Questioning care: ambiguous relational ethics between a refugee child, her parents and the Danish welfare state

Bregnbæk, Susanne

doi:10.1080/13603116.2019.1707303

Cited by 9 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…From a similar perspective, Nordic educational scholars have critically addressed how refugees and immigrants are 'integrated' into the Nordic societies through socializing institutions such as day-care, schooling, and through employment measures. These studies illustrate how pedagogical as well as policy interventions aimed at integrating and educating children and adults with refugee status often build on stereotypical, hierarchical and racializing categorizations that simultaneously assume and produce ethnic/racial difference and symbolic boundaries (Jaffe-Walter 2016 ;Rytter 2019;Øland 2019;Bregnbaek 2021;Li & Buchardt 2022;Padovan-Özdemir & Øland 2022). Such pedagogical interventions thus build on and continue racially-informed conceptualizations of 'others', both as objects of concern (Jaffe-Walter 2016) and as subjects in need of management and improvement (Øland 2019) in order to 'integrate'.…”

Section: Research Context: Nordic Exceptionalism and Racialization In...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“The curse of the refugee”

Brøndum

2023

KKF

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Drawing on narrative interviews with people who have recently or in the past fled to Denmark, this article examines experiences of being cast as refugees within the Danish asylum and integration bureaucracy. The analysis is situated within a social context formed simultaneously by Nordic exceptionalism and racial colour-blindness, and by increasing restrictions within Danish asylum and integration policy. Within this context, the article analyses narrative accounts of structural violence and racialization within three central sites of refugee management: namely the reception and asylum camps, encounters with municipal integration workers, and in contexts of schooling and employment. The analysis conveys intersubjective perspectives on how being labelled as a ‘refugee’ involves being racialized, managed and controlled and it argues that such forms of legally-sanctioned control measures can be understood as a slow violence that harms the lives of those seeking protection in Denmark. Finally, the article discusses how people labelled as ‘refugees’ respond to and oppose experiences of racism and control, and how such responses are often silenced in ways that further legitimize racism.

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Section: Research Context: Nordic Exceptionalism and Racialization In...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“The curse of the refugee”

Brøndum

2023

KKF

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“…En internationell utblick ger vid handen att liknande utmaningar som de som tecknats ovan gäller även där. Till exempel visar studier att pedagoger kan döma migrerade barn som avvikande eller bristfälliga då de utgår från kulturella normer och diskurser som förekommer i majoritetssamhället, samtidigt som de misslyckas med att ta hänsyn till familjernas erfarenheter och bakgrund (Bregnbaek 2021;Von Leare and Vandenbroeck 2017). Pedagoger tenderar vidare missa att identifiera kulturella skillnader som kan förekomma i föräldrarnas behov och preferenser jämfört med föräldrar med bakgrund i majoritetssamhället (Sønsthagen 2020;Tobin m. fl.…”

Section: Gemenskap Och Kulturell Mångfald I Förskolanunclassified

Från monolog till dialog : Integration av nyanlända familjer i landsbygdsförskolor

Löthman

2022

Linköping Studies in Education and Social Sciences

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Preschool is seen as an important integration arena for newly arrived families with young children. The reception of newly arrived families has for a long time been unevenly distributed in the country with a strong concentration on metropolitan areas and larger cities. Consequently, previous research on integration of newly arrived families in Swedish preschools has been conducted in multicultural urban areas. However, since 2015, the number of newly arrived children in rural municipalities has increased. For that reason, it is relevant to also pay attention to how integration is achieved (or challenged) in a rural context. In this study, I examine how preschool practitioners at three rural preschools experienced receiving newly arrived families in 2015/2016. For many of these practitioners, working with linguistic and cultural diversity was at the time a new experience. Therefore, I have been able to study practitioners' narratives about the first steps towards integration and inclusion. Data was generated through focus-group interviews. With integration (Penninx 2019) and inclusion (Petriwskyj 2014) as theoretical starting points, the narratives were analyzed through Bakhtin's theory of dialogism. The findings are presented in two research papers: one that explores integration processes in relation to the migrant parents, and one that focus on the children's inclusion in preschool. The results show that the practitioners describe a change in terms of moving from a monologic to a dialogic stance in relation to the parents and the children. As regards the parents, the dialogic stance meant that the practitioners acknowledged the importance of meeting and discussing differences in experiences and perspectives with the parents. The dialogic encounters, in turn, led to enhanced confidence among the practitioners in facing "otherness", at the same time as they resulted in cultural reflexivity regarding the practitioner's own practices and values. As regards the children, the dialogic stance resulted in a critical examination of existing practices, and led the practitioners to reformulate their sense of preschool "normality". This, in turn, enhanced their flexibility in adjusting preschool's daily routines and practices in accordance with the needs of the children. In sum, the study demonstrates that a dialogical approach is a prerequisite for integration.

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“…The study also addresses the paradox of an increased focus on parental care understood as individualized skills and a decreased focus on socio-economic conditions for refugee families in Norway, which is an example of problem displacement that increases the social inequality of ethnic minority families (Fylkesnes et al, 2018). A Danish ethnographic study highlights how welfare professionals' understanding of a refugee child's needs shifted into coercive concerns when they came to understand the parents as lacking skills and failing the demands of the national integration regime, which shows how policies and discourse shape the encounter between professionals and parents (Bregnbaek, 2021). Furthermore, a document analysis inspired by Foucault's work on social warfare unfolds how immigrant parenthood became a problem of ambiguous welfare governing by untangling the shifting problematizations shaped by general political challenges, such as labour market politics in 1970s, low school performance in 1990s and anti-terror measures intersecting with racialization of immigrant families in the 2010s (Padovan-Özdemir & Moldenhawer, 2017).…”

Section: Psychological and Social Work Research On Parental Care In R...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Parental care in trajectories of forced migration: Ruptures and changing conditions for family life

Shapiro

2022

Child & Family Social Work

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Forced migration has a major impact on family life. Yet, how the trajectory of flight and process of rebuilding everyday family life can challenge parental care is understudied and undertheorized. This article provides insight into the multiple transitions and ruptures that dramatically change the everyday conditions for parental care in the migratory process. By empirically exploring the migratory process in a family perspective, including the perspective of children and parents, and by analytically unfolding an understanding of parental care as part of shifting local structures of social practice, the article sheds light on the content of parental care so rarely studied. The analysis draws on an ethnographically inspired practice research study conducted in 2014-2017 in cooperation with five Syrian families, while they were awaiting asylum and during their first year with a temporary residence permit in Denmark. The empirical foundation consists of participant observation in the everyday life of the families and recurrent interviews with eight parents and 15 children.The article concludes with a discussion of the contribution to the conceptualization of parental care and implications for qualifying social work with refugee families.

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Questioning care: ambiguous relational ethics between a refugee child, her parents and the Danish welfare state

Cited by 9 publications

References 11 publications

“The curse of the refugee”

“The curse of the refugee”

Från monolog till dialog : Integration av nyanlända familjer i landsbygdsförskolor

Parental care in trajectories of forced migration: Ruptures and changing conditions for family life

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