In an endeavour to understand connections between immigration policy and contemporary colonialism on Indigenous territory, this study investigates how state-led immigrant integration policies and practices reproduce colonialism in Swedish Sápmi. It explores the applicability of scholarship on settler colonialism on Sweden and develops the notion of banal colonialism by combining scholarship on settler and everyday colonialism with banal nationalism. Drawing from state documents regulating immigrant integration and semi-structured interviews conducted with integration workers in Swedish Sápmi, the study shows that immigrant integration policy largely silences the colonial past and present of Sweden. While the implementation of national-level policies on Indigenous land reproduces majority-centred narratives, also practices challenging the colonial order are identified. The study shows how the notion of banal colonialism captures mundane colonial practices, but also brings attention to instances where immigrant integration policy has the potential of challenging settler colonialism.
This article provides an introduction to the themed section “Linguistic Justice, Migration and the Nation‐State.” First, it illustrates the rationale for the themed section by examining the relationship between language, migration and the nation‐state. It argues that accounts of linguistic justice that fail to incorporate, discuss and understand the language interests of migrants, and the potential tensions that may emerge between migrants' linguistic rights and duties, and between their linguistic rights and those of autochthonous groups, are likely to become obsolete in an increasingly mobile world. Second, it provides an overview of the articles in the themed section. And, finally, it highlights four specific areas of inquiry that should deserve greater attention in future scholarship.
In this article we discuss discourses of white mobility in reality television, a genre whose problematic post-racial and neoliberal discourses have long been exposed. Moving beyond the widely researched Anglophone media landscapes, we interrogate the discursive construction of white mobilities in the Swedish romance reality show Bonde Söker Fru – Jorden Runt (TV4, 2019–2020) [Farmer Seeks Wife – Around the World] where Swedish North-to-South migrants working as farmers abroad seek a partner from Sweden through the assistance of reality TV. By focusing on the discursive and visual strategies through which the show perpetuates racial hierarchies, we discuss the colonial imaginaries, the absence of border policies (such as residency, employment, or integration), and the significance of individual migratory preferences in the mobility discourses. We identify three forms of white mobility – the tourist, the adventurer, and the philanthropist – and show that migration is depicted as something reversible, an adventure, and a possibility for self-development, rather than a life-long decision with high stakes.
The importance of settled minorities for facilitating refugee belonging is seldom discussed in research on refugee integration. Drawing on scholarship on belonging, boundary-making, and bordering, this study investigates how boundaries are drawn between settled minorities and refugees in Bulgaria. Based on interviews with integration workers and organizations of settled minorities in a state with the largest historically present Muslim minority in the EU, an Arabic-speaking diaspora settled decades ago, and with minimal state involvement in refugee integration, the study shows how spatial, linguistic, and religious boundaries separate settled minorities from newly arrived refugees. Arabic-speaking diasporas are nevertheless witnessed to overcome the boundaries through geographical proximity, a shared language, and shared countries of origin, whereby they have functioned as facilitators of refugee belonging and inclusion. Furthermore, Muslim institutions led by Bulgarian Turks have functioned as spaces for refugee belonging. The study finds that settled minority communities have, despite multiple boundaries and some assimilatory discourses, contributed to refugee belonging in ways that in part has compensated for the state absence. The study calls for further research investigating the role of settled minorities in inclusionary processes in society.
This study contributes with minority‐centred perspectives to the policy trend of imposing majority language requirements on immigrants. With the aim to identify and explore (dis)connections and value conflicts between policies of national minority recognition and immigrant integration, it develops and applies four ideal types of minority‐linguistic integration regimes to a mapping of integration and minority language policies in 27 European Union (EU) member states. Most states with recognized minorities are found to exclude national minorities from integration policies. The finding is connected to a discussion that identifies normative tensions between the promotion of national minority languages, the linguistic barriers faced by non‐citizen migrants and the asymmetries in how identity and instrumental values are assigned to minority, migrant and majority languages. The study challenges the imposition of language requirements on immigrants and calls for contextually sensitive ways to jointly consider the position of national minorities, majorities, and immigrants in language policies.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.