used to critically reflect on and explore the aspects and dynamics of the nexus between diasporas and social networks in migration and integration. This study outcomes identify education as the major pull factor for the student migrants considering Finnish high quality of research facilities, education environment, and the fee-free study system. It also marks that both personal and social networks have a strong role in migrant’s decision of choosing Finland as their destination. The role of technology becomes prominent in the current age in terms of gathering information, admission procedure, and visa processing. This is even more realised due to the absence of the Embassy operation and other official communication channels. The study finds the diaspora community’s role is increasingly becoming significant in the present context, they provide migrants with access to information, job conditions as well as settling them with finding accommodation, education places, emotional support, and comfort of belonging in a host country. Within this journey of a migrant, social media platform has appeared as a crucial part of social networks and diasporas in terms of communication. Facebook groups have become a major communication channel. Additionally, the Corona situation has made online engagement among people more visible. Nonetheless, this diaspora-social network-migration-integration nexus can play both a supportive as well as a critical role for migrants as the experience varies.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how people displaced by climate change can be accommodated within the European Union's existing migration governance system while taking into consideration the recent failures and injustices of this system during the so-called refugee crisis. The intention for framing the discussion about climate-induced migration in the context of the refugee crisis is not to compare or equate the two phenomena but to highlight the many injustices and protection gaps that exist under the current migration regimes, and to analyze how climate change will impact these regimes and the legal protections provided for migrants, asylum seekers, and displaced peoples. To begin this analysis, this thesis first looks at the relationship between climate change and migration, where it is determined that climate-induced migration is a complex and multi-causal phenomenon that can impact human mobility in multiple ways. People displaced by climate change face multiple protection gaps in both international and EU law, and there is currently no distinct instrument or coherent policy approach from the EU that is directly applicable to ‘climate migrants’ or climate-induced migration. The second part of this analysis looks at the fractured structure of EU migration governance and how the systems and mechanisms in place failed to adequately protect asylum seekers during the refugee crisis, with a focus on the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). This analysis showed that the EU failed to implement its supranational migration policies efficiently during the refugee crisis, which had a detrimental impact on securing and ensuring the legal protections of migrants and asylum seekers. Part of this failure was due to the lack of unity and trust between Member States, and also because the EU adopted an increasingly securitized approach to migration, abandoning its human rights obligations in order to create a false sense of security. The conclusion of this study found that the increasing securitization of both climate change and the EU’s migration and asylum policies will likely have negative consequences for people displaced by climate change and seeking protection in the EU. The continual and persistent portrayal of climate-induced migration as a potential security threat has hindered the development of any effective policies to address the issue, and the EU has shown little political will to radically rethink its current migration laws, mechanisms, or governance systems. The impacts of climate change will only further contribute to the protection gaps and marginalization that migrants and asylum seekers already face, and the way forward is to continue funding scientific research that captures the complex and multi-causal nature of climate-induced migration, which will help move migration and asylum policies beyond their current securitized outlook and provide evidence-based policies that will better protect those displaced by climate change.

Medelhavsrutten för migranter är extremt farlig, som årligen resulterar till flera migranters död. Dock är det inte endast färden över havet som dödar migranterna, men även de beslut och åtgärder som EU använder sig av för att kontrollera migrationen vid området. Jag har analyserat politiken och åtgärderna genom sociologiska teorier för att visa EU:s skyldighet i dödsfallen och lidandet av migranter. Analysen har gynnat mig att diskutera djupare olika fenomen som leder till dödligheten och våldet, exempelvis behoven av kontroll. Efter min analys om dödligheten och våldet på migranter kunde jag se tecken på EU:s skuld över händelserna vid Medelhavet.

Migration is becoming broader and more complex by the day. After the refugee crisis in 2015, the state policies revolving integration were revised in order to better meet the needs of the situation at hand. The revision lead to a strong focus on labour market integration, and consequently a narrower understanding of integration. Previous research shows that employment is the gateway to society, but at the same time it is widely acknowledged that sensing belonging is crucial for well-being, hence also a building block for integration. However, sensing belonging is constantly challenged due to migration. People move to Finland due to very different reasons, and also have different needs, therefore integration needs to be inspected from a broad perspective, taking into account various factors. Questions revolving what the objectives are with integration, and what it means for the individual as well as for the society are predominant when doing research on integration. The aim of this thesis is to place the immigrant in the centre of the discussion, to gain a deeper understanding of what is perceived as meaningful for integration and furthermore to investigate what value employment has within integration for the persons involved. The data was gathered during the spring of 2018, thematic in depth interviews were made with five informants, all of whom are first generation immigrants and have experience of working life in Finland. The results demonstrated that integration is a manifold process, that it was subjective and had a temporal connotation. A unanimous result showed that interactions with society, sensing belonging and employment are central for what is perceived as meaningful for integration. In regards to what the value of employment is within integration, a more shattered result was seen, central experiences were that employment gives financial security, purpose and daily routines. Furthermore, the result showed that perceptions of the value of employment were often loaded with faulty expectations that were not met in real life. The main result showed that employment was not a precondition for integration, neither was employment equal to integration, furthermore a differentiation between being employed and unemployed was far too easy to make, since today a lot of the benefits that a paid job gives can be found in other settings, for example through volunteer work. Despite this, financial security which only derives from a paid job was a precondition for all informants to be able to stay in Finland, and therefore employment was of great value for integration.

