Två personer cycklar fram i Malmömiljö mot kameran.

Welcome to the Migration seminar:

The long-term impact of extended and extreme housing insecurity on children fearing deportation: Retrospective narratives of displaceability among young adults in Denmark and Sweden

Speaker

Jacob Lind, Researcher, Malmö University

Abstract

In this presentation, I will analyse the life-histories of young adults who spent a large part of their childhood fearing deportation in Danish asylum camps or as undocumented migrants in Sweden. A key similarity between the groups is that practically all the young people have experienced extended and extreme housing insecurity. In the case of asylum seekers in Denmark, the families of the research participants regularly were forced to move between different camps across the country, often several times a year.

In Sweden, the extreme vulnerability of undocumented migrants on both the job and housing markets led the participants’ families to be constantly on the look for affordable and stable housing options. One activist suggested that finding stable housing is even a bigger problem than finding ways to provide oneself financially for undocumented migrants in Sweden. I ask what impact such prolonged experiences of insecure housing during childhoods in deportability – both within an erratic asylum camp complex in Denmark and on an extremely precarious housing market in Sweden – have on young people’s life courses. I conceptualize housing insecurity through the notion of “displaceability” (Lind, 2020; see also Yiftachel, 2020) as the continuous potential across different scales of being displaced.

This concept allows a broad understanding of a multiplicity of factors that create precarious and harmful housing situations. I will also connect the findings to a reflection about a current Swedish state investigation (Mottagandelagen) proposing a new system for the reception of asylum seekers, including how they should be housed.

Attendance:

This is a hybrid seminar, you are welcome to connect via Zoom or join us at MIM seminar room, floor 9, Niagara, Nordenskiöldsgatan 1. To attend on campus, please gather by the reception area at 13.05.
If you have any questions, send an email mim@mau.se

Zoom Will be available closer to the seminar date.

For upcoming seminars at MIM

If you have any questions, send an email to mim@mau.se.

Contact