In Sweden, unaccompanied youths are placed within residential care units. However, to settle in a foreign country and feel emotional belonging is more complex than access to a physical building. The aim of this study is to critically discuss the concept of 'home' as experienced by the youths, narrated in nine focus group interviews. These interviews occurred in the aftermath of a turbulent migration time (2015), when over 35,000 unaccompanied youths arrived in Sweden. A transnational theoretical perspective stretches the meaning across national borders, when home links to people, processes and other geographical places. It is difficult to create an environment that mirrors the emotional attachment described in analysis. Earlier research has shown that residential care workers refer to the institutional setting as home, yet the results of this study show that the young people relate to the concept differently. Staff utilisation of the concept of home rather emphasises the lack of home-like aspects for the youths, creating a frustration in the current institutional conditions. Staff in residential care units must therefore be aware of the different interpretations and reactions that their actions and communications generate, in order to respond to various needs.

Based on young Afghans' experiences of multiple rejections in Sweden, this paper will discuss “administrative violence” as a form a neo-colonial power performance to exclude unwanted and “othered” people from the Swedish welfare state. The paper will address experiences of different acts of administrative violence, from asylum rejections and loss of residential care accommodation to rejections on applications for economic support performed by the social services. For some project participants, having escaped from violence and deaths by weapons in the country they once left, the signature of a Swedish administrator’s pen becomes just as violent and life-threatening as the situation they left behind. For Swedish society, the administrative signatures become a means to neutralise and legitimise politics of exclusion and turn racist discourses into bureaucratic practice.

This paper draws on two ethnographic research projects in asylum reception contexts. One project focuses on the social dimensions of hope among people who wait to have their cases assessed while the other addresses the significance of local civil networks for coping with and resisting ongoing politics of exclusion. Twenty youngsters, initially having sought asylum in Sweden, have been followed through participant observations and recurrent interviews for more than two years. While some of them remain in Sweden, others have opted for re-escaping to the migrant ‘quarantines’ of Europe, joining a growing ‘deportspora’ of people having been made ‘deportable’ through signatures and pen strokes.

This paper aims to provide an analysis of a project-based activation programme, called the Vista project, under the authority of the social services and run in a local community in Sweden. Research has shown that people with a migrant background, in all age groups and especially women, are overrepresented in unemployment rates. The argument presented in the paper is that an anti-racist framework is of great relevance for these provisions and would provide a strong theoretical foundation with clear implications for practice. The Vista projectâs main objective was to find new matching strategies to increase labour market integration and to increase the number of people engaged in a full-time activity, such as employment, education or field practices. The findings show that the flexibility that characterizes this kind of organization has a negative impact on clearly defining its identity and work processes, something that could undermine its legitimacy. This study exemplifies how the flexibility leads to ambiguity and struggles in mediating a clear picture of the purpose of the project. Some core values of anti-racist practice are included in the foundation of the Vista project, for example, the resources addressed to a so-called disadvantaged group. Projects such as the Vista contribute to racial oppression, just as other more traditional social work organizations do. However, the form of the post-bureaucracy may create possibilities to both make such structures visible and find ways to give the participants exposed to the program greater influence on its design and to define their own needs.

Increasing the employment rate and community establishment, as well as decreasing economic and social vulnerability, among newly-arrived migrants and foreign-born jobseekers are the objectives behind several local activation initiatives and projects around Sweden. This article is based on a study of a local activation project, primarily consisting of analyses of interviews with professional coordinators and other project actors. The aim of the article is to deepen the knowledge of the coordinated working method in local activation policy by critically analysing how different ideas about empowerment are part of the method and what significance this has in relation to newly-arrived migrants and foreign-born job seekers. The results show that the coordinating approach is based on principles that place the job-seeking individual's needs at the centre and that there is a tension in the working method between activation and labour market establishment, and social support and care. The studied activation project is based on both a liberal and radical ideology of empowerment. In practising the coordinating approach, however, a liberal ideology and understanding of empowerment dominate through its strong individual focus. The radical empowerment ideology with its structure-changing ambitions regarding the participants’ increased self-sufficiency, independence and empowerment are to a limited extent enforced within the project. The authors argue for the difficulties of using the concept of empowerment and its far-reaching liberation ambitions within the context of activation policy. Nevertheless, disciplining requirements and rules around self-sufficiency, individualised responsibility takeover and requirements for reciprocity within the activation of activities rather risk consolidating conditions of disempowerment for already vulnerable groups of job seekers.

