Policy Press
Twelve ‘Migrants’: a target-category for social policy? Experiences of first-generation migration
Abstract
More and more people share the experience of migration, in the sense of crossing nation-state borders to start a new life in a different society. Theories of globalisation and postmodernism present this experience as a typical occurrence, almost taken for granted, in the lives of growing numbers of people. Even though migration constitutes the ‘normality’ of many societies to a greater or lesser degree, the public and, not least, the sociopolitical discourses of migration, are still predominantly shaped by the view that the large-scale movement of people somehow constitutes a problem. In the first place, the ‘problem’ of migration within this perspective is mostly considered from the point of view of the receiving society, which feels ‘confronted’ by the ‘challenge to integrate large numbers’ of ‘different’ people coming from ‘elsewhere’, ‘another place’. This, in general, constitutes a core theme of social policy discourse in most Western societies, which see themselves as the main destination of economic migrants escaping poverty, but also of refugees and exiles1.
This discourse focuses on the societal integration of those who stay and do not return to ‘their place’, as is expected of them. Problems with the migrants’ legal statuses, and with their access to various social spheres such as the labour market, the educational system and the health service, are most commonly dealt with. At the same time, assumptions are made about the specific kind of ‘problems’ emerging in the individual life of migrants. From this perspective, the discourse operates with a variety of ascriptions, centred for the most part around the question of identity.
Abstract
More and more people share the experience of migration, in the sense of crossing nation-state borders to start a new life in a different society. Theories of globalisation and postmodernism present this experience as a typical occurrence, almost taken for granted, in the lives of growing numbers of people. Even though migration constitutes the ‘normality’ of many societies to a greater or lesser degree, the public and, not least, the sociopolitical discourses of migration, are still predominantly shaped by the view that the large-scale movement of people somehow constitutes a problem. In the first place, the ‘problem’ of migration within this perspective is mostly considered from the point of view of the receiving society, which feels ‘confronted’ by the ‘challenge to integrate large numbers’ of ‘different’ people coming from ‘elsewhere’, ‘another place’. This, in general, constitutes a core theme of social policy discourse in most Western societies, which see themselves as the main destination of economic migrants escaping poverty, but also of refugees and exiles1.
This discourse focuses on the societal integration of those who stay and do not return to ‘their place’, as is expected of them. Problems with the migrants’ legal statuses, and with their access to various social spheres such as the labour market, the educational system and the health service, are most commonly dealt with. At the same time, assumptions are made about the specific kind of ‘problems’ emerging in the individual life of migrants. From this perspective, the discourse operates with a variety of ascriptions, centred for the most part around the question of identity.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Abbreviations v
- Acknowledgements vi
- Notes on contributors vii
- Introduction: from biography to social policy 1
- Suffering the fall of the Berlin Wall: blocked journeys in Spain and Germany 23
- Guilty victims: social exclusion in contemporary France 41
- Premodernity and postmodernity in Southern Italy 61
- A tale of class differences in contemporary Britain 77
- The shortest way out of work 97
- Male journeys into uncertainty 115
- Love and emancipation 131
- Female identities in late modernity 151
- Gender and family in the development of Greek state and society 175
- Corporatist structures and cultural diversity in Sweden 193
- ‘Migrants’: a target-category for social policy? Experiences of first-generation migration 213
- Second-generation transcultural lives 229
- Biographical work and agency innovation: relationships, reflexivity and theory-in-use 247
- Conclusions: social transitions and biographical work 269
- Discovering biographies in changing social worlds: the biographical–interpretive method 289
- Historicising the ‘socio’, theory, and the constant comparative method 309
- Index 329
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Abbreviations v
- Acknowledgements vi
- Notes on contributors vii
- Introduction: from biography to social policy 1
- Suffering the fall of the Berlin Wall: blocked journeys in Spain and Germany 23
- Guilty victims: social exclusion in contemporary France 41
- Premodernity and postmodernity in Southern Italy 61
- A tale of class differences in contemporary Britain 77
- The shortest way out of work 97
- Male journeys into uncertainty 115
- Love and emancipation 131
- Female identities in late modernity 151
- Gender and family in the development of Greek state and society 175
- Corporatist structures and cultural diversity in Sweden 193
- ‘Migrants’: a target-category for social policy? Experiences of first-generation migration 213
- Second-generation transcultural lives 229
- Biographical work and agency innovation: relationships, reflexivity and theory-in-use 247
- Conclusions: social transitions and biographical work 269
- Discovering biographies in changing social worlds: the biographical–interpretive method 289
- Historicising the ‘socio’, theory, and the constant comparative method 309
- Index 329
