The purpose of this study is to investigate and identify underlying problems in newspaper representation of integration and labor market. My media analysis includes articles published in 2018-2022. The purpose of this is to get as nuanced picture as possible. This thesis uses theories that individually or jointly help define and answer problems in medial narratives of integration and labor market. Social constructivism is applied as theoretical and conceptual lens by which to analyze and critically study social constructions shaped by language. Conceptually, the notion of stigma is utilized together with empirical work in order to understand the structural discrimination that occurs in the news texts. Established and outsiders brings out the dichotomy between different groups in society. I have found that the explored debate articles show complexity of a divided society. Integration and the labor market produces immigrants as a societal problem. Immigrants become synonymous with criminals and threats to the economy. My media analysis shows that the debate is used as a political instrument, used to blame others for its failed reforms and efforts. Since most articles use this type of representation, this contributes and is reproduced as knowledge to the reader.

This study focuses on diversity issues such as ethnicity, gender, and discrimination in the police profession, but mainly in connection with women and people with other ethnic backgrounds in the profession. The study is based on three questions that are answered during the study. To proceed with this survey, I have used a text analysis survey that I built up with the help of empirical data in the form of literature, reports from the government, annual reports of the police and previous publications in the form of blog posts to get the experiences my questions are out after. My theoretical perspectives in this study are the gender system by Yvonne Hirdman. French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's theory of different capitals. Erving Goffman's theory Stigma which deals with classification and social deviations. To understand the aspect of power, I use the concept of Hegemony. The result of my study was that it is constantly working to increase diversity and gender equality in the police profession, but that it is still unequal.

The approach of this study is that conversion to Islam leads to stigmatization. Based on that the aim of this study is to examine what reactions and treatment Swedish Muslim converts have experienced from their families regarding their conversion to Islam, how they prepare for revealing their conversion, what strategies they use to handle their families’ reactions and whether this has any significance in their self-perception. The study is qualitative and was made with semi-structured interviews with five Swedish female converts. The theories used are Erving Goffman’s stigma and the concepts of Islamophobia and Swedishness. The results show that the converts prepare the revealing of their conversion by speaking openly and positively about Islam a long time before the revealing. The reactions received indicate reproduced Islamophobic prejudices and aversions and take form of grief, shame, and despair to more far-reaching reactions such as negative violations, distancing, lack of support and exclusion from the family unity and from Swedishness. The women explain that they hide the fact that they pray, and, in some cases, they take off their headscarves when visiting their families. Furthermore, they wear a turban or put on headscarves and clothes with bright colors to look more ‘normal’. Finally, their self-perception is affected by all the negative reactions and treatment, and they clarify that they feel ambiguities about how to perceive themselves: as ‘real’ Swedes or not since their families tell them they areno longer considered as such

This thesis aims to explore why, and in what ways football is, and can be used within humanitarian action. I will discuss the reasons why football is particularly suitable, and how to build an effective program. I will take a closer look at peacebuilding and psychosocial support, how it connects to football and what attributes of the game that promotes a project’s success. The research is based on a literature study, and I have taken examples from both academic articles and other books. I have found a range of attributes that makes football particularly good to work with, including the physical aspect of the game, the joy it brings to the participants, and that it is a safe framed space where to explore new perspectives. That football is a team sport is essential when working with both peacebuilding and psychosocial support. The social platform football consists of is the foundation to cooperation and changing the view of ‘the other’. Moreover, it can build a sense of belongingness, not only to the players themselves but also to the team and the club which might be crucial in a volatile context such as forced migration. I partly challenge the idea that sport does not have any inherent positive factors for people’s well-being. I found the physical aspect and that it is teams that are winning, not individuals as reasons for this. But I also found, that creating an environment where the actors are autonomously motivated is the most important factor, not only to give optimal opportunity for the actors to perform in the best way but for their well-being as well.

In this thesis, through critically analysing images and text in a selection of Swedish children's picture books, the aim is to investigate how white and non-white bodies are represented, and how racial differences between these white and non-white bodies are depicted and racial meanings addressed. Theoretical concepts from within the field of Critical race- and Whiteness studies are applied, to demonstrate how hegemonic whiteness and colour-blindness as discourse is prevalent in these children´s books, which is achieved by using non-white characters as tokens. Moreover, this study of representation is an illustrative case for how race can function as social construct, and thus should have value as an analytical concept also in IMER-studies performed in the Swedish context. It can additionally lift a discussion about the importance for children at an early age, to develop awareness and understanding of how race can affect individual lives.