I denna bok undersöks olika aspekter av rasism och antirasism samt dess påverkan på det sociala arbetets brukare, yrkesverksamma och frivilliga aktörer i olika välfärdssammanhang. Vår ambition med denna bok är att främja reflektion och stimulera till en debatt om rasism och antirasism i socialt arbete. De olika kapitelbidragen visar på en mångfald sätt som huvudtemat rasism och antirasism i socialt arbete kan studeras utifrån val av empiriska fall och teman, liksom avseende teoretiska och metodologiska ingångar. Bidragen befinner sig på olika nivåer och inom olika områden empiriskt och teoretiskt: socialpolitik, migrations- och integrationspolitik, offentligt socialt arbete, organisation, civilsamhälle, brukar- eller klientnära arbete med och för olika individer och grupper av människor, människors livsvillkor och erfarenheter. Rasism, antirasism och socialt arbete i spåren av migration vänder sig till studerande på socionomprogrammet och mastersprogrammet i socialt arbete, men är av intresse även för forskare och lärare inom socialt arbete och närliggande discipliner samt för yrkesverksamma socialarbetare och andra välfärdsprofessionella.

The transition from care is a critical phase for care leavers in general, and even more complex for those who have arrived in Sweden as unaccompanied minors and belong to an ethnic minority group. The aim of this article is to examine unaccompanied minors' experiences of leaving care, and to explore the experience in relation to perceptions about ethnicity and culture within a transnational space. Interviews were completed with 11 care leavers who had been received in Sweden as unaccompanied minors. The results show that these young people have to deal with multiple adjustments. Conquering obstacles as care leavers involves not only resolving general issues such as reintegration into society, but also adjustment to perceived and created views of how to become Swedish. From the young people's point of view, this seems to be necessary to make a successful transition from care into adulthood.

Building a temporary alliance – methodological issues in interviews with unaccompa­ nied minorsMany people come to Europe in the hope of nding a safe haven. Global challenges are converted into local issues. e minority backgrounds of these people are often mentioned as an important component in the understanding of those coming to Sweden. e aim of this study is to discuss methodological challenges in research about vulnerable groups, with speci c focus on unaccom- panied children and adolescents. What challenges become visible in the research process when the researcher aims to focus on the unaccompanied minors’ perspective during their initial time in Sweden? What di erent positions and roles become evident in the encounter between unaccom- panied minors and the researcher during interviews? What di erent implications may that have in relation to the research process? In the discussion, we highlight the importance of constantly re ecting on the role of the researcher as a person and the in uence it may have on the relation to the respondent, as well as the opportunities and limitations of these di erent roles in the research process and for the results.

In 2014 about 7000 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum in Sweden and a great part of them were allowed to stay. Thus Sweden is one of the countries receiving the highest number of unaccompanied children in Europe. Previous research has shown that individuals with out-of-home care experiences belong to a vulnerable group. Besides that, young people with a migrant background sometimes experienced exclusion and discrimination. This study aims to explore social workers’ understanding of the unaccompanied youths’ minority backgrounds in relation to the process of leaving care. With a qualitative approach, data have been collected through focus groups at two residential care units. Within this kind of human service organizations (HSO), the staff struggle with meeting the perceived needs of the youths based on their minority background. Alongside, they are trying to teach what they consider as being good Swedish practices claimed to be necessary when facing life outside care. A transnational perspective prevents an understanding of the unaccompanied youths’ context as static, but rather promotes a way of relating to the youths in past and present times in order to be prepared for the future.

The number of unaccompanied minors arriving in Sweden continues to rise. The majority are placed in residential care units. This qualitative study aims to increase the understanding given by the professionals to the concept of home' within the framework of residential care for unaccompanied young people. Data are based on participatory observations at two residential care units, followed up by individual interviews with staff. The findings confirm that the concept of home has a complex meaning involving both objective aspects such as physical buildings, and more subjective components that can be seen as state of mind. The staff's desire to offer an ordinary home' fails because of the surveillance, their dominant positions and especially due to the legal restrictions that were not initially meant for this target group. Unaccompanied young people have to be considered based on their own specific needs in order to make it possible for society to offer the most suitable care.

People with co-occurring mental illness and addiction tend to be a vulnerable group in society, often in need of extensive and collaborative care. From a social work perspective, it is crucial to gain more knowledge about these persons’ everyday lives and living conditions. The aim of this article is to explore how people with co-occurring mental illness and addiction experience their everyday lives and develop knowledge about how everyday life is structured by these co-occurring illnesses. Using a narrative method, 12 persons were interviewed, sharing their experiences. The analysis was performed using the theory of the everyday life, the normative and structural aspect. The findings suggest that participants’ understanding of the co-occurring mental illness and addiction is described as a continuous interaction between the two illnesses and experienced as a unity. The narratives imply that dysfunctional family relationships in everyday life during childhood, losing employment and financial problems are shared experiences. The narratives also include loss of everyday routines due to co-occurring illnesses, unemployment and homelessness. Therefore, several routines, such as sleep, food and household routines are negatively affected. The conclusion is that the persons’ everyday life experiences starting as early as childhood have consequences for how their adulthood is structured, where the co-occurring mental illness and addiction play a central role in everyday life, affecting various aspects of it. The implications for practice are to view and treat the co-occurring illnesses as the persons understand them, namely as a unity that affects several everyday life arenas, and offer help to create and maintain routines, economic support and participation in activities.