Refugee women’s establishment in the rural north of Sweden: cultural capital in meeting local labour market needs

Sara Carlbaum

doi:10.1080/1369183x.2021.1933402

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper investigates opportunities and obstacles refugee women face in establishment in rural areas. Drawing on ethnographic research in three rural municipalities in northern Sweden, including interviews with refugee women, local employers and educational staff, I analyse the women’s space for agency and opportunities to use and capitalise on different resources in relation to the local labour market and belonging. Applying Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of cultural capital, as read by Skeggs, I show that the women can capitalise on embodied cultural capital of feminine and ethnic caregiving. However, due to lack of the ‘right’ institutional cultural capital of educational certificates from Swedish institutions, and devaluation of foreign credentials and experiences, this is mainly in difficult-to-fill, unsecure jobs in the elder care or early childhood education and care sectors. The women’s limited options and opportunities to ‘enterprise themselves up’ contribute to ethnicisation of care work in rural labour markets. Moreover, lack of mobility and key cultural capital (cars and driving licences) for work, education and belonging in both the local masculine culture of the remote rural areas and national gender equality culture further limit the women’s space for agency and establishment.

Highlights

In the last decade, European countries received large numbers of women refugees, who are seen as vulnerable: disadvantaged in relation to native women, other migrant women and refugee men (Ayres et al 2013; Liebig and Tronstad 2018; UNHCR, UNFPA, & WRC 2016)
Applying Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of cultural capital, as read by Skeggs, I show that the women can capitalise on embodied cultural capital of feminine and ethnic caregiving
How do refugee women understand their opportunities for education and work in relation to living in the rural north of Sweden? Second, what opportunities are created for refugee women to use and capitalise on different resources? Third, what space for agency is constructed in relation to education, rurality, gender and ethnicity in terms of social inclusion and local belonging? Addressing these questions, the paper extends previous findings regarding migrants’ situations in rural areas and how place matters (McAreavey and Argent 2018; Radford 2016; Schech 2014; Vogiazides and Mondani 2020; Wilding and Nunn 2018). It increases understandings of gendered experiences of refugee women in rural areas and factors that may contribute to work opportunities and social belonging

Summary

Introduction

Addressing these questions, the paper extends previous findings regarding migrants’ situations in rural areas and how place matters (McAreavey and Argent 2018; Radford 2016; Schech 2014; Vogiazides and Mondani 2020; Wilding and Nunn 2018) It increases understandings of gendered experiences of refugee women in rural areas and factors that may contribute to work opportunities and social belonging. It extends previous research on feminisation and ethnicisation of care work that has mainly focused on domestic labour in informal settings and non-humanitarian migrants (Andall 2013; Anthias, Kontos, and Morokvasic-Müller 2013; Barbiano di Belgiojoso and Ortensi 2019; Chun and Cranford 2018; Grigoleit-Richter 2017). We must distinguish between those that only need to be ‘who they are’ and those that constantly have to prove they can carry the right signs and capital for national and local belonging (Bourdieu 1987)

Method

Concluding discussion

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