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- Convenors:
-
Tytti Steel
(University of Helsinki)
Maja Povrzanovic Frykman (Malmö University)
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- Formats:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Mobilities
- Sessions:
- Thursday 24 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
While focusing on highly skilled migrants, this panel promotes and exemplifies the ways in which ethnographic research can challenge the conventional ‘integration’ categories and help advance the theoretical frameworks pertaining to manifold aspects of migrant settlement, inclusion and well-being.
Long Abstract:
Highly skilled migrants may be relatively privileged in terms of education and employment, but they still encounter specific emotional, social, and career challenges (Povrzanović Frykman/Öhlander 2018). Research on these migrants can expose faultliness of the conventional ideas about the nature of ‘problems with integration’, that focus on employment and relate to origin and (ethnic) culture rather than to class and race (Schinkel 2018). The panel sets to promote and exemplify the ways in which ethnographic research can challenge the conventional ‘integration’ categories and help advance the theoretical frameworks pertaining to manifold aspects of migrant settlement, inclusion and well-being.
The panel invites both theoretical and empirical contributions set to provide nuanced understandings of how education and professional experience are intersected with reasons for migration, gender, age, family circumstances, time and timing of migrancy, citizenship, employment venue, professional sector and type of contract, and how these intersections may affect the migrants’ own perceptions of ‘integration’ against the background of the given socioeconomic, legal and policy context.
As the questions of exclusion and racialisation – typically raised for unskilled migrants – are relevant also to the high-skilled, we particularly welcome papers that trace the sense of exclusion and explore the tension between privilege and discrimination. They may be based on (but are not limited to) single cases or on comparisons across national origins and professions, across skills (high- and low-skilled migrants from the same country of origin), between highly skilled migrants and non-migrant professionals, or between highly skilled labour migrants and refugees.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 24 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
Highly skilled migrants in the professional sports system (e.g. coaches) are privileged circular migrants, who remigrate after each contract change. The paper analyses the challenges of their integration and well-being.
Paper long abstract:
The sport successes of top athletes rest on the support of teams of highly skilled professionals (persons in the sports system). The presentation is based on ethnological field research (qualitative interviews, narratives about lived experiences) with coaches and health professionals from Croatia who have many years/decades of experience working in different football clubs and countries. Motivations for working abroad include high earnings, the possibility of professional development, and thus signing even more lucrative contracts, but also the experience of living in different countries. Considering that their employment contracts are fixed-term and that they are privileged circular migrants, this paper discusses the challenges of integration and their perception of well-being. Research shows that they are not integrated into the receiving society, but into the club and they live in a professional “bubble”. Often the head coach conditions the signing of a contract with the possibility to bring his team with him. Although these are privileged migrants, they often face emotional and social challenges. Depending on age, family circumstances, time of migration and place of employment, each remigration/change of club shows new integration challenges, but also transnational families, the emergence of the concept of having two homes, “sacrificing” partners’ careers, children’s social life, etc.
Paper short abstract:
This presentation is focused on the migration experiences of highly skilled women from south-eastern Europe living in Finland and migration’s relationship to lived experiences in the country of origin and the perceived transformations that migration trajectories enable for achieving well-being.
Paper long abstract:
This presentation will address the migration experiences of highly skilled women from south-eastern Europe living in Finland. Data was gathered through participant observation and in-depth interviews conducted throughout a three-years period. With the aim of researching integration processes and proposing policy inputs based on qualitative research, the interviews dealt with experiences of living in Finland generally while acknowledging professional and private areas of life and their interconnectedness.
Research results established a few theses, which will be theorised. The first deals with the interconnection of migrants’ experiences in the countries of origin and the perceived chances of success in the new country. Another has to do with the continuation of personal transformations triggered by different phases of integration trajectories in which migrants’ agency in creating their new life is continually negotiated. This heavily influences decision making processes and the pace of achieving well-being. Interviews illustrate the notable discrepancy between the life in the country of origin in relation to the life in Finland, notably in the ways that place and positionality in space within the new country connect to non-work areas of life. Non-work life was organically embedded in everydayness in the country of origin, while in Finland, work is foremost, especially if it means working towards eligibility for the job market (e.g. studying the language). Thus, well-being becomes a topic of focus for these women only after gaining a secure source of income, which in turn opens another space for transformation and negotiation of identities.
