Paper short abstract:

The paper is based on the research and documentation project on the experiences of Finnish volunteers helping refugees and asylum seekers in Finland 2015-2019. I will focus on the experiences related with deportations reflected in interviews and reminiscence writings.

Paper long abstract:

“I am ashamed, every night I apologize to them for my country. And they reply and solace me: ‘It is not your fault, Finnish politics and the decision makers have done this’.” This citation was written by a participant in the memory collection campaign “Encounters“ (https://www.finlit.fi/en/archive/archive-materials-traditional-and-contemporary-culture/encounters#.XLQ2EsRS82w), targeted to volunteers involved with asylum seekers and organized in collaboration with Finnish Literature Society (October 2018 – April 2019). The narrator has maintained contact with the young men who sought asylum in Finland, but have been deported or have left Finland in the fear of deportation.

My paper is based on the research and documentation project on the experiences of Finnish volunteers helping refugees and asylum seekers after the large increase of asylum seekers (32 000 to Finland) in 2015. The first phase was an interview project during the spring term 2017, in collaboration with Sofia Laine. (Laine & Salmi-Niklander 2017), and the second phase was the “Encounters” memory collection campaign. The narrators reflect the different phases in their volunteer process: moments of involvement, dramatic events and frustrating periods of waiting. I will focus on the experiences related with deportations: economical, emotional and juridical support before and after the deportations, and anti-deportation demonstrations. Some narrators are experiences in volunteer work, but for many of them this has been the first experience of political activism.