To Share or Not to Share Responsibility? Finnish Refugee Policy and the Hesitant Support for a Common European Asylum System

Wahlbeck, Östen

doi:10.1080/15562948.2018.1468048

Cited by 36 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Material was collected by taking screenshots using a scraping application in the web browser (see e.g., Burke, 2018). The material was collected from November 2017 to January 2018 and includes material posted from January 2015 to the collection date, so the research material reflects the time when the extreme movements were gaining attention in the context of the so-called "refugee crisis" in Finland (Wahlbeck, 2019). By the time of writing this article, the material also recounts the history of anti-immigration extreme movements as the Facebook sites of both groups have been removed.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Persuasion Through Bitter Humor: Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Rhetoric in Internet Memes of Two Far-Right Groups in Finland

Hakoköngäs

Halmesvaara

Sakki

2020

Social Media + Society

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This study focuses on the role of Internet memes in the communication of two far-right groups in Finland. The material consists of 426 memes posted by Finland First and the Soldiers of Odin between the years 2015 and 2017 on Facebook. Multimodal discourse analysis was applied to understand the contents, forms, and rhetorical functions communicated via the Internet memes. The analysis shows that the contents of the memes revolve around six themes: history, humor, mythology, symbols, news and mottos. By using Internet memes, the groups aim to construe a heroic imagined past, to lend legitimacy to the nationalist cause, to arouse moral anger and hate toward refugees, and to encourage the movements’ followers to fight. We argue that, for the extreme groups, Internet memes are tools to crystallize their arguments in an easily shareable and concise form, which makes the memes useful tools in persuasion and mobilization, as well as attracting new audiences.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Persuasion Through Bitter Humor: Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Rhetoric in Internet Memes of Two Far-Right Groups in Finland

Hakoköngäs

Halmesvaara

Sakki

2020

Social Media + Society

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“…In the case of Finland, for example, it would have been vital to know that the country's immigration policies have historically been rather strict in European comparison and that the populist and nationalist The Finns -party had just joined the government for the first time. In the 2015 parliamentary elections, it had received 17.7 percent share of the votes and this success would be later visible in the country's immigration policies ; see also Wahlbeck 2018;Saarikkomäki et al 2018).…”

Section: On the Journey: Getting To Europementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In fact, the rise of +822 percent in Finland from2014 was the highest experienced by any EU member state (Eurostat 2016). As a result of the situation, the populist, right-wing Finns Party, which held five ministerial posts in the government since the 2015 parliamentary elections, put pressure on the other parties, the agrarian Centre Party and the conservative National Coalition Party, to introduce new immigration restrictions, such as abolishing residence permits given on the basis of humanitarian protection and tightening the family reunification criteria (Wahlbeck 2018). The exceptional rise in numbers of asylum seekers was largely due to the arrival of 20.485 Iraqis, who represented 63 percent of all applicants in Finland that year.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imagination, Hope and the Migrant Journey: Iraqi Asylum Seekers Looking for a Future in Europe

Koikkalainen

Kyle

Nykänen

2019

International Migration

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Europe received an unprecedented number of asylum seekers in 2015. This article examines Iraqi asylum seekers who journeyed through Europe in search of an idealized version of Finland, which they had imagined based on word-of-mouth and social media information. Through cognitive migration, the act of pre-experiencing futures in different locations, Finland was seen to offer both subjective hope of personal growth and advancement and objective hope of safety and physical security. This hope motivated them to embark on a journey of 6.000 kilometers to the European North. Based on interview data and relevant studies, the article concludes that hope of a better, imagined future abroad acts as a powerful magnet for persons with poor prospects in their countries of origin. Hope is a kind of critical emotion strongly shaped by beliefs and real-time opportunities; and as such, beliefs are notoriously difficult to change. Imagination should, therefore, not be overlooked when planning and implementing migration policies.

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“…The immigration pattern to Finland started to change in that decade, when migrants from Russia, Estonia, Somalia, former Yugoslavia and, in more recent times, Afghanistan and Iraq began to arrive (Farchy and Liebig, 2017). The intake of asylum-seekers when compared with that of the Scandinavian countries proper has traditionally been low (Wahlbeck, 2018). This may be explained to some extent by the country's remote geographical location: situated in north-eastern Europe, Finland shares borders with the Russian Federation, Sweden and Norway.…”

Section: Asylum-seekers and Labour Market Dynamics In Austria Finlanmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the 2000s, the number of asylum applications per year averaged out at a couple of thousand. In 2014, 3651 asylum claims were received (European Migration Network, 2016, cited in Wahlbeck, 2018). The following year, the arrival of 32,746 persons claiming asylum constituted an unparalleled increase, both in applications and migrants.…”

Section: Asylum-seekers and Labour Market Dynamics In Austria Finlanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asylum-seekers and the ‘hyper-precarity trap’ in Austria, Finland and Italy

Schenner

Cavanna

Ollus

2019

Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research

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Drawing on both semi-structured interviews and desk-based research, this article contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how asylum-seekers may find themselves trapped in conditions of 'hyper-precarity' in Austria, Finland and Italy, and how their vulnerabilities compare to those of other groups of workers. The first section of the article explains the different histories of Austria, Finland and Italy in terms of hosting asylum-seekers, before outlining the recent labour market dynamics of each of these countries. This is followed by a theoretical discussion of the different elements constituting the 'hyper-precarity trap' as experienced by asylum-seekers. These elements include discussions of precarity, vulnerability and law. The third section explains how the interviews and desk-based research were conducted and analysed. The fourth and final section of the article presents findings and their implications. Ré sumé En se basant sur des interviews semi-structurées et des recherches documentaires, cet article entend contribuer à une compréhension plus nuancée de la manière dont les demandeurs d'asile peuvent se retrouver piégés dans des conditions d'« hyper-précarité » en Autriche, en Finlande et en Italie, et de leurs éléments de vulnérabilité comparés à ceux d'autres groupes de travailleurs. La première partie de l'article explique les antécédents différents de l'Autriche, la Finlande et de l'Italie en termes d'accueil des demandeurs d'asile, avant de décrire les évolutions récentes du marché du travail dans chacun de ces pays. L'article propose ensuite un examen théorique des différents éléments qui constituent le « piège à l'hyper-précarité » tel que le vivent les demandeurs d'asile. Il analyse ainsi les notions de précarité et de vulnérabilité, ainsi que la législation en la

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To Share or Not to Share Responsibility? Finnish Refugee Policy and the Hesitant Support for a Common European Asylum System

Cited by 36 publications

References 15 publications

Persuasion Through Bitter Humor: Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Rhetoric in Internet Memes of Two Far-Right Groups in Finland

Persuasion Through Bitter Humor: Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Rhetoric in Internet Memes of Two Far-Right Groups in Finland

Imagination, Hope and the Migrant Journey: Iraqi Asylum Seekers Looking for a Future in Europe

Asylum-seekers and the ‘hyper-precarity trap’ in Austria, Finland and Italy

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