Abstract
ABSTRACT Incorporation into the labour market is a key endeavour, of heightened importance in recent years due to high migration flows, for both immigrants and their recipient countries. Hence, activation and employability are major themes in both transnational and national policy discussions, which have generated various programmes and policy measures. This article focuses on one type of such initiatives: collaborative agreements intended to increase the effective establishment of newly arrived migrants through work-related educational tracks in Sweden. Drawing on post-structural policy analysis techniques and theorisation of place, the author analyses documents regarding associated policies, and views expressed by interviewed actors, in three rural municipalities. In efforts to identify hindrances and possibilities for immigrants’ incorporation in rural settings, potential employers’ perspectives are included. The analysis shows that a ‘resource discourse’ and a ‘deficit discourse’ are prevalent in the construction of the agreements and the employers’ perspectives regarding immigrants in the municipalities, place and tracks. It also shows that the municipal strategies differ in terms of organisation and local goals of the tracks. The indications of how place is constructed in local rural settings highlight the importance of such a perspective in efforts to enhance immigrants’ incorporation into the labour market, address deficits and harness resources.
Highlights
In many refugee-receiving countries, important issues have been raised by policies and programmes to promote humanitarian migrants’ incorporation into the labour market
The analysis shows that a ‘resource discourse’ and a ‘deficit discourse’ are prevalent in the con struction of the agreements and the employers’ perspectives regarding immigrants in the municipalities, place and tracks
The framings of the problems were clearly influenced by the rurality of the municipalities in terms of both geographic location and in relation to the low level of formal education of most immigrants that settled in them
Summary
In many refugee-receiving countries, important issues have been raised by policies and programmes to promote humanitarian migrants’ incorporation into the labour market. The agreements are context-specific, features they share with other Swedish and EU policies and instruments implemented to increase employment among immigrants include targeting the most vulnerable and focusing on individual immigrants and their activation and employability (Dahlstedt and Neergaard 2019; Qvist 2016) This case analysis of phenom ena linked to places in rural northern Sweden may contribute to an understanding of broader issues related to education, labour market integration and positioning of immigrants. Other key elements of the theoretical approach are viewing place as political (Massey 2005), and scrutinising how the problematisations through which governing occurs constitute ‘subjects’, ‘objects’, and ‘places’ (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016, 69) In this manner, key aims of the paper are to uncover and analyse the governance and politics of integration as manifested in the DUNA agreements, which position immigrants in different ways, and are key outputs of the municipalities’ policy work. The analysis departs from questions regarding what kind of problems the activities are solutions for and how the immigrants are positioned in rural settings (see Bacchi 2009; Bacchi and Goodwin 2016)
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