The one-child policy of the People’s Republic of China created an entire generation of Chinese only-children, who have migrated abroad more often than any previous generation. However, despite the increased emigration, alongside the aging population, the Chinese elderly care system relies on the inputs of children. Therefore, there is a fundamental conflict between the filial intergenerational caregiving responsibilities and international migration processes, although some caregiving forms may be exchanged from a distance. This master’s thesis investigates how the Chinese first-generation only-child migrants who live in Finland experience caring for their parents in China. The research questions are: How do Chinese one-child transnational families practice transnational caregiving? What are the expectations and possibilities concerning caregiving? What are the elderly care arrangements like for the parents? The theoretical framework of this study consists of three dimensions of transnational caregiving: care circulation approach, transnational caregiving types, and the capacity, obligation, and negotiated commitment as factors that explain the practices of transnational caregiving. The research data consists of nine semi-structured interviews of Chinese migrants of the only-child generation. The analysis method is qualitative theory-guided content analysis. The results suggest that Chinese migrants and their parents practice transnational caregiving by exchanging emotional support. The migrants experience that their possibilities to provide care to their parents are limited. However, providing care is a cultural obligation. The future elderly care arrangements of the parents are unclear, which makes the situation stressful for the migrants. The situation is also frustrating as ideal options for arranging elderly care are lacking. If the migrants return to China to provide elderly care to their parents, they are forced to make sacrifices with their work and family. However, if they do not return to China, the alternative options of relying on institutional elderly care or hiring a maid or a nurse are not ideal either. Although the migrants value filial traditions, they desperately demand societal and policy changes that would allow them to plan the future elderly care of their parents. Based on the results, there is a demand for establishing more quality institutional elderly care services in China. There is also a need for the Finnish migration policy to allow family-based old-age migration, as some other countries do. Overall, in the current situation, the national policymaking in Finland and in China does not recognize the needs of transnational families and transnational caregivers.

Migration är utöver en geografisk resa även en politisk och social resa. Invandring definierar både de geografiska och politiska gränserna hos nationalstaten. Då en asylsökande beviljas asyl i Finland börjar integrationsprocessen som ska hjälpa personen att bli en del av det finska samhället så fort som möjligt. Ur ett kritiskt perspektiv behandlas de sociala och politiska aspekterna av migration som kan leda till svårigheter för asylsökanden under integrationstiden. Integrationsbegreppets betydelse analyseras för att förstå hur uppfattningen om integration kan leda till konsekvenser för de som ska integreras. Analysen leder till slutsatsen att det är just uppfattningen om vad integration innebär som får konsekvenser för migranter. Migrationspolitiken borde framhäva relationer mellan alla människor i samhället, istället för att fokusera på det nationella och på att endast integrera migranterna.

Swedish migration policy has undergone a historic shift in the last decade. The aim of this thesis is to gain a deeper understanding of the role of research and researchers in Sweden’s migration policymaking process at a time of heightened politicization and policy change. Based on consensus, the Swedish policy process aims for informed decision making, drawing on research through governmental committees and research institutes. This mixed methods study utilizes a unique data set of 78 Swedish governmental committee reports that discuss migration and integration from 1980 to 2022. This quantitative data traces the number of committees and representation of researchers within these committees. Three expert interviews were conducted to address researchers’ perceived role in policymaking and how changes have impacted the use of research. This thesis employs Paul Sabatier’s Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), focusing on coalitions within the migration subsystem and viewing policy change as a change in values. The expert interviewees highlighted how most researchers hold liberal views on migration, striving for open policies. This thesis found that the influence of researchers was greater when their values aligned with the values of the majority coalition and that researchers’ role was minimal in the shift towards restrictive policies. As migration became a salient issue in Sweden in the 1990s, there was a clear peak in the number of governmental committees and percentages of researchers, indicating that researchers had influence in defining migration policy. These numbers continued relatively high until 2022, but with more significant gaps. Committee reports were increasingly published in the second or third year of the governmental cycle, allowing the reigning government to initiate the committee and to vote on the proposed legislation. As migration became politicized, legislation was expedited, leaving little time for researchers’ input and using research symbolically at best. This was especially evident in the dramatic migration policy changes following the refugee crisis in 2015. This thesis concludes that ACF is an underused theoretical framework for migration subsystems, as explaining the policy process and change through values and beliefs was relevant in the case of Swedish migration policy. The findings illustrate that politicization and shifts in values have limited the role and instrumental influence of researchers in migration policymaking. Nonetheless, Sweden’s committee system and organizations such as Delmi continue to provide a channel for researchers to inform policymaking.