Paper short abstract:
The research is about the integration and adaptation challenges of city-people to a life in a Russian village. The question is what actions and practices prevent highly skilled migrants from taking the position they expect in the community structure and successfully interacting with the villagers.
Paper long abstract:
My research is focused on highly skilled Russian domestic migrants who move from cities to villages (or small towns) in order to work as teachers in the countryside. These teachers are expected to work there for 2 years as part of a non-governmental program “Teacher for Russia”, aimed at solving the problem of inequality in education. Usually program participants are young people with an urban background, high social and economic status. They are motivated to improve life in the villages. Often, the villages included into the program are quite isolated due to the poor transport connection, lack of Internet and urban amenities.
Teachers expect to be welcomed and well-received in the village. They are eager to use their knowledge and resources for the benefit of local residents, however the locals are convinced that they don’t need their help. Very quickly, newcomers find themselves at the bottom of the community social structure. Furthermore, they become common objects of gossip. Locals don’t communicate with them, instead they closely control and condemn almost all their actions.
Teachers are not acquainted with the actual local social norms, hence their usual way of presenting themselves doesn’t work. A high level of social control appears to be emotionally draining for the teachers. Many newcomers drop out of the program and leave the village, experiencing depression or developing alcohol addiction.
In my paper, I would like to describe the (un)successful experience of internal migration, its complex nature which I associate with adaptation practices.
Paper short abstract:
‘Integration’ as a concept and as practices is often aimed at unemployed people with serious difficulties in finding a job. When it is discussed, entrepreneurship is rarely mentioned. My paper explores how entrepreneurship, which requires skills and independence, challenges the idea of integration.
Paper long abstract:
Entrepreneurship of foreign-born individuals in Finland is an under-researched phenomenon. ‘Integration’ as a concept and as practices is most often aimed at unemployed people with migrant backgrounds. In the recent years, especially women’s situation has been in focus. In these discussions, the representation of ‘a migrant woman’ easily becomes a person who needs to be emancipated and empowered, suffers from suppression and violence and is an outsider behind a language barrier.
In contexts where ‘integration’ is discussed and developed, entrepreneurship is rarely mentioned, although the self-employment rate is much the same for ‘immigrants’ and people with Finnish background. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, a person with foreign background started every third new business in Finland. The stereotypical image is that foreign-born entrepreneurs run restaurants or other hospitality businesses. The reality is more versatile and there are, for instance, IT companies, accounting and consultancy, education and other businesses run by highly skilled experts.
In my paper, I will explore how entrepreneurship, which requires skills, know-how and independence, challenges the idea of ‘integration’ as a concept and practice. Internationally, there is a lot of research on ‘immigrant entrepreneurship’ because it has been thought to increase innovativeness and has an impact in the so-called creative destruction. How does ‘immigrant entrepreneurship’ challenge the concept of integration, which has the intrinsic idea of ‘natives’ being the active and leading actors in the process?
Paper short abstract:
Shifting attention from 'migrant integration’ to the relationships emerging in a society shaped by migration, this paper focuses on the ways professional alliances are forged across origins – between migrants, their descendants and ‘natives’.
Paper long abstract:
Unpacking ‘integration’ as a matter of power relations related to the intersections of migrant status, ethnicity/race and class, can help advance the theoretical frameworks pertaining to highly skilled migrants' professional trajectories. This paper outlines the theoretical foundations of the project that explores the migrants’ and their descendants’ presence in leading position in academia and cultural production as the two fields in which migrants have the highest representation in leading positions in public institutions in Sweden. Instead of setting to do research on ‘migrant integration’, the project shifts attention to the relationships emerging in a society shaped by migration. It explores the ways professional alliances are forged across origins – between migrants, their descendants and ‘natives’, in different constellations – and focuses on established professionals who hold positions of high status. The project contributes to the emerging cross-European debate and research on the ‘postmigrant’ condition that acknowledges antagonistic positions towards migration, and struggles about participation and representation, but also highlights new alliances that are not reduced to heritage and cultural belonging: the paper will dwell upon the diversity of alliances, and the need to differentiate between allies perceived as mentors, friends and gate-keepers. This actor-perspective allows us to explore micro-mechanisms of selection and conversion of different types of capital in the academic and cultural fields.