Albanians are known for their long legacy in migrating worldwide for economic reasons, especially in Europe. Yet, return programs and policies are falling behind to meet the needs of those migrants who decides to return to their home country. The aim of this study is to explore the topic of return migration and reintegration in the context of Albanian migrants. To this end, this thesis answers three research questions: 1) What are the forces driving Albanians to emigrate from their country of origin? 2) What are reasons that Albanians return to their country of origin? 3) What are the challenges that Albanian returnees face during the reintegration process in Albania? The main theoretical lenses adapted by this study are the social network theory, the theory of reintegration, and push-pull factors. Through a qualitative research, based on semi-structured interviews, this study identifies as pull factors of migration higher paying jobs and employment opportunities, while recognising educational systems and labour laws as push factors. Furthermore, discrimination and unsuccessful acculturation resulted as key drivers of return. Finally, this study investigates dysfunctional systems, unresponsive public institutions, and economic difficulties as significant challenges throughout returnees’ reintegration.

On May 26th, 2020, the world was shocked after learning that George Floyd had died at the hands of the police while being wrongfully arrested. Protests took place worldwide, demanding justice for Floyd as well as the end of the systematic racism present institutionally in police forces. In Europe, people started raising their voices, denouncing that this phenomenon was no stranger to the Old Continent. Indeed, the last few years have witnessed the media coverage of multiple cases of police violence based on ethnic grounds. The media play a key role as the source of information for the population, they decide what is going to be on the headline, catching people’s eye. France has especially attracted attention with its racial profiling practices that go against the 2001 European Code of Police Ethics acting as recommended guidelines for the Member States. Therefore, this study aims to analyse media discourses depicting three specific cases of police violence: the Adama Traoré Case, the Theo Luhaka Case, and the Michel Zecler Case. Following the model of Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis, the point of this thesis is to find whether the power relations regulating the world can be identified within these discourses. By analysing the articles and finding similarities in how they portray the events then an idea of the institutional and societal power relations in France.

The nexus between migration and climate change is a topic that has received growing attention in both policymaking and mainstream media. While it has long been acknowledged that gender shapes the migratory process and the impacts of climate change are gendered, most discussions concerning migration and climate change have failed to incorporate a gender perspective into their analysis. At the same time, the international community, through the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and other initiatives, has committed itself to eradicating gender inequality. This has resulted in more institutions incorporating gender into their analyses of migration and climate change. While these commitments to developing a more nuanced understanding of migration in the context of climate change have been welcomed, it has been questioned how these institutions incorporate gender in their analyses and how this in turn impacts climate change adaptation efforts and migration policy. The aim of this study is to investigate how the relationship between gender, migration, and climate change is articulated in discourses at the level of international institutions, analyzing these discourses through a decolonial perspective. Using critical discourse analysis, the empirical material analyzed includes reports from international institutions that discuss migration and climate change. The findings suggest that the selected institutions tend to treat gender as a variable and focus on measurable, material impacts. While there is a possible discursive shift towards a more intersectional understanding of gender and social inequality, women are often perceived as an inherently vulnerable group. This feeds into a wider ‘feminization of vulnerability’ discourse that is present in climate change studies. An additional finding is migration is optimistically framed as a means of empowerment for women. This empowering discourse tends to promote individual agency over structural changes when it comes to climate change, aligning itself with neoliberal discourses and potentially obscuring larger questions pertaining to climate and mobility justice.

This thesis explores the phenomenon of irregular migration from the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana to Libya. It draws on migration theories to explain the underlying drivers of the phenomenon in the region. Many studies on irregular migration in Sub-Saharan Africa have predominantly attributed it to the push/pull theory. The objective here is to go beyond this stereotypical way of theorizing irregular migration in Sub-Saharan Africa by drawing on a wide range of migration theories to explain the underlying drivers of irregular migration from the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana to Libya. The evidence suggests that the drivers of irregular migration in the area under study are complex and nested in a broad-spectrum of social, cultural, moral, economic, historical, etc. context. Therefore, a single theory is inadequate to present a comprehensive explanation for the underlying drivers of the subject. It is revealed that there is the emergence of contemporary competing factors such as sports betting and internet fraud with some of the root causes of the phenomenon in the region. Hence, some of the root causes are weakened by these contemporary factors.

Hate crime is a collective name for criminal acts committed due to the offender’s prejudice or hate against an individual or a group of people. There is no explicit legal definition of “hate crime” in Swedish criminal law, but in 1994 a rule called “straffskärpningregeln” has been introduced, primarily to combat racist crime and protect vulnerable groups in society. The rule means that all types of crime may constitute hate crimes if the motive is to aggrieve a person or group of people because of race, colour, ethnic origin, creed, sexual orientation or similar circumstance (Penal Code 29 chapter 2§ 7p).The aim of this essay is to study and investigate how the Swedish judicial system handles hate crime cases, but also to describe constructions of crime victims and discuss perpetrator’s motives. In order to gain a better understanding of hate crimes in the Swedish context, the ideal victim theory has been applied. With the use of critical discourse analysis, I have identified three different discourses. The results of my study are among other findings that the Swedish legal system need to make visible how “straffskärpningregeln” is applied. The perpetrator paints a stereotypical picture of “the others” by categorizing themselves as “we” and the others as “them” and thereby constructing differentiated categories.