“Unaccompanied children who disappear”

Holmlund, Maline

doi:10.4324/9780429424953-5

Cited by 2 publications

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“…Public representations of children at risk of harm caused a reallocation of responsibility of care from the Swedish Migration Agency (SMA) to the public social services (Stretmo 2014). More recently however, similar representations have motivated collaborations between social workers, the SMA and border police to securitize deportations (Holmlund 2021). For instance, according to recent guidelines by the BHW (2020, p.35-36), the social services are recommended to continually monitor 'risk factors' to whether the child might abscond.…”

Section: Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Personal integrity has been emphasized as an important trait for the guardians in order for trust between guardians and minors to be established (Stretmo and Melander 2013). In projects encouraging social work collaboration on expulsion, the close contact between staff at housings, NGOs and minors has been emphasized as important for monitoring deportable children allegedly for the protection of these children against their own movements and minds (Holmlund 2021). This article further investigates how an involvement of legal guardians, staff at housings and social services in a collaboration that combines migration control and child welfare is legitimized and proposed to be carried out, and how conflicting ideals and voices are de-legitimized and dismissed in favour of consensus.…”

Section: Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, increased collaboration between social work actors and border police has been encouraged (Sundkvist 2017). Swedish state policy projects have combined concern for minor's physical and mental safety with logics of policing, encouraging collaborations between social workers, NGOs and migration police that may further precariousness among these minors (Holmlund 2021). This article elaborates further on how power dynamics play out in policies that combine child welfare and migration control.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Policed empowerment at the intersection of child welfare and migration control

Holmlund

2021

Nordic Social Work Research

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This article aims to show an example of how municipal policy promotes a social work of policing and expulsion, represented as a child welfare. It is legitimated through a therapeutic rationality promoting emotional wellbeing among asylum-seeking minors arriving on their own. The material consists of municipal policy documents Children's best interests when returning and Unaccompanied returns issued by the municipality of Strömsund, Northern Sweden, developed as a best practice project during 2014-2020. A post-structuralist policy analysis is applied, underpinned by Foucauldian governmentality. It de-constructs how productive and repressive elements of care and control are intertwined into a rationality of policed empowerment and a technology of activation into expulsion . The rationality encourages re-orienting motivations to stay in Sweden into willing self-exclusion, through collaborative reflection and normalization of expulsion as 'crisis management' and child welfare. Concerns of children arriving alone are described as manifestations of 'crisis', caused by immature mobility, expectations to stay in Sweden and separation from roots. Social services, legal guardians and staff at housings are encouraged to form a collaborative and motivational technology of support. Children's needs are represented as emotionally fragile, to be cared and reshaped therapeutically through collaborative reflection on exclusion as being in service of children's self-development. Techniques presented in the material re-shape motivations through collaboration, securitization and activation. Although effects might turn out differently, this case shows a combination of neo-liberal empowerment and policing encouraging a child welfare regime of exclusion and policing.

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Section: Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Policed empowerment at the intersection of child welfare and migration control

Holmlund

2021

Nordic Social Work Research

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Introduction to special issue: Bordering practices in the social service sector – experiences from Norway and Sweden

Persdotter

Lind

Righard

2021

Nordic Social Work Research

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Following the 2015-peak of asylum-seeking migrants in Europe, asylumpolicies have become increasingly restrictive. As bordering has become a prioritized issue among many European national governments, including in the Nordic countries, practices of bordering have also become more decentralised, diffuse and dispersed. This special issue set focus on such bordering practices as these are manifest in the social service sector. It draws on research conducted in Norway and Sweden and consists, besides this introduction, of seven original articles.Of particular focus is how social work, in its regulations and practices, are involved in the bordering of both the nation and the welfare state. Connecting insights from border studies -and related critical research -with social work research, the articles present empirical analyses of the dynamics of bordering practices among varying practitioners and in varying organizations, including legislators, courts, municipalities, street-level social workers and civil society organizations. The special issue as a whole also raises questions about the ethical and political challenges that emerge at the nexus of bordering and social service provision. In this introductory article, we provide an overview of the field of border studies and discuss how it relates to social work research. This serves as a conceptual foundation which we hope will enable critical reflections on the relationships between social service provision and bordering practices in Norway, Sweden and beyond.

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“Unaccompanied children who disappear”

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Policed empowerment at the intersection of child welfare and migration control

Policed empowerment at the intersection of child welfare and migration control

Introduction to special issue: Bordering practices in the social service sector – experiences from Norway and Sweden

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